Chapter 25 The New Parts
THE NEW PARTS
We barely made it through the door before we were tearing at each other’s clothing.
I didn’t want to think about this anymore.
I didn’t want to weigh all the pros and cons.
I didn’t want to analyze all my feelings.
I just wanted Tristan. Wanted his mouth on mine and on my neck. His hands on my hips.
He pressed me against the wall, his hand sliding up my thigh, and his mouth moved down my neck.
I heard a low moan as his fingers traced the top of the thigh highs.
I tugged his shirt up and ran my hands up his abs.
Fucking hell, he wasn’t a boy anymore. He pulled away long enough to pull his shirt over his head.
My breath caught in my throat at the sight of him.
Dark ink covered his chest and stomach, and more dipped below his belt.
Years ago, I thought Tristan was pretty. Now he was beautiful.
I pulled him closer, wrapping my legs around his waist as he carried me into his bedroom. A room bathed in the low light of the city. The large floor-to-ceiling windows made the room feel as if the world were watching us. And let them.
He pressed me down on the bed. His hand slipped up my sweater, cupping my breast. I could feel his need pressing into my leg and hear his desire in each ragged breath he took. He pulled back, tugging my sweater over my head.
“Fucking hell, Ev, you are more beautiful than I imagined.” He slowly traced the swell of my breast. “Tell me to stop, and I will.” His voice was barely above a whisper. His chest rose and fell with each breath.
If I cared, this should have been where my brain reminded me this was a bad idea.
That sex would complicate an already complicated matter.
Blur the lines between right and what-the-fuck-are-you-doing.
It probably was but there were other parts of my body screaming that this is what we had been missing.
That twelve years was too long to not be with Tristan.
I slid closer and traced his full bottom lip, then the ink that covered his shoulders and chest. “I don’t want to stop. I’ve missed you so much.”
“You have no idea how much I have missed you.”
His eyes looked almost black in the low light.
His breath was uneven as my fingers slid down to his belt, pulling him down with me.
Some of the desperation had left as he worked his way down my neck, chest, and stomach.
It had been replaced with a need. One that had been building in us for years.
Tristan slid my skirt over my hips, kissing the inside of my thighs, pulling down the last barrier between himself and me.
He stood and slipped out of his pants and boxers. I realized what we had when we were younger was soft and the flavor of cotton candy. The edges were still rounded with our youth. What we were now had been sharpened by adulthood. By mistakes. And it burned like whiskey.
Tristan crawled up the bed, kissing my hip bone and running his tongue along my stomach.
The thing about fucking the first boy you ever fucked was that he knew what you liked.
And you him. But I wasn’t the silly girl who didn’t know how to use her body.
Who didn’t know how to suck a cock or that fucking is different from sex.
And right now I wanted Tristan to fuck me. Nothing soft and loving.
I didn’t want to recapture what we lost. I wanted to remake us.
The adult part of us. He pulled me onto his lap.
His teeth dragged over my neck, and his hands cupped my breast, rolling my nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“Tell me what you want.” He breathed in my ear.
“Because I want to fuck you until you can’t remember anything but my name. ”
And that was what I wanted. I wanted to erase that cotton candy bliss of silly Evan. The Evan who thought we were making love on the floor of my tree house. I grabbed his cock, running my thumb over the tip. “I see you got another piercing.”
He smiled into my mouth, thrusting into my hand. “Yeah, you like that?”
I raised a brow, stroking him a couple times.
Yes, I did like it. But I liked everything about the man Tristan had become.
The taut muscles that stretched over his shoulders and around his ribs.
The ink that covered almost every ounce of flesh.
The new edges that I wanted to run my fingers over and write my name across his body.
“We’ll see.” I nipped his bottom lip. I ran my finger over the piercing. This would be my first.
He grabbed my hand. “Stop. Christ, Ev, I’ve been dreaming about this moment for the past eleven years. I’m not going to end it like this.”
“Eleven?” I ran my nose along his jaw, running my tongue along the shell of his ear. This was what I had been missing with all the other men I had tried to replace Tristan with. Desire. His desire for me and mine for him. Even after twelve years, it still burned so bright.
“Yeah, I gave up sex for a year.” He tugged my mouth back to his.
“Now are you just going to play with it or…?” He flipped us over, settling between my legs, the playfulness gone from his features.
“I mean it, Evan. Tell me to stop, and this ends now. I just got you back. I don’t want to ruin it again. ”
“I want this. You.” I nipped his bottom lip. “Now are you just going to play with it or…?”
He gave me that smile, the one he saved for me. The one where just the corner of his perfect mouth rose and his brilliant green eyes darkened. I could feel the tip of him right there. I had missed him so much. “Please.” I needed to feel him deep inside of me. To feel his body pressed against mine.
“Do you want the full effect?” His voice was thick.
“Yes,” I said, breathing out. Sex was an act, a thing we did to get pleasure, and if I was going to do it, I was going to enjoy it.
“Roll over. Head down, ass up.” He pulled away.
My heart raced as I did as he asked. He kissed the base of my spine, wrapping his arm around my waist, then pulled me into position and slowly entered me.
