34. Tristan
34
TRISTAN
A ria’s brows rose as we reached the staircase leading to the ruined bell tower. “What are we doing here?”
“Closure, mostly.” I glanced over her as we began ascending the stairs. “This was our place, and…look. I know a lot of bad things came to light when we started looking into the past, and we both know what happened here, but I can’t regret the fact that you found that box. It gave me you, and honestly, I’m not sure I would’ve managed to get my shit together without it.”
Her lips curved into a wry smile. “Yeah, me too, probably.”
“Definitely.”
Her eyes narrowed at me, and I couldn’t help grinning, but it died away as we reached the top of the stairs. The bell tower room looked the same as I’d seen it last. Aria’s blanket, crumpled in one corner. The battered floorboards, partially pried away. The stone fireplace. The gaping hole and crumbling stones where a window had once been.
Aria inhaled and then exhaled, a deep, shuddering breath.
“It’s…weird being back here now. I can almost picture it.” Her voice was so fucking quiet, and my body stiffened. Had I made a mistake in bringing her here?
“Aria. We can leave.”
“No.” She shook her head violently. “I don’t want to. I think…I think we needed this.” Crossing the room, she stopped in front of the hole where the window used to be. Trailing her fingers across the stone, she lifted her gaze. “I can see the stars.”
I came up behind her, wrapping my arms around her body, the tightness in my chest easing when she relaxed back against me. “Yeah,” I said. “Look. There’s Aquila.” Lifting her hand, I traced the outline of the constellation. “And over there. See that? That’s the moon.”
She rolled her head to the side so I could see her extremely unimpressed expression. Fucking hell, it did things to me. Who got turned on by that kind of shit? I did, apparently.
“What? That big crescent thing is the moon? I’d never have guessed.”
“I know you wouldn’t have, so it’s a good thing you have me to tell you these things.”
“Why are you hard?” Her body pressed back into mine, and I smirked, tightening my grip on her.
“Hmm. Let me think. I’ve got the hottest fucking woman I know in my arms, and she’s giving me shit—which, apparently, I’m into in some weird, fucked-up way.”
“Wow. You have serious issues.” Her tone was dry.
I buried my smile in her hair. “Yeah, probably. I blame you for that.”
We both stared at the stars for a while, and finally, my dick calmed down. Not fully, because…Aria. But enough that I could appreciate this moment. I was glad we’d come up here. If we’d left Hatherley Hall for good without seeing it again, I was sure we’d both feel as if there was something incomplete. We needed to see the bell tower with our own eyes, knowing what had happened, and reconcile that with our own experiences.
Eventually, she cleared her throat, speaking softly into the night. “You…you didn’t mean that, did you?”
“Didn’t mean what, baby?”
“Th-the hottest woman thing.” Her words tripped over each other, betraying her nerves, and right after she’d spoken them, she let out a string of swear words under her breath. Apparently, she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
It warmed me all over.
“Course I did.” I spun her around to face me. Her eyes were fixed on my chest, and so I lifted her chin so she had no choice but to meet my gaze. My heart did a lurching thing it had never done before, and I sighed, resigned to the fact that I was most likely going to love this girl until the day I died. “You’re beautiful, inside and out.”
Those honey eyes widened, Aria’s mouth falling open, then closing again, the process repeating itself several times as if she couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t, either, so I did the only thing I could think of. I dipped my head, and I kissed her.
“Tristan!”
“Shhhh.” I placed my finger over her lips. “Someone might hear.”
“Yes, because we’re breaking into the library,” she hissed.
My brows rose. “You’re worried about breaking the rules?”
“Obviously not.” She gave me another one of those unimpressed looks that I should not be finding hot. “But I feel like we should be.”
Using my former head boy key card to let us inside, I pointed in the direction of the archives. “No one’s gonna disturb us. Katy and Will are gone, and no one else has access to this place except for the staff members who aren’t gonna be awake at—” I checked the time. “—three thirty in the morning.”
Not waiting for her to reply, I ushered her inside, through the library stacks to the archives. I directed her towards a door in the back right-hand corner, using my key card to enter.
The room was exactly as I’d left it. Leaving Aria to her own devices for a moment, I circled the space, pulling out the lighter I’d been keeping in my pocket for this moment. I swiped my thumb down to bring the small flame to life, holding it to each of the candles I’d carefully placed earlier, trying not to second-guess myself. I hoped this was a good idea. Was it a good idea? We’d never get a chance to do this in the school library again, and to me, this was a sacred space with all the valuable books and journals. I’d never even thought about bringing a girl in here before, but I wanted to be here with Aria, the only girl who’d ever meant something to me.
The girl who meant everything to me.
When all the candles were lit, I stepped back to admire my handiwork. I doubted anyone would appreciate the struggle I’d had, setting up fucking candles in a place with so much flammable material, let alone in the archives where the books were irreplaceable. But now, looking at the result, with the flickering flames surrounding the makeshift bed I’d arranged, it was perfect.
