CHAPTER EIGHT #2
He looked between me and the clothes, then turned around, giving me his back. He stood still and waited patiently while I changed.
It was tricky with the dress because the zipper was so high. Tristan was so close that I lightly bumped into him several times as I fished for it. He seemed to grow more rigid with every brush, and I wondered how he felt knowing I would soon be completely naked behind him.
“Is your bed going to fit both of us?” I wondered idly.
“It will,” he said stiffly. “It should.”
“Won’t it be tight?”
He inhaled sharply, one hand clenching. “Uh—no, but if you want, if it makes you more comfortable, I can throw down a pad and sleep somewhere else—”
“This is your van,” I cut in. “If anyone’s going to sleep outside, it’ll be me.”
He chuckled, but it sounded off. “I don’t mind sleeping rough.”
I watched his broad back, understanding his stiffness.
Our breaths were quick and loud.
I would be sharing a bed with this man. This man I had thoroughly allowed to explore me in ways nobody else had, and now his back was turned while I changed.
It seemed a little silly.
That we could be so intimate one moment and then awkward and uncertain the next.
My cheeks burned as I let go of the zipper and allowed my arm to fall to my side. I stood straighter, shook the nerves from my limbs, and asked, “Can you undo my zipper, Tristan?”
This was not a nervous man. He radiated confidence. Yet the request made his body still for a touch too long. Made me almost question myself for asking.
Then he turned around slowly.
His mouth was slightly parted as he met my gaze. His eyes, bright and heavy, held mine.
“Turn around,” he said thickly.
I did.
Keeping my gaze steady on the bed, I listened to his movements. The soft shuffle of his clothes rubbing together as he stepped closer.
With gentleness, he gathered my hair and settled it over one shoulder so that it cascaded down my front.
His fingers hovered for a moment at the nape of my neck, not touching, but close enough that I felt the warmth of him anyway.
Then they found the zipper.
I felt the faint pressure of his knuckles against my spine as he took hold of the tiny pull.
He hesitated.
The zipper slid down in a soft, traitorous whisper. Each inch felt louder than the last. His touch was careful, restrained, as if he were handling something fragile rather than simply undoing a dress.
When the zipper reached my lower back, he stopped, his hand lingering there, his breath warm against my shoulder.
For a second, neither of us moved.
The silence between us thickened, charged with everything we weren’t saying. I could feel how close he was now—close enough that if I leaned back even slightly, I would be pressed against him.
Close enough that my pulse—erratic and excited—seemed to echo in the space between us.
“Okay,” he said at last, his voice low. “It’s undone.”
He didn’t step away.
I turned slowly, the dress loosening and slipping from my shoulders as I faced him. His eyes dropped despite himself, then snapped back up as though he were fighting a battle entirely of his own making.
The tension in his jaw told me he wasn’t winning.
For a moment, we simply looked at each other.
The van felt impossibly small.
The bed suddenly very real behind me.
His fingers clasped my chin. His touch was warm and firm as he ran his thumb over my lips, his eyes still on mine.
“Daisy,” he said tightly. “I…”
“You what?” I whispered.
“I’m trying to figure out how…to treat you…” His eyes dropped to my bra. My breathing picked up. Agony danced in his eyes as he gritted out, “Without being a fucking ape about it.”
I half-smiled.
The fact that I could make him feel this way consumed me.
Without waiting, I reached behind myself and unclasped my bra.
“Who said I wanted you to be careful?”
His eyes burned into my bare skin. “Daze…”
“Show me.”
His mouth collided with mine instantly.
His hands were everywhere. Running down my back. Cupping my breast.
A deep groan escaped his mouth as he knocked me backward. We fell onto the bed together, him over me, heating me, his tongue dancing with mine as his hands feverishly explored my body.
“God, Daisy,” he groaned, grazing my jaw with his teeth. “It’s been fucking torture not touching you.”
I could hardly respond.
My hands were everywhere, too. Pulling off his shirt. Gripping the hard lines of his back. The muscles of his biceps.
I grabbed and pulled and kissed him greedily, thirsting for his tongue and his taste. I moaned when he ground against my center.
It wasn’t even rough.
A gentle rub that made me shake and shudder.
“Hurry,” I gasped. “Hurry, Tristan.”
Within moments, my panties were gone. He dragged them down my legs, pausing to lick at my center and send me spiraling even farther into that foggy state of pleasure.
He fished out a condom, kicked off his jeans, and was back over me in seconds, his chest moving fast and hard as he sheathed himself.
I ran my eyes over him, delighting in his broad shoulders and built chest. I trailed my fingers over his abs, and he shook beneath my touch before lowering himself over me.
He kissed me again, but this time it was light and sweet.
“I thought you weren’t going to be careful,” I muttered, smiling against his mouth as his hands moved sensually over my body.
“Fuck, but I can’t,” he murmured. “Something about you, Daze…”
He ran his length over my center, and I shook, drenching him with my need.
I could hear us.
The wet slide of his length.
The harsh breaths in the air.
The movement of our bodies as we slid against one another, finding the perfect click.
It happened fast.
He pushed into me slowly, his glazed eyes searching mine. I shut my eyes, lost to the fullness of him, my body yielding as though it had been waiting for exactly this.
“Doesn’t that feel so fucking good?” he gritted out. “So fucking right.”
I could only breathe and whimper my agreement, feeling him move within me at a pace that wouldn’t bruise.
Not yet.
Though I already knew any mark he left behind would be internal.
I could feel the holes in my soul center on his touch, on needing his kisses and his cock as though they might somehow stitch the gaping wounds shut.
I gripped him tighter, sucking in a sharp breath when a wave of pleasure tore through me.
“Tristan…”
“There you are.”
He kissed me then, sucking at my tongue as I held him tighter. He rocked into me a little faster.
“I’m so fucking deep, Daze…I can feel everything.”
I wondered what he meant.
Whether he was referring to my walls gripping him, milking his release.
Whether he meant some deeper part of me. The one holding him tightly, kissing him back in equal measure, begging him for an answer to this mess I’d found myself in.
I had been living in terror before this being came into my world.
But here, with this giant man over me, his cock inside me, I was brimming with life and desire.
I wanted him like my next breath. Needed him to fill me. To mark me internally if it meant hiding the other marks that existed there.
Finally, he moved faster.
The urgency in his movements only brought me closer to my release. The van rocked, and he spoke in broken words here and there.
Searing me.
Making me cling to his flesh, my nails digging into muscle and sweat.
“Need you…”
“Fuck, I want to live inside you…”
Every word made me shudder. Made me tip over the edge and find that inexhaustible pleasure running through me from head to toe.
It was an addictive rush.
Then he came while buried deep inside me, and for a moment, I wished I could feel it. Feel his release as my walls greedily sought to grip him.
I wanted to be marked.
To feel his fluid come out of me and know I had put it there.
Me.
The girl in the nook, frightened and stained with grief.
He didn’t let me go.
He didn’t move away from me. Instead, he gathered me into his arms and held me tightly against his chest.
He breathed raggedly, his heart beating hard against my back, his mouth close to my ear as he asked a question I couldn’t yet answer.
“Where did you come from, Daisy?”