Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Tristan
I paced from the kitchen to the living room and back again for what felt like a million times as I waited for Merritt to get home. I lost count of how many times I looked at the clock on the wall, but it felt like the goddamn arms never moved.
I felt like I was coming out of my skin, and I didn’t even have Levi there to take my mind off things since it was a school day. I tried to fill my time by cleaning out the garage so I could create a sort of make-shift workshop for her to restore antique furniture. She’d shared with me how it was something she’d learned from her mother, and missed working with her hands like that. I wanted to give it back to her. But I was so damn antsy I blew through the project and finished a lot sooner than I expected.
The more time that passed, the worse the scenarios running through my head became. There was nothing rational about how I felt. All I could think was how that asshole could say or do something to hurt her, and I wouldn’t be there to protect her. I wished she would have let me go with her, but at the same time, I respected her need to confront her brother on her own.
I was seconds away from saying fuck it and driving to the prison any damn way, when I heard her car pull into the driveway.
I practically threw myself on the couch, snatching up a book that had been sitting on the coffee table without bothering to look at the cover and flipping it open so it didn’t look like I’d spent the last few hours wearing a hole in the carpet.
I felt a judgmental tingle on the side of my face and glanced over to find Doc staring at me from his dog bed. “Don’t give me that look. You have no right to judge. You can be just as pathetic.” I lifted my brows. “Remember how you threw yourself on the ground and screamed when that cat took a swipe at you? Didn’t come close to touching you, and you still freaked out.”
Doc lowered his head back onto the bed.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
The door opened a second later, and I lifted my gaze from the book I was pretending to read. “Hey.” Now that she was standing right in front of me and I could see for myself that she was okay, I was able to pull in my first full breath since she left the house earlier this morning.
Merritt glanced down at the book then up to me. “Hi. What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I stated casually. “Just reading.”
The corners of her mouth trembled. “You read romance?” Of course it was one of her books I snatched up. “Yeah, sure. I read a bit of everything. I have diverse tastes.”
She curled her lips between her teeth to hide her smile. “The book is upside down.”
Son of a bitch.
I slapped the cover shut and tossed the book back on the coffee table, giving up pretenses. I raked my fingers through my hair as I stood up from the couch. “I’ve been going out of my mind.”
She moved toward me, her expression softening as she closed the distance. “Were you worried about me?”
I couldn’t resist reaching out to touch her as soon as she was close enough. I tucked a strand of that dark, glossy hair behind her ear and trailed my fingers down her jaw before forcing myself to drop my arm to my side. “I always worry about you when I know you’re going into a situation where you could end up hurt.”
“There were guards everywhere. There was no way he could have gotten to me,” she attempted to reassure me.
“I don’t just mean physically, Dandelion. Too many people have been indifferent to your feelings in your lifetime. I want to protect you in every possible way. I know I can’t, like I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself, I just can’t stand the thought of anyone hurting you.”
Something moved across her beautiful face just then. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask me anything.”
“That day in your car, when you pressed your forehead to mine. Did you want to kiss me?”
My heart shot up into my throat, making it hard to breathe all of a sudden. Her question lit a fuse inside me, setting my blood to an automatic boil. “What?”
“Did you want to kiss me?”
Her eyes pleaded with me to tell the truth, and there was nothing I could deny her. “More than I wanted my next breath.”
Her chest rose on a soft gasp, and her sage green gaze went glassy. “What if I gave you a chance to do it over?”
A deep rumble moved up my throat as my hands came up to cradle her face. “Baby, I need you to be completely sure of what you’re askin’ me. There can’t be any doubt or miscommunication.”
“I don’t have any doubts. Tristan, I want you to kiss me.”
That was all I needed to hear.
Bringing my mouth down on hers, I brushed my lips over hers, once, twice, testing her limits to make sure it wasn’t too much. When she didn’t pull away, I increased the pressure, flicking my tongue out for that first small taste.
“Tristan?” Merritt breathed against my mouth, forcing my eyes open.
“Yeah, baby?”
“I’m not delicate. Please stop treating me like glass and kiss me.”
The iron grip I maintained on my self-control these past few months snapped, and I slammed my mouth onto hers. My tongue swiped in and slid against hers, eliciting a moan from deep within her chest. The sound went straight to my dick, making me want more.
My hands slid farther back, tangling with the hair at her nape as I took her mouth harder, deepening the kiss. Her arms came up and wrapped around my neck and held on as I lost myself in the kiss, in her. I couldn’t get enough. I never wanted it to end, and would have gladly suffocated if it meant I didn’t have to stop.
Merritt pulled back and sucked in a deep breath as she whispered my name. “Tristan.”
