Page 92 of Always: A Legacy Novel

“I’m not sure friends do this,” Catherine mumbled into the palm of her hand.

Cross’s tongue lapped at her inner thigh before he asked, “Hmm?”

“I told my dad we were friends. I don’t think friends do things like this, is all.”

“The best kind of friends do,” he said.

Maybe.

“I’m calling you Catty, from now on,” Cross added.

“What, why?”

He tipped his head to the side, making Catherine take in the row of scratches she had left on his neck. That looked like it hurt, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Don’t you dare call me—”

“Too late, Catty.”

She was far too out of it in her mind to argue with him. “That is … quite a talent.”

“That’s not a talent. It’s a goddamn skill.”

Catherine nodded, still breathless and trembling. “And when exactly can I get you to use that skill again?”

Cross smirked, and his dark eyes screamed sin and fun; his cheek rested against her inner thigh and he said, “All you have to do is ask, babe. I like doing anything that gets you off because it gets me off.”

“What if I asked right now?”

He was already back between her thighs before she could get her question entirely out. She couldn’t breathe again.

Catherine really didn’t mind.

“So, are you fucking Cross Donati now?”

Catherine could have pretended like she didn’t hear the question from Dina Lavigne, given she had earbuds in her ears, but the girl’s voice just grated on her nerves like nothing else. Tugging out one earbud, Catherine looked up from her books on the cafeteria table and found it wasn’t only Dina standing there. It was also half of her little posse.

Joy.

“I’m sorry?” Catherine asked.

She was giving the girl a single chance to ask her a different question, and they could both pretend like the first one hadn’t happened.

Catherine hoped for too much.

“Cross. Are you the new pussy of the month he’s moved on to, or …?”

Her little group of friends snickered amongst one another.

Catherine was suddenly glad she stuck to her own group of friends.

Dina raised an eyebrow, as though she were daring Catherine to confirm what she was asking. “I mean, three weeks ago, people saw you two leaving a party together. Everybody knows he hurt Derik over you. I was just curious.”

“Why?”

And why is it any of your business?

“Because it’s kind of hard to tell,” Dina said, looking as though she were more interested in her manicure than their current conversation. “Sometimes he talks to you, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he’s around you, sometimes he isn’t. Are you just, like, good enough to fuck but not for anything else? Because shit, Derik said you wouldn’t even put out. I wondered, that’s all.”