27. Simone
SIMONE
F or a moment, all I can do is stare at him. The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs.
I'd rather spend the rest of my life fighting with you than being bored with anyone else.
I love you.
Tristan loves me. I look at him in the soft glow of the lighting of my room, at this man who just tore through a house full of armed guards to get to me, who looked at me chained to that bed like seeing me hurt was the worst thing that had ever happened to him.
His green eyes are fierce and desperate, and there's something raw in his voice that I've never heard before.
You’re insane if you think I haven’t fallen in love with you .
I thought I knew what we were to each other. A thief and his prize. An owner and his possession. A man and his object of lust.
But the way he looked at me when he kicked down that door… that wasn't the look of a man protecting his investment. That was the look of a man who would have torn the world apart to get to me.
"I don't understand," I whisper, looking up at him. He’s so handsome it hurts, the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. I want to kiss him, to sink into him, to believe everything he says and lose myself in it, but I’m terrified to.
I’m so fucking scared of believing him and having it all turn out to be a lie.
Love has never been something I expected I would have. For Tristan, of all people, to offer it now feels like a trap.
I swallow hard. "You could have had anyone. Someone who wouldn't fight you at every turn, someone who would have given you an heir without all the… complications."
Tristan shakes his head, and I see the smallest hint of his smirk, that light in his eyes despite his seriousness. "You think I want some simpering little mouse who agrees with everything I say? Someone who bows and scrapes and never challenges me?"
“You did,” I argue, and Tristan shakes his head.
“I thought I did,” he corrects. “My father told me that I did. And I listened, because all my life, listening and obeying has been the only way I’d ever get what I wanted.
But now—” His thumb strokes over my cheekbone.
“I was wrong about so much, célie . What I want is you. I’ll listen to anything you have to say.
But my days of listening to my father and his ideas about what I should want and what my marriage should be are over. ”
“Your life would be easier without me,” I whisper. “Less aggravating. Less messy.”
Tristan chuckles. “Simone, I’ve never wanted easy.
And I like you messy. I like you yelling and throwing things at me when you’re angry enough to get there.
I like that you don’t ever let me screw up without letting me know.
I wasn’t lying when I said I’m fucking turned on by you arguing with me.
” That smirk grows, and I shove him, one hand against his chest.
He grabs my wrist, moving my hand down below his belt. “See?” He grins, and I glare at him, feeling the half-hard shape of his cock under my palm. “Keep glaring, célie . I’ll only get harder.”
“Tristan—”
His face shifts back to serious. “I like that you look at me like you don’t know if you want to murder me or fuck me, célie .
It gets me off. And more importantly, it means you don’t hide from me.
You don’t hide anything , bad or good. This last week, where you’ve been silent and cold?
” He shakes his hand. “I’d rather a thousand arguments than that, Simone. ”
Something warm unfurls in my chest at the sound of my name, murmured in that Irish lilt. "You love that I'm difficult?"
"I love that you're you ," he says simply.
"I love that you never make anything easy for me.
I love that you challenge me, that you make me work for every smile, every soft look, every moment when you forget to hate me.
" His voice drops to a whisper. "I love that you're strong enough to survive what just happened and still be sitting here arguing with me about it. "
I feel tears prick at my eyes, and I blink them back furiously.
I don't want to cry. But something about the way he's looking at me, like he’s been waiting all his life to find me, makes me want to let my guard down completely at last. To give myself to him, the way I haven’t been brave enough to do before.
"I thought..." I start, then stop, not sure how to put it into words.
"When I got pregnant, you went so cold. I thought that was all you wanted from me.
An heir. And once you had that..." I shrug, trying to appear nonchalant even though the memory still stings. "I thought you didn't need me anymore."
Tristan's face darkens. "Christ, Simone. Is that really what you thought? That I was just using you as a broodmare? That I didn’t give a shit about you after…
" He stops, but I know what he was about to say—after that night we shared, after the next day, after what happened in his office.
Something changed between us then—neither one of us can deny it. But I was afraid to believe in it.
"Weren't you?" The words come out sharper than I intended, all the hurt and confusion bleeding through. "You barely looked at me after you found out. You stopped trying to touch me, barely talked to me. What was I supposed to think?"
He's quiet for a long moment, and I see him swallow hard. When he speaks, his voice is rough with what might be regret. "I was scared."
"Scared?" I can't hide my surprise. Tristan O'Malley, the man who just barged into a building full of armed killers without hesitation, scared?
"Terrified," he admits. "Do you know what it's like to realize that someone has that kind of power over you?