“I’m right here,” I returned as I dragged my lips down the delicate column of her throat.
“I want you.”
I jerked back at her declaration, my gaze colliding with lust-drunk sea green. My cock jerked, the tip already weeping with my need to be inside her.
I dragged my thumb across her jaw and over her swollen bottom lip. “No miscommunication, Dandelion. Remember?”
There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t give her, but I needed her words. “Take me to bed. Please. I need you to make love to me.”
She let out a yelp and giggled when I reached down and grabbed her ass, lifting her feet off the ground and forcing her to wrap her legs around my waist.
She fit me perfectly, like she was only for me, and there wasn’t a better feeling on the face of the earth than Merritt wrapped around me. She fisted my hair and peppered frantic kisses along my jaw and neck, anywhere she could reach, while I took the stairs as fast as I could to my bedroom.
As soon as her feet touched down on the floor at the foot of the bed, we went at each other, tearing our clothes and throwing them across the room until I was wearing nothing but my boxer briefs, the material barely containing my erection. Merritt stood before me in a lacy, navy-colored bra and matching lace panties.
“Beautiful,” I breathed as I took her in, my eyes feasting on every inch of her. “You’re a goddamn vision, Dandelion.”
“Tristan, hurry,” she pleaded in a needy voice that drove me wild. She reached for my cock, but before her fingers could wrap around it, I grabbed her by the wrist. Her gaze shot up to mine, her brows furrowing in confusion.
“We’ll get to that, but there’s something I need to do first.”
“What?” Her question ended on a squeal when I picked her up and tossed her onto the mattress. With a wicked smile, I grabbed the delicate waistband of her panties and yanked them down her legs. “I need to taste you.”
I dropped to my knees at the foot of the bed and pushed her thighs wide, taking in the glistening, swollen flesh of her perfect pussy.
“Tristan—oh my God!” she cried out when I sealed my mouth over her core and licked. My balls drew up the instant her sweet, honeyed taste coated my tongue, and I had to reach into my underwear and squeeze the base of my dick to keep from coming.
“Tristan, yes,” she panted, her hips jerking up off the bed as I alternated between sucking on her clit and fucking my tongue deep inside her. “So good. I-I, oh God, I’m going to come.”
I needed her to fall over that edge, and I needed her to do it fast or I was going to lose it. Sucking her clit between my lips, I flicked it with the tip of my tongue, over and over as she shattered. As soon as that first one left her, I crawled up the bed and hovered over her, my face so close I took in each gust of air she blew past her lips and gave it back, sharing one breath. I pushed her legs farther apart with my knees and lowered my hips into the cradle of her thighs. The heat from her pussy against my cock nearly had my eyes rolling into the back of my head.
“Merritt.”
At the sound of her name, her eyelids peeled open to half mast, then flared when my tip bumped against her entrance. “You sure you want this?”
Her hands came up and her fingers tangled in my hair. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”
That was all I needed. I pushed in an inch, the feel of her better than anything I’d ever experienced in my life. It took me a second, but then I realized why it felt so phenomenal. “Baby, are you covered?”
She blinked, trying to focus through the haze of that first orgasm. “Huh?”
“Birth control. You say the word and I’ll put on a condom. But if it’s okay with you, I want to feel you bare. Nothing between us.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “I-I’m on birth control.”
I nearly drove all the way into her at that declaration but fisted the comforter where my hands were braced in the mattress on either side of her head. “And you’re okay with it?”
She traced my lips with her finger as her eyes locked with mine. “I don’t want there to be anything between us.”
I pushed into her on a smooth glide, hissing through gritted teeth at how exquisite she felt when I bottomed out.
“Tristan,” she cried out, arching her back off the bed and digging her nails into my back.
“Feels like heaven,” I grunted, pulling out and driving back in, each thrust harder than the last. Her body was sheer perfection, and I knew, as I stared down into her eyes, getting lost in the sea green, I would never get enough. She was it for me. I loved her. Whether or not she was ready to hear it didn’t make it any less true. I was in love with her. And I knew I would be until I took my very last breath.
As the room filled with her sweet sounds and sweat beaded between our bodies, I felt her walls flutter around me, and I knew she was getting close.
“Let go, Dandelion,” I grunted, my molars clenched tight to keep from coming before her.
Her eyes flared. “It—It’s too much.”
“It’s not. I’m right here. I’ve got you. Just trust me.”
Her body locked tight beneath mine, and she splintered into a million pieces. Crying out my name as she came. I rode it out for as long as I possibly could until the squeeze of her pussy became too much, then I buried my face in her neck and followed her over that edge into the abyss.
As we came down, and a sated smile curved her lips, those three little words were on the tip of my tongue, and it took everything in me to keep from letting them spill out.