Tristan (The Ruins of Emblem #1)

by Cora Brent

  “Pull the fuck over,” I growled. “Before I grab the wheel and make you.”

  She leaned back in her seat, spat out a very annoyed “Fuck,” and steered the car over to the shoulder where it bumped over the gravel and then came to a halt.

  “That’s better,” I said. “Now turn off your lights.”

  She was confused. “Why?”

  “Because visibility is shit but if anyone behind you sees your lights they will try to follow them and slam right into us.”

  Cadence had a little bit of sense after all. She switched off the lights and cut the engine. A flash of lightning gave me a clear glimpse of her profile staring anxiously out the windshield. Judging by the giant splat of red on the radar we were likely to be waiting this out for a little while.

  “What are you doing?” she asked when she noticed I’d unbuckled my seatbelt and was dicking around with the seat controls.

  I was barely able to get the thing to budge, creaking it back only a few inches. “Trying to get comfortable. Looks like we’ll be here for at least a few minutes.”

  She was annoyed. “In that case you just make yourself right at home in my car.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing. Feel free to do the same.”

  “I just want to get out of here as soon as possible.”

  “Why? You haven’t been enjoying our first date?”

  “That’s not what this is.”

  “No?” I grinned. “What is it?”

  “It’s a situation you inserted yourself into because you don’t care if you’re unwelcome or not.”

  I clucked my tongue. “You keep talking like that I’m going to start thinking you don’t like me.”

  “I don’t like you, Tristan.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  Without hesitating I yanked my shirt off. “How about now?”

  Cadence was caught off guard and allowed her eyes to wander over what she could see of my chest in the near darkness. I saw her swallow and turn her head before pressing her knees together and running her palms over them.

  “That solves nothing,” she announced. “And by the way baring your chest only makes you marginally more attractive.”

  “Marginally more attractive,” I mimicked, cracking up. Listen to her, thinking she was handing out a lecture full of SAT words.

  Another flash of lightning and her head snapped back in my direction. “What the hell do you want?”

  Oh, so many ways to answer that question. “What do I want?”

  “You heard me. What do you WANT, Tristan?” She was getting loud now. “You’re rude and arrogant and you manage to show up every time I turn around and whenever we have a conversation your sole objective is to piss me the fuck off.”

  She pounded her steering wheel with a balled up fist. It was cute and half a dozen sarcastic possibilities scrolled through my head, each one designed to get her even more riled up.

  Except all of a sudden I didn’t want to make her mad anymore. I stared at Cadence Gentry, trying to really see her in the darkness and wishing there was more light because I knew I could look at her all day and never get bored.

  “You’re so beautiful,” I said and heard the undercurrent in my own voice. She had to understand that for once I was being sincere. “And you know what I want, Cadence.”

  She exhaled and leaned her head back and I wondered if I’d already blown it and she had nothing left to say to me but some creative version of Go to Hell. If that’s how things stood then I’d exit her car here and now and hoof it back to town no matter how much fucking water was falling out of the sky.

  But instead she whispered my name and said, “Yes.”

  Her head fell forward and was curtained by her soft hair, like she’d decided to be shy now that we were talking about something real. But then she pushed her hair of her face and then leveled me with the same kind of willful look that had been keeping me up at night lately. “I know what you want.”

  “And?” I was going to make her say it.

  She took a deep breath. “And I want the same thing.”

  That was all I needed to hear. I opened the car door and stepped out into the rain that poured down on my shoulders in cascading sheets while thunder growled overhead. I didn’t remain out there, swiftly opening the rear door of the car and climbing into the backseat.

  Cadence had swiveled around to stare at me but she didn’t move from her position. “Your pants must be soaking wet,” she said.

  They weren’t exactly dry but that wouldn’t have bothered me. I unzipped and slid them down, leaving only my boxers in place. For now. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I assumed hers had too judging by the way she was blatantly checking me out.

  I finished kicking off my pants and checked out Cadence’s reaction. She was into this, leaning forward between the two front seats for a better look.

  “What do you want to see?” I asked her.

  She swallowed. “You.”

  Her answer was like a shot of adrenaline to my dick. She probably got turned on by watching all kinds of dirt. I could give her something to watch all right. My hand slid down and stroked my swollen dick through my boxers. Slowly, letting my palm glide over the hard shaft and squeezing just enough to produce a very real groan out of my throat.

  “You like watching this?” I asked, starting to breathe hard.

  She nodded. “I do.”

  I stroked. She watched. I stroked harder.

  “If you want to see more you’ll have to come closer.”

  She hesitated only for a second. I thought she’d crawl between the seats into the back but she chose to duck outside before throwing open the rear door and climbing in. A blast of wind and rain came with her until she shut the door. I could feel the heat of her skin and inhale the scent of her shampoo. My hand hadn’t left my dick.

  Her shoulder brushed mine. “Now we’re both wet.”

  I wanted to touch something other than my dick so I reached for her. She didn’t stop me, didn’t say a word when my hand strayed to her waist and then higher, inching up until I had a handful of one of the tits I’d been coveting since that day in the Dirty Cactus.

