Spectacular Rascal: A Sexy Flirty Dirty Standalone Romance by Lili Valente Page B

to my third confession. Are you ready?”
    “Shoot,” I say tightly, deciding that convincing her I’m not a manwhore will have to wait until I don’t have a hard-on.
    She takes a deeper breath, but when she speaks, her words are a whisper. “I still want you. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone, even Nico. And I want to do something about it.”
    “Something like…what?” I ask, though I have a pretty good idea.
    “I think we should go for it,” she says with a smile that’s equal parts wicked and nervous. “Let’s do it. Let’s make fucking each other stupid part of our arrangement.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    Before I can assure her that I absolutely will not fuck her stupid for money—I will fuck her stupid for free because I am not a whore, and I’m pissed that she has so easily assumed my dick is for sale—she pushes on.
    “I have to know if you really will be the best I’ve ever had.” She wags her shot back and forth, sending the liquid sliding from side to side. “Or if it’s like Gail said, and you’re all foreplay, head games, and nice-smelling cologne but nothing special between the sheets.”
    My eyebrows shoot up. “What? When did she say that?”
    “My junior year,” she says, her grin growing even more wicked. “After you left for Japan. I think she was just trying to make me feel better, but who knows? She could have been shooting straight. It was always hard to tell with her. The Holy Gail kept her cards close to her chest. You know she eventually became a nun, right?”
    I blink. “No, I didn’t.”
    “She did. So the Holy Gail bit really did fit.” Her forehead knits. “Though I think her name is Sister Maria Faustus or Maria Faustina or something like that now. Something that reminded me of Dante’s Inferno when I heard the news.”
    “Well, good for her. I hope she’s happy,” I say, not really surprised to hear that Gail’s life went in that direction. Of all the girls I dated in college, she was the sweetest and the prettiest, but also the most devout and the least interested in learning if my reputation for delivering multiple O’s in the bedroom was fact or fiction.
    And a girl who has no interest in multiple O’s clearly has a higher calling.
    One I can’t understand on a personal level, but…
    “Don’t worry,” Cat says, a knowing look on her face, as if she can read every thought racing through my mind. “I’m sure it wasn’t your lack of skill between the sheets that turned her to a life of celibacy.”
    I bend lower, dropping my elbow to the counter and propping my chin on my fist with a wry grin. “Thanks. I’m sure it wasn’t, too. Especially considering we never slept together…”
    Her eyes widen slightly. “Really?”
    “Really. It never felt right. For either of us.”
    She hums thoughtfully. “So she was just trying to make me feel better.” She shrugs, setting the tequila in her glass to sloshing again. “Well, that was nice of her. By that point everyone knew I’d begged you to punch my V card, and the Dashers made it their mission in life to fuck with me about it, so I was pretty demoralized. It was nice to get a kind word from someone who’d allegedly been there, done that, and wasn’t that impressed by it all.”
    “How did everyone find out?” I ask, troubled by that part of the story. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
    She shrugs again. “I think Empty Tool Box overheard something when he came to get your help with the bonfire. But he would never cop to it, not even when I let him do the honors and punch my V card himself.”
    “Tool Box?” I ask, lip curling. “God, Cat, why? Why do that to yourself? He’s dumber than a box full of rocks.”
    “I told you, I was demoralized, damn it! And you don’t get to judge me right now.” She points a finger at my chest, making a snarling sound that causes Fifi—who has been resting in her dog bed on the couch in the other room, minding her own business—to lift her head