Chapter 34 #2
“You expected me to come in here like a hurricane, didn’t you?”
I say nothing.
Which is answer enough.
His eyes flick once toward the bed.
Fresh sheets.
Fluffed pillows.
Me in tiny shorts and soft skin and way too much anticipation.
Then he looks back at me, amusement and hunger tangling together in a way that is frankly not survivable.
“Baby.”
I want to die.
“Don’t.”
His smile deepens, but there’s tenderness in it too. “I’m not making fun of you.”
“Feels a little like you are.”
He shakes his head once, steps in close again, and slides one hand to my waist.
Not possessive.
Not innocent either.
Just enough to make my breath hitch.
“If I gave in to exactly what I want right now,” he says, voice low enough that I feel it more than hear it, “you wouldn’t be getting to practice on time tomorrow.”
My mouth goes dry.
There are many things I could say to that.
None of them arrive.
He studies my face and seems weirdly pleased by my inability to form language.
“I want this done right,” he says.
And there it is.
The real reason.
Beneath the tension under the very immediate and mutual urge to wreck each other on contact.
He wants this to be perfect.
Not rushed.
Not accidental.
Not just us finally giving in because the wanting got too loud.
That knowledge knocks something loose in me I didn’t know was still braced.
The old hurt, maybe.
The part that always wondered if boys like Tristan only know how to take when desire gets strong enough. He must see something change in my face, because his thumb strokes once along the side of my waist.
“Stella.”
Just my name.
Still enough to steady me.
I nod before I fully mean to.
“Okay.”
His eyes search mine.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.” I swallow. “I’ll come.”
Something hot flashes there again.
Triumph, maybe.
Relief.
Something darker too.
“Good.”
I almost ask where we’re going.
Almost ask what this surprise is.
Almost ask if I should pack heels or sneakers or whether a weekend bag means one night or two and whether he has any idea what he’s doing to me right now.
Instead I just stand there, dumbstruck, while he leans in and kisses me one more time.
Slow.
No hurry.
No grabbing.
The kind of kiss that says wait for me.
When he pulls away, my legs feel suspiciously decorative.
“After practice,” he says.
I nod again.
He brushes his knuckles down my cheek once.
Then—because apparently he enjoys making me insane—he turns, picks up his duffel, and heads for the door.
“Tristan.”
He looks back.
The question comes out before I can stop it.
“What if I say no tomorrow?”
That earns me a long look.
Not offended.
Not smug.
Just very, very sure.
“You won’t.”
Then, because he is not nearly done destroying me, his gaze drops slowly from my mouth to the soft gray fabric skimming my thighs and then back up again.
“And if I stay in this room another minute,” he says, voice roughening just enough to let me hear the truth underneath all that control, “your fresh sheets are not surviving the night.”
My entire body goes molten.
He opens the door before I can recover enough to answer.
“Sleep, baby,” he says softly.
Then he’s gone.
The door clicks shut.
And I just stand there in the middle of my room, staring at it.
At the empty space where he was.
At the bed I was certain would be wrecked by now.
At the fresh white sheets that somehow feel more incriminating untouched than they ever would have ruined.
He waited.
That’s the thing I can’t get over.
Not the kiss.
Not the promise.
Not even the way every line in his body had told me exactly how badly he wanted me.
He waited.
And for reasons that make my pulse feel drunk, that leaves me even more breathless than if he’d taken me to bed.
Because now I know, when Tristan finally touches me the way we both want—it won’t be because he lost control.
It’ll be because he chose me all the way through it.
I look at the clock.
Then at my overnight bag in the closet.
Then back at the door.
And somewhere between want and wonder, I’m already counting the hours until morning.
Sneaking out of the athletic complex with an overnight bag should not feel this much like committing a felony.
And yet, I come out the back service door in leggings, a cropped Stanford hoodie, and sunglasses I absolutely do not need this early, clutching my duffel like the world’s most suspicious college athlete.
The alley behind the building is narrow and half-shadowed, lined with dumpsters, maintenance carts, and the stale smell of concrete warming under the morning sun.
Somewhere around the front entrance, girls from the team are probably still filtering toward brunch and ice baths and whatever other responsible things normal playoff athletes do on a Saturday.
I am not being responsible.
My pulse is all over the place.
Because Tristan texted me ten minutes before practice ended:
Back alley. Don’t get caught.
Which is rude.
Hot, but rude.
I step into the shade and glance around once, twice.