  “You gonna fuck that Cadence girl?”

  “Not today.”

  If Pike was around to ask me that question right now my answer wouldn’t be the same. I was going to fuck Cadence Gentry into the next goddamn school year.

  Her dress was damp and I plucked at the neckline, feeling like I was going to bust open if I didn’t have her soon but wanting to see more of what I was getting into first. “Get rid of this.”

  Her heart raced under my palm and her voice was defiantly sexy. “And what if I don’t?”

  My thumb and forefinger gripped a piece of soft elastic fabric before allowing it to snap back. “I might have to rip it off.”

  “Do that,” she whispered.

  I paused, wondering if this tough talk was an act and that she might burst into emotional tears if I actually tore her pretty dress.

  That was a chance I was willing to take.

  I seized two fistfuls and heard a sharp rip as the seams came apart, sliding down her shoulders and exposing the way she spilled out of her lacy white bra. She wasn’t expecting me to dive right in and push my face all up in her tits and she gasped at the feel of two days of beard stubble scraping her tender skin. With one impatient hand I yanked the ruined portions of her dress down and bent my arm around her back until she arched to give me access to the clasp.

  Then the game was really on. She was now bare from the waist up and on her back right there across the shallow seat while I sucked one hot nipple and then the other. I felt no shame about being a tit man and Cadence had a perfect set that I knew I’d be thinking about for quite some time as I teased and licked and played while her knee hooked over my hip and my dick strained to erase the flimsy layers between us. I’d never been this close to just saying fuck it and pushing into her bare without a thought of
any consequences.

  And then she came. She came with my mouth sucking her tits and her fingers tangled in my hair and her body writhing and rubbing underneath me until I was half crazed with the overwhelming need to be buried inside of her. She said my name and whimpered as her body moved, trying to grind out every scrap of pleasure while my hand reached down and helped her along.

  Then something ridiculous happened.

  Not like this.

  The thought was like an open hand slap.

  “What’s wrong?” she breathed because I’d stopped cold and was propping myself on my forearms and staring down at her. I still had every intention of following through but I remembered who she was. This was Cadence, with her good family and her college pedigree and her hopeful optimism that she’d make a difference or whatever. Cadence deserved better than getting fucked in a backseat on the side of the road.

  “We don’t have to do this here,” I said because the storm was letting up and because I wanted to do something slightly decent and take her back to my place, which wasn’t resort quality but at least had a bed.

  Cadence didn’t agree. Her eyes narrowed. “Yes we do.” She was already pushing her panties down. “We have to do this right here.”

  All right. If that’s what she really wanted then that’s how it would be. I took advantage of the pause to snatch a condom out of my wallet. I was sure I had one waiting in there because I’d gotten into the habit of carrying one everywhere at the age of thirteen thanks to the advice of my big brother who liked to say that you never knew when an opportunity was going to come up. I ripped open the package with my teeth, got my dick covered and decided I needed a really good view of what Miss Cadence looked like with me sliding balls deep inside of her. I sat up and took her with me until we were face to face with her nipples brushing my chest and the dress puddled in a sorry heap around her waist as she straddled me. I kept my eyes on her face to gauge whether she intended to change her mind about this but all she did was stare stubbornly back and widen her knees so that I could find my way in. With one hand braced around her waist and the other guiding my dick I eased in slowly so I wouldn’t accidentally hurt her. Her hands tightened on my shoulders and she bit her lip as her body adjusted, her muscles relaxing while I struggled not to go crazy and get too rough.

  I tugged at her hair just hard enough so she’d focus on me, look me in the eye. “You want to know something?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve thought about having you like this twenty times a day since you sat down next to me at the bar.”

  Cadence tilted her head back and moaned a little as we started to get into the rhythm but her words were unmistakable. “Oh god, so have I, Tristan.”

  We had to be quick. With the storm on its way out cars were going to start using the road again and passing by a mere few feet away. She came again and she was loud about it as she rode me like she was on a race to the finish line. I hung on with gritted teeth until I was sure she was spent then I spilled everything I had while our sweaty bodies pumped to the rhythm of insanity. Because that’s what this was. Insanity. Two people who agreed about nothing except for the fact that we wanted to fuck each other until we couldn’t breathe.

  At the end she released this gasping little sigh that melted something deep in my chest and her forehead pressed to mine for a sweet moment. Out of nowhere I wished I’d started this differently. I wished I’d started off by kissing her. But the glare of passing headlights broke the spell and she slid off me, searching around in the dark in search of pieces of her clothing.

  “Here.” I passed her my shirt while she fastened her bra. “Since I ruined your dress.”

  “I told you to ruin my dress,” she said with a sniff of laughter but she took the shirt and pulled it over her head before climbing back to the front seat.

  There was nothing for me to do but struggle into my wet pants, shove the used condom in a pocket and join her on the passenger side. By the time I got buckled in Cadence was already rolling the car off the shoulder and back on the highway.

