She’s right. My face is pins and needles, and heat is rushing up from my chest through my neck, causing my cheeks to sweat. I quickly dampen a washcloth and press it to my forehead.
It’s like every time I think about Gareth, time just stops. I feel the cold steel of his cuffs on my wrist, the scruff from his chin against my thighs, the hot expertise of his tongue on my—
“Hey! Spill it, girl!” Sarah’s giving me that look that she always gives me. It’s like an older-sister look that lets me know I won’t be getting away with hiding anything.
“Okay,” I say, leaning in. “I’ll tell you, butkeep it quiet. I don’t want Mom to hear.”
I glance down the bar and see she’s deep into Ross’s bullshit. What I wouldn’t give for Sarah’s confidence to just stride over there and slap him.
I dive into the story. From the moment Gareth pulled me over, to him arresting me, cuffing me, placing me in the back of his car, and all the way to the interrogation room. I leave out…some of the details there, but Sarah is staring at me like she’s watchingFifty Shades of Greyfor the first time.
“Wait, so he went down on you!?”
“Shhh!” I hiss, placing a finger over her lips. “Do you know what an indoor voice is? Use it!”
She bites my finger playfully, causing me to pull back. “Briar, this ishuge. You’ve never even kissed a guy!”
“I know,” I sigh, pretending to scrub the counter. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, obviously you can’t see him again.”
I stop. That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting from her. To Sarah, men are exploitable. Just another source of income. I would have thought she’d look at Gareth as something similar. Not someone to make money off, but someone to…enjoy? I dunno. But the way she’s frowning at me now has me perplexed.
“Why not?” I ask.
Her jaw drops. “Why not? Are you for real, Briar? Because he’s clearly corrupt as fuck! Talk about an abuse of power!”
I tilt my head side to side. “Yeah…maybe…”
“Maybe? Briar, he arrested you on false charges and then chained you up in a room so he could eat your pussy.”
“Okay, if you say it like that, you can make anything seem terrible.”
Her frown deepens. “So…you’re saying itwasn’tterrible?”
I stare back at her for a moment, conscious of my heartbeat. Slow and consistent but hammering hard like a drum in my chest. Finally, after a long moment, I shake my head. It feels like a confession.
“It wasn’t terrible, Sarah. It was amazing.”
She looks back at me with that unpredictable look of hers, where I can’t tell if she’s going to laugh or cuss me out. Then, slowly, the corner of her lip twists up, and she nods slowly.
“You kinky little bitch.”
“Shut up!” I gasp, snatching her Sprite away from her. She laughs and grabs it back.
“You liked it! You liked being cuffed and chained and used by this hot cop!”
My heartbeat increases as the volume of Sarah’s voice rises. I glance back at my mom, who’s looking back at us over her shoulder. Despite her own promiscuous nature, Mom is very strict when it comes to me and men. If she heard what I just told Sarah, she’d turn my bedroom into a jail cell.
“Okay, so what if I did?” I counter. “What are you? A nun?”
Sarah laughs. “I’m not a nun, but I know how to look after myself. What even happened to your car?”
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I called the station, and they said it was ‘being processed.’ So Mom gave me a ride.”
“Son of a bitch probably stole it and sold it,” Sarah scoffs. “Or kept it as a trophy in his back yard—”
“Ew, would you stop?” I slap her arm, images of Gareth skipping through my mind, pulling at me like invisible hands, grabbing at every inch of my body. My thighs are getting hot too.
