Cheater's Regret

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “Nothing,” I said quickly.

  “Bullshit.” Her blue eyes searched mine. “Thatch, you punched a complete stranger tonight, and your apartment looks like the police broke in to search for crack.”

  I snorted. “What if I told you I wanted you to leave it alone, just for tonight?”

  She licked her lips, her gaze traveling across the counter as she no doubt took in the mess. “I’d say you’ve probably left it alone too long, but it’s not my place, not anymore.” She turned toward the sink and flipped the faucet; water started pouring out.

  I frowned, the motion hurting like hell. “What are you doing?”

  “Dishes.”

  “Austin—”

  “You should go lie down.”

  “Austin, you don’t have to do my dishes.” Austin in my apartment was a bad idea, a horrible idea. It made me want things that I knew weren’t within my reach, not anymore.

  “I want to do your dishes.” She started washing off plates and putting them in the dishwasher. “Now, talk dirty to me.”

  I nearly tripped over my feet on the way to the couch. “What?”

  She glanced over her right shoulder and smirked. “Tell me all the dirty details about liposuction. Ready. Go!”

  I smiled, a real smile, and lay back against my leather couch. “That’s what you want to talk about? Fat sucking?”

  “Can you really die from it, like Cher’s mom in Clueless?”

  “Huh?” The hell was she talking about?

  “Pop-culture reference, I’m disappointed in your lack of knowledge.”

  I shrugged even though she couldn’t see me. “I didn’t really watch a lot of TV when I was little.” I was too busy trying to stay away from my parents, so I basically enrolled in every after-school program you could think of. Besides, when they weren’t home, it felt too lonely and empty in that big house.

  A familiar pressure settled on my shoulders, spreading across my chest like a vise.

  “Thatch?”

  “Sorry, did you say something?”

  “Yeah, but I like talking to myself. I do it all the time at my house. I swear I haven’t seen my parents in days.”

  Yeah, I bet.

  “Oh?” My skin prickled with both awareness and knowledge.

  “Eh, it’s normal.”

  I closed my eyes as the throbbing in my nose lessened.

  “Hey.” Austin was suddenly next to me—I smelled her before I even opened my eyes. “Other than a good old nose job where you get to chip away at someone’s bone with a freaking hammer . . .”

  I smirked.

  “What’s your favorite surgery to perform?”

  I frowned. “Nobody’s ever really asked me that.”

  “Well, now that you have exactly”—she held up her fingers and checked her phone—“ten fans.” Austin shrugged. “You gotta give them what they want, and one of my commentators wants to know what type of surgery you prefer. I figure I can use that as my third blog post this week.”

  I tilted my head and then patted the spot next to me on the couch. I had no idea why she was being so nice after I kept treating her like shit, but I’d take it.

  She bounced onto the couch next to me and tugged her knees underneath her body, exposing a lot of leg.

  Too much leg.

  Yeah, being friends with Austin very well might kill me dead.

  “Alright.” I cleared my throat. “So, I don’t know if I would call it my favorite, but I love a good tummy tuck.”

  Austin’s wide-eyed expression was classic. “You like tucking people’s stomachs into their bodies and cutting out fat?”

  “It’s a bit more complex than that, but I get a lot of middle-aged women who get tummy tucks after popping out multiple kids, and I always think to myself, ‘That’s the least I can do,’ you know? Help them get their pre-baby bodies back. Women come in after severe weight loss, and it’s just, I don’t know, I sound like an idiot probably, but it’s an honor to work on them.”

  Austin’s smile couldn’t get any bigger. “Well, I’ll be damned, Thatch Holloway has a heart.”

  “Hah-hah.” I shook my head. “Yeah, well, don’t tell anyone. Wouldn’t want to ruin my jackass reputation.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Please, you just got one of the most prestigious awards a plastic surgeon can get, and at what? Thirty-two? I’d say you have a good reputation, Doctor.”

  My entire body came alive when she called me that. She’d never in all the weeks I’d known her—even the entire month we’d dated—called me “Doctor.”

  I think my dick liked it a little too much.

  My body was literally straining in her direction. And the throbbing I had been feeling in my nose very conveniently went somewhere else.

  Hell.

  “Okay.” Austin cracked her knuckles. “So, show me. I’m your patient, where do you cut?”

  “Cut?”

  “Slice.” She made a quick motion with the side of her hand. “You know, where do you cut the person open? How many incisions? How deep? Are you really tucking?”

  “Whoa, that’s a lot of questions.”

  “Give the readers what they want.”

  “So,” I said, then licked my lips and leaned forward. We were inches apart as my pointer finger grazed her hipbone and moved inward. “Typically,” I said, my hands shaking, “I ask a patient where they wear their swimsuit bottoms or underwear, as most incisions are made too high.”

  She gulped, “Oh.”

  “So”—yeah, I was going to do it—“since you wear a lot of bikini-style underwear with the occasional boyshorts—”

  “You remember my underwear?”

  I didn’t dare look at her. “How could I not? One pair said ‘Slap me’ on the ass.”

  She grinned at me, and I tried to fight the smile, but I couldn’t, not when it was Austin, not when I was touching her, when we were that close.