  We weren’t too far outside Emblem and I struggled for something to talk about as the lights of the prison grew larger with every passing mile. I was good at popping off mouthy comebacks but finding a few authentic words for a girl I’d just fucked and might like more than I’d ever planned to turned out to be too challenging. We were both locked in silence until Cadence pulled up to the curb in front of her grandfather’s house. She turned off the engine and looked out the window.

  “You can’t come in,” she announced. “My grandfather is probably going to be home any minute.”

  Her words were a pretty basic ‘Fuck off’ and they bothered me. I wasn’t sorry about what had happened between us and I hated the thought that she might be having some regrets. Another guy would have been able to say exactly the right thing right now but I had nothing handy. So my hand went to the door handle.

  “I’ve got to get going anyway. My truck’s parked down the street.”

  Cadence exited the car first. “Bye, Tristan,” she tossed over her shoulder and scampered to her grandfather’s front door, refusing to even look back once as she fussed with the keys, unlocked the door and closed herself inside.

  Since I had no valid reason to hang out in front of her house I found my truck, headed home and jumped right into the shower, hoping to rinse away the cloud of guilt that had been growing over my head ever since I drove away from Globe Street.

  Tonight I’d done exactly what I wanted every step of the way and I’d gotten what I was after. As for Cadence, she was an adult and she’d gotten her kicks too. In fact I was getting hard again remembering certain details like the way she ordered me to tear her dress off and the noise she made when she came. Nothing I’d ever seen or done had been hotter than those fifteen minutes in her car. Yet I couldn’t shake the sense that I could have done better.

  At first I wondered if it was because I knew my brother wouldn’t be pleased over my hookup with his wife’s sister, although I doubted Cadence would be bragging about our roadside fuck so he’d probably never know.

  No, my uneasiness had to do with Cadence herself. I wondered what she was thinking right now. I wondered how she felt.

  More than anything I wondered if she liked me as much as I was starting to realize that I liked her.

  There was no arguing that the sex was off the charts but sex wasn’t the only thing I kept thinking about. I hardly knew this girl and she drove me wild. She stayed on my mind all the time whether I wanted her there or not.

  The more thinking I did the more convinced I became that my biggest screw up tonight wasn’t inviting myself to dinner or sucking her tits or fucking her hot and heavy in the backseat. My biggest mistake was letting her walk away at the end.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d already come to a decision but I needed a few minutes to sort it out as I dressed and listened to Dover snoring as loud a chainsaw in the bedroom down the hall. There were still plenty of hours left until dawn, enough time to change the night’s outcome before the chance passed me by.

  I shoved my phone into my back pocket, cursing the fact that I hadn’t thought to exchange numbers with her. This would have to be done the old fashioned way, face to face.

  Ten minutes later I was back on Globe Street ringing the bell for the second time tonight and knowing that whatever came out of my mouth in the next few minutes would have to prove that I was more than a one dimensional dick with a shitty attitude.

  The first thing I needed her to do was open the door.

  Then we could take it from there.

  Chapter Nine

  Cadence

  I was never the type to sit in the middle of a circle of girls fretting over boys and menstrual cramps. I’d always had plenty of friends. But somehow I kept them at a distance. Even now only a few girlfriends came to mind. And not one of them would be impressed with a text containing the news that I’d just fucked a (technical) drug dealer.

>   In the backseat of my car.

  On the side of the road.

  My sisters certainly weren’t good candidates to receive that kind of information. Cassie would be bewildered while Cami would ask me eighty five hundred questions and then gag out her disgust.

  There was Leah. She was on her way to becoming friend material but her opinion of Tristan wasn’t high and I didn’t care to risk the bad opinion of my one local semi-friend.

  The one bright point in the evening was that my grandfather wasn’t home yet to witness my homecoming in a torn dress covered by a man’s black tee that smelled like soap and sandalwood. It smelled like Tristan.

  And so do I.

  My cheeks were burning as I dropped my purse in the living room and made a dash for the shower. I couldn’t pretend to be some virginal angel when it came to sexual exploits but never before had I screwed a guy on the side of the road two minutes after announcing I didn’t even like him.

  What’s worse, honesty forced me to admit that Tristan was the best goddamn sex I’d ever had. Sex with hair-on-fire, common-sense-killing orgasms that were still vibrating a few of the most important muscles between my legs.

  My only comfort was that I’d had the willpower to run away from him before he figured out that I’d consider crawling at his feet and barking like a dog if that was the price for earning some more time with his mouth and his dick and his hands.

  My loofa sponge got a good workout as I scrubbed at my skin in an effort to purge the lingering aftershocks of Tristan’s touch. The struggle was futile. I wouldn’t be forgetting anything about tonight. I’d be cursed with running the details through my mind at highly inconvenient moments. Perhaps I’d be pumping gas and flash back to the first jolting sensation of Tristan’s tongue on my breasts. Or maybe I’d be grading Orwell papers from my eleventh grade honors class and remember Tristan’s groan when he started stroking himself.