CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO #2
I gathered my pillow bag with the money and pills. I sorted through the fresh clothes and packed the underwear away. A change of clothes. A sweater, even though the day was hot. I added a bottle of water and a few wrapped granola bars from the pantry.
The bag looked pitiful.
Over a decade of my life reduced to something I could carry over one shoulder. But it was ready when I was. I hid it back in the basket.
I made myself something small to eat, but I couldn’t swallow more than a few bites. Tristan had been gone for nearly the whole day. Maybe he really had left. He could be long gone by now.
Panic crawled beneath my skin. I went upstairs and checked the time.
Seven forty-two.
I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to reason with myself.
Tristan was a single man. I hardly knew him. He owed me no explanation. He could drive where he wanted, whenever he wanted.
I lay down without undressing.
I didn’t sleep.
At the first thin light of dawn, I changed into another summer dress but didn’t shower. My hair was tangled, my eyes swollen. I slid into sandals and left.
The white sedan was still there.
Feeling suddenly annoyed by it, I marched straight to it and peered inside.
The back seat was a mess. A child’s booster seat buried beneath a tiny raincoat. Crushed juice boxes. Candy wrappers. A single pink sock. Two thick textbooks lay open on the floor beneath a university tote bag, their pages bent beneath an empty coffee cup.
I saw no files or cameras and certainly no detective waiting with a notebook in his lap, looking awkwardly up at me.
It was just someone’s cluttered life.
I stepped back from the window, embarrassed that I might have actually believed Oliver. He had looked at that car and seen someone watching him. And somehow, he had taught me to see it too.
I walked away quickly.
I went inside the hotel. The receptionist from the day before wasn’t at the desk. A young man sat there instead, looking at a computer screen. I hurried past before he could ask anything.
The elevator took too long. I pressed the button repeatedly, though I knew it wouldn’t make the doors open faster. When they finally did, I stepped inside and hit the third floor.
Room 333 waited.
My legs were weak as I approached. I raised a shaky hand and knocked.
And like before…nothing.
I waited, fighting the pressure building inside my chest. Then I knocked again.
“Tristan?”
Silence.
My eyes burned.
I hit the door harder.
“Tristan!”
I pressed both palms against the wood, dropping my forehead between them.
“I came back. I’m here.”
I struck the door again, harder now, not caring who heard me.
“Please—”
“Daze.”
I froze.
The voice came from behind me.
I turned.
Tristan stood near the open stairwell door.
For one moment, I didn’t recognize him. His jeans were caked with mud. His shirt was torn near one shoulder and streaked with dirt. A cut ran across his cheekbone, with dried blood disappearing into the dark stubble along his jaw. His lower lip was split, and one of his hands looked scraped raw.
Bits of leaves and earth were tangled in his dirty blond hair. He looked as though the forest had tried to swallow him and failed. His chest rose and fell heavily as he stared at me.
The relief that moved across his face was so naked it almost hurt to witness.
Neither of us spoke.
His eyes were red.
Not from drinking. From exhaustion. Pain. And…something else.
I crossed the hallway before I realized I had moved.
“What happened to you?”
He looked over my face as though he couldn’t hear the question.
“I thought you left,” I choked out.
His expression broke. Without expecting it, his hand came around the back of my neck, and his mouth crashed against mine. I gasped, grabbing his torn shirt as he kissed me harder. His mouth moved against mine like he had been denied air for hours and had finally found it.
I kissed him back with everything in me.
He fumbled for the key card with one hand while the other remained tangled in my hair. He got the door open and we stumbled inside.
The door shut behind us, and he pressed me against it, kissing my mouth, my cheek, my throat. His hands moved over me as though he needed proof I was there.
Suddenly, he pulled back.
“Fuck, I’m filthy.”
“I don’t care.”
“Daze—”
I grabbed his face and kissed him again.
That ended whatever argument he meant to make.
He lifted me, and my legs closed around his waist. His hands gripped the backs of my thighs as he carried me toward the bed, our mouths barely parting long enough to breathe.
He stumbled once and winced.
I pulled back. “You’re hurt.”
“Don’t stop, Daze,” the plea fell from his lips. “Can’t have you stop.”
I kissed him again.
We fell across the mattress sideways. My dress caught beneath me, and he pushed it up impatiently while I worked at his belt.
