Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Merritt
T ristan’s mouth slammed down on mine, pouring every ounce of his desire for me into the kiss. It was hungry and desperate and so full of need it made my skin vibrate.
“Tristan,” I panted, pulling in a breath when he ripped his mouth from mine to drag his lips and teeth down my neck and along my collarbone. My hands came up and tangled in his hair, holding him to me. It was the only way I could think to stay grounded as he worked the button of my shorts open and slid his hand inside.
A whimper pushed past my lips at the first swipe of his fingers through my wetness.
He pulled back, the blue of his eyes swallowed by his dilated pupils. “Already ready for me.”
“This is what you always do to me. I can’t get enough of you touching me.” My words ended on a cry as he slid his fingers past my folds and deep inside me. Words left me completely when he crooked them in a come-hither motion, rubbing against a place inside me that had never been touched before.
“Oh God!” I cried, my body jolting at the sensation. It felt like I was levitating right off the dresser. “So good. Never been like this.” My sentences came out choppy and incomplete as my body strung tighter, making it impossible to form a coherent thought.
“Jesus,” Tristan grunted against my throat, his tongue flicking over my pulse. “The way your body responds to me, Dandelion. I can feel you getting close.”
His thumb came into play then, pressing down against my clit as he brushed that place inside, and every single cell in my body, every nerve ending and neuron, exploded outward into the atmosphere.
“Christ, you’re so fuckin’ pretty when you come,” he murmured against my lips as he slipped his hand from my shorts. A tremor worked through my body as I watched him bring his glistening fingers to his lips and lick them clean of my arousal. “Sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.”
I’d come so hard I couldn’t think straight, but seeing how his eyes flared at the taste of me, the way his desire for me was carved into every line and angle of his face made me want him all over again.
“Please,” I begged, needing more. Needing everything .
“Please what, baby? What are you asking for?”
I went from pleading to demanding in the blink of an eye. “I need you inside me. Now , Tristan.” Fisting the material of his shirt, I whipped it up and over his head, tossing it aside. We tore at each other’s clothes until we were both naked in only a few seconds.
Tristan grabbed me by the waist and spun me around so fast my hair whipped into my face. “Want you like this,” he said, pressing his chest against my back, forcing me to lean forward and brace my hands on the top of the dresser. He moved behind me, his thick, long cock slipping between my legs from behind and dragging through my slit. His hand caressed every inch of my body that he could reach as he dragged his teeth along the crook of my shoulder.
His tip nudged against my entrance, and I sucked in a bracing breath, preparing myself to take him, but he didn’t push in right away.
When he stayed motionless, I turned to look back at him over my shoulder.
“Is this okay?” he asked, needing to know I wanted everything he was doing before taking it any further. He was always taking care of me. It was one of the many, many things I loved, that made him so damn special.
“More than okay. I need to feel you.”
He entered me in one swift thrust, his hips snapping against my ass as he buried himself deep, stretching me wide. No matter how many times we’d done this, that first thrust still drove the air from my lungs. He was so much bigger than anyone who had come before.
“Oh God,” I groaned, dropping my head forward and pressing my hands harder into the scarred wood of the dresser. “You’re so deep like this.”
“Fuck, you feel like heaven wrapped around me,” he panted as he pulled out and drove back it.
“It’s never been like this,” I confessed as I began to rock my hips, pushing back into him every time he slammed forward. “Never been this good.”
I felt his mouth at my neck, kissing and sucking the skin there as he lost control and fucked me harder... faster. “You were made for me. Merritt. Made to be mine. Say it, baby. Tell me you’re mine.”
I didn’t hesitate. “I’m yours,” I breathed as the tension in my core started to build again. “I’m yours, Tristan.”
“Goddamn right you are,” he grunted. “Now come for me, baby,” he ordered, tipping his hips in a way that hit my G-spot at the same time he reached down to where we were connected and began circling my clit.
I shattered into a million pieces, bursting apart like the stars behind my eyes. My whole world lit up in technicolor. His name was a benediction on my lips as I came harder than I ever had before.
“Love you,” he growled against my ear before burying himself deep and following me over the edge into sheer bliss.
Tristan’s fingers trailed along my back in slow, lazy movements, brushing up and down along the ridges of my spine. The touch was calming, soothing, and added to the peace of the moment. These were my favorites times of day. The minutes that came after we made love, when Tristan and I were lying in bed wrapped around each other. In those minutes, nothing existed but the two of us. We got to exist in our own peaceful little bubble for a short period of time before the rest of the world came creeping back in.
He must have enjoyed these moments as much as I did, because as soon as he came down from his release, he didn’t bother putting on a single stitch of clothing before he scooped me up into his arms and carried me through the house to our bedroom, where he proceeded to lock us in an intimate embrace.
I snuggled deeper into his chest, his arm wrapped around my waist tightened, pulling me against him. My mind blinked back to the conversation we’d had right before we went at each other like animals. He loved me.
The thought made me giddy with joy. The smile that stretched across my face was so big it made my cheeks hurt. He loved me, and he wanted Levi and me to stay with him for good.
His voice came out low and raspy as he said, “I feel you smiling against my skin, Dandelion. What’s got you grinning so big?”
I didn’t bother schooling my features as I folded my hands on top of his chest and braced my chin on top so I could look at his gorgeous face. He looked as relaxed as I felt. His lids were heavy over those sky-blue eyes. The contentment etched into the planes of his face looked incredible on him. He was so beautiful.
“You love me.”
“I do,” he confirmed.