  “What’s next?” Was it just me, or was her voice a bit breathless?

  “Next”—I cleared my throat, keeping my hands pressed to her stomach—“I make the incision based on what I think garments will cover up.” I noticed her breathing pick up. “The central point of the incision has to be at least seven to nine centimeters above the top point of the . . . vulva.”

  Her breath hitched as my hand moved from her stomach lower toward the juncture of her thighs.

  “That’s very . . .” She gave me a once-over. “Technical.”

  “Surgery usually is,” I answered. My hand hadn’t moved, but I wanted it to; I wanted to dip lower, to feel her heat, to kiss her senseless and forget about all the shit that was keeping us apart and just love her.

  “I should go.” She didn’t move.

  “You probably should, but . . .”

  We were both silent; her eyes searched mine. “But?”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I think I know what happens when I stay, and I don’t think I can stand your telling me that you only want to get laid when you meet me. So”—she put her feet on the ground—“I think I will go.”

  My heart sank.

  “Look on the bright side, you won’t have to ride with my dad tomorrow, since you have an injury.” She pointed at my nose, and I stood to walk her to the door, every step heavy with dread.

  It was my fault.

  And there was no way out of it.

  “Honestly, I’d forgotten all about the bike ride,” I admitted. I’d been too focused on all things Austin and seeing my dad in the hospital.

  She reached up and kissed me on the cheek and backed away, but not before I pressed my lips to her forehead.

  “Bastard,” she grumbled.

  “What?” Confused, I watched her grimace and then make a face of complete disgust.

  “You!” Austin rammed her finger into my chest. Hard. “You aren’t allowed to do that anymore! It means something to me, the forehead kiss, okay? So don’t do it! Don’t, because it’s mean, and you’re mean, and it
makes me forget that you broke my heart and stomped all over it and for some sick reason think that it’s super fun to repeat the process on a daily basis, and I really need to pass this class and get through these next few weeks without waking up in the middle of the night with a stupid ache in my chest that refuses to go away whenever I think about what happened between us—what broke, and why I wasn’t able to fix it.”

  Completely stunned, I reached behind her, locked the door to my apartment, grabbed her hand, and led her away from the one and only exit.

  “Thatch, what are you doing?”

  I didn’t answer.

  I was too angry at myself to answer, angry at the situation—pissed at my parents, and ridiculously enraged with hers.

  When we reached my room, I shut that door too and drank her in. “If I told you I wanted to make love to you today and forget about it tomorrow, what would you say?”

  “I’d say you were an asshole.”

  I smiled at that. “But?”

  “There’s always a ‘but’ with you,” she grumbled. “The small part of my heart that you still refuse to give back would probably jump with joy and make my life a living hell if I didn’t at least think about it.”

  “Small part?”

  “You choose to focus on that part rather than the thinking-about-sex part?”

  “The heart matters more than sex.”

  “Says the guy who said he just wanted to get laid.”

  “I lied,” I admitted. “You know me better than that.”

  “Words hurt regardless of whether you mean them, Thatch.”

  “Stay.” I reached for her.

  She jerked away. “And tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow, you can try to teach me how to ride a bike again.”

  “I sense another ‘but.’”

  “Don’t ask me why we broke up. I won’t tell you. And you’ll just get pissed. Trust that I’m protecting you in the only way that I know how.”

  “And the cheating?” She just had to ask. “The reason you kissed Brooke?”

  I shrugged. “I like kissing.”

  “You’re an unbelievably horrible human being.”

  “And yet you’re still thinking about it . . .” I smirked and started walking toward her. “About how good it was between us, about how good it could be tonight if you just say yes.”

  Austin narrowed her eyes. “My hand is literally itching to slap you.”

  “May make you feel better.” I shrugged.

  I shouldn’t have given her the opportunity. Her hand went sailing through the air and met my cheek with such a loud slap that I stumbled to the side.

  And then her little fists were beating at my back, shoving me against the nearest wall.

  I let her.

  And when she slowed down.

  I swept in for the kill.

  And kissed her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  AUSTIN

  Thatch kissed a woman as if he knew her body better than she did. It was like his lips could sense the perfect amount of pressure to apply in any given kissing scenario. Moaning, gasping, begging for more weren’t just options; they were necessary.

  It was survival.

  I’d been a victim of his kisses.

  Just like I’d been a victim of every inch of his sexual prowess, and I knew, if I didn’t stop the kiss, I would be a victim again.

  But my body begged me to just linger a bit longer. It told me to wait until I felt his tongue sliding across mine, until he tugged my lower lip and did that thing where he sucked it between his teeth just long enough to get me to gasp and open my mouth wider, where he’d slip in and take advantage, plundering my mouth until his air was mine.

  My body trembled beneath his heated touch; he knew exactly where I needed him, where I always craved him, and he took advantage of it, stealing any sort of no that I wanted to speak, and turning it into a yes, yes, yes, holy crap yes!

  Finally, his long, passionate kisses stopped, replaced with slow, heated pecks across my lips. I pulled back; his gaze darted between my eyes and my mouth.

  “Thatch—”

  He placed a finger across my mouth. “I need you.”

