Cherry Popper Read online

  I was in my penthouse when Max called me. “So, a crazy one stopped by your office?”

  I set the phone on the sound system so I could hear him throughout the living room. I headed to the bar to make myself a drink. After working all day and hitting the gym, I was in my sweatpants, and all I wanted was a glass of booze in my hand. “She wasn’t crazy. Just stupid.”

  “Same thing if you ask me. I just sent you her picture. She’s not nude, so maybe she doesn’t want the gig that bad.”

  I added a few ice cubes then walked back to my phone. I opened the message and clicked on the picture. It was a selfie she took of herself, and since she wore the same outfit she had on earlier, she must have snapped it the second she got home. “Or because I’ve already seen her in person.”

  “She can’t expect you to remember.”

  I definitely remembered.

  “So, what’s your take?”

  I sat on the couch and finally took a drink, letting the liquid drip down my throat. If someone else stormed into my office like that, they would forfeit their chance. But she was too beautiful for me to reject. I bedded beautiful women all the time, and my obsession had become a sickness. I loved to watch them cry, loved to watch them struggle to take my big dick. Not only did I break them in, but I ruined all other men for them. “I’ll have dinner with her.”

  “Really?” he asked in surprise. “I thought you were going to say no.”

  “We’ll have dinner first and see what happens.” I put my feet on the coffee table then turned on the TV. My penthouse was the entire top floor of my building, so I had 7,000 square feet to myself. It could get quiet sometimes, but I loved the quiet. I loved the solitude. “Arrange it.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  4

  Monroe

  I WAS MEETING Slate at a fancy place, so I wore a cocktail dress I’d bought five years ago. Thankfully, I’d stayed the same size because I couldn’t afford enough food to make me gain weight. My heels were also old, but after a good shine, they looked as good as new. I put some cheap earrings in my lobes, grabbed my clutch, and then left the apartment.

  I was so nervous.

  I wouldn’t be sleeping with him tonight. It was just a meeting, not any different from a job interview.

  Except, in this case, I was applying to be fucked.

  For the first time.

  After the awkward conversation in his office, I was surprised he even agreed to dinner with me. Most women probably sent provocative photos of themselves in white panties, but I refused to do that. He’d already seen me in person, so a dirty pic wouldn’t make a difference.

  After walking a few blocks, I arrived at the restaurant. It was a French bistro with a European menu. It was the kind of place I would love to go to, but it simply didn’t work with my budget. That was my problem for the evening. I wanted to pay for my meal, but frankly, I couldn’t afford it.

  How pathetic was that?

  If I spent my last twenty bucks, I wouldn’t have a penny until I got paid on Monday. My card would probably get rejected anyway, and that would be even more embarrassing. So hopefully, he would offer to pay and save me the humiliation.

  I didn’t see him in the lobby so I stepped up to the podium. “I’m meeting Slate Remington—”

  “Yes, this way.” She stepped around the podium then walked with me through the restaurant. The floor was made of gold tile, the tables were black, and a grand piano was in the center of the room, where a woman played serene music. The hostess took me to a different section of the restaurant, a quieter place where the tables were spread out much farther. It seemed to be a VIP section where the rich and famous could let their hair down.

  When I rounded the corner, I saw him sitting in a private booth against the wall. He’d ditched his suit and wore a black t-shirt with dark jeans. The dress code requested something dressier, but he clearly didn’t think that applied to him.

  He lifted his gaze to look at me, and those chocolate-colored eyes looked deep into my soul. He didn’t smile politely or rise to greet me. Stone-cold and hostile, he stared at me like he wished he were somewhere else.

  This should be fun.

  I slid into the booth across from him, crossed my legs, and pretended I wasn’t intimidated by him. I should have known it wouldn’t be so easy as sleeping with a beautiful man and getting paid for it. I should have known there would be a catch, a contingency.

  And that contingency was that he was an asshole.

  He already had a drink on the table, rum and Coke. He stared at me without making conversation, like the never-ending silence didn’t bother him at all. He was so confident that the most awkward situation in the world wouldn’t unnerve him.

  It unnerved me, but I refused to show it. “So you’re this unpleasant all the time? Whether you’re in your office or not?” I wanted this man to sleep with me, so being a smartass was probably stupid, but I couldn’t change my personality. Maybe I wanted the money, but he was also getting something valuable in return.

  “Always.” He grabbed his glass and took a long drink.

  “That’s great…” I looked at the menu and didn’t struggle to find something I wanted. After all, I was starving, and the cramping of my stomach constantly reminded me of that. I decided on the steak, something that would last me a few days.

  When the waitress arrived, Slate ordered for me. “She’ll have a rum and Coke as well.” He turned to me. “Are you ready to order?”

  “Do I get a choice?” I snapped, not caring that the waitress witnessed the exchange. “Actually, I’ll have a glass of red wine. It’ll go well with the steak—medium rare.” I handed over my menu.

  Slate handed his over as well. “I’ll have the same—minus the wine.”

  She walked away and left us alone.

