Chapter Twenty-Two Tristan #2
Letting me see the way his hand closed around his leaking cock, the way his fist tightened and eased, the way his head slipped in and out of his grip, swollen and dark, his jaw tightening, his eyes half-lidded as sensation rolled through him.
He made no attempt to hide how much he wanted this.
Wanted me. Then he leant over me, one hand braced at his base, the other pushing my leg back and open, spreading me for him.
His gaze lifted to mine. Steady. Searching. Possessive. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I breathed. “Fuck. Yeah.”
A smile curved his mouth.
Then he pushed into me and everything locked back into place.
“Oh… fuck. Yeah.” He drew back, shifted on his knees, hands sliding to the backs of my thighs, pulling me exactly where he wanted me, setting me so he could take everything.
Then he thrust.
His skin glistened as he built a rhythm, breath breaking, body driving into mine with purpose. “Oh, that feels so fucking good. Fuck. So good.”
He set the pace the way he always did once he found it and slid his hands under my thighs, hauling me closer, fitting me to him as if I’d been shaped for this.
He bent over me, forehead dropping to mine, breath torn, every thrust of himself into the space between us dragging gasps and grunts out of us both.
“Look at you,” he panted, low and wrecked. “Fuck. Look at you. All mine.”
He shifted us, rolled us, moved me where he wanted me.
Where he could see me, feel me, take everything I gave without restraint.
I became nothing but sensation under his hands, something he could move and use and lose himself in.
The bed creaked beneath us, beneath the way he drove into me as if proving to himself that we were real.
“Tris…” he breathed into the back of my neck when he had me on all fours, him behind me.
And there was something in the way he said my name that split me open. Not heat. Not need.
Claim.
He leant over me, one arm caging me in, the other sliding to me, working me as he moved.
“I’ve fucking missed you,” he grunted with every thrust. “You’ve got no idea.”
I tipped forward, and he slipped free, and I turned and wrapped myself around him instead.
I dragged my hands through his hair and over his shoulders, drawing him down to me and pulling him closer even when there was nowhere left to go.
He eased back into me as I curled my legs around his waist, chest to chest, mouth to mouth.
“Missed you, too.” I kissed him. “Need you. Here. Like this. With me.”
His hands travelled everywhere then. My hips. Ribs. Chest. As if he was checking I was still solid. Still his. Still here.
“Months,” he said roughly, rocking into me. “Fucking months of not being able to touch you. Not being able to hear you say my name.”
He bit my shoulder. Not to hurt, but not gently either. A reminder. “Say it,” he whispered.
“Richie.”
His whole body shuddered.
He kissed me again, slower, deeper, resting his forehead on mine between breaths, between every movement, every rise of my body into his.
“Mine,” he said quietly.
I pressed my mouth to his. “Yours.”
He broke apart at that.
So did I. And we came together, holding each other through the hit the way we were meant to.
After, he curled in close beside me as the tremors subsided, breathing into my neck, one arm heavy across my chest, our legs tangled together. And I lay smiling like an idiot, stroking his arm, not wanting anything else from the world but this. Us.
After a while, I slipped out from under him and went to the bathroom. I brought back a warm cloth, cleaned us both, set it on the bedside table because I doubted for a second that was the end of the night, then eased us under the covers.
When I settled back in beside him, I faced him and hovered my lips to his and asked the same thing that might have saved us months ago, “Stay.”
He lifted his head, eyeing me. “For how long?”
I inhaled sharply, remembering how I’d asked that to him in the back of the car as I bled out. And remembered his answer back. “Forever.”
He smiled. “And wake up to thwack, thwack, thwack?”
I wriggled closer until we were face to face. “A counteroffer. Wake up to me.”
His mouth curved as he pulled me in. “That’s more like it.”
“I mean.” I bit my lip. “I can thwack, thwack, thwack too, if that helps.”
“Can you?” He arched a brow.
“I’m not just the grunter.”
“No?”
“No. I can play all sides of the game.”
“Can you now…” Razor kissed me, sucking on my bottom lip. “Might need some evidence of that.”
I laughed, soft and breathless. Then we… looked at each other. Let the room settle. Let the future sit between us without flinching.
But after a moment, with the haze still clinging, I had to let him know that there were endings. “I’ll be moving out of here. No more thwacking or grunting to wake you up.”
He drew his eyebrows in. “How come?”
“The flat belongs to my family. It’s… transitional. Set up for my father, then my brother. It was always meant to be the same for me. A place you pass through. Eventually it’ll probably go to Amelia, or be folded back into the portfolio.” I shrugged. “It was never meant to be permanent.”
