Tristan’s dating was eating me up inside.
Every night I went to bed and imagined a different, beautiful beauty with her legs wrapped around his narrow waist. I imagined dainty fingers threaded in his beautiful, tousled hair, tugging while she screamed his name. His lips on her body, his hands caressing her skin. My stomach was in a constant state of upset. I was now having nightmares every night and last night I’d made Kyle stay up and talk to me on the phone. Next weekend was Fourth of July and he was coming down, the first time he'd see the beach house. I’d babbled endlessly about the updates on the house, the surroundings, some of the local shops―anything to fill my head with thoughts other than Tristan. Finally Kyle had begged for sleep and we'd hung up. But that wasn't it for me. I’d tossed and turned, listening to the rolling waves, trying to time my breathing, willing myself to fall into a dreamless sleep when I heard a car door slam. After a few minutes I heard keys rattling and footsteps, giggles, and bodies bumping into things. My rage peaked in that instant. I threw the blanket off my body and stomped down the hallway into the kitchen. Moonlight washed across the room, making their outlines easy to see.
Tristan stood in front of a brunette propped up on the counter, his hips nestled in between her thighs, her skirt riding high up her legs. His hand trailed high up her thigh, fingertips disappearing under the tight fabric of her skirt. She moaned into his mouth as they kissed. His other hand was wrapped around another brunette at his side, her lips attached to the skin under his ear, her hands threaded in his messy hair. He pulled away from the girl on the counter and moved his lips to the other girl, twisting a hand in her long hair and bending her neck to his sensual mouth. She moaned as he dragged his teeth down her neck while she slid a hand down his back and cupped his ass tightly. Her body writhed against his as the brunette on the countertop arched her body into him and slipped a hand down the front of his pants.
Bile rose in my throat as I watched, unable to tear my eyes from the erotic display in my kitchen. The only thing that had a stronger hold on me was the anger. My rage at him bringing those girls into my house in the middle of the night, letting them writhe all over my countertop with him nestled between their legs.
“Can you take it elsewhere?” I flipped on the light and crossed my arms, my gaze boring into the back of Tristan's head. He turned slowly, his eyes coming to rest on mine, blurry and unfocused. He was clearly drunk. As drunk as I’d ever seen him.
“Georgia.” The heart-stopping smirk that normally made my stomach do delicious flips spread across his face, but tonight it only caused rage to pool in my belly. “Wanna join?” His eyes flared as his gaze trailed down my body. I realized instantly I was wearing a tight tank top without a bra, the cool breeze washing across my skin had my nipples standing at attention. I crossed my arms to cover myself. Tristan's eyes traveled down my legs where my tiny sleep shorts hardly covered a thing. His thumb traced small circles on the thigh of the girl on the countertop. My stomach boiled in anger.
“No, you’re a whore. Take your skanks elsewhere.”
“Bitch,” the girl standing next to him huffed with a hand on her hip.
“You’re always welcome, Georgia. Just say the word. All you ever had to do was say the word.”
I stared at him, my eyes blazing as it registered that he referred to more than just the situation playing out before me.
“I hate you,” I hissed and turned on my heel to leave.
“Georgia, wait. Can you give me a minute?” He turned to the girls. “Down the hall, second room on the left.” He swatted one of them on the bottom as they hustled out in a fit of annoying tittering.
“What are you doing?” I glared as he came closer to me.
“Am I doing something wrong?” he said as he reached me, invading my personal space. I could smell the flowery perfume on him and it made me want to throw up.
“Bringing those skanks here,” I sneered.
He arched a surprised eyebrow at me. “I’m doing what you told me to, Georgia.”
“I don't recall telling you to whore all over town.” I chewed the inside of my cheek.
