CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN #2
He didn’t look like he believed me. Warily, he said, “I don’t want to nurse someone’s regret after. I’m not responsible for your bad choices.”
“Are you saying you’re a bad choice?”
His eyes bore into mine, unwavering. “I’m a bad choice because you’ll wake up tomorrow and remember who you are…and who I’m not.”
I considered his words for a moment. I might regret him. I might regret everything that came after. But at least the regret would belong to me.
So, I said, “Maybe you are a bad choice. But you’re the first choice I’ve made that feels like mine.”
For a moment, Tristan didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe.
It was as if my words had struck something deep inside him. His throat worked as he swallowed, and his gaze dropped, just briefly, to the floor between us. He needed a second to steady himself before he could look at me again.
When he lifted his eyes, they were filled with resolve.
Slowly, his hands slipped out of his pockets, fingers flexing once like he wasn’t sure what to do with them now that he wasn’t holding himself back.
He took one step toward me.
Just one.
But it changed everything.
His voice was low, roughened by something he wasn’t hiding anymore. “Daisy…”
I held his gaze, refusing to look away. “Tristan…”
His breath hitched—a small, involuntary sound that betrayed just how deeply hearing his name affected him.
Then…he came alive.
He dragged his shirt off in one fluid movement.
My eyes followed it to the floor before returning to him.
His chest was broad and deeply tanned, narrowing toward his waist, the muscles across his stomach shifting with every uneven breath.
His arms looked even thicker without the sleeves covering them, strong from something more real than a gym. Work. Travel.
A life lived outdoors. In the wild. Rough and unregulated.
I shook beneath his stare. But he didn’t come at me.
That was what undid me. The fucking control he just gave to me.
He stood a few feet away, his broad chest rising and falling, every part of him drawn tight with restraint.
His eyes moved over the thin bra and underwear I stood before him in, but his hands remained at his sides.
I crossed the space between us. I forced confidence in every step, but inside I trembled like a leaf.
The instant my palm touched his chest, his breath changed. Heat poured from his skin, and his heart struck hard beneath my hand.
Somehow, I knew his hand would reach for the back of my neck before it lifted.
My chin tilted for him. His fingers slid into my hair, and his mouth met mine in a savage kiss that bruised my lips and pulled a gasp from me.
Hunger broke through his restraint so quickly that I stumbled against him, but his arm closed around my waist. I was going nowhere.
Not that I wanted to be anywhere else but here.
There was a desperate edge to his kiss that my body answered instantly. His hand tightened at the back of my neck while the other gripped my hip, holding me against his tall, solid frame. A groan moved deep in his throat when I pressed closer.
His mouth changed against mine, and I followed without thought. When his hand shifted lower on my hip, my body was already pressing impossibly closer. He suddenly drew back for half a second, something uncertain passing through his expression.
I didn’t allow it. I shook my head, silencing his question.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I whispered.
He swallowed, not answering.
Then I pulled him back to me. At the same time, I walked him backward until the backs of his knees struck the bed.
He sat heavily, looking up at me with an expression that made my pulse stumble. Hunger, certainly. But there was something else there, something like disbelief. I stepped between his thighs and touched his face.
His jaw tightened beneath my palm, the dark stubble rough against my skin. “Daze.”
My body burned. I bent and kissed him again. His hands settled around my hips, gripping me tightly in a way I desperately wanted. Need shot through me.
I climbed into his lap. My knees came down on either side of him, and the ease of it made us both pause. His fingers tightened around my hips.
“How the fuck do you do that?” he murmured.
“Do what?”
He looked at me as though the answer disturbed him.
“Fit.”
Heat moved through me. His mouth traveled down my neck, his rough stubble scraping my skin.
He found the place beneath my ear that sent pleasure racing through me, and my fingers tightened in his hair.
Then his hands moved along my back. He unclasped my bra and let it slowly fall, his eyes looking heavy as my chest bared to him.
“Fuck,” he groaned.
The moment his mouth wrapped around my nipple, I shook, cursing aloud as sparks shot through me. “Oh, God.”
