CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Immediately, I was greeted by the scent of his cologne once more. The smell triggered something inside me. A wave of nostalgia that intensified when I looked at him.
He detached from my hand to remove his case and bag. He plopped them down on a nearby chair and then turned back to me. I watched him closely as he took a few steps back. He stopped when his back hit the wall and then shoved his hands into his pockets.
I didn’t move from my place, but I did spin my body around to look at him. I should have felt jittery and nervous, and I was those things, but mostly, I felt deep longing when I looked at him.
“Why are you over there?” I asked lightly.
“I want to look at you,” he answered straightaway. “In my room. Without an audience.”
“How many women have you looked at in your room, without an audience?” I wondered.
“Zero.”
I studied him, catching only honesty in his gaze. I didn’t have a reason to doubt him. The man had been brutally honest with me from the get-go.
“I’m lucky then.”
He let out a short laugh, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re a fool if you think that you’re the lucky one standing in this room.”
“You can’t honestly be referring to yourself.”
“Call me crazy, but I feel like I get struck by lightning every time you look at me.”
I took a step closer to him, and when he stilled at the move, I paused. “That’s funny because you weren’t very nice to me at first.”
He flexed his jaw. “I saw you with your husband.”
“That angered you?”
“Among other things.”
Not even the mention of Oliver dampened my mood. “Did you want to push me away?”
“I wanted to ruin it for myself, Daze, because how could someone like me have you?”
I let those words hang in the air for a minute. There was so much passion in them, it took me off guard.
“You don’t know me. I could be the worst thing in your life—”
“No,” he cut in, determinedly, with a slight shake of his head.
“How do you know that?”
“From the second I saw you, that feeling in my center has been screaming at me to get closer to you. You want to know how many times I’ve felt like this before?”
“How many?”
His eyes were hard on mine, his voice laced with conviction as he said, “Once, and it was last night when you came out on the patio and locked eyes with me. I felt like you were someone I’d been waiting my whole life to see.”
When I took another step, his body reacted the same way and tightened. “Why don’t you want me to come closer then?”
His expression turned wary. “I’m terrified of you.”
Floored by that answer, I tilted my head to the side as I studied him. “Why?”
“If I told you, you’d be running out of here.”
Intrigued, I narrowed my eyes curiously at him. “Then we’re at a standstill. If you won’t come to me, and you won’t allow me to come to you, we’ll forever be circling each other.”
He smiled faintly. “As long as we’re in the same room, I don’t mind.”
My face burned. I had to look away from him to gather my thoughts. I couldn’t think straight when he stared at me like that—open and so full of longing. Did he see the same when he looked at me? I felt anticipation buzzing beneath my skin, a stark sign that I was equally affected.
I turned around and busied myself, strolling around the large hotel room.
The room was dim, even in the middle of the day.
Soft sunlight pushed through the sheer curtains, casting pale streaks across the dark carpet.
The room wasn’t messy, but it was full—it felt full.
Occupied not just by belongings, but by the strong residue of someone who had lived hard in the hours between singing.
Empty and half-empty bottles of whiskey and wine lined the minibar counter, their labels scratched at and dulled by fingerprints.
A faint trace of smoke still clung to the air, mingling with the ocean breeze slipping in through the open balcony door.
The scent was both clean and fragmented; salt and wind chasing away what remained of a long night.
I stood in the doorway, watching the curtain shift gently.
I heard seagulls faintly in the distance and the sound of car horns.
The world keeps going on. It stops for nothing and no one.
I thought about what he’d told me about his father, about the ashes scattered over Ammonite Falls. He’d been alone. There’d been no ceremony. It was just him and the rush of water below.
Had he cried?
I could see that being the case. To be so full of anger last night and now filled with desire—the man’s emotions were dangerously honest. Whatever he felt, he felt at his core.
I felt his sorrow in the room. All around me, through his haphazardly placed belongings.
I could imagine he’d come bursting through this room after he’d watched me leave.
I could track the bottles he’d started and finished and others he left abandoned.
All the while his back was turned away from the world.
Absorbed in the quiet, in the melancholic thoughts one had when regret ate away at you.
There was a familiar grief I knew too well here.
“Where are the rest of your things?” I wondered aloud, twisting around to look at him.
