Chapter 18 Vance
EIGHTEEN
Vance
“This is the first time … ever, I think,” Tristan dips his head, “that I’ve looked forward to going home on Christmas Eve.” He’s beaming as the elevator pings and opens on our floor. Emotions clog my throat, I wrap an arm around him tugging him against me.
Poppy really is a fucking angel. What she’s done for him should be studied. She’s awakened a joy in him that I’ve never seen before. She’s a light lifting his darkness, like a sunrise soaking into every corner, bleeding it out.
“Do you think she’ll accept the present I got her?” he asks, hovering the key at the lock.
“I don’t think any of us can deny what this is between us, Trist. It’s real, and I think whatever happens, she’s ours.” He nods his head, opening the door.
A thrill burns up my spine, knowing she will be soaked and ready to be fucked for hours after the torment of the clamps.
“What the fuck?” Tristan’s voice freezes my blood, and I almost fall against him when I see Miranda sitting naked in the chair we left Poppy in before we left. “Where’s Poppy?” There’s an urgency in his tone as he throws down the shopping bags and marches through the apartment, searching for her.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growl, reaching for Miranda’s arm and hauling her out of the chair, raw anger unfurling in my gut.
“I came to keep Tris company.” Pouting, she yanks her arm free. “I didn’t know you or your latest slut would be here. A bit na?ve, that one, Vance.”
I jab a finger at her. “Watch it.”
Her eyes flare as she folds her arms, which push her tits up. But they’re not Poppy’s tits and Miranda is a far cry from my Angel. For the first time in my life, I only want one woman.
“She’s not here,” Tristan wheezes, coming back into the room.
Not many people see the real Tristan–the boy inside the man’s body–they only see the boss, the fucking CEO of a billion-dollar company, the daddy in the bedroom.
He wore the facade well, but it’s peeling back right now, like a snake shredding its skin.
Trudging towards Miranda, he clasps her neck in his meaty grip and backs her up to the closest wall, her head hitting it with a soft thud.
“Let me go.” She scratches at him like a feral cat. Her red hair flies around, her tits bouncing as she tries to find purchase on the marble floor beneath her.
“Where is she?” he demands. Tall and strong, he easily lifts her.
Miranda is going redder than her pubic hair, so I brush a palm down his arm. “Let her go.”
“No.” He growls over his shoulder right in my face like a fucking beast.
“She can’t answer you if she can’t breathe.”
Looking back at Miranda–whose eyeballs are becoming bloodshot–he drops his hold on her, and she collapses to the floor, inhaling with raspy, choked sobs. “You could have killed me,” she croaks, pulling her body across the floor to put space between us.
“How did you get in here?” I ask, stalking her.
Her eyes ping-pong between Tristan and me, swallowing excessively as she drags herself to her feet and slips into a cream-colored coat. “I took a key.”
“What?” Tristan thunders.
“I wanted to surprise you for Christmas. I didn’t know you had a new girl.” She swats at the tears on her face, a string of snot dripping from her nose to her top lip.
“You can’t just take a fucking key. Are you crazy?” Anger seeps from my pores, kicking her shoe toward her when she struggles to locate it.
After sliding it on, she stiffens her spine and flicks her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t understand.” There’s a weird, tight smile on her lips. “You don’t need any other girls, Tristan. I can be whatever you need.” She says, gulping and reaching a hand toward him.
He steps back, disgust contorting his handsome face as he sneers. “I told you, I don’t want you like that, but you won’t take the hint.” She recoils, yet he continues. “I’m going to ask you this one more time, and if you don’t answer me, you’re going out the fucking window headfirst.”
Fear sparks in her eyes as she looks to me for help. Good luck.
Taking a predatory step toward her, Tristan punctuates each word when he asks, “Where. The. Fuck. Is. Poppy?”
When she stutters, he roars, “Where?” He’s right in her face, the force of his question making her hair shift and spittle spray her lips.
“If Poppy is the contracted girl you had tied to the chair when I arrived, she left.” She squares her jaw then gingerly moves past Tristan.
Before she can get to the front door, Tristan announces, “She’s not a fucking contracted anything, she’s our girl.
And if you ever come into this building, let alone this apartment, you won’t ever leave it.
I’ll tie you to that fucking chair until you rot, stinking and decaying. It’ll become your grave.”
On trembling legs, she hurries to exit the apartment, throwing the house key on the table. It clanks and skids before coming to a stop. “A bit much?” I ask, raising a brow.
“We need to find her, Vance.” Tristan’s pulse jumps in his throat, fists clenched against his thighs
“There aren’t many places she can be, we weren’t gone long, and she doesn’t know many people here.”
“The hotel–where you met her.” Tristan rushes past me.
“You really think she would come back here?” Tristan asks after we have no luck at the hotel.
Approaching the door of Josh’s apartment, I lift a shoulder.
“He left, so she can be alone here until he returns. It makes sense. You said she didn’t take any of the things you bought her, so she’s going to need clothes.
” I take a deep breath, because if she’s not here, I’m out of ideas, and she’s not answering our calls.
I rap my knuckles on the wood, and when no one answers after about thirty seconds, Tristan plasters himself against it, smashing his ear against the wood, listening. “I hear movement in there.”
When I knock again, he frowns at me. The sound must be really fucking loud with his ear still pressed there.
“Someone’s coming,” he announces, pushing himself back.
