by Khan, Jen
Tristan insists on having me relax while he cleans up the kitchen.
I wander around his apartment, looking at the photos he has on the walls. There are pictures of his brothers, his father, and his mother. There are family pictures at Christmas and several taken at Holts, starting as early as what must be six or seven years old. They were a beautiful family, and her father is the one who destroyed them.
Making my way through the hall, I peer through the open spare bedroom and immediately come to dead stop. The breath rushes out of me and my head gets dizzy. I feel my body quake as my knees go weak. I blindly reach for the wall, backing away from the room, and collide with a hard body.
He found her in the hallway looking at the pictures on his wall, smiling like she appreciated what she was seeing. Then she started shaking so hard that he thought she was going to fall on her ass. He walked up to her and held her.
“Whoa, cupcake. You okay?”
She didn’t answer verbally. She shook her head violently. He couldn’t understand what had happened. They had been having a great night. He had been making some headway with her— until she’d gone off on her own. Then it dawned on him.
The nursery. He’d forgotten to close the damn door.
Hearing her begin to hyperventilate, he reached over to close the door. Holly stopped him when she grabbed his arm and said, “Don’t. Please.”
He stopped and put his arm back around her torso. “I wasn’t thinking. I should have closed the door before you got here.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she replied back on a whisper. “I wasn’t expecting it. that’s all.”
“Shit, Holly.”
She walked into the nursery and he followed. “You did all of this for our baby.” She wasn’t questioning him. It was a statement.
“Yeah,” he replied.
He watched as she circled the room, taking in the furniture that included a big cherry-wood crib, matching changing table, and rocking chair. Stuffed animals were in every corner, and a mobile that played music was hanging over the crib. When she turned to him, she had tears sliding down her cheeks.
Tristan watched the emotion change in her face. It was like she had flipped a switch.
“I have to get out of here,” she said and stormed past him.
He followed her into the living room, where she slipped on her heels one at a time. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“The hell I’m not. I can’t stay here. You have an entire nursery set up!” she shrieked through her tears. “I can’t deal with that. With this,” she cried, waving her hand and pointing between the two of them.
He stopped moving, they locked eyes, and before he could respond, she started up again.
“You knew me for months, slept with me and other women without a care in the world whether you were hurting any of us or not.”
She was absolutely right. He hadn’t cared back then whether he was hurting anyone. He’d just wanted to get his dick worked, but that had all changed.
“Holly—“
She interrupted him. “No. Whatever you’ve got to say is shit.” He took a few steps toward her, but she halted him by screaming, “Don’t you fucking touch me!”
He knew that she was still mourning the miscarriage of their child. This time, he wasn’t going to let her push him away. He was going to prove to her that he had changed in the time he’d been away. He had a darkness in him that still remained deep within his tainted soul. It had terrified him every day when he’d thought that he was going to be a father. Now that he wasn’t, it still scared the shit out of him to let her or anyone get close. The people who were the closest to him had already seen the monster that lives inside him—including Holly. He didn’t deserve her, but he didn’t care. Sure, it was selfish on his part. The problem was that he had always been selfish. This time, he planned on showing her that, even though she shouldn’t be with him, he was going to make sure she never regretted it.
“I’m leaving,” she hissed at him while hooking her necklace around her neck.
“Holly, I need you to listen to me.”
“Nuh uh. Not going to happen.” She slung her overnight over her shoulder and moved fast.
Tristan moved faster. He cut her off at the pass.
She took a couple of steps back and squared her shoulders, narrowing her eyes on him. “I’m leaving, Tristan. Move the fuck out of my way.”
“Cupcake, is this about the nursery? Because everything was fine before you got wind of it.”
The words that flew out of his mouth flipped another switch in her that he didn’t quite care for. She advanced on him and shoved her palms into this chest and pushed. Hard. He rocked back on his heels and tagged her around the waist.
“I missed you!” she wailed. “I missed you so badly, and I know that I shouldn’t have after what I saw you doing here. The way you treated me when you found out I was pregnant with your child. The problem is that I understand why you did it and I don’t blame you. God!” she grunted and ran her fingers through her hair. “I get it, Tristan. Okay? I get that you didn’t love me like I loved you. I also get that my father is venom. He destroyed lives. Your mother, you, your brothers, and Olivia. He had no problems with destroying me or my mother. That selfish dick. That selfish fucking dick!”
Tristan’s arm tightened around her. He felt his head swimming with the reality of the fact that his girl was drowning just as much as he had been. Now, he knew exactly what he needed to do. He was going to help her get through this. He was also going to show her that he did love her. It might take a little time, but he was willing to invest that in her.
“Listen to me, cupcake.”
“Please stop calling me that. Every time you do, it slices through my heart and pierces my soul.”
Fuck him.
He stood firm and told her, “Okay, Holly. We have a lot to talk about. We don’t have to do it now if you don’t want to, but we are going discuss this. In the meantime, you’re staying here.”
“I’m not!” she yelled, trying to twist out of his hold on her.