He hadn’t moved from the wall. His arms were crossed as he watched me.
“In my camper van,” he said.
“That’s how you’ve been traveling?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“You drive around to new places and then at night you stay at hotels?”
His faint smile returned. “Not really. It’s my little home on wheels, but every now and then I like to have a hot shower and break up the routine.”
My chest ached at the thought of being able to drive and not stop. Not have to worry or pretend. “Sounds freeing.”
He softly admitted, “It is.”
“And lonely.”
He didn’t respond.
Finally, I faced him fully. He’d come a little closer, probably to see what I was doing, but he wouldn’t cut the distance.
The desire was there, though. In the way he watched me intently, his breath held tightly in his lungs.
Call me crazy, but I wasn’t feeling nervous. Not anymore. A calm stillness came over me. My body buzzed at his presence, needing and pining for him. My skin felt thirsty for his touch, like I’d been deprived of it for so long.
It made no sense.
But being here made no sense and went against the structure and fear I’d been caged in.
Giving him my full focus now, I asked him curiously, “Did you really write a paper on Seneca?”
His eyes flickered back and forth, surprised by my question. I supposed it was sudden. He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“Do you remember the grade you got for that paper?”
His eyes narrowed curiously. “I got an A.”
“That’s impressive.”
“My professor was a lenient old man.”
“Don’t try diminishing your success. You should be proud.”
He smirked. “It was just philosophy, Daze. A couple courses to earn some credits that didn’t help me out in the end.”
Just philosophy?
A crazed laugh sputtered from my lips as I gawked at him, feeling envious and giddy. Just philosophy.
Like it was nothing to write home about. I thought of the months of punishments. Of rationing water glasses to get passages of philosophers like Seneca right beside a dying light.
Just philosophy.
If I thought I wanted this man before, I was dead wrong. My body blazed. Wanting was too small a word for what hit me now.
He didn’t laugh with me. He didn’t even smile. He just watched me—really watched me—like he was trying to understand my reaction, the history behind it, the parts of me he didn’t have access to.
“Daze,” he murmured, and something in the way he said my name made my pulse trip.
He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. He just stood there, hands in his pockets, shoulders tense, as if the slightest shift might break whatever fragile gravity held us in place.
“You’re doing that thing again,” I said softly.
His brow lifted. “What thing?”
“Looking at me like you’re trying to figure me out.”
A faint exhale left him. His gaze moved over my face, slow and heavy. “Still wondering where you came from.”
I took a slow step toward him. He didn’t retreat, but his breath caught, like he was bracing for impact.
“You said you’re terrified of me.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
His eyes lowered to my mouth. “Because I don’t know you well enough to feel this fucking certain.”
“Certain of what?”
His jaw flexed. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer.
“How badly I want to keep you here. In this room.”
The word keep settled low inside me. It wasn’t the same as asking me to stay. There was something rougher beneath it. Something he was still refusing to name, but he knew. It should have made me want to step back.
Instead, I moved closer.
He tensed again, but it wasn’t fear—it was restraint. His fingers twitched in his pockets, like he was holding himself back from reaching for me.
“You’re still not coming closer,” I said quietly.
“If I do,” he murmured, “I won’t be able to pretend I don’t want you.”
My heart thudded painfully. “And pretending is safer?”
“For you,” he said. “Not for me.”
I felt myself unraveling, the knot within me loosening after being pulled tight too long. He watched it happen, his gaze tracing every shift in my expression.
I didn’t understand this. I had a feeling he didn’t either.
The silence between us was heavy with everything we wanted and weren’t doing.
“I’m tired of thinking,” I whispered honestly. “Let’s stop pretending. We’re here for a reason, aren’t we?”
Before he could respond, I brought my hand behind my back. Finding the zipper, I pulled it down, letting my dress loosen and then drop to the floor. Though my heart beat rapidly, I felt unusually calm. Certain. Like this was easy as breathing.
With parted lips, Tristan’s gaze drifted over me. He swallowed thickly, whispering in a pained way, “Fuck.”
Now his eyes met mine, and there was a dangerous edge in them. “You sure you want this, Daisy?”
“Am I not making it clear enough?” I returned, standing half-naked before him.
“I don’t think I can be gentle.” His blunt words should have unnerved me.
“I’m not fragile.”