“I’m moving on, Georgia,” he whispered. “Sorry if you don't like the way I go about it.” He cupped my face, smoothing his thumb over my cheekbone. “It didn’t have to be like this, Georgia.” He rested his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Despite everything, despite the girls and the vile suggestion he’d just made about my joining them, I could forgive him. I knew that I could. This wasn’t my Tristan. This was someone who was in pain, seeking an outlet in the only way they knew how. I ran my hands up his neck, both of my thumbs brushing along his jawline.
He sucked in a quick breath and then touched his lips to mine in a featherlight kiss. “I wanted it to be you. I always wanted it to be you,” he mumbled. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Tears burned my eyelids. I wanted it to be him too. I wanted to give myself to him and only him.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured before pulling back from him. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and watched hurt shoot across his eyes. He shut them as if pushing the pain back from the surface. His eyes opened slowly and he made his way to his room. I watched him and my heart tightened in my chest. The pain he'd left me standing in felt so real, like I’d crumpled on the floor and melted into a pile of tears.
“I hate you,” I whispered to no one but myself, flicking off the light and heading back to my room. I slammed the door and threw myself in bed. I waited for sounds of a threesome to reach me from a few rooms away but they never came.
Twenty
Georgia
“MORNIN’ GEORGIA,” TRISTAN smirked, stepping into the kitchen. He looked wildly sexy in a V-neck shirt and a pair of cargo shorts.
“Hey,” I mumbled as I poured grounds into the coffee filter. I hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, my thoughts consumed with my run-in with Tristan. Drew, Silas, and I were going to the garden store to buy landscaping supplies so I’d need copious amounts of the black brew to get my ass in gear.
“Thanks for making coffee this morning; I was up late last night,” he said as he walked past me, caressing my lower back on his way to the fridge. His touch sent shivers coursing through my body. I gritted my teeth together and concentrated on measuring the right amount of water to pour into the reservoir.
“Vanilla or caramel creamer?” he asked, leaning into the fridge. I only scowled at him.
He waited another minute before turning to look at me. “Grow up, Georgia. Vanilla or fucking caramel?”
“I’ve got it.” I sneered as I reached into the fridge and pulled out the caramel.
“What's the problem, Georgia?” he whispered in my ear as his hand came to caress the exposed skin of my lower back where my shirt had ridden up.
“The problem, Tristan, is that you’re a whore,” I seethed, our faces so close, lips nearly touching before I ripped away from him and a cocky grin lit his lips. The more he smiled the more I hated him for it, yet it was the one thing that made hating him impossible.
“Anything I can do to change your mind about that?” He used his body to push me back into the counter. I bit down on my lip to concentrate on anything other than his hard body pressing into me. “Come on, Georgia. Tell me,” he taunted as he ran his hands up my torso slowly, tantalizingly. His hands made their way up my ribcage, his thumbs brushed the sides of my breasts as my breathing hitched, and butterflies scattered in my belly.
“Stop marching the slut parade through my house,” I whispered as I closed my eyes and shifted, rubbing my thighs together to ease some of the ache that had settled there.
“It’s just sex, Georgia. Two people, or three as it were, looking for a good time.” His thumbs danced softly on the skin next to my breasts, dangerously close, yet not nearly close enough. He ran his nose up the line of my neck until he reached my ear. “I told you I was never good at saying no,” he whispered, his nose ghosting along the shell of my ear. My heart pounded furiously in
my chest. “I’m not sure you’re good at it either. I can feel what I do to you: your heart pounding, your chest heaving, your nipples hardening,” he breezed one thumb over a sharp, aching peak, “your legs shifting back and forth, begging me to touch you.” He ran one fingertip between my breasts, down my stomach, past my waistband, grazing high up on my thigh, nearly touching my throbbing center through the fabric of my shorts.
A groan escaped my throat as I arched my neck. I couldn't think straight with this incessant pounding in my chest, the raging thud in my ears. “Aren’t you worried about safety? Catching… something?” I whispered.
“I’m always safe, Georgia. With every one of them,” he whispered seductively, tauntingly, causing my blood to boil every time he mentioned the other girls he'd been with. Every time I thought about their high heels locked around his waist. Him peeling the sexy underwear off their bodies.
