4. Tristan
TRISTAN
Her couch is terrible.
One cushion sinks like a trapdoor, and it happens to be the cushion I’m currently sitting on.
The whole thing smells like the previous tenant had strong feelings toward Marlboro Reds.
I’ve sat on worse. Interrogation chairs, holding cells.
I was once in the back of a van with no shocks down the Jersey Turnpike.
Yet somehow, none of it compares to the spring currently sticking me in the ass through a practically nonexistent cushion.
And none of those seats came with a blanket that has cats all over it. Stella handed it to me like it was a gift. “You look cold,” she explained before helping me arrange it over my legs.
I wasn’t cold. I was, and still am, fighting with an entire laundry list of thoughts and impressions.
Cold was nowhere near that list. However, I’ll take anything she gives me, including this ridiculous blanket, because it gives her an excuse to cuddle up closer to me and to pull the blanket over herself as well.
“Have you seen this?” she asks after picking a movie. Something French with subtitles. “It’s about a woman who works in a café and secretly fixes people’s lives. It’s really beautiful.”
“That sounds good.” I have no intention of paying attention to it. Not while she’s pressed against my arm and strands of hair have come loose from her bun.
Not to mention a certain rabbit sitting on his cushion four feet away, staring at me like I’m a suspect he hasn’t cleared yet. When I stare back, the rabbit doesn’t blink. I’m not proud of the fact that I look away first.
Twenty minutes into the movie, Stella shifts. Her head ends up on my shoulder and her hand lands on my thigh. It’s a casual touch, like she doesn’t notice she’s done it.
I notice. I notice very much. My entire nervous system notices, in fact.
“This part is so good,” she whispers, focused on the screen.
Meanwhile, her fingers are four inches from where I very much want them to be but need them not to be if there’s any hope of getting through this without offending her or scaring her off for good.
On screen, a woman is delivering a monologue in French that I’m sure is life-changing, but I’m reading none of the subtitles.
Instead, I’m staring at the wall behind the TV and thinking about cold things. Snow. Ice baths.
It’s not working.
“Are you okay?” Stella pulls her head back, looking at me with a frown. “You seem very tense.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Because you’re doing that thing where your whole face turns into concrete.” She scowls, and I have to admit, she’s doing a fairly good impression of me. “Do you hate the movie? We can watch something else. I also have—”
She’s spiraling, and there’s only one efficient way to stop the spiral. It’s also something I’ve been wanting to do since she tucked me under a cat blanket. I kiss her.
She makes a small, surprised sound before melting into it.
Her hand comes up to the front of my shirt while my hand finds the back of her head, holding it in place so I can tilt my own and fit our mouths together.
When I probe the seam of her lips, she parts them and moans helplessly when my tongue slips through and finds hers.
When I pull back, she blinks at me like she’s dazed. “That was better than the movie.”
I’ll take that as a compliment. She fits against my side once I put my arm around her, and for a few minutes, that’s all it is.
Her warmth, her weight. Something tells me neither of us is paying attention to the movie anymore.
Not even Socks, who is now on the arm of the couch and approximately eighteen inches from my face.
“Does he always watch like this?” I ask, barely moving my mouth.
“Watch what?”
“Everything. Me.”
“Because he likes you. That’s his interested face.”
“It’s the same face he made when I walked in the first time. You told me that was judgment.”
“It’s an entire range. Don’t overthink it.
” She tilts her chin up and kisses my jaw, which derails the rabbit conversation entirely.
Then she pulls back and looks at me with an expression that’s still warm and open but also touched with nerves.
It could have to do with the lines bracketing her mouth or the way her brows draw together. “Can I tell you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve never done this before.” She gestures between us. “Any of this. The couch thing, the kissing thing, the...” She waves vaguely at my entire body. “Thing.”
The only thing that keeps my head from snapping back in surprise is the thought that it might offend her. She’s opening up to me. I can’t throw away this gift. “You’ve never been with anyone?”
“Not once. My number is—” She holds up a hand, her thumb touching her index finger. “That’s a zero, in case the visual wasn’t clear.”
“I got it.”
“That’s probably weird for a twenty-one-year-old,” she continues, “and I know you’ve probably been with—I mean, look at you. The anxiety makes it hard to get close to people. The only men I’ve talked to in the past year are delivery guys and one very nice pharmacist, and—”
“Stella.” Her mouth snaps shut. “We don’t do anything you don’t want to do. Nothing happens unless you say so.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “Okay.”
“We’ll go slow. I’ll tell you everything before I do it, so there aren’t any surprises.”
Her face goes pink to the roots of her hair. “What do you mean, you’ll tell me?”
“I mean I’ll walk you through it. Every step. You’ll know what’s coming.”
Now the flush has spread down her neck and across her collarbones. “Oh. That’s actually really helpful, because surprises... they’re on the list.”
“I guess they would be.” I pull her closer and kiss her again, only this time I don’t stop. I take it slow the way I told her I would. My hand on her neck. My mouth skimming a spot on her jaw that makes her shiver. “Is this okay?” I whisper against her skin.
“Yes. Very okay. Please continue.”
I lay her back against the arm of the couch, moving slowly so she has time to stop me. She doesn’t. No, she pulls me closer with her fingers twisted in my shirt, and I settle over her, bracing my weight on one arm so I don’t crush her.
“I’m going to touch you,” I tell her while my hand slides down her side, over her hip. “Right here. You’re gonna tell me if it’s too much.”
