Cheater (Curious Liaisons #1)(40)

“Mmm.” He reached for me again.

I let him.

WEAK!

The next kiss was softer.

It was the way I’d always wanted Lucas Thorn to kiss me—like I was precious, like I mattered—so for good, I pushed him away.

For my good.

For his.

For the sake of the friendship we used to have.

And for whatever future friendship we were trying to build. Everything was too confusing, and the kiss wasn’t helping things. Not at all.

“I’m not going to be your new Tuesday.”

He grinned. “Of course you won’t, Tuesday’s taken.”

I glared at him.

He grinned harder. “But Saturday just quit, so—”

I slapped him so hard across his right cheek that I’m lucky one of my fingers didn’t fly right off and land in someone’s wineglass.

“The hell!” he swore loudly, violently, and almost teetered back against one of the expensive bottles of wine.

It would have made my night had he broken the one that was over three grand.

“Listen here, THORN.” I got all up in his business, chest to heaving chest. “I will never be one of your whores! I don’t care if the only way for you to survive one more day is for me to substitute for your Saturday, I won’t do it. I WON’T DO IT!” I stomped my foot. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.”

“You said that already.” He removed his hand and sighed. “Saturday always gets the longest time . . .”

I smacked him on the shoulder. “DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?”

“DO YOU?” He threw up his arms. “Could you yell any louder?”

I opened my mouth.

He slammed a hand over it and shook his head sternly. “Look, all I’m saying is this—that was a good kiss, a great kiss, we know each other, we like each other. Think about it.” Was he actually serious? Did he think I had so little self-respect that I’d just hop into his bed after knowing that he’d cheated on my sister? A small voice whispered that there was more to our past history.

The voice I had ignored the night Kayla cried in my arms.

The voice I ignored whenever I went home and had dinner with the family, only to find the air so strained I wanted to break a dish or yell to relieve the tension.

Lucas stared at me, like his idea had merit, like I was actually thinking about dumbly nodding and going along with it.

Weird, how you could lose so much respect for someone in an instant. The rose-colored glasses I’d so often looked at him through—the ones that I was just starting to brush off and think about wearing again—shattered.

Lucas Thorn wasn’t the guy he used to be.

He’d never be that guy again. No matter how many times I wished it. The guy from that photo back in the high school was long gone. The guy I’d been obsessed with.

The guy who had ruined everything with one fatal mistake.

One I still blamed myself for.

I pushed the guilt away.

And I wasn’t the girl I used to be—the one he would be willing to give up his serial screwing for. I was like every other girl, like the ones he spent time with during the week—completely and utterly replaceable.

And that hurt.

More than it should have.

Because I’d always come up short when it came to Lucas, just like I always came up short when it came to my sisters, who never let me forget it. I was Avery, the tomboy, the silly one, the one who had more guy friends than girlfriends. The girl who got her first kiss at seventeen and even then couldn’t keep that boyfriend.

My sisters meant well. At least I lied to myself and told myself they did. But the damage had been done long ago, and it was hard to replace all my insecurity with confidence when the one guy you’d always wanted was offering a booty call—because he had an open position.

I was letting it hurt me more than it should, probably because somewhere, in my heart, I had hoped that he was just being an insecure jackass that was wounded a long time ago and was dealing with it in any way possible.

“Look,” I said, my gravelly voice completely betraying my feelings, “you’re just horny and upset because you haven’t gotten laid in twelve hours or however long it’s been. I’m sure this is a whole new reality for you, dating a woman without a guaranteed happy ending after dessert, but if you ever—and I do mean ever—try to kiss me again without my permission while still screwing other girls . . . I will kill you in broad daylight, plead guilty, and cheerfully sit in a jail cell the rest of my life. Got it?”

His face fell. “Avery, I was kidding. You know I would never put you in that position. I’m sorry I took it too far.”

“So you’re saying that if I wanted to be your Saturday, you’d say no?” I yelled. Why was I upset?

Lucas took a step back. “Wait, what?” He shook his head and walked around in a minicircle before jabbing his finger at my chest. “You were just threatening to kill me with a smile on your face if I ever offered. I told you I was kidding and apologized, and now you’re pissed because you don’t think I want you?”

“YES!” I threw my hands in the air. “Look, I would NEVER become your Saturday, but that doesn’t mean I want you to think I’m not good enough to be ON the list! Stop insulting me!”