  He leaned back and gently drummed his fingers on the table.

  “So…you invite me to dinner but don’t engage in conversation?”

  “The purpose of dinner is to see if there’s chemistry. And I don’t need to talk to you to figure that out.” He drank from his glass again.

  “And have you figured it out?”

  “I think so.”

  I waited for an answer.

  He clearly had no intention of giving it to me. “How old are you?”

  “You never ask a woman that question.”

  “I’m asking it anyway.” His muscular arms stretched the sleeves of his t-shirt. Every group of muscle was distinct and separate, the cords running all the way down to his hands. His skin was tanned, like he spent time outside, probably on a yacht or something. Last time I saw him, he had a bit of a beard, but he must have shaved before our date.

  “Twenty-three.”

  His brown eyes slightly narrowed. “That’s a little old to be a virgin.”

  “Are you suggesting I’m lying?”

  “No. I’ll know if you’re lying soon enough.” He brought the glass to his lips and took another drink, downing the contents like water rather than hard alcohol. “I fucked a girl for the first time when I was fifteen—that’s almost a decade before you.”

  “It’s not a race.”

  “But I’m curious why you’ve been waiting so long. It’s something you should enjoy as much as you can.”

  “It just didn’t work out.”

  “Work out?” he asked. “You’re a gorgeous woman. You could have made it work out any night of the week. So why didn’t you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It does to me.”

  No one ever asked me these kinds of questions because they were intimate and rude. But Slate Remington had no problem asking—because he was paying for it. “I was planning on sleeping with my prom date in high school, but he ended up hooking up with someone else by the end of the night. In college, I found a steady boyfriend, but I wanted to take things slow. He got frustrated and started screwing someone else. I was about to sleep with him when I found out…and then it never happened. After
that, I was kinda over men for a while.”

  “Because you’re making it a bigger deal than it needs to be. Sex is just sex. People read too much into it.”

  “Maybe you’re right…”

  “I am right.” He finished his glass then waved to the waitress to bring him another. “I’m always right.”

  “Sometimes, you’re right. But you’re always arrogant.”

  The waitress switched out the glasses and walked away.

  “So, I hear they call you the Cherry Popper.”

  He gave a slight bow. “At your service.”

  “You really call yourself that?”

  He shrugged. “The name fits.”

  “You’ve been doing this for a long time?”

  “Five years and counting.”

  He’d been fucking virgins for money for five years? “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why would you pay a lot of money to fuck virgins?”

  He cocked his head slightly. “Maybe it’s a lot of money to you, but it’s pennies to me. And I’m the one who should be asking the questions here.”

  “I signed the NDA Max sent over, so I’m harmless.” If I told anyone about this, he would sue me for three times what he would pay me. It would put me further into debt and really ruin my life.

  “I just prefer virgins.”

  “Because…?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I know you’re inexperienced, but think about it. A woman’s first time is sexy. She’ll never be tighter than she is in that moment. She’ll have to stretch for me as I ruin her. She’ll cry because it hurts. But I’ll still make her come, give her a good experience, rather than the nightmare she would receive from some other guy. A woman’s first time is almost always shitty.”

  I’d been trying to lose my V-card for a while, but I always ended up in a crappy situation. If I had slept with either of those guys, it probably would have been a bad memory. “So you date women and fuck virgins in between?”

  He wrapped his hand around his glass, his fingers feeling the condensation. “No. I only fuck virgins.”

  It took me a minute to understand what he meant. “Exclusively?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then it’s on to the next one?”

  “Yes.”

  This guy was a bigger asshole than I realized.

  “And that’s the only kind of woman I’ll ever fuck for the rest of my life.”

  Only a truly arrogant son of a bitch would live his life that way.

  “They’re clean. They’re tight. And they’re vulnerable.”

  I shook my head in disgust. “Wow…you’re such an ass.”

  “You’re the one who asked. You’re the one who wants to be like the rest of them.”

  “Not want,” I corrected. “I just have to.”

  He took a long drink as he kept his eyes on me, his masculine throat tightening and shifting as he got the liquor into his stomach. “Some of the women I fuck don’t ask for money. Some of them just want me to pop their cherry.”

  “Why?” I asked, not having a clue why someone would do that.

  “Because I’m good at it. I can make a woman’s first time be their best time.”

  I had a feeling that wouldn’t be the case for me. “You just said you enjoy it when they cry.”

  “Because my dick is so big that it hurts. But they push past that and start to enjoy it.”

  I wondered how big his dick was. I would ask, but I’d probably find out soon enough.

  “Why do you need the money so badly? You obviously wouldn’t do this unless you had no other choice.”

  I grabbed my wine and finally took a drink, savoring the luxurious smoothness on my tongue. It was so much better than the boxed wine I had at home. I wanted to enjoy it as much as possible. “I have a shit-ton of student loans. I made a lot of mistakes I wish I could take back.”

  “How is getting an education a mistake?”