He took a step back and wrenched her with him. Her body collided with his, her hands resting on his chest. His arms fastened around her so that she was stuck. She struggled with no luck.
“Look, I missed you too. I thought about you every day while I was gone.” His face dipped closer. “And you don’t know anything about how much I love you, but you will soon enough.”
He could hear her breath hitch. He slid one hand up to cup the back of her head, tilted it to the side, and slammed his lips to hers. She struggled, opening her mouth to say something, and he took advantage by slipping his tongue inside.
She smelled like vanilla and tasted just as sweet. At the swipe of his tongue, Holly went stiff. Tristan deepened the kiss, taking all he could from her.
Holy shit. He’d missed this.
Finally, she caught on and lost her self-control. She fisted the front of his shirt and brought him closer, taking a few steps back and landing against the wall. Tristan put one hand on the wall above her. She put everything she had into that kiss. Her tongue tangled with his, and when she whimpered into this mouth, he was done with letting her take over.
Without pulling his lips from hers, he shifted back and tugged her with him. She yanked his shirt up, encouraging him to take it off. He put one hand between his shoulder blades and pulled it off, going right back in for the most amazing kiss of his life. Then he led her to the few steps it took to get to his bedroom. After she slid her hand up his chest, he rotated them so that, when they fell onto the bed, she landed on top of him. Then he twisted and rolled, caging her in underneath him, never once breaking the kiss.
She trailed her nails up and down his chest then around and down his spine. Tristan growled and pressed them deeper into the bed. He yanked her blouse up and over her head giving him access to her breasts.
Holly pulled down the cup of her bra and latched on to her nipple, drawing it into his mouth, and s
ucked hard. Her back arched off of the bed offering it to him, while her hips grinded against his. When she moaned, he dropped her nipple and went for the other one, circling his tongue around it before taking it into his mouth.
She bucked underneath him. She planted a foot in the bed and rolled them so that she was on top, straddling him. He lurched them up, undid her bra, and tossed it blindly aside. Tristan lay back, rolled them again, and trapped her underneath him. A gasp escaped her that made his dick go painfully hard.
He crawled down her body, unzipped her skirt, tugged off her heels, and then slid her skirt down, taking her panties with it, haphazardly discarding those to the side of the bed as well. He spread her legs and she gasped again. He needed to get this show on the road or he was going to come and not where he wanted to.
Tristan rested between her legs, putting one over his shoulder, and he went in. She was soaking wet. Her hands fisted in his hair as she rolled her hips up, offering her pussy to him, chasing his tongue. He went at it—wet, rough, desperate—and he wanted it all so badly that he had visions of doing this to her day in and day out for the rest of their lives.
Holly continued to buck against his mouth, and he heard her moan. He liked that so much that he growled against her pussy. He sucked her clit and buried his tongue in deep. He drew her other leg over his other shoulder and she dug the heels of her feet into his back as leverage so that she could rock against him. She was desperate for release. Tristan swept his tongue harder and faster at her clit until she came against it. When she did, he lapped at her to ride out her orgasm.
Tristan stood, yanked off his jeans, and grabbed her by the ankles, pulling her down the bed to him. Holly was still riding it out when he took his hard cock in his hand and guided it inside her. He surged his hips forward and planted himself deep. Shit. He really had missed this.
“Tristan,” she breathed.
Once she said his name, he lost all control. He fucked her hard and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips. He placed a hand around her head to hold her still so that he could get deeper. He positioned his other hand between them and pressed against her clit. She gasped his name again.
Fuck yes. She was his. He wasn’t letting this go again.
“Oh. My. God. Tristan, I’m about to—“
She quivered around him and it felt so damn good that it triggered his own release. He could feel her clutching his cock, and he was coming. They lay there in a heap of tangled arms and legs locked tight.
His face was in her neck while her fingers soothingly combed his hair. He kissed her neck and shoulder, moved up to her jaw, and lightly touched his lips to hers. She kept him trapped in her hold.
He bent down, found her ear, and whispered, “Like I said before, cupcake, you aren’t going anywhere.”
Her body tensed under him. She said nothing. He lifted his head, looked into her eyes, and grinned at her. Then her body relaxed.
“How you feelin’?” he asked.
“Mmmmm,” she mewed out in answer, her hand still running through his hair. She stopped at the back of his neck. “Tristan?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about my reaction to the nursery. It’s just—“
Tristan pulled out and rolled over, taking her with him and tucking her in his side before pulling the covers over them. She rested her head on his chest with her arm placed over his stomach.
“Don’t be sorry.”
Then it came to him that they hadn’t used a condom. Things had turned from hot damn to holy shit in two point five seconds and it hadn’t occurred to him that they’d needed to be careful.
“Holly?”
“Yeah?”
“We didn’t use a condom, babe.”
“You been with anyone else in the time we’ve been apart?”
He breathed in a harsh breath. “Just that one time.”
“Have you been tested?”
“Yeah.”
“Everything good?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed with a nod of his head.
“Then don’t worry about it. I’m on the pill.”
