Chapter Ten
Tristan
My leg jiggles as I squirm around in my seat.
All I can think about is getting home to see Minerva.
I have no idea what she’s doing right now, but I can think of everything she might be up to.
Eating a late lunch? Playing with Kepler?
Lying on the couch in some unnaturally contorted position while reading a book?
Sprawling on the floor with all her notes and papers and books and scheming to unlock the secrets of the human body?
This is so odd. On the rare occasion when I’ve been involved with someone for any length of time, it’s all come back to physical desire. This is a big, fat crush. I’m in like with Min.
Now, home isn’t a place anymore. It’s her voice saying my name.
My daydreams are cut short when Viktor punches my thigh. “Knock it off. If I wanted my seat to rock this hard, I’d have convinced Sergio to put massage chairs on the plane.”
“Like you could convince him to pay out.”
“Dante would never go for it, but Sergio?” Viktor waves a hand. “He’s a pushover.”
Two rows away, Sergio clears his throat. “You know I can hear you, right?”
“Tell me I’m lying,” Viktor calls back.
Muffled muttering follows, but Sergio does not seem to have a convincing retort.
I stare out the window in the hopes that Viktor will lose interest. Before long, my mind wanders back to thoughts of Minerva.
Viktor punches my thigh again. “For real, what is your problem? You keep glancing at your watch. Your eyes glaze over for a few minutes…” He sucks in a breath. “Wait. Oh my God! You’re sleeping with your assistant!”
I punch his thigh for good measure. “Shut up, Viktor. Seriously.”
Viktor lets out a sound like a leaky faucet. “It’s true! I can see it in your eyes!” He rises to his feet, both arms outstretched. “Team. And notable staff. Not you, Serg.”
This time, Sergio’s head pops up over the backs of the seats. He glares at Viktor. “It’s Sergio. And shouldn’t you be sitting?”
Viktor points to the strip of lights above our row. “The seatbelt sign is clearly off. This is exactly why I didn’t invite you to the meeting.”
“It’s my jet!”
“Pipe down, Serg. I have an announcement to make.”
I grab his arm and hiss through gritted teeth, “I will kill you. And my family has pigs, so you know I’m not joking.”
Viktor tuts at me. “A little hostile for a guy who’s getting laid.” He turns back to the rest of the team, all of whom are peering across the rows at him. “That’s right. He’s sleeping with his assistant! Renee, I’d like to make sure everyone gets an assistant. Starting with me.”
Knight snorts. “Knova would kill you. Actually, on second thought, Renee, get that man an assistant.”
Camden chuckles. “Oh, please. He could have three former Playboy bunnies as assistants, and he would run the other way. He’s a smitten kitten, and we all know it.”
Coach sounds bored when he says, “Sit down, Viktor, or I’ll make Knight captain instead of you.”
“Keep standing!” Knight calls. “Tristan! Put him in a leg lock.”
Viktor remains unfazed. “Are you sure? After all, I know all about how you met your wife.”
Coach stands and rests his arms on the seatback for better leverage.
“For the record, I met my precious Vivian in the front office while she was dressed like a mermaid. There was some side boob involved. And I liked it. Oh, and if we’re spilling secrets, the reason Viktor couldn’t sit a few years ago was that my dog bit him in the ass. ”
Viktor wilts into his seat. I poke him with one finger. “Karma. I love that bitch.”
Sergio mutters, “Why didn’t I know any of this?”
“Because you’re not your father,” Renee pipes up.
“He’s retired!”
“Right.” I can hear Renee’s eye roll. “Keep telling yourself that. And by the way, Tristan? He knows about you and Minerva, too.”
“The fuck?” I croak. “How?”
“I just texted him.”
I flop sideways against the wall of the plane. Great. Just fucking great. My family knows a thing or two about killing hogs, but that doesn’t mean I want to go toe to toe with a guy who is maybe, definitely, associated with the mafia. Or something equally shady.
“I hope it was worth it,” Viktor says with a little salute that makes me want to break his fingers. “Nice knowing you.”
Well, I guess if I had to go, I might as well die for lo—
Like. For a crush on a wonderful woman whom I’ve just started sleeping with.
* * *
It’s late when I finally walk through the door, but the house is a little too lively.
Kepler has the zoomies and is running figure eights through the kitchen and living room.
Minerva is on the floor with new notes and new books and a slightly crazed expression on her face.
Her head is down while she reads, and her hands are pressed to either side of her head while she mouths the words. I don’t think she heard me come in.
“Hey, Min.” I dump my stuff and sit down next to her.
This is what I pictured at the end of every road game—walking into this chaos, this warmth, her.
“Oh!” She jumps and blinks vacantly, as if she’s just emerged from a coma and has no idea where she is or how she got here. “Where did you come from?”
“The airport,” I tease. “I just walked in.”
Kepler does another lap through the room. When he gets to me, he hops into my lap, puts his paws on my collarbone, stretches to his full height, and boops his nose against mine. Then he’s off again, burning more energy than I would have thought his tiny body could possibly contain.