My momentary lapse in confidence that had come before I’d viewed my handiwork disappeared. There was no possible way Aria wouldn’t love this.
There was a chance she might realise how strong my feelings for her were after seeing this, but we could cross that bridge when we came to it. For now, for the rest of the night, she was mine, and I was going to make her feel so fucking good.
Kicking off my shoes, I crossed the room to stand in the centre of the space, my feet sinking into the piles of blankets I’d placed on the floor.I held out my hand, and as if Aria was attuned to me, she turned away from the book she’d been perusing to face me and closed the distance between us.
We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. I undressed her as quickly as I could, trying and failing to think of anything unsexy as she got her hands all over my body, until I was as naked as she was and so fucking hard I ached.My attempts to draw it all out, to pace myself, were a complete failure with Aria Harper nude, kneeling in front of me and lit by candles, looking like the sexiest fucking goddess to ever walk this earth. When I created some distance between us in a final attempt to make it last, moving our clothes aside, she rose to her feet. Her heated gaze remained on mine as she dragged her hands down her body, palming her breasts and then sliding them lower, widening her legs as her fingers dipped between them. I groaned, shifting back to get a better view as I fisted my erection, so hard and leaking and fucking desperate to be inside her.
“Come here, Aria,” I rasped. There was no fucking way I could last another second without her body against mine.
“You read my mind.” She was completely unselfconscious, prowling towards me, her gaze dropping to my dick and her tongue swiping across her lips as she took in the sight.
When she reached me, she lowered herself to the blankets on her hands and knees. My heart pounded at the sight of her staring up at me through her lashes, her tongue coming out to take a teasing swipe across the tip of my cock. “Condom?”
I groaned again. “Fuck. Your mouth. Don’t tease me, I’m not gonna last, and I need to be inside you. No more condoms after tonight. We are getting fucking tested the second we get out of here. I want you bare from now on.”
She nodded instantly, watching as I rolled on the condom I’d pulled from my pocket. “I’d like that. I haven’t…there hasn’t been anyone since you.”
Dropping to my knees, I gripped her hips and tugged her forwards. “Straddle me, baby.” When she was hovering over me, her hands on my shoulders and her pussy aligned with my dick, I made sure I met her gaze. “There hasn’t been anyone for me since you, little scorpion, and there won’t ever be again.” My voice was way too hoarse…way too sincere, and I swallowed hard, gripping her tightly and pulling her down, both of us moaning as her pussy took my dick like it was made for it.
“Tristan,” she whispered, rising up and then dropping back down, holding eye contact all the time, all that honey swallowed up by her blown pupils.
“Fuck. Yeah.” My cock throbbed inside her. Had sex ever been this intense?
“No one else,” she said.
I couldn’t control myself, flipping us over so she was beneath me, and then I fucked her hard and fast, her moans and cries sending me spiralling towards the edge. The candles flickered wildly, but I barely even noticed, too lost in my girl, the love of my life, the only person who’d ever managed to make me feel like I wanted more.
And I wanted more.
I was so fucking greedy for her. I wanted everything.
“Tristan,” she moaned so fucking sweetly, shuddering against me with her release, and I snapped, my hips thrusting forwards again and again as I emptied myself into the condom inside her, holding her hot, shaking body as my climax ripped through me.
Fucking hell.
I couldn’t pinpoint exactly when or how my life had changed, but Aria had torn my world apart.
Then she’d remade it.
And for the first time in my life, I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Later, when we’d cleaned up and she was lying in my arms, the candles burnt down to flickering stubs, I stroked my hand through the length of her hair. What I wanted to say was the truth, but it was too soon for a confession.
It was too soon, but she was asleep, and so I could say it. I could whisper it into the dark.
“It’s too soon to say this, but I love you.”
The second I’d spoken the words aloud, I froze, my heart pounding so hard I found myself struggling to breathe.
I forced myself to take one deep breath after another until my heart rate was less like someone who’d just run a marathon and more like someone who’d jogged around Hatherley Hall’s running track a couple of times.
Just after I’d carefully shifted Aria’s sleeping position so I could blow out the remaining candles before I fell asleep, I felt her stirring. I lay back on the cushions, slowly stroking my hand up and down her back in the hope she’d fall asleep again.
“Tristan?”
“Sorry. Go back to sleep.”
Instead of doing as I suggested, she lifted her head. “Tristan.”
The way she was looking at me, so soft and sleepy, did things to my heart that I was not prepared for. “Yeah?”
“I love you, too.”
“You heard that?”
She nodded. “You meant it.”
The fact she wasn’t even questioning it…the fact she’d heard the truth in my whispered words earlier…
I pulled her into me. “Yeah. I meant it.”