CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Oliver returned that night, agitated and unresponsive. I was already tucked into bed, reading by the lamplight, when he meandered into the room, his steps slow and tired. I hid my shaky hands under the covers and watched him closely.
“Oliver?” I said cautiously. “Where’ve you been?”
He didn’t look back at me as he switched the bathroom light on, grumbling, “Stayed back at work.”
He didn’t ask me how my appointment went. He didn’t even look at me as he stripped his clothes off and entered the shower stall. What if he got out and did ask about my appointment? What if he was quiet and unnerving because he already knew what I’d done?
Anxiety swirled inside me as I waited for what felt like ages for him to finish. By the time he was out, I’d turned the lamp off and had the covers up to my chin, like it would somehow stop him from doing the worst if I was buried beneath the fabric.
He lay down, and I had a feeling he was staring at the ceiling. I pictured his dead eyes, his still form, the vacancy in his expression. What went on inside his mind? I always pictured blackness like tar. Imagined if I ventured into it, I’d walk out covered in it.
“How did the appointment go?” he finally asked.
I didn’t let my body tense. I let the question run over me like water as I breathed calmly, normally, answering, “The clinic was full. They told me to come back tomorrow.”
“Figures,” he scoffed. “The damn system has been fucked for years now.”
Oliver hardly swore. When he did, it usually meant that he was either going to lock me up in his lesson room or he was pissed about something.
I thought of how flustered he’d been lately.
Not for the first time, I thought of him coming home that night, covered in dirt.
Thought of the leaf in the pocket of his pants.
Thought of Lucy and the detective. A cold feeling washed over me.
I didn’t like that my back was turned to him. I felt exposed and vulnerable.
Oliver was unnervingly still—no movement, no sound, not even the whisper of breath.
Yet his presence filled the room, dense and inescapable.
At times, it felt as if he could see through me, as if he knew everything.
Even my thoughts felt loud under his gaze.
What I’d done in that hotel room with Tristan.
My betrayal. It echoed in the silence. The first chance I had to run, and I ended up in the arms of a heartbroken musician.
I barely put up a fight.
I fell so willingly and easily into his bed.
And yet it didn’t feel like a mistake. There was no guilt in my chest. I didn’t feel disgusted with myself.
On the contrary, my disdain was in how I left things.
Cold and abrupt, I fled from that room and made him feel cheap.
I shouldn’t have done that. I could have calmed the fuck down and been a big girl about it.
I burrowed deeper under my covers, silencing my thoughts the moment I felt the heat of Oliver’s stare against my back.
The alarms and camera recordings were still down, and Oliver was gone by the time I opened my eyes the next morning.
The house was quiet—too quiet. Like it had been emptied of sound on purpose. I sat up slowly, the sheets clinging to my skin, damp with sweat. The sun was already high, pouring through the windows like molten gold. It was going to be a scorcher.
But the heat wasn’t what made my chest tight.
It was the silence. The absence. The way Oliver had vanished without a trace, leaving behind a house that felt more like a trap than a home. I knew better than to trust the quiet. It was his favorite kind of control: subtle, suffocating.
I tried to shake it off. Tried to focus on anything else. But my thoughts kept circling back to Tristan. His voice. His hands. The way he looked at me…
I hated that I wanted to see him again.
I hated that I didn’t care.
The uncertainties were there. I knew he might not want to see me again. That I could have very well been a notch on his bedpost, but my heart didn’t believe that. The doubt was drowned out by something louder. This…desire, maybe. Or desperation. A need to feel something that wasn’t fear.
So, I got up. No shower. No breakfast. Just a white dress clinging to my skin and sandals that slapped against the pavement as I stepped outside.
The sun was brutal. It baked the sidewalk, shimmered off car hoods, turned the air into something thick and humid. I walked fast, ignoring the burn on my shoulders, the sweat trickling down my spine. Every step felt like rebellion. Dazed, I kept moving.
I didn’t stop.
Not until I reached the hotel.
I pushed through the glass doors, the blast of air conditioning hitting me like a slap. I didn’t pause. Didn’t hesitate. Just walked.
I went straight for the elevators, my heart thudding harder with each step. I didn’t know what I was going to say. I didn’t even know if he’d be there.
But I knew I had to see him.
I got to his door and raised my hand to knock.
Then I paused.
The hallway was quiet. The air smelled like old carpet and lemon cleaner. My hand hovered, trembling slightly.