“Fuck!” was all I could breathe out. The intensity made it hard to breathe. Hard to remember to do anything.
He leaned over me, pressed deeper into me. “Breathe, Ev,” he whispered in my ear, slowly grinding into me.
“Tristan.” I sucked in the breath and held it as he slowly moved his hips.
I couldn’t think, hold a thought, or rationalize what the fuck was happening.
I was lost in him. His hands on my hips, his mouth on my back and shoulders.
His name came out in ragged huffs. It’d been a long time since sex had felt like this.
All-consuming. The edges blurred, and I let myself ease into this.
The sheer bliss of what he was capable of.
There was a tightness in every muscle in my back, in my stomach.
I pushed back against him, wanting more.
Needing more, like a junkie desperate for that high.
Never had my body felt this raw. Every nerve craved his touch.
The tightness spread to my chest, to my jaw, building until it came out in a strangled plea.
He stopped. His finger traced up my spine, his hand on the back of my neck, then in my hair.
My body pressing into his. God, I needed this man like I needed air.
“Tristan,” I begged. And then he said my name, the soft whisper that had haunted my dreams. He pressed it into my skin, and everything came untangled.
I tumbled over the edge, unaware of anything other than the lightness that spread through my body.
Not even Tristan as he huffed out his own orgasm.
He collapsed next to me, his mouth on the back of my neck. His breath cooled the sweat that covered my body. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry at what just happened. My emotions were all over the place. Tristan pulled away, rolling over on his back.
“Fucking hell, Ev.” His chest was rising, his breaths as uneven as mine.
“Fucking hell, Tristan.” A strangled laugh bubbled up as the tears rolled down into the shell of my ear.
He looked over at me, catching a tear. “Are you okay?” He rolled over, hovering over me. “Did I hurt you?”
I smiled up at him, touching the crease between his brows. My limbs felt weak, my bones soft. “No. Not this time.” How had I ever thought that I could untangle myself from him?
He lay back down and pulled me into his embrace. As I came down from my high, I knew why addicts chased it. I’d be chasing this one for a long time. I needed him. More than just sex. I needed him.
The room was bathed in the blue glow of the city lights.
It felt weird to be in his space. His closet doors were open, revealing a sea of black clothing.
A dresser against one wall; on it a mix of beer bottles, cologne, jewelry, and change lay scattered across the top.
But it was what was on the walls that showed what he was now.
Taped on the white walls were drawings of skulls and moths.
Women and men. Playing cards and geometrical shapes.
“Is that your work?” My head was resting on his stomach.
“Yeah. Most of it’s shit for clients.” He ran his hands through my hair.
“When did that happen?” And how had I missed it? We had spent so much time together. Why hadn’t I asked?
“A few years after I left Parkfield. I never considered it. I had an idea for a tattoo. I drew it and brought it to Craig’s cousin. He was impressed and asked if I ever thought of tattooing. So I did.”
“They’re really good.” The muscles under my neck tensed.
“You say that like you’re surprised.”
I looked up at him. “More surprised I missed that about you. I never asked you when we were in school what you wanted to do with your life. I should have done more. I should’ve asked.” I turned back, looking at the art and the space that felt like Tristan. The new Tristan. “I’m sorry.”
“Right, because trying to learn the difference between a concussion and me being drunk wasn’t enough. Or trying to figure out which two fingers to tape together so I could use them again wasn’t enough. You should have also helped me decide what I wanted to do with my life?”
“Yes.” Then he would’ve had another reason to leave. He would’ve had hope, like I did with the U of M.
“Ev.” Tristan tugged on my hair so I would look at him. “I don’t think that way. I don’t resent you for that. Is that what this is all about? You think I resent that you left?”
“I knew how bad things could get. I knew what kind of man James was. I knew and yet I still left.” I sat up, moving closer to him. “I love you so much, but I don’t want to be the reason you’re not okay.”
He sat up, brushed the hair from my shoulder, and traced my collarbone with his fingertip.
“You will never be the reason I break. You are the only reason I am here today. Because you didn’t turn your back on me.
What happened twelve years ago was about me.
Not you. It wasn’t your job to save me. I should’ve never let you bear that responsibility. You were a kid.”
“So were you.” I traced the broken skull on his hand.
Marveled at the bone and tendons under the inked skin.
“And I never thought I was saving you. I thought you were saving me.” I looked around the room.
“And now I’m scared that you need to move on.
That we both should.” That was the right thing to do.
To finally close this chapter in the Tristan and Evan story.
But it was too hard to do that when so much of my life was written on the pages with him.
“When I got my shit together, I tried dating.” Tristan looked down at our hands, mine pale against his.
His dark lashes rested on his cheek. “I tried a lot. And it always ended because I didn’t want to explain why I never went home for holidays.
Why my brother was more like my son. I didn’t want to go back and dig all that shit up, have to explain the nightmares and the scars.
I want to move forward. I don’t have to explain anything to you.
You are my Evan. I know you’re what I need.
But am I what you need? I still got shit I need to figure out. ”
“Yes. You are what I’ve been missing.”
And that was the truth. Good or bad, it was the truth.