11. Tristan
TRISTAN
W inter walks into the sitting room wearing one of my hockey sweatshirts.
It hits her mid-thigh. Bare legs except for the light pink, tall leg warmers she always wears around the house. That strip of skin between the hem and the socks is all I can focus on for a second. If the sweatshirt lifts even an inch, I’ll see the scar.
She doesn’t look at me right away. She walks straight to the bookshelf, fingers skimming the spines. Her hair is still in a braid, and she hasn’t washed off the minimal makeup she wears on nights out. She always looks quiet, soft, undone.
I watch her longer than I should. The way she tilts her head to read the titles.
The way her fingers hesitate, then drift over a familiar spine before moving on.
I know exactly what she's thinking when she lingers on the poetry section.
Her brow furrows like she's trying to remember which one I read to her last time.
She's always careful like that. I truly think she tries to match the book of the night to my mood, even if she never says it out loud.
I step closer. It’s not quite enough to touch her, but it’s sufficient to breathe her in.
Her hair smells like honey, and that tells me that she used that spray I like when she went upstairs to change. Did she do that for me? The thought alone makes heat coil low in my stomach. My hands twitch at my sides.
I clench them into fists because I’m about to boil over with this yearning need I feel for her.
My girl reaches for a book on the second shelf, rising up slightly on her toes, and the sweatshirt lifts just an inch.
My breath catches. There it is. The bottom edge of the scar.
The one I dream about every fucking night that I actually sleep.
My jaw tightens as I fight the need to reach out and pull the sweatshirt back down for her. To cover her. Protect her.
Keep her. She could have been mine if that night never happened.
She lowers herself back down, completely unaware of the turmoil brewing inside of me.
My chest aches.
It will stop aching when she’s between my legs on the couch, back resting against me, eyes closed with that little satisfied smile on her face while I read to her.
“Find anything you like?” I ask, already reaching for my phone to turn it off. She’s going to fall asleep in my arms, so I have no need to have my phone on for anyone else.
She smirks, still facing the shelf.
“Everyone hates when you do that,” she says, but there’s a smirk playing on her lips. She thinks it’s cute that I’m so grumpy, I think. Or at the very least, she finds it endearing.
I shrug, tossing my phone face down on the table. “Everyone I want to talk to is in this room right now.”
Winter glances over her shoulder, one brow lifted. “How many numbers do you even have saved in your phone?”
“Just you.”
Her eyes widen like she expected a small number, but not that small.
“Hayden and Callum? Ramsey? He’s your cousin, Tristan.” She looks at me expectantly, but I just pull my lips into a tight smile. I’m not going to lie to her. She tries one more time, “Sebastian?”
I pull my shirt off and toss it aside. I don’t miss the way her eyes track from the top of my belted jeans, up over each section of my abs, chest, and finally to my face.
Her cheeks flush, and I swear my heart rate spikes.
It’s the same every time we do this. I never get used to the way she looks at me, and I don’t think I ever will.
I walk up behind her and take her hand. She doesn’t pull away. I lift her arm higher, dragging her fingers across the top shelf while I look down at her. She tilts her chin up, eyes locking with mine. Her attention has left the books and is all on me, just the way I like it.
“Their numbers are in my call log,” I tell her, voice low. “But yours alone is the only one that is saved. And that’s how I want it.”
I realize I’m staring at her mouth. I know I have no right to take her first kiss, but I want it. I want her. All of her.
The thought makes me flinch. Because I’ve killed men for less than touching her. For less than looking at her like I do. And I’ll keep doing it. Because when it comes to Winter LeBlanc, I am feral. I am selfish. No one will ever deserve her. She’s perfect. She’s mine.
She turns to me fully, the soft fabric of the sweatshirt brushing across my bare skin. Winter’s eyes are half-lidded like she’s holding back something she wants to give away.
“Do you think one of these nights you’ll read that journal to me? The one you’re always doodling in?” she asks, and for the first time since I first met her, Winter sounds shy.
I want to laugh, because everyone thinks it’s random scribbles, probably my grievances that I don’t say out loud.
I let a small, crooked smile slip just for her.
“Maybe one night I will,” I say. And I mean it, because I want her to know the things I’ve written down and kept secret all these years.
“But for tonight, how about Jane Eyre ?”
She grins, the kind that softens her whole face. “Deal.”
I want to add something then, but I know it’s not the time.
I’d never kept a journal before. Doctors and therapists tried to force me into it when I was a kid because of the murder Sebastian and I saw.
They said writing out my feelings would supposedly untangle things.
I refused. I hated the idea of dumping my thoughts into a book.
Then I met Winter.
That first night, when everyone else had gone to bed, I found an empty notebook under a stack of magazines and I wrote.
Not some careful, clinical list of feelings like the therapists wanted, but instead there’s just words for her.
Each entry since has been for her…every stupid, gut-wrenching, worshiping thought I’ve ever had.
