SUMMER SWAP // CHAPTER 25

Chey said, “So it was like I was in their club.”

“The cool kids club,” Scarlett said, acknowledging she saw it too. It was crazy to believe this had all gone down under her nose and that it was Sully who brought the news to her instead of the other way around.

“Once I was in their club, like they accepted me into a rarified group, the closer I got to—”

“The concept of swinging.”

“Like, hey, everybody’s doing it.” Cheyenne shrugged and shook her head like she was mad at herself.

“Philippe swings, too?”

Chey threw up her hands. “How the hell would I know, Scarlett?”

“I assumed he told you.”

“We didn’t all talk about swinging. We didn’t lounge around naked on the trampoline drinking beers and pondering the virtues of swinging.”

“Philippe didn’t say anything about it?”

Chey looked around at an imaginary audience, like she was garnering support for her belief this was a crazy line of questioning. “I told you: we never discussed swinging.”

“All it took was Cody saying he and Carla did that, and that Philippe also knew they did, and, boom, you’re in the game?”

Chey closed her eyes. “That’s not what I’m saying, Scarlett. Sorry. What I’m saying is that Cody didn’t talk me into it, okay? You get it now?” She opened her eyes and met Scarlett’s.

Scarlett said, “You talked yourself into it.”

“I thought about it all day. It was right there: Cody was hot, and he made me so crazy and then backed away, unbothered, because—”

“What you guys did in the water was no big deal to him.”

“I wouldn’t say no big deal. I’d say it was a fine old thing Cody would do, and it had no negative attachment, no marital-existential tripwire. Like, he thought he’d have a great time having sex with me, but it was my values, and maybe Byron’s values, that prevented me from having fun and being, you know”—she made air quotes—“above it all.”

Impressionable Cheyenne. She wouldn’t say it, but now she saw it: no one had presented the offer to her because they knew she would see through a game like Cody and Carla ran on Cheyenne a thousand yards off. She’d never fall for it the way her sweetheart friend did. “I get it, Chey. I do. I get it. I— Look, I’m behind you a hundred percent and I swear I won’t say a thing to Arlo or Lily. Or Philippe, for that matter. Does Philippe know?”

“I don’t know,” Chey lamented, running her hand through her hair, staring at the deck.

“If he does, what’s the big deal, right? It’s only Lily and Arlo who don’t know.”

“God,” Chey said, and put her hands over her face. “The whole boat knows.”

Scarlett chuckled, overwhelmed with compassion for Chey, moving closer, saying, “I’m going to give you a hug. Don’t stop me.” And Cheyenne didn’t, fell forward into her chest with hands still over her face. She hugged Chey and shushed her, smoothing her hair like she was a little kid. “It’s okay, baby. It’s all over and it doesn’t matter. You and Byron had a little fun, and it’s over now and no one else is going to know and I think it’s great that you tried it out. No one is going to talk about it, trust me. It’s just you and me talking about it.”

“What about Sully?”

“He’ll keep his mouth shut. Who’s he going to tell, anyway? Trust me, Chey, he won’t tell Arlo and Lily.”

“I don’t want him to talk to anyone about it.”

“I’ll tell him to keep his mouth shut. On one condition.”

Cheyenne pushed back, brows troubled. “What’s that?”

“You tell me.”

“I did.”

“No, I mean— You know, what it was like.”

Cheyenne’s eyes slipped downward to the deck, her mouth condensing to a glum pout. “Oh.”

“Please?”

She scratched her cheek. “Yeah. No, okay. Yeah, well . . .”

* * *

Alone in the room while Byron crossed the hall, everything wrong about the whole situation bloomed like bacteria in a petri dish. What the hell were they doing? In mere seconds, Cody would come through their room door and she would be intimate with him. This was the last chance to come to her senses and do the right thing. She was almost thirty. She and Byron were building their Westchester dream home. They’d raise their children in it. One boy and two girls.

But then . . . wasn’t that exactly the reason to go through with it? Wasn’t that the point? Do it now before it’s all too late.

It’s not like she and Byron were the only people in the world to do this. People did this. She’d heard about it. And, shit, their friends Cody and Carla—the whole reason she stood now trembling by the door. And Cody and Carla were a solid couple. Surely she and Byron would—

The knob turned and a presence on the other side of the door gently pushed it inward. She stepped back, all that worry extinguished by that heavy, sopping ripe fruit sagging between her legs. As Cody entered the room, in a quick finger-snap, all that chest-tightening horniness he’d conjured from her out on the water today returned.

He put his back to the door and walked it closed, resting against it and smiling. “Hey,” he whispered, smiling wide and white, eyes showing excitement.

And it hit her now, a sudden pillow-fight wallop: this was fun and dirty and sneaky. She smiled too, her lips pulling back wide, the tendons sticking out in her neck as she strained not to burst out giggling. She whispered back, “Hey.”

Now he said in a quiet but still masculine voice, “Byron looked like he’d seen a ghost out there. Your husband’s scared.”

Now she really did want to giggle and had to cover her mouth with a hand.

Cody said, “Looks like my Cheyenne isn’t so scared.” He regarded her warmly for a moment, that smile fading for a second to something more devious and lusty. “I like that look in your eyes. You’re a real tiger and you don’t even know it.”