Her eyes are closed, her chest rising and falling faster the lower I travel. “It’s not too much.” Her voice is thin and breathless. “It’s the opposite of too much.”
I slip my hand under the waistband of her jeans, and she inhales sharply, hips lifting. She’s already wet when my fingers find her under a pair of thin cotton panties. The sound I make is low enough, primal enough, that it surprises even me. “Fuck, Stella.”
“Is that bad... is that good?” She’s gripping my arm with both hands, her eyes wide.
“That’s perfect.” I stroke her swollen, slick lips. Slowly, barely moving, watching as everything registers on her face. Reading every twitch. Every catch of breath. “You’re so wet for me. You know that? You’ve been like this since we were cuddling under the blanket, haven’t you?”
She turns crimson. “Maybe.”
“Not maybe.” I press harder, circling her clit with my thumb. Her entire body jolts. “Tell me the truth.”
“Yes!” she gasps. “Yes, since the blanket, since you sat down, since—God—!”
“Good girl.” I keep the pace slow. Steady. “I’m going to make you come. Right here on this couch, with my fingers. And you’re going to let me hear it.”
She lets out a sound that could be dread, could be fear. “Every sound,” I demand. “Don’t hold anything back.”
I slide two fingers inside her and the noise she makes is loud enough that I feel it vibrate through my chest. Her back arches off the cushion and her hands fly to the back of my neck, nails digging in.
I keep my mouth at her ear, talking her through it.
“You feel so good. You’re so tight around my fingers.
I can smell you, you know that? I can smell your pussy. ”
“God!” she moans, moving her hips, working against my hand.
“I’m going to learn every single thing that makes you fall apart,” I whisper, “and then I’m going to do all of them. Over and over. I’m going to do it until you can’t remember your own name.”
Her hips rock faster. “I can’t!” she pants. “It’s too… I’m going to…”
“Let go,” I urge. “I’ve got you. Come for me.”
That’s what does it. That’s what makes her break. Her body locks up, both hands gripping my shoulders hard enough I know I’ll bruise. And then her head falls back and her back arches, and she lets out something silent, soundless.
And I work her through it. My fingers are still moving, my mouth at her ear. “You’re beautiful,” I whisper while she whimpers. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
When I pull my head back, she’s blinking at the ceiling. “Holy shit,” she whispers.
“Are you okay?”
“I think I saw colors. Actual colors.” She turns her head to look at me, dazed and flushed, so goddamn beautiful it’s like a fist to my sternum. “Your turn.”
“Oh, no. You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” She sits up, still trembling, and her hands go to my belt. She’s nervous, of course. Her fingers fumble with the buckle as she murmurs, “Tell me what to do. I want to know what you like.”
So I do. I guide her hand, then her mouth. “Take your time,” I murmur, stroking her hair. “Use your tongue. No teeth.”
“Even I know that.” Then she lets me slip past her lips, and I close my eyes, caught between taking care of her and enjoying the feeling of the wet heat gripping my shaft.
She’s a fast learner. She picks up on what works and doubles down on it. Her hair falls across my lap in a curtain of red that moves every time her head bobs, and I’m close, right there, so close to the edge—
I open my eyes.
The rabbit is on the coffee table.
He’s facing me directly, and his expression has shifted from interested to what I can only describe as prosecutorial. His black eyes are unblinking and his ears are flat.
Everything stalls.
“What’s wrong?” Stella’s lips are swollen when she lifts her head, eyes filled with concern. “Did I do something wrong?”
“You’re perfect. It’s not you.”
“Then what—” She follows my gaze and sees the rabbit on the coffee table, bearing witness to all of this. “Oh. Gotcha.”
Then she looks at me and shrugs. “He probably just wants attention.”
“He has my full attention. That’s the problem.”
She presses her face into my thigh and starts laughing. I feel it vibrating through me, and under any other circumstances, the feeling of her laughing against my lap would be the opposite of helpful. Right now, it’s the only thing keeping me from losing my mind.
“Bedroom,” I decide. “Now.”
I stand, pull her up with me, and carry her down the hall. She’s still laughing against my shoulder when I kick the bedroom door shut with my foot, but the laugh dies when I put her on the bed and follow her down, settling between her thighs.
“Where were we?” she whispers with a wicked gleam in her eye.
I answer by pushing into her hand, which she wraps around me without hesitation this time.
Her mouth follows, and now the angle is better and the privacy is complete.
I last about ninety seconds before I come so hard my vision whites out.
“Stella...” I groan with her hair wrapped around one of my fists and my heart in my throat.
She takes every drop, too, then grins at me like she’s proud of herself.
She even curls against my chest afterward like she’s been doing it for years. What’s more interesting is that I let her. That I wrap my arms around her and hold her close while her breathing slows. Her hand finds mine in the tangle of sheets.
“Tristan?” she whispers, already fading out. “Socks is going to be weird with you now.”
“Socks was already weird with me.”
“Fair enough.” She yawns. “That was...”
“Yeah, it was.”
“I’m sleepy now. Are you sleepy?”
“A little,” I admit.
“Take your clothes off. Get comfortable.” She offers a sleepy smile. “You earned it.”
She’s not wrong... though something tells me I haven’t come close to earning her.
Though as I settle back down, and she melts against my bare chest, a small voice in the back of my head wonders if I’m already on my way.