I draw her in the margins, too. Her braid.
Her eyes…even the stupid pink bows. I write the things I’ll never say out loud.
I confess how furious I get at the world for ruining us.
I write about the way she tucks her chin when I read and how that look makes me want to break something and build something all at once.
Maybe one day I’ll let her in. Maybe she’ll hold those pages and see the parts of me I won’t let anyone else touch.
She owns those thoughts already, just like she owns the nights I can’t sleep and the ruthless way my brain bends only toward her.
My journals are the only place I can be honest without hurting her or taking more from her than I should.
For now, it stays my secret. For now, it’s the only place where the ugly, desperate truth about how much I want her can exist without ruining what we’ve rebuilt.
I pull the book we’re reading tonight down and walk over to the couch, dropping into it the way I always do so she can take her place between my long legs.
Winter walks over to me, climbs up without hesitation, and settles against my chest. She doesn’t even wait for me to start reading before she nestles in, eyes closing like she’s home.
“I know you probably won’t believe this,” she says suddenly, voice soft, “but your voice soothes me.”
The words hit me like a fucking train. I wish I could believe it, but I don’t see how that’s possible. My throat tightens, but I clear it and begin reading anyway…in Russian. I could read in English, but this is our thing. Nobody else can touch it, and that’s why I like it.
Winter’s body relaxes against mine as I speak. After a moment, she reaches up and takes the book from me. She holds it in her hands while I keep reading, her eyes tracking the page.
I stroke her hair softly, but it’s still tied back in the long braid I put in for her this morning. My palm cups the back of her head, fingers rubbing slow circles at the base of her neck. She moans, low and unguarded, as I massage her scalp, neck and shoulders.
My cock twitches at the sound. I know without a doubt that if she so much as shifts against me, I’m going to blow instantly.
I shift my hips carefully so she won’t feel how hard I am, and I keep reading.
My hands find her hair again. The only thing that gives me a small bit of peace is doing things for her.
That started the second I met her. It’s how I love her.
Acts of service and physical touch. Making sure she’s cared for.
When I glance down at her pretty face, I realize she’s fallen asleep. It guts me that she’s comfortable enough in my arms to let go like this. I take the book from her hands and set it on the table.
Then I reach for my phone and open the recording app. Most people would think it’s fucked up, but I don’t care. I love recording her while she sleeps so I can listen when she’s not with me. It calms me in a way nothing else ever could.
I lay the phone on my chest, angling it to catch the sound of her breathing.
“Tristan,” she whispers suddenly, still asleep. She shifts onto her side, leg bending over my lap.
Her skin brushes my cock through my jeans.
I freeze.
The fabric of my pants does nothing to mute the feel of her thigh rubbing against me. I gasp quietly, sucking in a breath through my teeth. Her hand drags down my chest in her sleep, fingers curling loosely in the waistband like she’s very much in control of herself.
“Please, Tristan,” she moans.
Fuck. Fuck.
My whole body goes tight.
She shifts again, the fabric of my hoodie riding up her thighs, warm skin sliding across the thick, denim-covered bulge between my legs. I squeeze my eyes shut. Try to breathe. Try to think of anything but her scent, her slight weight on me, the sound of her moaning my name in her sleep.
But then she exhales softly, lips brushing my throat. I feel the press of her chest against mine. Her leg moves again, unconsciously grinding against my cock.
My hand fists in her hair because I need to be connected to her in every way possible in this moment.
I grit my teeth. Try to breathe through it. But I can feel my orgasm building. Pressure winding tight in my stomach, heat rising, my fucking loud ass pulse thundering in my neck.
I’m going to come. I know it. I can’t stop it.
And then her body shifts again, like she’s trying to move deeper inside the dream world she’s created. The softest whimper leaves her lips as she presses even harder against me. My name falls from her mouth like a prayer.
And that's when I lose it.
My eyes squeeze shut as I come hard in my pants, grunting low as my hips jerk just once, helplessly, against her. My muscles lock. My hand tightens in her hair. The warmth floods through me, dizzying and fucked and euphoric and so fucking wrong.
She’s still asleep. Still innocent. Still dreaming.
And I just came in my fucking pants.
Shame hits me hard. It slams into my chest like a punch, knocking the breath out of me.
I release her hair immediately, smoothing it down, trying to make up for what I just let happen.
My heart pounds with guilt, but my cock is still twitching in the aftermath.
It’s sticky and hot in my jeans. I’m still half hard because she’s still pressed against me, and I hate myself for that.
It just goes to prove that nothing I take from her, nothing she willingly gives me will ever be enough. I will always be needy for her.
I don’t move. I just hold her tighter. Because I’m a coward. A sick, selfish coward who needs her too badly to let go.
I press my face into her hair and breathe her in like it will keep me alive.
If I don’t have her fully, and soon, I’m going to lose my fucking mind and take her to hell with me.