38
Tristan
I can’t sleep, and even if I could, I don’t think I’d want to. It’s late. I’ve been holding Demi since she fell asleep hours ago. I don’t dare move because I’m afraid of waking her, but mostly I’m afraid of missing out on a single second with her in my arms.
When I died, it happened quickly. Lightning struck the attic as I was trying to patch a crack in the ceiling during the storm. Fire exploded in the small space, and I only had time to think “this is it” ?before I was gone. Everything happened so fast, I don’t even remember feeling fear.
But I feel fear now, and it consumes me.
People are afraid of death because it’s the great unknown.
I don’t fear death; I’ve been there, and it’s no longer unknown to me.
Loss, on the other hand, is an entirely different thing.
The idea of losing the woman I love feels like an arrow to the heart, ripping me to shreds. Unfathomable. Unsurvivable.
I just found Demi St. James. I’ll do anything to keep her.
After her aunts left, Demi tried to eat her leftovers from the Cafe, but she still couldn’t taste anything.
One bite of her burger made her double over with stomach pain.
It’s like her body is rejecting food, punishing her.
Twice more before she fell asleep, her hand slipped through me like smoke.
It’s not good, and I don’t know how much time we have before it gets worse.
Demi shifts slightly in my arms, and I take the opportunity to wrap myself around her a little tighter.
I’m spooning her, memorizing the scent of her hair and counting her breaths as she sleeps.
When she’s awake, she’s a person who seems larger than life.
But asleep like this, she feels so small, and I’m reminded of just how fragile life can be, how fickle.
She rolls her hips, shimmying even closer to me. I never want this feeling to end, the pure joy of my arms around her. Knowing that even when she’s asleep, her body seeks me out; for comfort, for protection, for peace. It’s an honor to be the one who gets to hold her.
Demi protested the suggestion of reversing the spell that brought me to life, but I’ll go back to being a ghost in a heartbeat if it means she won’t turn into one.
I want a lifetime with Demi. Ten lifetimes.
Being alive is nothing short of miraculous, and I will never take it for granted.
At the same time, for as beautiful a gift this new life is, it’s not worth trading Demi’s for mine.
If I have to die again for her to live, I’d do it with a smile on my face.
This week with her in my corporeal form will have been enough.
If it comes down to it, I’ll do anything to make sure the magic sends me out of the moral coil and not her. Even if doing so makes Demi hate me.
‘Tristan,” she murmurs my name in the dark.
I kiss her shoulder. Her skin is a little cooler to the touch than normal, but still, she’s so warm, so soft. My lips delight in the touch of her skin, the taste of it, so I kiss her shoulder again and linger there. Demi sighs and arches her back a little .
My arms are wrapped around her with one hand cupping the curve of her hip and the other splayed out over her soft stomach.
Every time she breathes, I feel the gentle rise and fall of her body.
Her hair is on top of her head in a messy bun, and I drag my nose up the nape of her neck to take in a lungful of her scent: incense, jasmine, pure Demi .
Not to be dramatic, but my love for her will never die even if I do. Again.
But I don’t want it to come down to that. I want more of this . I’m greedy for it. Now that I’ve had a taste of what it’s like to belong to Demi St. James, how could I go back to a normal life or afterlife?
She shifts, and the sound makes my blood rush a little faster through my veins. Something between a groan and a purr. A gritty, alto-voiced noise. And then she says my name again.
“Tristan.”
“Shh, baby, go back to sleep,” I say. She needs to rest, and I should be encouraging it, but fuck, that sound she just made and the press of her body against mine have all the least noble parts of me standing at attention.
“You’re awake,” she mutters, her tone accusatory.
I smile and press a kiss to the back of her neck.
She sighs, wiggling her ass between my hips. I have to bite my tongue to keep from moaning. This whole bed is perfumed with the smell of her, and it’s enough to get me drunk, enough to make me rebel against my better judgment.
No. She doesn’t need a man pawing at her and trying to get in her pants right now. She needs sleep, a safe place, and someone to take care of her.
But my god, the way I want her .
My desire for her has been a living, breathing thing since the moment she pulled up the driveway in her wood-paneled station wagon and walked through my front door.
I remember how golden she looked in the August sun that day, how she took her boots off in the entryway so she wouldn’t scuff the floors. Mismatched socks.
I think I knew it from the start that I would be hers.
All the time I spent imagining Demi and pining after her could never have prepared me for the reality of her. Her kiss, her touch, the way her body is a perfect match for mine. The way her soul is, too.
One would think that after having a wish come true, there would be no more wanting, but I’m afraid that just isn’t the case.
At least not with me and Demi. No, one taste of her opened the floodgates in me to an even deeper desire.
A longing that I know will never be quenched, no matter how much or how often I am given the privilege to have her.
In my arms, Demi stretches just enough for her tank top to ride up beneath my palms. My fingertips caress her bare skin. Her ass presses into me again, and on instinct, my hips push forward, seeking more.
“You’re hard,” she whispers.
“Of course, I am. I’m in bed with you.”
I can hear her grinning when she says, “Is it just automatic now?”
“When I’m in your presence? Kind of.”
“I’m honored.”
“Go back to sleep,” I say with a chuckle.
She wiggles her hips .
“You’re a menace.” I have to speak through clenched teeth because each shift of her sweet body is driving me insane.
Every part of me wants to explore that body. I flex my fingers. The hand resting on her stomach nearly moves on its own, to caress, to knead, to wander. It takes everything in my power to keep still.
Demi must notice, because she takes me by the wrist and gently guides my hand upwards, and soon, I can feel the flutter of her heart beneath her ribcage. She keeps guiding me up until my fingertips graze the perfect undersides of her breasts.
“Demi,” I groan and bury my face in the back of her neck. “You’re killing me.”
“What’s holding you back? “ she asks, pushing my hand again, up over the slope of one perfect breast. With her hand over mine, she squeezes, and my vision goes dark and blurry around the edges. “This is me saying ‘yes’.”
I’m groping her on my own now, needing no further instruction, and I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.
“You’re not feeling well. I don’t want to make a move on you when you’re not feeling well.”
Demi arches her back in a way that is so fucking dangerous to my restraint, I nearly growl.
She reaches her arm back and grazes her nails along my nape before taking my hair in her fist. Something about the gentle tension on my scalp when she grips my hair makes me forget where I am, who I am for a moment.
“I’m okay, Tristan.”
“Today was a lot, baby.”
“Tristan.” Her voice is firm, definitive.
“Yeah? ”
She turns her head to look at me.
“Don’t treat me like I’m breakable.”
“I know you’re not.”
“And I don’t need you to make decisions about what’s best for me right now.”
Fair.
“Then what do you need? I’ll do anything,” I reply.
It’s dark in the bedroom, but the moonlight through the window is bright enough to illuminate her pretty face. Her plump lips are glossy like she just licked them, and there’s a fire burning in her eyes.
“Make me feel alive, Tristan.”