“That was so cute.” Minerva pouts. “I wish I had my phone out.”
I wrap one arm around her and pull her close. “You’re cute. I missed you, Min. What’s tonight’s rabbit hole?”
There it is. Too honest. Too raw. But I don’t take it back.
She snuggles into me like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like my body is a place she’s allowed to rest. She doesn’t even notice she’s doing it. “The Black Plague’s impact on early prosthetics.”
“Of course. Have you learned anything interesting?”
“Duh. So, as you can probably imagine, the Black Death had massive impacts on European society, but it also kind of… jump-started the beginnings of modern medicine? Any mass-disabling event is going to require social adjustments, but the rise of the Black Death was both abrupt and protracted, and it came in waves. So instead of making a single giant change, or going into a single isolated season of lockdown, people had to keep making adjustments. And a lot of people left cities to live in remote areas, which meant that there was this mass migration toward farmland and rural life…”
I scoot in behind her, knees bracketing hers, chest to her back.
“…and because the lymph-node swelling was so extreme, surgeons actually started experimenting with crude drainage tubes—”
“Min,” I say against her ear, low enough that only she hears it.
She falters mid-sentence. “Hmm?”
Her thighs press together for half a second before she catches herself. She’s getting braver about wanting things—me included.
“Keep talking, baby. I missed this voice.”
It steadies me. Christ, I didn’t realize how much until right now.
My hands are already sliding under the hoodie, over the warm skin of her belly. She sucks in a breath but soldiers on, valiantly trying to stay on topic while I hook my fingers in her waistband.
“…which is why we see the first documented above-knee amputations in the 1360s—”
I tug. The leggings and her panties peel down in one slow drag over the perfect little curve of her ass. She squeaks, notebook tumbling out of her hands.
“Tristan—”
“Shh. Plague facts. I’m listening.”
I ease her forward onto her hands and knees right there on the rug, papers crinkling under her palms. Kepler skids to a halt, gives us one judgmental blink, then sprints off again like he’s seen too much.
She tries—God, she really tries—to keep lecturing.
“So… so the mortality rate—”
I spread her with my thumbs and lick a hot stripe straight up her center. Her voice cracks into this tiny, shocked moan.
“Fuck, there it is,” I groan against her. “Missed this pussy so much I almost cried in Detroit.”
I don’t give her time to be shy. I bury my face in her, tongue pushing inside, nose pressed to her clit, one big hand splayed across her lumbar spine to keep her exactly where I want her.
She’s already dripping, rocking back into my mouth on instinct, mewly punched-out sounds mixing with half-finished sentences about Yersinia pestis.
“Well, Detroit can do that to a person.” A little moan comes out of her on the last syllable.
I pull back only long enough to rasp, “Don’t stop talking, baby. Tell me about the prosthetics,” then dive back in, sucking her clit until her arms shake.
She lasts maybe ten more seconds.
“The—the peg leg—oh, God—early designs were—”
I slide two fingers into her and curl. She drops to her elbows, ass high, forehead on her stacked notebooks, babbling nonsense Latin while I tongue-fuck her through the first orgasm. Her thighs clamp around my ears; I just spread them wider and keep going until she’s dripping down my chin.
Fishing a condom from my pocket, I tear the wrapper with my teeth and slide it on. When she’s trembling too hard to hold herself up, I flip her hoodie higher, line up, and push inside in one slow, relentless thrust.
She cries out—my name, maybe a prayer, maybe just noise. I bottom out and have to white-knuckle her hips to keep from coming on the spot.
“Fuck, Min. Days without this sweet little cunt and I’m already losing it.”
I lean over her, one arm banded under her tits, the other hand slipping around to rub circles on her clit.
“Keep going,” I growl against her neck, starting to move in short, filthy strokes. “Tell me about the Black Death while I fuck you on your own research.”
She can’t. She’s reduced to broken gasps every time I fill her, body shaking under me, fingers clawing at the rug. I don’t last long—can’t when she’s this tight and warm and mine.
I slam deep one last time and come with her name on my tongue, feeling her clench around me in a second, quieter orgasm that leaves her boneless.
After, I pull out gently, fix her leggings just enough to be decent, dispose of the condom, and collapse onto my back. She flops half on top of me, glasses completely fogged, hair wild, cheek against my chest.
Kepler chooses that moment to leap across the couch like nothing happened.
Minerva starts laughing—breathless, stunned, happy—and hides her face against my neck.
“Welcome home.” Her lips fall open on a sip of air.
My throat goes tight.
Yeah.
Fucking finally.
After about five minutes of lying blissed out, Kepler winds down and comes to drape himself bonelessly across both of us, confirming my hypothesis that ferrets are a liquid rather than a solid. The rhythm of her voice lulls me into slumber.
When I open my eyes a little while later, Minerva is dozing. Kepler’s dainty paws twitch in his sleep. I smile to myself and close my eyes again. My neck and back are going to hurt like hell in the morning.
Like I said: worth it.