He sucked harder, and my hands found his hair, pulling to keep him closer.
“Tristan…”
He took his time with my breasts, sucking tenderly one second and then hard the next. One hand spread across my bare waist while the other traveled slowly over my thigh, pulling me tighter against him. I moved over his lap, feeling the hard length of him beneath his jeans.
A rough sound left his throat. I quickly reached for his belt. He caught my wrist immediately.
For one awful second, I thought he was going to stop me.
He pulled back from my breasts and brought my hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss against the inside of my wrist, his eyes now fixed on mine.
The tenderness of it moved through me strangely.
Then he released me. I undid his belt and pushed his jeans down far enough to free him. He was hard and heavy in my hand, and the sound that left him was almost violent.
His forehead dropped against mine. “Daze.”
I stroked him once, and his fingers dug into my thigh.
“Fuck me, Tristan. Please.”
His other hand curved around my thigh, gripping hard enough to make my breath catch.
He turned us without warning, laying me across the mattress while remaining on his knees at the edge of the bed.
My hair spilled across the sheets. Tristan stayed above me for a moment, his hands braced on either side of my legs, his tanned chest heaving beneath my stare.
His gaze moved over me, taking in my bare breasts and underwear that was all I had left on.
Then he hooked his fingers into my underwear and dragged it down my legs before throwing it aside.
He looked at me. His gaze moved over everything I had exposed to him, and the raw hunger in his face made my body clench.
“Come here,” I whispered.
A dark smile touched his mouth.
He caught my thighs and pulled me to the edge of the mattress.
The sudden movement dragged a startled sound from me, but he was already lowering himself between my legs. His mouth brushed the inside of my thigh before his fingers found me. They rubbed along my clit the same moment his tongue slid along my sex, pulling a sudden, sharp breath from my lungs.
Oh, my God.
He watched my face as he did it again, slower this time, following the rhythm of my breathing. Except it didn’t feel like following. When he changed the angle of his hand and sucked a little more greedily, my hips lifted before he guided them.
“That good, Daze?” he whispered.
I said yes. Yes, it was fucking good. He had to keep going. He couldn’t stop. I needed this. I needed it more than I needed to breathe.
Suck me harder, circle your fingers along my clit—don’t stop, don’t stop—
The pressure built quickly, stealing thought from me. I gripped his forearm, my nails biting into the thick muscle beneath his skin.
“Tristan…”
“Fucking come for me, Daisy.”
His words sent me over the edge. My release came hard, forcing a broken cry from my mouth. He held me through it, his hand firm against my trembling body, his mouth pressed against the inside of my thigh.
I was still trying to breathe when he stood.
His body rose over mine, tall and broad enough to block the light from the window. His jeans hung low on his hips, his chest flushed beneath the tan.
“How do you want it?”
“Rough, Tristan.”
“Are you protected?”
“Yes.”
“I’m clean…” He paused, shaking his head a moment. “I haven’t been with someone in almost two years—”
I silenced him with a kiss. His tongue met mine. He groaned deep in his chest. Then he reached for me. He pulled me upright before settling against the headboard and bringing me onto his lap. My knees came down on either side of him again.
His hands closed around my hips.
I lowered myself onto him. The stretch made my breath catch. Tristan went rigid beneath me, his jaw clenched, holding perfectly still while I adjusted. His forehead pressed against mine. I shifted, taking him deeper. A rough sound left his throat.
There should have been uncertainty. Some awkward negotiation between two people discovering each other for the first time.
There wasn’t.
I began to move, and his body met mine without hesitation. When his grip changed, I followed it. When my rhythm faltered, his hips rose beneath me and found it again.
Once, his eyes narrowed as though the ease between us had disturbed him too. Then his hand returned to the back of my neck, and he kissed me. The room dissolved around us.
There was only his mouth, his breath, the hard strength of his body beneath mine.
The shift of muscle across his chest whenever I pressed my palms against him.
The rough sounds he made when I tightened around him.
The relentless pressure building low inside me again.
His hands moved over my hips, controlling nothing but refusing to let me drift far from him.