  “Because I paid too much for it. I went to UCLA when I should have gone to a cheaper school. I got my masters at NYU immediately after, when I should have skipped the masters altogether. Now I’m nearly $200,000 in debt…because I was too young and naïve to know better.”

  “Where do you work now?”

  “I’m a marketing executive at Cutie Clothes. It’s a good job and pays well, but the cost of living is so high and my loans are so expensive that I can barely afford to live. I would have been better off not getting an education and just finding a job in Connecticut.”

  “Why Connecticut?”

  “That’s where I’m originally from,” I explained. “And my student loans aren’t even my biggest problem.”

  He abandoned his drink and leaned forward, his muscular arms on the table. When he came closer to me, his masculine cheekbones and chiseled jawline were even more noticeable. The moody lighting of the restaurant played with his features well. But then again, he was so handsome, he looked good in any light. “What’s your biggest problem?”

  “I have a huge medical bill that I’ll be paying off for the rest of my life.”

  It was the first time he dropped his arrogance and actually looked like a human being. The hostility in his eyes died away, and now he looked at me like I’d said something that actually affected him. “Are you alright?”

  “It wasn’t for me. My mother had cervical cancer, and there was this new cancer cure that had been introduced that year. It was still in the trial phase, but it had great statistics, so I wanted to give it a try. I knew it might not work, but I refused to give up. My mother was under the impression it was much cheaper than it really was… Otherwise, she wouldn’t have done it.”

  His eyes softened further. “Was?”

  I shook my head. “You know the ending…”

  “I’m sorry.” It seemed like he meant it, even though he’d just spoken about fucking virgins and making them cry.

  “She passed away a year ago. Her insurance covered most of her treatments, but that last trial is under my name.”

  “How much was it?”

  “You don’t want to know…”

  “Tell me,” he said quietly.

  “Four hundred and fifty…”

  “Thousand?” he asked incredulously.

  I nodded. “I don’t regret it. She’s my mother… I had to do everything to save her.”

  He sighed as he looked down into his drink. “That’s rough, Monroe.”

  “Yeah…it hasn’t been easy.” I had over $600,000 in debt, and I didn’t even own a house or a car. I’d spend my life paying that back, and as a result, I would never be able to afford to buy myself anything.

  “What about your father?”

  “He passed away about ten years ago. Veteran.”

  “Did he pass away in the line of duty?”

  “Yes. He was a medic.”

  “I’m sorry…again.”

  I drank my wine. “Thanks.”

  “But his service should be able to help with your school somehow.”

  “It did,” I said with a nod. “I used his GI bill to fund some of my undergrad work. But it only covers so much. It’s unfortunate that my parents did their best to give me a better life, but I got crushed by the system. Even without my mother’s medical treatment, I would still be struggling. The American dream isn’t what it used to be.”

  Slate didn’t have anything to say to that. He was a multimillionaire, probably a billionaire. He didn’t know what it meant to struggle. He probably didn’t go to college because he didn’t need to. He probably inherited all of his opportunities. “Now I understand why you hunted me down so adamantly.”

  “I didn’t hunt you down… I just didn’t know where to go. I’m not even sure how I would have found Max if you hadn’t given me his card.”

  “It’s an underground thing. Technically, what I do is illegal, even though the cops wouldn’t do shit if they found out.”

  Because he had enough money to make them go away. “So, you’re just g
oing to keep doing this for the rest of your life? When you’re forty? Fifty?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’m guessing you don’t date? Have girlfriends?”

  “Never.” He brought his glass to his lips. “Monogamy has never interested me. Why have mediocre sex with an awesome person, when I can have amazing sex every night with a different person? Because every time really is the first time—at least for her.”

  “That seems kinda sad to me.”

  “You’re a twenty-three-year-old virgin. You don’t know any better. But once you have it…you’ll see what I mean. You’ll be out on the town every weekend looking for a good lay because you’ll want more. But you’ll never find it…because I’m the best.”

  “I’m sure the man I marry will be the best.”

  “There it is again…that naïve optimism. When you start experimenting with other men, you’ll realize there’s no such thing as Prince Charming. Men are all dogs that only care about themselves. Trust me on that.”

  I gave him the same sad look he just gave me. He might be a rich and powerful man who seemed to have everything, but below that projection, there was just a broken soul underneath. Why else would he be constantly angry? Why else would he drink liquor like water? Why else would he pay money to take a woman’s most intimate experience? “Not all men are like you, Slate.”

  5

  Slate

  SHE ATE everything on her plate, the entire eight-ounce steak, along with the potatoes and greens. She didn’t shovel the food into her mouth like she was starving. She took her time, ate slowly, but instead of filling up quickly, her appetite never seemed to end. Once her plate was clean, she drank her wine.

  Even I could only eat half. “Hungry?”

  “I skipped lunch today.”

  Monroe was different from the other women who approached me. I’d noticed it the second I laid eyes on her, when she stepped into my office despite the promise of death written on my face. She blasted through my secretaries like they were no hindrance at all. Then she basically asked me to take her virginity right in the middle of my office, while making it clear she despised herself for doing it.