Chapter 34 #4
He answered emails.
I edited a paper while stealing glances at the mouth that had ruined my concentration for most of the week.
He watched film with one AirPod in and one hand still resting over mine like he needed contact even while pretending to be productive.
It should have killed the mood.
Instead it made it worse.
Because there is something almost unbearably intimate about a boy helping you survive your life before he tries to romance you out of it.
We trade notes.
Share coffee.
Argue quietly over whether one of my citations is strong enough.
He steals one of my pens.
I steal it back.
At some point he tucks my legs over his lap without comment and keeps reading scouting notes like having me draped over him is the most natural thing in the world.
Hours blur.
Clouds.
Sunlight.
Pages.
His hand absently smoothing over my ankle while I type.
By the time the plane finally starts descending, I have no idea where we are.
Only that I’m warm all over, my academic life is weirdly under control, and Tristan somehow made being responsible feel foreplay-adjacent.
The seatbelt sign dings on.
I close my laptop and stretch.
“How long was that?”
He glances over.
“Long enough.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
He smiles and reaches into the seat pocket beside him.
Then I see the strip of black silk in his hand.
I blink once.
Then again.
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
His smile deepens.
“No.”
I stare at the blindfold.
At him.
Back at the blindfold.
“You flew me onto a private plane, made out with me at altitude, turned me into some deranged version of a good student, and now you’re blindfolding me?”
“That’s the current plan.”
“Tristan.”
“Stella.”
I fold my arms.
“This is getting excessive.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
I should be more suspicious.
Maybe I am, a little.
But mostly I’m just annoyed that he looks this calm while doing something this outrageous. I glance toward the windows, but all I can see is sky and a blur of coastline too far below to make sense of.
“Where are you taking me?”
His gaze drifts over my face, warm and steady.
“Somewhere worth the secrecy.”
“That is not reassuring either.”
He lifts one shoulder.
“You’re safe.”
I eye the blindfold again.
“What if I hate surprises?”
“You don’t.”
“What if I hate this one?”
His mouth curves.
“You won’t.”
Cocky ass.
I exhale hard through my nose and hold out my hand for the blindfold like I’m accepting a challenge I absolutely plan to win later.
Then I pause.
A thought strikes me.
I look at him slowly.
“I don’t even have my passport.”
He goes very still.
Then, devastatingly, one side of his mouth lifts.
“As if that would stop me from taking you anywhere I wanted.”
The line hits me right in the center of my chest.
Possessive in that low, effortless Tristan way that makes everything in me sit up and listen.
My pulse kicks.
I try for sarcasm and miss by a mile. “That’s slightly alarming.”
His eyes darken.
“Good.”
Then he reaches for me, and all the laughter drains out of the moment.
Because suddenly he’s close again.
Close enough to smell like clean skin and leather and whatever expensive male temptation means in molecular form.
Close enough that every inch of my body starts paying attention.
“Ready?” he asks quietly.
The question lands differently than the blindfold did.
Softer.
Deeper.
Because beneath the teasing and secrecy and private-plane madness, that’s what this is.
Trust him—and I do.
God help me, I do.
So I nod.
His expression shifts—not triumphant, not smug. Just something warm and intent that makes me feel seen all the way through.
“Good girl.”
The silk slides over my eyes.
The world goes dark.
I hear myself laugh once under my breath because apparently I have become the kind of woman who lets a beautiful man blindfold her at the end of a mystery flight and does not immediately start making terrible choices.
“Still here?”
His fingers skim the side of my neck.
“Right here.”
The plane lands not long after that—smooth, soft, the wheels kissing down with a pressure I feel through the floor and the seat and the hand Tristan places over mine as the engines slow.
I can’t see anything.
Which means every other sense gets louder.
The click of belts.
The rustle of leather.
The quiet murmur of the flight attendant up front.
Tristan’s thumb brushing once across the back of my hand like he already knows I’m getting impatient.
“I hate this,” I inform him.
“No, you don’t.”
“I hate not knowing.”
“That,” he says, unbuckling us both, “I believe.”
He stands first.
Then his hands settle at my waist.
Warm.
Steady.
Not rushing me.
The jet door opens somewhere ahead and a rush of different air spills in—cooler than California, salted faintly by the sea, touched with something crisp—autumn leaves blowing in the wind. East Coast familiar enough to make the back of my neck prickle.
My stomach flips.
“Tristan.”
“I’ve got you, baby.”
That should not calm me as much as it does.
