Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
It’d been the same night I regretted to my core. I didn’t lie to Farrow about it. I knew him well enough by then that he wouldn’t act like I was a broken bird. After I told him what happened, he said, Whatever makes you feel good, keep running towards that. Anything else, it’s not worth it.
“Back then, I think we needed each other in a way,” I tell Luna. “Farrow was never trying to fix me like something was wrong. I already loved myself, and I didn’t wanna be around anyone who’d put me down. I just needed someone to care, and he needed someone to love who he was. ‘Cause his dad never really got the whole picture of Farrow. He loved what his son could do for him through medicine. Same way my parents loved what I could give them.”
I dive a hand under the water, feeling the small of her back. Luna looks deeply into me, and I keep talking.
I tell her how I stopped doing it at some point during my time at Yale. My parents got sent back to prison, and I let Farrow take calls from my dad. I had made connections through that initial bachelorette party, other college girls wanting to pay, and I never accepted those kinds of offers again.
I talk about how there’d been a rumor on the security team of me being an escort. It started around the same time O’Malley was hired. “I’ve had sex in Philly for money, not just in New Haven, and I figured a bodyguard knew someone who I fucked. Now I know it was probably O’Malley.”
I tell her about his girlfriend—what I learned about the night of the Super Bowl.
“You can’t remember her?” Luna asks.
“Not really, no.” I shake my head. “I don’t know if I blocked it out or if it was just unmemorable or what.”
Luna nods, understanding. She’s contemplative though. Gears seem to click rapidly in her brain, and I take the washcloth from her hand.
“You can ask me anything,” I say.
She sweeps my face like the answers are there, but they’re not on the surface. She’s gonna have to ask, and I need her to because I don’t want anything wedged between us from this.
Luna clutches my leg beneath the water. “Did getting paid for sex feel differently than doing it for free?”
“There were a lotta times I wish they didn’t give me money afterwards. I woulda fucked for free. Woulda felt better about it. I think the transaction was what bothered me, more than anything. The act of sex—I liked.”
She stares at the filmy layer of soap on the water. She’s in her head about something.
I whisper, “What’s going on, Luna?”.
“When I have sex with you, I can kinda get lost in the moment.”
My lips rise. “Yeah, I know.” I catch her gaze that shifts uncertainly, and I tell her, “It’s hot.”
She starts to smile too. But she’s nervous. “I’m starting to worry I haven’t paid enough attention to your needs like you do mine. I don’t want you to feel like you’re only pleasing me, like I’m a paying customer—”
“I’ve never felt that,” I interject. I’ve never wanted her to reevaluate all the times we’ve had sex, but it’s natural she would. It’s one of the reasons why sharing this part of my life was so hard.
“When you offered to show me what good head felt like, why’d you want to?” Luna asks, bringing up the one-time experiment she recently remembered.
It’d been our first sexual encounter, and Jane walked in on us.
I think back. “When you said it was just okay for you, I thought you must’ve had some mediocre experiences, and I wanted you to feel good.” I grin off the flush on her cheeks. “I was confident in my ability to eat a girl out—just didn’t realize eating out an alien was gonna do me in for life.”
She beams. “You’re the only one who survived the deadly act.”
“Hunger Games Pussy Victor,” I joke. “Paul Donnelly.”
She grins now, but it softens. “It didn’t feel like a transaction, did it?”
“No,” I say strongly. “You didn’t pay me to go down on you. I volunteered. And I enjoyed it more than I think you’re realizing. I love sex. It was for your benefit, but also, I wanted to taste you.” I’m not sure how much blunter I need to be, outside of describing in vivid detail how I was getting off on it.
Luna sinks back against the tub, away from me. Except, she clasps my biceps and pulls me with her. I root a hand on the ledge to keep some of my weight off her frame.
She breaks her legs apart around my waist, and it takes an ungodly amount of energy not to unplug the drain, let the soapy water escape, and slip inside her.