The door swings open, and relief washes through me. Tristan doesn’t even give Poppy a chance to speak before he lets himself inside, snatching her up and pinning her to his chest.
“Where did you go?” His words sound like a plea, clutching onto her as she wriggles to get free from him. Her skin is blotchy, and her eyes are red-rimmed as though she’s been crying.
Looking like someone just stole from his sweet jar, Tristan reluctantly releases her, running a hand down his face. Wearing a tee and shorts, she saunters down the hallway and into a room before returning with one of my T-shirts, throwing it at me.
“I was going to wash them and put them in the mail,” she tells me, not meeting my eyes.
I blow out a frustrated breath, throwing the shirt onto the ground noticing there’s a pair of shorts with it too. “I don’t give a shit about the clothes, Angel.”
“I can’t do this.” She circles her finger, gesturing to us. “It’s too hard.”
My chest deflates, caving in on itself. Not many women can handle us, can do what we do, but it felt like she was ours, made for us. Not once did it feel wrong or like she didn’t want us.
“Don’t say that.” Tristan speaks so quietly, I’m not sure she heard him until her brow puckers, and she swipes a stray tear from her eye.
“We’re sorry about Miranda,” he continues. “We had no fucking clue she stole a key.”
“She stole your key?” There’s anger in her tone. “That woman…” She shudders. “I’m not like those women.”
“We know.” I move toward her, but she steps back. “We don’t want you to be like her.”
“Come home, Poppy. Please,” Tristan implores her.
Shaking her head, she throws her hands up then lets them crash against her sides, walking barefoot into the room she disappeared into moments before.
We both follow her trail, finding her in a bedroom, Tristan follows her inside but I linger at the threshold giving her some space.
There’s a weird stirring in my gut, watching her load clothes into a suitcase laid out on a queen bed. “Are you packing to come home?” Tristan asks hopefully, and I wish I had his optimism.
“It’s not my home, Tristan. And if I did go with you, when you’re done with me in a few weeks, I’ll be in a worse situation than I am now.” She looks around the room before approaching a dresser, pulling open a drawer, and gathering underwear, dropping a few pairs on her way back to the suitcase.
Like a dragon finding gold, Tristan snatches up the fallen pairs and pockets them. “Why the hell would we be done with you in a few weeks?” he asks, confusion twisting his features.
Her deep inhalation is audible as she stops packing to look at him.
“I heard you talking this morning about a contract and it only having been a few weeks.” There’s anger laced with the pain in her tone.
“Your redhead woman told me you usually have three-month contracts.” Nostrils flaring, she angrily presses the heels of her palms against the tears welling in her eyes.
He looks at her, dumbfounded. Before she can turn away from him, he grasps her face, brushing his thumbs over her cheeks to capture her leaking tears.
“Don’t Tristan.” Clearly she’s upset, but a tiny speck of hope starts to grow within me when she doesn’t pull away from him “I can’t do this with you. It means more to me, is more to me than just sex, and it would break me to be replaced in a few weeks or months.”
He holds her as she sniffles and whines, kissing her forehead then over each eye as she flutters them closed.
“The contract was for work. I didn’t want things to get complicated, so I had a relationship contract drawn up.
” Her eyes widen, tilting her head to gape up at him.
“We were discussing whether it was necessary, with you only having a few weeks left until Robert returns.”
Green, wild eyes flit to me, and I nod in confirmation. Gripping his forearms, she urges him to release her face, and he does, but he moves his hands to her hips like he’s frightened to lose the connection.
“What about the three-month contracts the woman mentioned?”
“She’s a bitch,” I shrug. “And she was jealous to find you there.”
“So she lied?”
“Not exactly.” Tristan runs a hand across the back of his neck as she blinks up at him.
Entering the small space, I take her hands and encourage her to sit on the bed, lowering to my haunches to be at the same height as her.
“Before you, there were women we shared and had contracts with in order to protect all parties.” Damn.
It sounds dickish when I say it out loud.
“There are some women who target men like us because of our wealth, and well, with our particular needs, it’s easier to have a contract in place so everyone knows what they’re getting into. ”
Her cheeks blossom that adorable shade of pink as she nods her head. “But you don’t want me to sign a contract?” she asks.
“Fuck no,” Tristan answers for us both, dropping his ass next to her and sniffing her hair like a predator.
Capturing her chin, I draw her gaze from him to me, “You’re not like those other women. None of them shared our beds. With them it was always a transactional kind of thing.”
“With you, it’s everything,” Tristan adds, she leans into him when he runs the backs of his fingers down her face. I’m glad she’s taking this so well, because I’ve never seen him like this. I genuinely think he’d fucking keep her whether she wanted him to or not.
“Please come home.” He whispers, tilting her face to his and catching her lips in a soft kiss. She sags into him, all the stress leaving her body, and my heart finally stops pounding out of my chest.
“Okay,” she murmurs.
“Okay,” Tristan and I say together.
“That woman is gone, though? Because you may like to share, but I don’t.” Her stern tone has my cock twitching with glee, loving her jealousy.
“You’ll never have to see her again,” Tristan assures her, pulling her to her feet and out of the room.
“My things,” she says, attempting to tug free from him.
“We’ll buy you new things,” he replies, not releasing her. She giggles when he scoops her up in a bridal hold and marches out of the apartment.