To know that if something happened to them, it would destroy you completely?
" He runs his free hand through his hair, messing up the copper-brown strands.
"I was raised to believe that caring about someone was weakness. And then you got pregnant, and suddenly I realized that I would kill anyone who even looked at you wrong. That I would burn down the entire city to keep you safe." His jaw clenches. “I realized it before that, honestly. But I couldn’t run from it any longer. So I tried harder to run, because I’m a fucking idiot.”
“You pulled away from me because you were scared,” I repeat it, trying to wrap my head around the idea, to believe him.
"I pulled away because I didn't know how to handle what I was feeling. Because admitting that I loved you felt like handing you a weapon to use against me." He turns to meet my eyes. "I was a fool."
“You were,” I say it calmly, matter-of-fact, and Tristan laughs, a sharp sound that startles us both. “But I was, too.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You were?”
I take a shaky breath, preparing to admit something I've barely acknowledged to myself. "Because I fell in love with you too, and I was too proud and too scared to admit it. Even to myself."
The words hang between us, and I can see the moment they hit him, the moment he takes it in. That he loves me, and I love him, and…
We both move toward each other at the same moment, mouths colliding as I clutch at his arms, arching into him with a fervent need. His mouth is hungry against mine, as hungry as I am, both of us finally raw and real with each other, letting it all go.
"Say it again," he whispers against my lips.
"I love you," I breathe, and saying it feels like I’m finally free. "I love you, you arrogant, infuriating man."
He groans, deepening the kiss, and I can feel all of the tension and misunderstanding dissolving between us. This is what I've been fighting against, what I've been too afraid to acknowledge. Not just desire, not just lust, but something deeper and more terrifying.
Love.
Tristan picks me up, carefully, the robe falling away as he carries me to the bed.
He lays me back on the pillows, his hands quickly stripping away his clothing, leaving him as bare as I am.
He stretches out above me, his hands framing my face as he kisses me again, long and slow, before he pulls back and looks down into my eyes.
“We don’t have to do this,” he murmurs, even as I can feel him against my hip, hard and throbbing with need. “After what happened—you need time to recover. We can just?—”
I reach down, wrapping my hand around him, and Tristan groans. “I want you,” I breathe. “I want my husband inside of me. I want to feel you. I want you to fill me up. I need you.”
Tristan moans as my hand strokes down his length. “I did promise to listen,” he breathes out, angling his hips so that he’s nudging between my thighs. “I wouldn’t lie to my wife.”
I tilt my hips up, wrapping my legs around his waist as I draw him into me. I’m already wet, and he slides in to the hilt in one long stroke, a mingled sound of pleasure coming from us both as he stretches me, fills me, makes me whole.
“My wife,” he murmurs, his lips grazing my nose, my cheeks, my mouth as he starts to thrust in shallow, slow strokes. “My Simone.”
“My Tristan.” My hands grip his shoulders, nails digging into his skin as I squirm under him, wanting more. With every tilt of his hips, he rubs against my clit, and I’m desperate for more contact, more friction, more of everything I need.
I squeeze around him, and he groans. “I’ll come too fast if you do that, célie ,” he mutters, and I smirk at him, clenching again.
“Then fuck me like you mean it,” I breathe, leaning up to kiss him again, and Tristan lets out a ragged moan, his pace quickening as he gives me what I need.
He sinks into me again and again, his fingers sliding between us to find my clit as he kisses me, pushing me higher until I feel my orgasm come over me like a wave. It spills me into what feels like an endless pleasure as Tristan comes too, moaning my name as he fills me up.
We lay there like that for a long moment before he finally rolls to one side, bringing me with him, pulling me back into the curve of his body. I feel his fingers trace the edge of my wrist, where the marks from the handcuffs are, and I feel him tense.
“He’s going to pay for this,” Tristan growls, and I feel warmth wash over me. For once, I don’t mind being coddled and protected. I finally trust that he believes I’m strong enough to take care of myself, even if he wants to take care of me, too.
“He will,” I agree. “But not right now.” I turn in his arms, looking up at him. “Tonight is for us. Just us.” I reach up, touching Tristan’s cheek. “I love you.”
“And I love you.” He lowers his head, his mouth grazing against mine, and as I turn to face him, I forget everything but the warmth and scent of his skin, the feeling of his lips, the way his cock is already hardening against me a second time, driving away my exhaustion with the promise of more pleasure
Tomorrow is for all the problems we still have to face.
But tonight?
Tonight is ours.