He guides me carefully down the steps, one hand at my waist, the other holding mine. The ground changes under my shoes. Tarmac, pavement.
A car door opens.
He ducks my head with one hand and helps me into the backseat.
I hear another door close on the other side and then feel him slide in beside me. The car starts moving almost immediately.
I turn my face toward him under the blindfold.
“Tell me something.”
“No.”
“Anything.”
A pause.
Then, low and close to my ear, “You look beautiful when you’re mad.”
My whole body betrays me and softens at once.
“That was manipulative.”
“Was it effective?”
I cross my arms and refuse to answer.
He laughs under his breath and takes my hand anyway.
The drive doesn’t feel long.
Or maybe I’m just too aware of him beside me—his thumb stroking slowly over my knuckles, the quiet confidence in his body, the way he says nothing because he knows anticipation is doing half the work for him.
Eventually the car slows.
Stops.
A door opens.
Cooler air spills in this time.
Not just ocean now.
Memory.
Something in me tightens.
Tristan helps me out and turns me carefully, guiding me forward with both hands on my waist now.
The ground beneath my feet is smoother here.
Stone maybe. Or polished concrete.
Somewhere nearby, a fountain moves softly.
Voices drift faint and elegant from farther off.
My pulse changes shape.
“Tristan,” I say again, and this time there’s no laughter in it. “Where are we?”
He stops behind me.
I feel the heat of him at my back, close enough to burn through the thin fabric of my hoodie.
His mouth brushes my temple once before he speaks.
“Ready?”
No.
Absolutely not.
“Yes.”
His fingers slide beneath the silk.
Lift.
Light returns all at once.
I blink hard against it.
The world sharpens slowly.
Tall glass doors.
Potted olive trees.
White stone.
Understated luxury so expensive it stops trying to prove anything.
And beyond the drive, the line of the coast and the old-money hush of a place I know too well.
I go still.
No.
No way.
I turn in a slow circle, taking it in, and my stomach drops somewhere around my knees.
The most expensive boutique hotel in Newport.
The one people whispered about.
The one with private courtyards and summer galas and enough polished discretion to hide every bad decision rich families ever made.
My mouth falls open.
“Don’t tell me…”
I look back at him.
His expression is steady.
Watchful.
Almost braced.
“Newport?”
He says nothing.
My heartbeat thunders.
“Royal Oaks?” I whisper.
Still nothing.
And then the final piece clicks into place so hard it almost physically hurts.
“The dance.”
All the blood drains out of my face.
Not because I don’t understand.
Because I do.
Too quickly.
Too completely.
Because suddenly I’m back there—the lights, the music, the velvet curtains, the ache of wanting him, the humiliation of what came after, the whole beginning of us turning sour in my hands before I even knew how to hold it.
I take one involuntary step back.
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
His face changes instantly.
Not frustration.
Not impatience.
Concern.
He closes the distance slowly, like I’m a skittish animal he has no intention of scaring.
“Hey.”
I shake my head once, trying to fight through the rush of nerves.
“Tristan, if this is some kind of nostalgia ambush—”
“It’s not.”
His voice is low.
Firm.
No humor in it now.
He steps closer until his hands can settle gently around my arms.
“I’m taking you back to the start,” he says. “That’s true. But not to hurt you.”
I look up at him.
His eyes are burning.
Not with lust this time.
Or not only that.
With purpose.
“I’m erasing every bad decision I made the first time,” he says quietly. “This is our do-over, Stell. If you’ll let me have one.”
Something in my chest twists so tightly it almost hurts.
He gives a rough little exhale and glances down for half a second, like he’s deciding whether to risk sounding stupid.
Then he does anyway.
“You know when you serve into the net,” he says, eyes back on mine now, “and Coach makes you do it again until you get it right?”
My throat tightens.
“This is me doing it again.”
He slides one hand up to cup my jaw.
“Tonight, it’s you and me. Newport. The dance. No lies. No hiding. No letting go when it matters.” His thumb brushes once over my cheekbone. “I even got you a dress.”
My whole body stills.
The sea wind moves between us, cool and clean and salted with memory. Somewhere farther off, a gull cries over the harbor.
I just stare at him.
At this impossible, beautiful idiot who flew me across the country and blindfolded me and brought me back to the scene of the first wound not to reopen it—but to rewrite it.
His mouth curves, soft now. Nervous, maybe, beneath the confidence. “And this time,” he says, voice dropping lower, more intimate, “I’m taking you behind those curtains, kissing you, and not letting go.”