Nothing.
Then a hand catches mine from behind a brick column and I choke on a laugh before I can stop myself.
He steps out in a black hoodie and baseball cap, travel bag slung over one shoulder, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes and doing absolutely nothing to make him less devastating.
“Tristan.”
His mouth curves.
“Morning, baby.”
I swat his arm, still laughing under my breath because the entire thing feels insane.
“We look like fugitives.”
“We look efficient.”
“That’s not what this looks like.”
His fingers tighten around mine.
“It is if we move.”
Then he tugs me with him down the alley, and I go, trying not to laugh out loud as we jog past a row of campus landscaping carts like two idiots escaping a heist movie.
My duffel bumps against my hip. His hand is warm and firm around mine.
My heartbeat goes strange and skittery with the combination of adrenaline and the fact that I am very aware of exactly how long it has been since I’ve been alone with him without teammates or tension or public space forcing restraint into the room.
We round the corner.
His SUV is parked in the shadow of a service building, black and clean and entirely too polished for the amount of chaos currently happening in my chest.
He takes my bag before I can protest and tosses both duffels into the back.
I fold my arms and look at him.
“So this is how it starts.”
His brows lift.
“How what starts?”
“My disappearance.”
A grin pulls at his mouth.
“If I were kidnapping you, I’d be smoother about it.”
“I don’t know.” I open the passenger door and slide in. “The sneaking and alley rendezvous were a nice dramatic touch.”
He leans one forearm on the roof of the car and looks at me over the top edge of his sunglasses.
“You’re enjoying this.”
I bucklе in and refuse to answer because yes, obviously, and he knows it.
He shuts my door, rounds the hood, and gets in on the driver’s side.
The second the engine turns over, the air between us changes.
Not because anything happens.
Because nothing does.
He doesn’t grab my thigh.
Doesn’t lean over the console and kiss me senseless.
Doesn’t do any of the things I spent an embarrassingly large amount of last night imagining he would.
He just drives.
One hand on the wheel.
Jaw relaxed.
That dangerous stillness in his shoulders again—like all the want is there, banked low, controlled on purpose.
It is making me insane.
We hit the edge of campus and merge onto the road in a wash of gold California morning light.
I angle toward him in my seat.
“You’re very calm for a man who’s making me a fugitive before breakfast. If mu coach finds out—”
He glances at me, amused.
“I bought you coffee in my head already. That makes this legal.”
I look out the window to hide the smile trying to happen. The drive-through line is short. He orders my usual without asking, which should not feel intimate and absolutely does.
We pull away with paper cups steaming in the center console, and I take a careful sip before the caffeine has time to hit the blood already running too warm in my veins.
I watch the road signs.
I watch the exit.
Then I look at him.
“Tristan?”
“Mm.”
“Why are we driving toward the airport?”
He doesn’t answer immediately.
Which is answer enough.
I turn fully in my seat.
“The airport?”
He takes a slow sip of coffee, eyes on the road.
“Yep.”
“Tris.”
That earns me a glance.
Coach is going to kill me.”
“Coach doesn’t have to know.”
I stare at him.
He says it with complete confidence too, like secrecy is just another logistical detail he’s already solved.
“That is not reassuring.”
“It should be.”
“It absolutely should not be.”
He smiles then—small, crooked, and deeply self-satisfied.
“I’ve got it handled.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“That is exactly what men say right before things become documentaries.”
He laughs under his breath.
“Trust me.”
The annoying part is that I do. He planned this—thought about it.
He came back and kissed me sweet and left me wanting more on purpose. That kind of restraint does not belong to a man playing games.
Still—
“If I get benched for this,” I mutter, “I’m ruining your life.”
His hand leaves the wheel just long enough to squeeze my knee.
“If you get benched for this, you can ruin my life after I make it up to you.”
Heat slides straight through me.
I look down at his hand.
The airport rises ahead in a sweep of glass and steel, sunlight flashing off parked aircraft in the private terminal beyond.
I blink and turn toward him slowly.
“Absolutely not.”
He parks, kills the engine, and takes off his sunglasses.
“What?”
“This is not—” I point through the windshield. “This is not a normal airport.”
He unbuckles his seatbelt.
“I know.”
“That’s a private terminal.”
“Also true.”
My mouth falls open.
He gets out, comes around to my side, opens my door, and waits for me with one hand braced on the frame.
“Come on, baby.”
I stare at him.