Chapter 14
TRISTAN
The door is wide open, but Bianca doesn’t move.
Her gaze lifts from the keypad to my face while the flowers Freddie bought shift against her chest, several purple stems trembling in the wind. She’s deciding whether her birthday is sweet, stupid, or proof that I’ve been hiding another secret from her.
Owen crowds my shoulder for a look inside. Freddie leans around Weller, openly curious, while Weller has gone statue still and I can feel the question he has yet to ask.
All three of them want an answer. Making them wait has been one of the better parts of the trip.
“After you.”
“That sounds like a good way to get murdered in a strange house.”
“If I’d brought you all this way to murder you, using your birthday as the door code would be an interesting choice.”
“Comforting.” She peers past me into the shadowed entry.
I hold the door wider and smile when Weller breathes my name through his nose. His patience has been thinning since the airport, Owen’s disappeared somewhere around the third vague answer, and Freddie is beginning to suspect I’ve outdone myself in a way none of them will forgive.
He’s always had excellent instincts about people.
Bianca steps over the threshold and the breeze catches the edge of her cover-up and carries the clean smell of the outdoors through the open entry area.
I press a button on the wall and the shades raise with a low hum, letting sunlight spill across pale wood floors, a long kitchen island, and a large sectional couch.
Beyond the wall of glass, live oaks knot around the deck and break the ocean into bright blue pieces.
Bianca takes in none of that before she figures out where the home is exposed.
The front door. The French doors that lead to the back deck and a side door to the outdoor shower.
Her attention catches on the large dark television screen mounted on the wall, then the open space beneath the staircase, and I can practically watch her clear every place a person could stand before she lets herself look at the view.
Every useful instinct she has is one I wish she’d never needed. Unfortunately, watching her use them does things to me.
Owen peels off toward the back of the house and Freddie closes the door behind us and tests the lock, which earns him a brief look of approval from Weller before our fearless leader turns it back on me.
“Tristan.”
“I hear you. Give her a minute.”
“I’ve given you hours.”
“And I’ve enjoyed every one of them.”
Bianca is frozen, staring out at the view.
“Oh my God.”
The flowers drop to her side as she presses closer to the glass, her whole face changing. Freddie nearly walks into a chair because he’s watching her instead of where he’s going, and even Owen pauses in the mouth of the hallway when she lets out a sound a lot like awe.
“You can see everything from here. Look at the sailboats!” She turns, bright-eyed, then immediately looks back as another wave breaks beyond the dunes. “The boardwalk goes right to the beach. And this kitchen—holy shit, it’s huge. Is that a real fireplace?”
“It is,” I say.
She moves to the island and runs her palm over the wood cabinets, still looking a lot like a child that’s been taken to a candy shop for the first time and told to fill a bag. “This is gorgeous, Tristan. Seriously. The view, all this light, the deck... I want to see every room.”
There’s another happy little gasp as she discovers the large butler’s pantry, and I’m picturing her bent over that island with the ocean behind her and the flimsy cover-up bunched around her waist and her swimsuit pulled to the side.
My cock doesn’t care that Weller is about ten seconds from choking me, though judging by the way Owen’s attention drags down Bianca’s bare legs, I’m not the only one having trouble keeping the tour family-friendly.
Freddie catches me looking and lifts his brows.
I smile wider.
“Can she see every room after you explain where we are?” Weller asks, clearly annoyed now.
Bianca glances between us. Some of the delight stays on her face, but the suspicion slides back underneath it. “Yeah. Let’s circle back to my birthday opening the front door.”
“The house belongs to you.”
Freddie’s eyebrows climb, and both Weller and Owen are staring at me like they want to brawl.
Bianca’s blue eyes open big with surprise. “What? What do you mean it’s mine?”
“It’s yours.”
She searches my face, looking for answers.
“I’m confused. Why is this my house?”
“A trust owns it, technically. You’re the only beneficiary so I can’t sell it, borrow against it, or take it back the next time you threaten me with a knife.”
“What trust?”
“A trust I created to hide it from my father.”
“Tristan.”
Weller and Bianca say my name at the same time. He sounds like a stern teacher marking attendance and her voice has enough bewildered violence in it to make my cock twitch, because apparently all Bianca has to do is look ready to hit me and my dick wants to party.
Behind her, Owen turns fully away from the hall. Freddie sets the bags down at his feet without looking, his expression caught somewhere between impressed and personally betrayed.