He shifted onto his side. “So where’re you gonna live? Back at your family’s mansion?”
“No. I’m…undecided.” I brushed my hair back.
“Traditionally, how my family’s structures work, I’d apply to draw down part of my trust to put towards a property.
There’s a discretionary fund that covers housing, education, and ‘establishment costs.’ It’s overseen by trustees.
My father’s one of them, but he’s not the only one.
They release capital in stages. The rest vests outright when I’m thirty.
No conditions. That’s usually when marriages happen.
Or children. Roots.” I gave a small smile. “Like Marcus and Eloise in Hampstead.”
“So you’re… doing that? Taking some of it. Buying somewhere.”
“That would’ve been the expected route.” I held his gaze. “But I didn’t do that.”
He pulled back slightly, studying me.
“I restructured it.” I took a breath. “Legally. Properly. With independent trustees and financial advisers. I surrendered a chunk of what would’ve come to me at thirty into a separate discretionary vehicle.
It’s no longer earmarked for me personally.
It’s ring-fenced. Future-facing.” I brushed my thumb over his collarbone.
“For whatever we decide to build. What we discussed tonight at dinner. Your charity.”
“You shouldn’t have—”
I kissed him before he could finish. “I’m not cut off.
Nor disowned. Which, to be honest, I thought might happen.
But I still have an income stream. I have capital interests.
I’m not walking away from security.” I rested my forehead on his.
“I’m choosing where my money sits. And I’ve chosen for it to sit with you.
Your enterprise. Your vision. Your purpose. ”
He went quiet.
“In exchange, they transferred the cottage to me. The one in the Chilterns.” I smiled faintly, the memory of it rising uninvited. Of him there. Of us. “It’s no longer held in trust. It’s mine outright.”
His eyes lifted to mine. “You gonna live there?”
“No. Not yet, at least.” I slid my hand up his chest, tracing the line of ink there, feeling his breath shift under my palm.
“It needs work. It could be sold. Let. Kept. It’s…
an option. Not a decision. My life’s still in London.
Chambers is still my career. I’m not disappearing into the countryside.
” I held his gaze. “But if there was someone who needed it. For a while. Space. Somewhere safe to land. Somewhere to bring up a child, maybe.”
Understanding danced across his face. “You mean… Keeley?”
“If she wants it. Or if you do.” I watched him carefully.
“It could work. She could live there. We could go at weekends. Do it up properly. Together. Or you could stay with her and I come at weekends.” I closed my eyes to stop my babbling.
Thing was, I’d been thinking about this for months while stuck in recovery. “It’s only an idea.”
He worried his lip between his teeth, clearly not sure how to hold any of this. I knew that look. He’d never been given anything that didn’t come with a hook buried in it. I didn’t want this to feel like another trap.
And I wasn’t na?ve enough to pretend we were guaranteed.
“My father would insist on legal structure around it,” I said gently. “Proper arrangements. So no one could be thrown out on a whim. If Keeley lived there, she’d have occupancy rights. If you did, so would you. It wouldn’t be a favour. It would be formal. Protected. As will your charity.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, “So what are you doing, then?”
“For now?” I shrugged. “I’ll rent. Like a normal person. I’m finally earning enough to support myself without drawing down anything. So I will. The trust stays where it is. Long-term. And I live on my salary.”
He searched my face, as if looking for the catch. The clause. The moment where it all turned conditional. “You sure?”
“Yes.” I swiped my nose down his. “I’ve been saying I wanted independence for years. Now I actually mean it.”
He pulled me closer. “Guess that makes us both starting over.”
I smiled into him. “Yeah. It does.”
We lay there for a while after that. The sound of our breathing and the feel of him beside me was an unfamiliar peace of not needing to be anywhere else.
Outside, London carried on. Sirens in the distance, a car passing too fast, life continuing whether we were ready or not.
But inside the room, everything had gone still.
For the first time, there was no crisis to outrun.
No courtroom clock ticking down. No walls closing in.
Just the two of us, stripped of the roles we’d been forced into.
Not barrister and defendant. Not saviour and liability. Not heir and enforcer.
Just men.
Bruised. Compromised. Still standing.
He shifted closer, tightening his arm around me as if anchoring us both to the moment. And I realised something then, simple and terrifying and true: we hadn’t survived this to arrive at certainty.
We’d survived it to arrive here.
To choose each other without guarantees. Without protection. With no one else telling us where we could stand.
Whatever came next—mistakes, arguments, hard days, fear—we’d meet it on our feet.
Together.
Claim it as ours.