Neither of us undressed properly. We were chasing relief. His forehead pressed against mine when he entered me, his breath breaking against my lips. For several seconds, he didn’t move. I felt him buried, my body already familiar with his size and touch.
My heart stilled as his eyes searched mine with raw emotion.
“Tristan?”
His mouth covered mine before I could ask.
He moved hard and fast, one arm beneath my back, holding me so tightly against him that every breath belonged to both of us.
He kept kissing me through it. My mouth.
My jaw. The corner of my eye. As though he had been afraid he would never touch me again.
I took every kiss. Every touch. Every eager attempt at gripping me.
I gave him everything. Let him have it all as he found his relief inside me.
The pleasure built quickly, sharpened by panic and the realization he hadn’t gone. He was still here. I clung to his shoulders, feeling dirt beneath my fingers and the tremble in the muscles of his back.
“I thought you were gone,” I gasped, unable to stop the words from tumbling from my mouth, even at the crest of pleasure.
His face buried against my neck.
“No,” he groaned.
My release struck hard. I cried out and tightened around him, and his body lost its rhythm. He held me through it, thrusting deeper until he went rigid above me.
His groan vibrated against my throat, deep and long.
For a while, neither of us moved. Our breathing filled the room. Then Tristan lifted his head and stared at me again. That same look from before was present in his eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whispered.
He blinked as though the question dragged him back into the room.
“Like what?”
“Like…that.”
Pain moved across his face before he could hide it. Then he pushed himself away. I didn’t like when he slipped out of me. I felt empty and cold. He sat on the edge of the bed, dragging both hands through his dirty hair.
Just like that, the need vanished behind a wall. But it wasn’t completely gone. I could still feel it inside the room, heavy and strange, but he was trying to conceal it. To become the Tristan from before. The careless one. The smoking one.
He reached for another pair of jeans and pulled out a cigarette. His hands shook as he tried to light it. The lighter sparked once, then again. On the third try, the flame caught. I pushed myself upright and pulled my dress down over my thighs.
That was when I saw the blood on me. A dark smear marked the skin beneath my collarbone. Dirt streaked my stomach and the front of my dress. There was mud along one thigh where his hand had gripped me.
Jesus.
“Tristan.”
He took a drag, eyes on the floor.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s not bad.”
I looked at him properly. No longer dazed by desire.
There was dried mud on his jeans. His sleeve was torn. There was a cut across his cheek and a scrape near his mouth. I’d seen it in my lust. Yet I kissed him anyway. The skin on his palm was raw, and he looked…hurt.
“You look like hell.”
His robotic response was quick. “Been told I have a rugged charm.”
The joke fell flat between us. He knew it too.
The cigarette trembled between his fingers before he set it in the ashtray.
“You weren’t here,” I found myself saying again.
“I know.”
“I came yesterday morning. Then again in the afternoon.”
His eyes moved to me.
“I waited outside this room for hours. I checked the parking lot. I came back at dawn.”
“Daze—”
“I didn’t sleep.”
His jaw tightened.
I knew I sounded crazy, but I couldn’t stop.
“I thought you left,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology came out so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it.
Why was he apologizing? He didn’t need to, and yet I didn’t correct him. I felt strangely hurt. I continued looking at the streaks of dirt and blood along my dress.
“What happened to you?”
He stared at the cigarette burning between his fingers. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer.
Then he asked, “Do you think rooms remember things?”
Cold moved through me.
I frowned. “What?”
“Rooms. Houses. Places where people have been hurt.” He rubbed his thumb over the torn skin of his palm. “Do you think they hold onto it somehow?”
The hotel room seemed to close in around us.
I thought of Oliver’s office. The lesson room. The house.
“Why are you asking me that?”
Tristan lowered the cigarette.
“I followed him.”
Those three words made me almost double over. My heart struck hard against my ribs. Then again. It began thundering so violently that the sound filled my ears. I slid out of bed, dragging my dress down as my feet touched the carpet. I could hardly stand straight.
I moved away until the dresser pressed into my hip.
“You followed Oliver.”
“Yeah.”
I already knew where. My stomach twisted as I whispered, “The cabin.”
It wasn’t a question. Tristan nodded anyway.
My fingers curled around the edge of the dresser. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I waited.
“I think he knew I was following him,” Tristan said, emptily. “We had breakfast together.”
Now I really did feel sick. The thought of them seated across from each other made me weak. Images raced through me. Oliver studying him. Smiling at him. Speaking as though nothing about the moment was unusual.