“You weren't with me,” I whispered as I rocked gently into him, my eyes closed, my brain swimming with desire and lust and the fading vestiges of anger.
“I couldn't think straight when I was with you,” he hissed in my ear, his warm breath washing over my skin, sending tingles through my body. “Say yes, Georgia, and I’ll do whatever you want. There's so much I want to do to you. I dream about all the ways I can take you.” Two long fingers caressed the seam of my shorts, causing fire to race through my veins and lust to spike through my entire body. I thrust my hips at his touch involuntarily. “I’ll take you right here on this counter if you let me.” He lifted and set me on the counter, spreading my knees and resting his hips between my thighs. “You just need to say the word, Georgia, and I’ll show you how good it can be. I can make you forget him. I can make you forget everything if you just let me. I would slide in slowly, your back would arch, your breathing would hitch.” He thrust his hips into me so I could feel his rock hard arousal. A choked whimper escaped my throat. “I can make you scream my name, Georgia.” He wrapped one hand around my neck and held tightly as he dragged his tongue across my sensitive skin and breathed hot in my ear. The action had me sitting on the edge of release. So close, I could fall over into him. It would only be a minute, if I just said yes, I could be his, he could make me lose myself, and isn't that what I wanted? To be lost? To forget? To have the pain taken away? Tristan was my drug if I’d only let him in.
“I don’t want to be one of them,” I moaned.
“You aren’t. You never were.” He husked and I arched. I ached for him. “Come on, Georgia,” he whispered. My eyes flickered open as he moved his hands to the top of my thighs and held firmly, tightly enough that it almost hurt. He continued to rock into me, his straining erection sliding against the seam of my shorts, providing almost enough friction. His eyes revealed determination and anger and lust and need, all brewing under the surface. The intensity in those green irises held me chained to him. I couldn’t look away if I tried.
“God, Tristan,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“Let me help you. Just say it. Say yes and that's it.” He rocked harder and my breathing came out in furious pants.
“No, Tristan.” I ground my teeth together as anger and fear and shame spiked tears behind my eyelids. “No, I can’t… I can’t… Please.” I held his upper arms tightly, pushing him away yet clutching him for dear life. “Please stop,” I whimpered. He stood away from me for a moment before the tension left his body and he wrapped his arms around my trembling body in a tight hug. I locked my hands behind his back and held him to me. I knew it was unfair; I was torturing him as much as I was torturing myself, but I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t take the leap like he’d begged me to.
Twenty-One
Tristan
I regretted every fucking minute. Why did I find myself regretting so many things with her when she was the one person I wanted the most? I craved her love, I craved her mind, I craved everything about her while she abused my emotions like a rag doll.
I’d made a rainfall of bad decisions lately, starting with taking that girl home after I’d forgotten my boat keys, but I’d been so angry I couldn’t see straight, and while I hadn’t planned on Georgia catching me in the act like she did, naked bodies strewn across cotton sheets, some sick part of me had wanted her to catch me just the same.
But the look on her face had said it all. I’d gone too far, I’d stepped over bounds, and for once it’d actually made me feel good. I’d gotten a reaction from her and that’s all I’d ben looking for.
I had anger burrowed deep in my gut, anger at her refusal to acknowledge my feelings. I may have a checkered history with women, damn Drew for telling her any of it, but Georgia had just met me, why was I being judged by my past sins?
I knew deep down that if things were different, if we’d had a different start, a better start, we could have been different together. I could see us falling together, both single and unattached, my heart soaring with every kiss, her body coming alive under mine with every stroke of my fingers. We would have been kinder, no season of pain between us, more in tune, we could have been great. And suddenly meeting Georgia felt like a lifetime too late.