“That’s why I’m smiling.” My smile got impossibly bigger, but happiness drowned out the throb in my cheeks at the stretch.
The grin Tristan returned warmed me from the inside out. “I take it from the Joker grin that you liked hearin’ that.”
I gave his chest a smack then reached to twist his nipple in retaliation for his teasing.
“Ah, Christ! I was just jokin’!” He reached up to rub the abused skin, his bottom lip sticking out in a pout as he scowled down at me. “Rude.”
“You deserved it for making fun of me.” My sentence ended on a squeal when Tristan sprang into action, changing our position so fast my hair flew into my eyes. He used his hips to pin me to the mattress, hovering over me and reaching up to brush the hair back from my face.
“I love you,” he rasped, the playfulness gone from his expression and replaced with utter sincerity.
“I love you too,” I returned softly. Joy swelled inside of me, growing so big I worried my skin wouldn’t be able to contain it all, and it would come bursting from the tips of my toes and fingers like beams of light. “So much, Tristan.”
A rumbling sound roiled through his chest as he gave me more of his weight. “Christ. I’ll never get tired of hearin’ that. Say it again, baby,” he requested.
“I love you.” My lips brushed against his as I gave him those words. I felt him start to grow hard again, but just as he was leaning in to kiss me, a sharp, demanding bark rose from the floor beside the bed.
Tristan dropped his forehead into the crook of my shoulder and let out a pained groan. “Cockblockin’ little shit,” he muttered under his breath, making me laugh.
As though Doc heard him and wanted to make his displeasure at the name calling known, he barked again, this time tacking a small, pathetic growl onto the end.
“He probably just needs to go out,” I said on a giggle.
Tristan lifted his head and shot him a glare. “You have a doggie door, for Christ’s sake. Why won’t you ever use it?”
“For the same reason he feels he should be carted around all day instead of walking,” I answered drolly, shooting him an accusatory expression. “Because you’ve spoiled him rotten.”
He didn’t have a rebuttal for that. He knew I was right. Doc barked again, as if to agree with me.
Tristan pushed up with a groan, sitting up and throwing his legs over the side of the bed. “Fine,” he grumbled, making his way over to the dresser and pulling out a pair of navy boxer briefs since the clothes we’d stripped off earlier were still in a pile in the garage.
Without him curled up in the bed with me, I had no desire to stay there, so I got up as well, throwing on another one of his T-shirts and padding down the hall after him. As he let Doc out, I caught sight of the files and documents he’d been working on earlier. They were strewn across the table like he’d gotten frustrated at something and shoved them away. Instinct had me moving in that direction, my fingers itching to reorganize and straighten up. A hazard of my current job I’d started bringing home with me lately, I guess.
I picked up a couple papers and tapped the edges against the table to stack them together neatly, then put them aside. I flipped the top of a folder closed and spotted a photo underneath.
Picking it up, I flipped it around to face Tristan and asked, “Why do you have a picture of Walter Reeves?”
Tristan’s eyes bounced from the man in the printed-out driver’s license photo to me. “He was one of the overdose vics in the same drug case your brother’s wrapped up in.”
I knew about that case. He’d come home grumpy and frustrated more than once because they weren’t getting anywhere.
His brows pulled together. “You know him?”
“Not personally. He was part of Warren’s inner circle so I saw him around, occasionally talked to him, but that’s it. I never really liked him,” I admitted. “He was creepy and chauvinistic, as were all those other guys he’s friends with.”
Something shifted over Tristan’s expression, and he started riffling through the documents. He pulled out five more photographs and put them in a line on the table. “Do you recognize any of these people?”
I frowned up at Tristan. “These are all the people who overdosed?”
He nodded gravely, and I knew by the look on his face that this case was still bothering him. I studied the photographs and pointed at one on the far left. “This guy looks familiar.” I sifted through my mind, trying to recall where I knew him from. “I think it was at a charity banquet Warren took me to. I was coming back from the bathroom and saw them over in a corner by the bar. It looked like they were arguing about something.”
“You don’t know what?”
I shook my head. “Warren never really shared much about his work with me. I asked, but he told me it wasn’t any of my business, and I wouldn’t be able to understand if he tried to explain it to me.”
Tristan let loose a string of curses, calling Warren some incredibly colorful names. “If I ever get the chance to beat that asshole senseless, I won’t hesitate.”
There was one other face I recognized. He was a guy Warren had gone to college with. Like all of his other friends, I didn’t know him well, but I recalled Warren coming home in a bad mood because some kind of business deal between them had fallen through. He was so pissed he’d thrown his dinner plate against the wall and backhanded me across the face. But I didn’t share that part of the story with Tristan. He was finally getting over the scene from the day before, and I didn’t want him to backslide, not after the perfect afternoon we’d shared.
He studied the documents and photos on the table like he was staring at everything with a fresh set of eyes.
“Did I help with something?” I asked, an ember of hope sparking to life in my gut.
He lifted his gaze to mine and smiled. “You might have, baby. I’ll have to look into some things when I go back to work tomorrow, but I think you might have pointed me in a new direction.”
I beamed, bouncing in place. “Glad I could help,” I chirped.
Tristan wound an arm around my waist and pulled me flush against him. “I’m glad too.” He leaned in and nuzzled my neck, spreading goosebumps across my skin. “But I’m done talking about work. There are much more tantalizing ways I want to spend the next couple hours before we have to pick Levi up from school.”
With an excited squeal, I broke free from his hold and took off for the bedroom, anticipation heating my blood and core as his footsteps chased after me.