And then I knocked.
Once. Twice.
Waited.
One minute, then two—
The door opened slowly.
Tristan stood there, face flushed, wet hair tousled, bare chest glistening like he’d just stepped out of a shower. His eyes flared at the sight of me.
My breaths quickened as I searched for words, wringing my hands together.
“It wasn’t revenge,” I whispered, imploring him to understand. “Tristan—”
“I know.” His gaze moved over my face. “I was a bastard.”
I swallowed. “You were right to be cruel.”
“No, Daisy, I wasn’t.” He frowned, looking bothered. “I thought you’d used me and were running back to him.”
“No…”
My broken word hovered in the air. Neither of us moved.
Water slipped from the ends of his dark hair and traveled over the hard planes of his chest. My cheeks burned. I wanted to follow each drop with my tongue.
“Why are you here, Daisy?” he asked, tightly.
“I told you.”
“You told me it wasn’t revenge.”
My heart beat harder. “I went to you in the restaurant because I wanted you.”
Something shifted in his expression. “And now?”
My mouth went dry. “Now too.”
“Say it properly, Daze.”
Heat moved through me, low and immediate. “I want you, Tristan.”
His nostrils flared with the breath he took. Then he stepped aside.
I entered the room. The door shut behind me, followed by the quiet click of the lock. When I turned around, he still hadn’t reached for me. If anything, he was keeping his distance all over again.
But his eyes wove a different story.
His gaze moved slowly over my white dress, my bare shoulders, the sandals I had walked half the city in. When he looked at my face again, something dark and hungry had settled into his eyes.
He wanted me to come closer. He wanted to touch me. I moved to him, stopping close enough I could see the tired lines around his eyes. I wanted to brush them away because I knew it was me that put them there.
Tristan’s hand rose to my jaw. His thumb moved once across my bottom lip, grazing the tender place he had bruised the day before. I trembled. He felt it. He breathed harder. I stopped breathing entirely. I stared into his eyes, and he could see what I wanted—what we both needed.
I’d barely pushed out his name when his mouth came crashing down on mine.
Hours later, back inside Oliver’s house, I showered my body thoroughly, but there were marks on my flesh. Especially between my legs. Along my inner thighs where Tristan had nibbled and sucked. My face flamed, knowing there was nothing I could do about them.
There were no other visible marks, but my face looked different. My cheeks were perpetually pink, my lips puffy, my eyes lit up and glassy.
“Do you like that?” he’d growled, seated at the edge of the bed as he pulled me between his thighs.
His hands moved beneath my dress, sliding slowly up the backs of my legs while his mouth pressed against my stomach through the fabric.
I moaned, unable to speak.
He pushed my dress higher, exposing more skin with every kiss. His mouth moved lower while his hands gathered the material around my waist.
“Tell me.”
“Yes,” I breathed. “I like it.”
He turned me and lowered me across the mattress, but instead of climbing over me, he remained at the edge of the bed.
His eyes moved over me as he drew my underwear slowly down my legs.
The hunger in his face made my body clench, but there was something else beneath it. Relief, maybe. Like he’d spent the entire night believing he would never see me like this again.
He pressed his mouth to the inside of my knee.
Then higher.
Oh, my God.
My cheeks flushed at the memory. Every part of me burned. My core tingled from the reminder of his touch.
He tasted me like he knew every intimate part of me.
There was nothing hurried about it. He listened to every sound I made and then found the exact movement that would drag it from me again.
My fingers disappeared into his damp hair.
“Tristan, please.”
His eyes lifted to mine. “Please what?”
“Don’t stop.”
A rough sound moved through him.
His mouth returned to me, harder now. His fingers slid inside me while his tongue circled my clit, and my thighs began to shake around him.
I came hard in his mouth, and yet the pleasure didn’t ebb away. I remained wanting. Insatiable. I couldn’t get enough of his mouth. Didn’t want it parted from my flesh.
He stood over me afterward, his chest flushed beneath the tan, his mouth wet and his eyes almost black.
“You came back for me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The answer seemed to undo something inside him.
“Still protected?”
“Yes.”
He kissed me again and rolled me onto my side. His body settled behind me, hard and hot, one arm sliding beneath my neck while the other curved around my waist.
He lifted my dress higher.
I felt him against me and pushed backward without thought.
His breath broke against my shoulder.
“Daze.”
“Please.”
He entered me from behind in one slow thrust.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.