Georgia and I deserved that life, I could see it plainly in my mind, but it was if fate had other plans. But fate had to be so mother fucking wrong, why else would it hurt so much? Not having her was like a physical pain I could hardly bear, the only thing deferring the heartache was inflicting it on her. It was messed up, so wrong, and horribly selfish, I just couldn’t see it for what it really was, me barely keeping my head above water without her.
It was fucked up, it made me bad, wrong in every way, but it was the only reaction I had. It was pain and desperation and desire all rolled into a tightly wound ball. I couldn’t decipher my way in or out, I just knew I had to throw with everything I had.
Maybe my emotional compass was off, but I was fucking lost.
I needed Georgia to tell me what was right and wrong, how to help her, how to save her, how to keep her. I could feel the love between us in my bones, but she was just too stubborn and loyal to admit it.
But not so loyal that she wouldn’t give her heart to someone else.
I’d fucked up with her already, maybe irreparably, but it didn’t mean I wouldn’t keep trying. I could be better, I would be, if I could only get control of these raging emotions. If I could only make her see that we could be right, we could be everything.
If she’d only say yes.
Just say yes.
Just give me a chance.
I just needed one chance to give her everything, and I knew then she would never walk away again.
Twenty-Two
Georgia
“YOU LOOK EXHAUSTED, G.” Drew and I sat on the beach a few mornings later. I hadn't slept for shit in days and Tristan's most recent indiscretion with the threesome was eating away at me. Another image that’d been burned in my brain. Every time I settled into bed and closed my eyes, the images played of all of the girls and the positions he could be in in that very moment.
“I haven't slept.”
“At all?” Drew sipped a spritzer through a straw.
“Pretty much. Don't you think it's too early to drink?” I nodded to her drink.
“Nope,” she answered.
“I orchestrated this girls-only beach day so now it's your turn to dish.”
I heaved a great big sigh in response.
“Silas will be pissed we had a beach day without him.” I was trying to divert again.
“Silas is off getting laid somewhere, so he’s shit out of luck. Come on, G, this summer was supposed to be great. And it has been for everyone but you.”
“Maybe we should invite Justin over. I like him; I think he and Silas could be really good together.” I continued to shift the topic of conversation away from myself.
Drew wasn’t having it. “Things are getting worse, Georgia,” she said. “You’re having nightmares every night, honey. I hear them.”
“I’m sorry for waking you up.” It felt lik
e the weight of the world sat on my shoulders. I needed to relieve it with someone. Anyone. I thought I would go crazy keeping everything locked up in my own head like this.
“It's not that, G. I’m worried. Silas too. Maybe if you told Tristan…” she trailed off.
“Told him what? Everyone wants me to tell him something--what am I supposed to tell him?” I raised my voice.
“Tell him why you can't be with him. Or why you think you can't anyway.” She took another sip of her drink.
“I’ve never told anyone, Drew. Just you, Silas, and Kyle.”
“I know, but maybe that's the problem. I think that's why the nightmares are getting worse. I think a part of you wants to let Tristan in, but you’re so afraid…”
I looked at the rolling waves licking the sandy beach. “I’m angry that Kyle hasn't been here,” I whispered.
“I know, I am too,” she said.
“I’m afraid to tell Tristan, I’m afraid he'll walk away. Things are so fucked up.”
“I know you’re afraid of that, but he wouldn't,” she rubbed my arm gently.
“You don't know that. What happened was fucked up, Drew. It fucked me up for years. It still does.”
“I know.”
“It’s a lot to deal with and it isn't even over. It comes up to bite me every few years.”
“If he doesn't want to put up with it then at least you'll know he was never worth it. But as it is, Georgia…”
“So I’m supposed to gamble on Tristan and fuck up what I have with Kyle? Kyle can't forgive something like that. Not ever.”
“Ironic, really,” she murmured. “So were you never going to tell Kyle? Was that your plan? Because it’s eating away at you. Whether you choose Kyle or Tristan, I know you, Georgia, and it’s going to eat away at you.”
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