It was all I needed anyway, right? It’s not as if he was going to really commit to me, marry me, offer to impregnate me and father all our children.
“Are you sure about this, Avery?” He cupped my face with his rough hands. “You still have a choice. You can turn that cute ass around and march out that door—hell, you can even slam it on the way out. I’ll even let you keep the steak.”
“Are you offering me an out?”
He nodded.
“Do you offer that to every girl?”
Another nod.
“Do they ever take it?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you want me to do?”
He paused. “You know, nobody has ever asked me that before.”
Probably because nobody cared about what else he had to offer besides what was dangling between his legs.
“I’m asking. Right now.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “What does Thorn want?”
“You didn’t full-name me.”
“It seems to make you even more arrogant, God forbid.”
His grin made me weak, so weak that I had to hold on to him for strength. Funny how things come full circle. How he’d always been my rock.
Dependable.
Loving.
And now?
He held all the power. Lucas Thorn . . . could destroy me.
“Stay.” He brushed a soft kiss across my lower lip. “I want you to stay.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
LUCAS
She asked me what I wanted—and meant it. But she’d also taken my heart and beat it against the door, stomped on it for good measure, then shoved it back into my chest with a smile on her face.
She wasn’t like my other women.
Not at all.
But I didn’t want her to be, and it pissed me off that she was categorizing herself the exact same way—like she was planning sex, like she was just another freaking day of the week.
All I had to do was look in the mirror to know whose fault that was.
And all I had to do was tell her no—in order to fix it.
But I’d always been selfish—once a cheater, always a cheater, right? Only this time, this time it really did feel wrong.
This felt like cheating.
I wasn’t cheating her.
I was cheating us.
And when the idea of cheating suddenly transformed into something plural, like an “us”—that’s when you were in the wrong, that’s when you fought like hell. So I decided to give her this night, I decided to do the wrong thing—in hopes of doing the first right thing I’d ever done.
I’d hold her in my arms.
I’d kiss her lips, draw out each moan and scream, and if she tried to leave me, I’d simply chain her to my bed and provide enough food and water for her to survive until she agreed to be with me for longer than a twenty-four-hour period.
Okay, so it wasn’t a solid plan.
But it was all I had.
And because of my lifestyle I knew if I told her she was different, she’d want to believe me but wouldn’t be able to—and seeing the doubt in her eyes would hurt me as badly as her asking for one day had when what I wanted to give her was a week, a year, a lifetime.
Something bad was happening to me.
Either I had a tumor in my chest.
Or my heart was . . . beating.
Hell, I knew it had been there all along—it just needed a conniving little snot to weasel her way inside and clang around a bit with a hammer. It needed Avery.
“Come on”—I kissed her nose—“I have something to show you.”
Avery rolled her eyes. “Does that work on the other girls too?”
“I rarely have to say that, usually they just strip me at the door and—”
Avery covered my mouth with her hand and shook her head. “Not helping your case.”
I moved her hand and kissed her palm, and her breath hitched when my lips touched her skin. “I was kidding.”
“Too soon,” she said with a breathy sigh.
I led her by the hand down the hall and into my bedroom. “Go ahead, ask me.”
Avery gazed at the large bed and then the window and then back at me. “Who’s your decorator?”
“Avery Bug, come on—ask me.”
“How many women?” she blurted. “How many women have been in that bed?” It killed me that she had to squeeze her eyes shut as if she was expecting the number to be such a blow that she couldn’t look at me when I confessed it.
“One.” I kissed her forehead. “Though last time she was in it, she was really cranky, drunk, made fun of my pancakes, and threatened my life.”
“She sounds awesome. Can I have her number?” Avery grinned up at me.
“She’s alright I guess.”
“I bet she has amazing boobs and knows how to moonwalk, and can eat an entire block of cheese within a ten-hour period.”
“One whole block?” I repeated.
“With wine,” she added with a smile and then looked back at the bed. “Any reason why no other girl has been in here?”
“Easy.” I shrugged. “This is the only part of me that’s for me.”
Avery reached for my hand, then squeezed it. “I think this is the part where I say I’m honored that you’re sharing your eight-hundred-thread-count sheets with me, but I can’t quite manage to choke out a thank-you before sex.”
“I’ll expect one after.” I chuckled. “Or you could just tell me to go to hell and run out the door.”
There it was again.
The push.
We did banter well—I made her think I didn’t care, and she treated me like a disease—and yet when we connected, we felt it. Words can lie, and the words said between Avery and me? Absolutely necessary to avoid the truth of our touch.
A touch can’t lie.
A touch may as well be a confession—and in that confession, you have no choice but to acknowledge the truth.
“I think you better kiss me right now.” Avery stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips across my chin. “Before I say more stupid things or just bail on you altogether.”
“We’re doing this.” I wasn’t sure if I should be excited, elated, or disappointed that she wasn’t telling me to go to hell when, according to her, I’d be seeing another girl in less than twenty-four hours.
“It’s not cheating if you know.” She repeated those same damn words I’d told her less than a week ago. And I only had myself to blame. Funny, when I said them I’d meant them. Truly believed that if you were that transparent, then it really wasn’t a bad thing. Everyone wins.
Until now.
I’d never been on the receiving end, and it hurt.
It cut deep.
Because if she left my bed to warm someone else’s, I’d end up in prison.
Another kiss to my chin and then my lips. I knew I should push her away—we needed to have the dreaded talk, we needed to . . . I let out a moan as her hands fumbled with the buttons of my shirt.
“What are you doing?” I asked, gently grasping her wrists.
“Taking your clothes off, Thorn. Why? You got a problem with that?”
“Are you going to mount me if I do?” I teased.
Her scowl deepened while her face flushed bright red. “I guess I brought that on myself.”