He released a breath at her words, squeezed his arms around her, and lay there with her curled around him in silence for a little while. Holly finally lifted her head and decided to break that silence.
“I shouldn’t have lost it like that, but what I said before—about you not being responsible for me losing the baby?”
His body went straight and his hold on Holly tightened. He thought about that every day. He blamed himself for a lot of things in life, but that was the worst of them, and she was taking that away from him.
“I meant it. That wasn’t your fault. The doctor did genetic testing. Our baby wasn’t going to make it to term. She said that it was just one of those things.”
Tristan relaxed and allowed all of the tension to leave his muscles. In that moment, he knew that he loved her even more than he’d ever thought possible. He also knew that, one day, he wanted her to have his baby. A whole damn soccer team if they could.
His arm wrapped around her waist, his hand at the small of her back, and kissed the top of her head.
“Tell me about the accident with your mother, Tristan.”
Oh shit. He closed his eyes tight. When he opened them, he said, “I’ve never talked about it before—not with anyone.”
He heard her draw in a breath as her arms convulsed. When she released it, her body relaxed against his.
“I’m sorry, I was out of line. You don’t have to.”
Tristan gave a short, nervous laugh. “Stop apologizing.” He cleared his throat. It was now or never. “My mother wanted to go to the store. We were out of chocolate syrup and it was ice cream sundae night.” He cleared his throat again, trying to release the suffocating feeling that was lodged deep inside. “I begged her to let me go with her. So she took me and we left. We got halfway to the store when the other car crossed the double line and sent us over the bank. I can still smell the fuel. It took a while for my brain to catch on that something terrible had happened. Blood was flowing down the side of my head. I tried to undo my seatbelt but my arms were numb. I heard my mother struggling for air. When I finally got a good look at her, she was slumped over the steering wheel, watching me.”
Holly’s body convulsed before she let out a strangled cry and said, “Oh my god. You don’t have to do this if it’s too much.”
It was too much. He had never done this before, but he wanted to lay his heart out to her, and if he was ever going to prove to her that he was worthy of her love, then he had to trust her.
“I saw the panic in her eyes. Blood was all over her face and covered the collar of her shirt. It appeared to be coming from her head and ear—I don’t know. Later, I found out that it was a shard of glass that had nicked the artery in her neck, caused her to bleed out.”
Tristan’s eyes filled with tears, but he pushed forward. “She struggled to lift her head but managed to sit back in her seat. Right before she died, she reached her hand over and touched my shoulder. I still think she was trying to say something to me, but she turned her head away and coughed up more blood. I started crying because, well, I was just a kid. I didn’t know what else to do. She died within a few minutes. God. The smell of blood is so pungent. I’ll never forget it. For two days, I was trapped in that car with her. When they finally found us, I refused to leave her. I knew she was gone, but I didn’t want to leave her alone. I couldn’t.”
When Holly lifted her head, tears were streaming down her face. She leaned over and planted the sweetest, gentlest kiss to his lips. “I’m so sorry for what my father did to you and your mother. Oh god.”
He could sense her rising anxiety. “It wasn’t your fault. You don’t need to apologize.”
She shook her head anxiously. That’s when he knifed to a sitting position, bringing her with him, gripped her shoulders, and looked her right in the eye. “I have never told anyone that story—until now. I trust
you with everything. That was not your fault. You didn’t get behind the wheel of the car wasted and go careening down the road.”
“But I lied for him!”
“Stop it! Jesus. You were just a child. I didn’t allow all of that to sink in when I found out because my head wasn’t right. I’ve lived for years with this and not being able to talk about it. Pop tried to get me professional help, and still, I wouldn’t let anyone in. Not until you.”
Holly drew her lip between her teeth and nodded in understanding.
“When I went away, that was my final attempt to stay clean. It was my final because I know that I will do it this time. Sure, I got clean for me, but I think a part of that was also doing it for you. Please be patient with me. I’m still trying to figure this all out, but I can promise you, right where I am, that I will never be that man again. I hope that I will be a man you can be proud of one day. I thought that I had it all mapped out, but I didn't. It’s like I have this fucking black cloud looming over me, following me, waiting for the moment when I lose the fight. I have demons, but I can promise you that I won’t let them take over. They won’t win. Not this time.”
He could see the understanding flash in her eyes as he went on. “I couldn’t keep living that way. It was time for me to man up and break out of old habits.” Tristan closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. “The one good thing in my life. My ray of hope for a better life. Fuck.” When he opened his eyes, he took in the beautiful woman he clearly had fallen in love with, kissed her nose, and rested his forehead to hers. “If only I would have known that you were going to be a part of my future, cupcake, I would have been a better man.”
Holly ran her hand through his hair and around his head. Then her fingers glided across his jaw. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell that story. I know that it wasn’t easy.”
He laid them back down and tucked her into his side. “Get some sleep, babe,” he insisted.
She shook her head against his chest.
Tristan listened as her breaths became heavier. Within minutes, she was dead weight against him. He lay there for a beat, holding on to the woman he loved, and took note that he had never been this content in his entire life.
