Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
TRISTAN
Keira's back arches off the mattress slightly, her nipples hardening through the thin fabric of her oversized shirt.
If she's dreaming about Henri, I'm going to lose my fucking mind.
Which is insane, considering I'm Henri.
But logic has no place right now in the dark, with her writhing six feet away from me while her piece-of-shit husband sleeps like the dead.
My nails bite into my palms hard enough to draw blood. The irrational surge of jealousy, the possessive fury clawing at my chest. I don't get jealous. That's not who I am. I've shared women before, enjoyed different dynamics without a second thought.
But apparently, where Keira is concerned, none of that matters.
Rules don't apply to her.
Never did.
I don't remember deciding to move, but somehow I'm standing over her, right beside the bed.
When she kicks the sheet off, my eyes drag over every inch of smooth skin from ankle to mid-thigh.
Her body arches again, spine lifting off the mattress like someone's touching her.
Like invisible hands are trailing down her body.
Like someone is teasing her, edging her, bringing her right to the brink and pulling back just to hear her beg.
I should be the one fucking doing this to her.
"Tristan," she whimpers breathlessly.
My lungs seize. My heart slams against my ribs so hard I can hear blood roaring in my ears. The sound of my real name in her mouth lands like a grenade in the center of my world.
Not Henri.
Not some phantom lover her subconscious invented to survive this nightmare.
Me.
Concrete and rebar and every lie I've ever told myself—about not caring, about this being just an extraction, about her meaning nothing—all of it fractures at once, like a dam giving way in the middle of the night when no one's watching.
She moans again. Her hand drifts down her own body, slipping between her thighs. Like she's remembering the way I used to touch her and trying to recreate it because I'm not there.
Except I am.
I'm right fucking here.
I sink onto the edge of the mattress before I consciously decide to do it. She'd kill me for this, but I'm not about to pretend I have shame or play the hero and give her privacy.
Fuck that. She's dreaming about me, and I'm going to soak up every second of it.
Even with Calder right there—the bastard sleeping like he doesn't have a care in the world while the woman he stole dreams about another man.
That's right, asshole. I'm the one occupying her subconscious.
I hope she dreams about me every single night. I hope she wakes up next to him soaking wet and aching for someone she thinks she can't have. I hope my name is the first thing on her lips and the last thought before she falls asleep. I hope it haunts her the way she's haunted me.
I brush her hair back from her face.
She stirs toward the contact instinctively, chasing my touch even in sleep. Her lips part on a soft exhale that I feel all the way down to my cock.
She's so beautiful it makes me mad.
Not at her, but at myself. At every night I spent convincing myself I didn't care while she was trapped in this cage, carrying my son, belonging to someone who doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as her.
I trace the line of her collarbone with my fingertip. Feel the flutter of her pulse beneath the thin skin of her throat. My touch trails down over the swell of her chest, pulling the shirt up to expose the curve of her breast.
I brush my thumb across her hard nipple.
She gasps, and I'm instantly hard.
Her thighs press together, and she whispers my name again. I have to close my eyes and breathe through my nose because the sound is dismantling me.
Brick by brick. Wall by wall.
Every defense I built after she left. Every cold night I spent telling myself she was dead to me. Every woman I fucked trying to feel something that came close to what Keira made me feel just by walking into a room.
All of it comes crumbling down.
"You're dreaming about me." My lips graze the shell of her ear, my eyes fixed on her body. "Lying right beside him and thinking about me. Moaning my name, getting wet for a man who isn't your husband."
A dark laugh escapes me. "You have no idea what that does to me, Keira. No fucking idea."
Whatever thread was holding me together snapped the moment my name fell from her lips. Now there's just this feral need to reclaim her.
She's mine. She's always been mine. And she's lying here, in his bed, soaking through her panties while she dreams about my hands on her body.
There's not a single part of me that feels guilty.
Her dream is building again. I watch in real time—the quickening of her breath, the flush bleeding down her throat, the way her thighs squeeze together. Chasing something she can't reach on her own.
I can help with that.
My hand slides down her body, and her legs part slightly—an invitation her conscious mind would never offer.
But her body knows me.
It's always known me.
The second I touch her, I have to cover my mouth against my shoulder because fuck, she's drenched. The thin fabric of her underwear clings to her, and the heat coming off her cunt makes my mouth water.
I press two fingers against her entrance through the ruined panties, feeling her pulse against me. Hot. Swollen. Needy.
She whimpers.
"That's it," I breathe against her ear. "Show me how much you need it. Show me how much you miss me."
I drag my fingers up through her slit, gathering the wetness pooling there, and bring them to my mouth.
The taste of her explodes on my tongue.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Sweet and salt and something uniquely her. The same taste I used to spend hours chasing with my tongue until she was shaking and crying and begging me to stop.
I want more.
I want to bury my face between her thighs and lick her until she wakes up screaming my name. Want to fuck her with my tongue while her husband sleeps three feet away, oblivious to the fact that his wife is coming on another man's mouth.
But not tonight.
Tonight I just take what I can get.
I slip my fingers back between her legs.
Press the pads of my fingers against her pussy, just enough pressure to feel her flutter against me.
She's so wet I could slide inside with no resistance.
Could curl my fingers into that spot that makes her fall apart and watch her shatter without ever waking up.
The temptation is blinding.
Instead, I circle her clit through the fabric. Watching her face as her breath catches, as her back arches, as she climbs toward something her body is desperate for.
"You're going to come for me. Right here in his bed. And you won't even know it was real."
Her thighs clamp around my hand. Her lips part on a silent cry—and then she's pulsing against my fingers, riding out an orgasm in her sleep while I watch every second of it with dark, savage satisfaction.
Mine.
Always fucking mine.
Calder shifts.
I withdraw my hand and step back into the shadows, my fingers still slick with her release. He turns, settles, sinks back into oblivion.
Fucking idiot.
I stand in the dark, my cock so hard it's painful. I bring my fingers to my mouth again, sucking them clean, savoring every drop of her like a man dying of thirst.
I need to leave before I come in my pants like a fifteen-year-old.
Inching back toward her, I press my lips to her temple.
"When I finally have you again, I'm going to spend hours reminding your body who it belongs to.
I'm going to make you come so many times you forget his name ever existed.
I'm going to ruin you for anyone else, Keira.
And then I'm going to do it all over again. "
I pull back. Memorize her face in the dim light—the satisfied curve of her lips, the flush still staining her cheeks.
She looks so peaceful.
"Soon," I promise her sleeping form. "I'm going to take back everything he stole. Starting with you."
I disappear through the door without a sound.
But I take the taste of her with me.