Explicit ✔

twenty-five 🔥🔥

"Cora." Chester kissed her to shut her up. "Enough."

"But," she shoved him, "is she? Answer me. This doesn't bother you? Me?" She slithered out of his embrace. "My situation? My boyfriend and my other lover? Don't you wonder where you fit in?"

Chester chuckled. "Wow, that's a lot of overthinking so early in the morning."

It wasn't that early—Coralie remembered seeing eight o'clock when she'd checked her phone.

"It... never turns off." She nudged him away as he attempted to lull her into his arms again. "I came here with a purpose, Chessy. To get answers. And you distracted me with a smoking hot chick and your... dick." She snorted. "So... start answering."

He accepted defeat and lounged on his back with a sigh. A flutter of sunlight from his poorly covered window glowed over his torso, but his lower half remained concealed under the silky sheets. "No, Cora, none of it bothers me. I've never been monogamous, remember? I don't have it in me to be jealous, or to demand that others remain loyal to me and only me."

She slid onto her side and propped herself up with her elbow. "And you don't wonder where you fit in? You're not curious why I keep coming back when, technically, I have no room for you in my life? My heart? Heck, my vagina?"

He chortled. "It is a tight space," he said, but laughed harder as Coralie swatted at him. "Okay, okay, in all seriousness... I do wonder, yes. I've been observing you for a while, but never thought you'd give in, not like this. Not with all you already have going on. I didn't expect to have a slither of a chance to sneak into your schedule, and yet... you came to me."

"You seduced me," she said, her voice more clipped than she'd meant it to be. "You caught me in the elevator, you teased me atop a rooftop bar, you lured me here with your promises of plans and fun."

"And didn't I deliver?" He raised his eyebrows as he studied her. "Look, I never meant for it to go this far, and I never meant to complicate things by," he air-quoted, "seducing you. But didn't I always keep my promises? I don't make them unless I'm certain I'll pull through. In fact, I'll make another one right now."

She groaned, bracing for him to swear he'd enroll her in an orgy or take her sky-diving, or some other insane activity she'd never participate in. "Fine. Go for it."

He took her hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed her knuckles. "I guarantee," he said, his warm breath brushing over her skin and animating tremors to trickle down her spine, "that in the end... you'll choose me. That we'll both be happy."

She stilled, her arm tensing, her hand still captured in his. "Choose you? For what? What do you mean?"

He squeezed her, keeping his lips levitating near her fingers. "Choose me over Michael and Ryan. Yeah, I've added myself to the equation, Cora. This—you, me, our time together, this game we've been playing—is serious. It means a lot to me. I hadn't anticipated you'd let me back into your life, but you did... and it's no coincidence."

"What?" She ripped her hand from him. "No coincidence?" She scoffed. "You spied on me, dude! Of course it's no coincidence! You ensured we'd get to this point, lying here naked, having this discussion! You're a control-freak, always have been. Needing to be the ring-leader, to entice everyone into your bidding, to—"

"—hey, don't make me into a villain, Cora." He flipped onto his side, and the covers fell off his front, exposing his lower half. Coralie did her damndest not to stare, especially since his manhood was quite awake despite their argument. "I'm not a control-freak. Nor a manipulator, like your exes, or even that Ryan dude. Yes, I like being in charge, but because everyone wants me to be. I react well under pressure. And I'm good at organizing. But this?" He pinched the bridge of his nose and returned onto his back. "This isn't a maneuver, or a trick. It's the fucking truth, okay? I want to be considered. I want to be in this race for your heart."

Coralie grabbed the cushion from behind her and sat up, hugging it to her torso. "But why? Why get mixed up in all this, and after so long?"

She bit her tongue before saying any more. Had Delilah been right? Did he have feelings for her, the same he'd had back in the day? If that was the case, what was she supposed to do? She'd never planned to consider him, to make him one of her options. She'd sought to blow off some steam, assuage her curiosity, fool around a bit to get him out of her thoughts, and to cross sober sex with him off her bucket list.

"You're not dumb, honey." Though he averted his gaze, he extended one arm to tap under her chin. "You've figured it out. Delilah has too, I bet."

Coralie's breaths sped up. "The book... the poems?"

"You read them?" Chester heaved himself into a seated position. "So you have figured it out. That I have feelings."

"For... me? Really?" She turned to him, half hiding her face behind the pillow.

Chester seized the cushion and lowered it, to better gauge her expression. "Yes, for you. For years. Never stopped, Cora. It's probably why my other attempts at monogamy failed. Because it was you, always you, and I was a drunken idiot not to realize it sooner."

"Fuck." Coralie crammed her nose into the pillow, wedging it between her knees as she drew them up to her chest. "And you're positive I'll choose you?" Her words were garbled as her mouth rubbed against the satin fabric. "How? Why?"

Though she couldn't see him, she heard the smile in his voice, perceived the positivity dripping from the intonation. "Because the universe didn't put us on the same path again for no reason, Cora. I might have stalked you out a bit, but we didn't reunite on purpose. Seeing you perform in San Fran, bumping into you at the office... those were fate."

Fate. The word rippled down her esophagus and jammed into her heart, pinching it. Hadn't Ryan said something similar, not that long ago? Fate, the universe giving signs, undeniable pulls towards one another, reconnections—hadn't she experienced some version of those with all three of the men in her life?

"I... need to go," she said, leaping off the mattress before Chester could bat his lashes and convince her to sleep in later with him. "Gotta pop in at the label and finish some..." she cringed before saying lyrics about you, "stuff."

Chester pouted. "You'll call me? We'll meet up again?"

As she straightened up, ignoring a chill coursing up her legs, she located her underthings and threw them on. "Sure, whatever," she muttered, unconvincing and distracted. She scouted the area for her dress. "We'll see." Once the maxi-skirt skimped over her body, she fetched her shoes and put them on. And after she retrieved her oversized purse, lugging its strap over her shoulder, she sent a final glance to Chester. "Take care."

As she hastened into the elevator, then ran out the building, she knew she had no intention of reaching out to Chester anytime soon. Nor did she plan to respond to Ryan's calls or Michael's text message. What she needed was space, time, quiet; a moment to gather her thoughts, to digest Chester's confession, to dig deep into her soul for a solution.

Fate. The universe. Why would it hurl all three of them at me at the same time?

Once she'd settled into her Lyft ride, she turned her phone off and stared out at the bustling morning streets of New York City. In her brain, she revised the words of a recent composition—finding flaws in every verse—and wished there were some hole she could bury in, some closet where she might hide until she'd made up her mind. Somewhere safe from these men and their... temptations.

♥♥♥