She bared her fangs and made a cat’s claw at him. He laughed and heaved off the door, taking her wrist and saying, “Come on.” One step down into the room and then he jumped on the bed and bounced once, pivoting so when she landed beside him, they would be face to face.

“I thought midnight was going to take forever,” he said.

“Me too,” she said. “Did Byron really look scared?”

“Like he was about to bungee off a huge cliff.”

“I know how he feels,” she said and smiled to one side. Cody looked incredible in the low light, and his bright blue eyes shone in the dim.

When he touched her shoulder, she held her breath. “I want to know how you feel, Chey.”

“Not scared,” she said.

“Excited.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. Then: “But also a little scared, too, I guess.”

“A little fear makes it fun, don’t you think?”

She nodded, feeling good and warm in Cody’s steady confidence during this awkward ordeal.

“Of course it does,” Cody said. The weight of his hand on her shoulder was strange—he’d touched her before, but now it came imbued with much more dirty promise or expectation. Sudden recursive knowledge of what would soon transpire hardened her nipples. The methods of sex would momentarily be applied to her by another man. He would do all the sex things to her. It became impossible to swallow, and her temples throbbed. “Boy, maybe you are scared,” he said and smiled, his hand coming low, the tip of his index finger touching the center cushion of her lower lip. He smelled like soap and sandalwood and the feel of his finger on her lip tightened her scalp and raced her heart.

“What’s your favorite thing, Chey?” His voice had gone low and sultry, still a touch of that self-assured swagger, but it rode underneath a rumble of masculine desire. “I want to know what makes Cheyenne’s toes curl. What gets Cheyenne’s long, sexy legs shaking?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, pulling her lower lip into her mouth and sucking it, looking into Cody’s beautiful blue eyes as he rested his firm hand on her shoulder again.

“Yeah, you do.”

She said, “I just like to have sex.”

He bowed his eyebrows, giving a sexy and playful look. “Byron doesn’t make your legs shake?”

“Sure he does.”

Cody got closer, his hand moving from her shoulder to her back, the two of them practically embracing on her bed, lying down on their sides and face to face. “How does Byron do it?”

“By being Byron. I don’t want to talk about Byron.”

Cody chuckled. “Good girl. Byron who, right? It’s just you and me. Lucky me and this beautiful girl who’s been driving me wild for years.”

“For years?”

“You think this is the first time I’ve ever thought about what it would be like to lay with you this way we are right now?”

“It isn’t?”

“You haven’t thought about it before?”

“Being with you? No. I mean, no, not really.”

He said nothing in return, eyes narrowing, dominating her without having to do much at all. “Tell me what you want right now, Chey.”

She struggled to swallow, her heart felt like it was squished right up against her trachea and the sound of its beat like a whooshing in her ears. “Maybe, um . . . Can you take your shirt off?”

“Sure can.”

Cody was all smiles again, sitting up and right away, pulling his black T-shirt off over his head and tossing it to the floor. She chased after him, her palm caressing his hard, warm, tanned back. Cody’s body was lean and masculine, and the humps of muscle on his back felt so sexy under her touch. Cody rose and turned to the bed, standing bedside, the light from the bedside table lamp painting golden shades on his hard stomach and broad chest. She’d wanted to touch him all day today. And now she could.

She scooted closer, coming face to face with his belly button as she sat on the edge of the bed before him. Her lips pressed just below the navel, the slick coating of gloss sticking her lips to his flesh. Now her hands moved on their own, coming up the front of his cotton shorts, over his belt, then exploring his body. She felt the ridged plates of his abdomen, his ribs, higher then to feel how hard his chest was. She looked up to see Cody watching with a smile, his eyes meeting hers.

Her hands came lower, fingers tucking into his waistband and coming together under his chin to disengage his belt. The whole while, their eyes stayed connected. The belt was a simple lever; one tug and she released it. Cody’s pants slackened, and she bit her lower lip.

She said, “I’m going to suck your cock.”

“Yeah, you are,” he said, smile widening.

“I told Byron I wanted to.”

“You must really want to suck it, Chey.”

She nodded, smiling too, feeling good with him. Now her eyes lowered to watch her hands work. Pants unbuttoned, belt unthreaded, she drew down his zipper. His pants came down easy. Cody wore no underwear. His big and perfect penis dangled before her. It hung heavy and flaccid but already swelling, the veins rising under the thick unblemished skin. She kissed him mid-shaft, then pressed her cheek against it, squashing his penis and balls into his groin with her face. Its pulse blipped on her cheek and his penis squirmed, blood rushing into it.

She pulled away to tell him: “You have such an amazing cock.” Her hands swept up the inside of his thighs and her heart did a series of flutters in the second before she finally took a hold of Cody’s manhood. She’d held it today, of course, out in the lake water, and Cody was hard. But this was what she wanted. To take her time, to be allowed to do it.

His balls were warm, the skin of his scrotum sticking on her palm. Her other hand gripped his flaccid member near the base, and she guided his cock into her mouth. The plump shape was large and soft and smooth. If Cody wanted to know what curled her toes, it was having his cock in her mouth. She sucked and sucked, pull more into her mouth, feeling him grow harder, swelling larger.

She let it plop with a wet sound from her mouth and it swung before her. She looked up and told him, “Step back and have a seat, okay? I want to take my time with this.”