They are so fun to fuck with.
I put the champagne on the kitchen island before I drop it. “It was supposed to be your graduation gift.”
Her mouth opens, then closes. “My graduation gift? What are you talking about? I think I would remember if you mentioned a house, Tristan.”
“Yeah, well. I didn’t get the chance to give it to you.”
The reality of holding onto this secret for years when that was so far from what I had planned... There’s no nice way around the five years we lost.
I swear Bianca’s eyes mist up, but she turns her face, hiding it from us. By the time she turns back to us, her eyes are clear and she has a smile pasted on her face.
“So, it’s really mine...” Her gaze snaps back to mine. “All of it? The entire house?”
“The entire house.”
“And the deck? The boardwalk to the beach?”
“Attached to the house, last I checked.”
She ignores my sarcasm and turns toward the windows again, laughing under her breath. “I own a beach house. A really fucking beautiful beach house. There’s a hot tub out there. I own that too?”
“You do. I’m willing to help you test it and make sure it still works.”
“Of course.” She points toward the stairs. “How many bedrooms are there?”
“Enough.”
“That’s not a number,” Weller says.
I don’t look away from Bianca. “Go count them.”
“When did you do this?” she asks.
“Four days before graduation. After you announced you’d never been to the beach, and our discussion about taking you somewhere private... Let’s just say I had a ridiculous amount of money doing nothing in a trust from my grandparents.”
Freddie blinks. “So you went out and bought her a house?”
“I considered the whole island, but it wasn’t for sale.”
Weller’s frustration is aimed in my direction and his scent sharpens into the first clean edge of jealousy.
Beautiful.
“Damn.” Her smile turns wicked. “Am I that good of a kisser?”
My attention drops to her mouth. “That kiss made me want to give you plenty. Especially after that little sound you made when I put my hand around your throat.”
Her lips part, and her voice is soft when she says, “We weren’t even together. We hadn’t talked about being together... or what this was...” She gestures between all of us.
“The house came with no strings attached. You could’ve told us to fuck off the next day and kept the house.”
“You would’ve given me all this and let me walk?”
“I would’ve made walking away a huge pain in your ass, but yes.”
She searches my face again, slower this time. Whatever she finds strips some of the tension from her shoulders.
“The four of us talked about inviting you away with us,” I say. “I was going to suggest this place after the party, make it look casual, then hand you the keys once we were here.”
Bianca blinks. “All four of you knew?”
“That we wanted you? Painfully aware of that for a really long time. But the house was a secret, even from them. Their faces right now are a long-awaited gift to myself.”
“You’re such a pretentious asshole,” Owen growls, and flips me off.
Worth the wait.
Bianca laughs again, but it catches on the way out. “Honestly, I would’ve been so nervous on a trip with the four of you. I could barely handle kissing you without needing to go home and - never mind. This is really sweet.”
My grip tightens against the edge of the island. “Now that’s a story I want in detail.”
Her cheeks turn pink. “Maybe later.”
“It is later. Five years later, actually.”
“Tristan.”
“How many times?”
“We’re not discussing my masturbation habits so you can take notes while I’m trying to have an emotional moment with you.”
“I am an excellent multitasker.”
That gets a real smile out of her, soft at the edges and filthy in the middle.
She rubs her thumb over the folded edge of the flower paper. “I would’ve really liked all of this. And all of you with me.”
Bianca looks around the house again. She sets the flowers down beside the champagne and comes to me.
Her feet are bare and barely make a sound on the floor, but every step works through my body anyway. She stops close enough that her cover-up whispers against my skin, tilts her face up, and studies me closely.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You’re welcome.”
“You’re still completely fucking insane.”
“Yeah.” I glance at her mouth. “You seem into it.”
Her fingers slide into my hair, and she pulls my mouth down to hers.
I stay still long enough for her to establish the pace. The soft press of her lips is intoxicating and then she opens for me.
The pharmacy clerk shaking her head flashes behind my eyes. “We haven’t received our shipment from the mainland this week - and there are inventory issues.”
She tastes like strawberries and salt, and the sound she makes when my tongue finds hers tears straight through all the years of imagining this house empty.
Owen’s quiet curses are music to my ears, and somewhere to my right, Freddie mutters, “Jesus Christ.”
I pretend they’re not there and let myself enjoy this moment.