  Anything but that.

  Any words but those.

  My kryptonite.

  Because until Thatch, I’d never really felt needed or even wanted. My parents barely acknowledged my existence.

  I’d only ever had Avery.

  Her parents were more like parents to me than my own.

  And then Thatch had come along, and he was fun, and different, and confident, and suddenly I found myself getting lost in everything he represented, but what hooked me was the day I found out it was all a front.

  What hooked me—was his damage.

  The glimpses he gave me when he thought I wasn’t really paying attention, the brief spouts of anger, the restless nights, the moments when I’d find him ending a phone call and gripping the phone so hard, I was afraid it was going to break in his hand.

  He never talked about his past.

  And because of that, I just assumed he wanted to focus on his future—our future.

  My biggest mistake in our relationship wasn’t falling for Thatch; it was thinking that he needed me as much as I needed him.

  Because when I touched him—my world felt full.

  So how could it not feel that way for him?

  How could he not feel the same?

  “I need you,” he repeated, his eyes wild.

  So, like an idiot, I kissed him again—and sealed my fate against his mouth, knowing that his track record proved he was a cheater and that I didn’t have any part of him—even though he still held every part of me.

  I was that stupid girl.

  The one I’d judged.

  And I fully embraced it.

  Because when it’s you in that situation, you imagine yourself as the game changer—you imagine you’re different.

  Thatch nipped my lips over and over again, his hungry moans making me dizzy as I fought to catch up with his hands as they tugged my clothes away from my body in record time.

  Thatch didn’t do slow.

  Not with sex.

  He took his time with kissing.

  But sex had always been aggressive—not quick, but he definitely didn’t wait to get to the point.

  So when he slowed down, and leaned his forehead against mine, then pulled me away from the wall and pressed me down against his bed—I knew I was suddenly in over my head.

  He peeled his T-shirt from his body, revealing a six-pack cut from stone right along with pecs that I teased him couldn’t be real.

  Men like Thatch shouldn’t exist in the real world—they belonged in vampire novels and paranormal movies.

  His biceps flexed as he slowly crawled over me, kicking off his jeans in the process. Our lips met in a frenzy while his hands moved behind my neck, tugging my body upward toward his.

  “I missed this,” he said between kisses.

  “Me too,” I admitted, trying to keep the tears at bay. Sex, I could totally just do sex.

  With the man I loved.

  With the man who had broken my heart.

  With the man who was going to walk away.

  “Me too,” I repeated out loud, needing to convince myself more than anything.

  With a sigh he kissed down my neck and then stopped, his eyes flashing as he stared at my bare chest. “Never.”

  “Never?”

  “Ever.” He shook his head.

  “Never ever?” My eyes blurred with unshed tears while he continued to suck me in with his laser-like focus.

  “I would never cut you here”—he slid his hand down the side of my breast—“and shove anything here.” He smiled. “Because this”—he closed his eyes and cupped my breast, his thumb grazing over my nipple—“is perfection.”

  “But what if I begged you?”

  “Then I’d silence you with my mouth and keep you so preoccupied, you’d forget your own damn n
ame.” His answers always were a little too wonderful, damn him.

  “Touché,” I whispered.

  “Seriously, Austin.” He bent over and sucked so hard, I nearly came off the bed. “Never let anyone tell you any different.”

  “I guess,” I panted, “since you’re a plastic surgeon, you know your stuff.”

  He made a little sound at the back of his throat as he moved to my other breast, taking his sweet time—giving my body way more attention than it had experienced since our breakup.

  “You taste the same.” He licked the spot he’d just sucked. “How is it possible that I’m addicted to the way your skin tastes?”

  “I think what you’re saying is, you’re addicted to my sweat.”

  “You’re not sweating yet.” He winked at me. “But you will be.”

  “Really? Because I really don’t want a workout,” I teased.

  His injured nostrils flared, and then Thatch did what he did best—he found my weakness and pounced.

  He hooked his arms beneath my legs and tugged me down the bed, my back slid against his cool sheets as my feet met the floor, he tugged me to a standing position and then, completely naked, walked over to the door and flipped on the switch.

  My initial instinct was to cover my body.

  But Thatch saw women’s bodies all the time.

  And suddenly he was in front of me again, kissing me, confusing me, digging his fingers into me, sliding his hands down my hips and then lowering himself to the floor, wrapping one arm around the inside of my thigh so his hand pressed against my ass as he kissed and sucked up that same leg.

  I shivered.

  What was he doing?

  My body went hot and cold all at once when his tongue flicked my core and with a moan he pulled me forward, rocking my hips against his mouth. I tried to pull back, first because it felt too good and I was pretty confident I was going to just collapse on his head any minute, and second, because he could see everything.

  Everything.

  “I want to taste you forever.” His words buzzed against my skin as I dug my hands into his long mop of hair and held on for dear life. “Love this.”

  This.

  Not you.

  I tensed.

  “You’re so warm.” His tongue did something that I was pretty sure should be outlawed in the bedroom if girls were supposed to stay sane, and then I was coming apart, trying to hold on to all the reasons why this had to stay physical and not take a detour into emotional territory.