“You have Dad wrapped around your little finger.” I shake my head.
“I seem to have that effect on you Hunt men.” She winks and straddles my hips.
“Hmm, yeah. I’m beginning to see where Jax gets it from.”
“I don't want to think about anything other than your dick in me, fucking me fast and hard all night.” She grazes her teeth against my neck.
“Fuck.” I hiss. “What happened to the nice, quiet, shy sixteen-year-old girl?” I chuckle as she kisses across my collarbone.
“She's long gone.” A mischievous glint sparkles in her eye. “Heartbreak does that to a girl.” She raises an eyebrow, looking into my eyes.
Shame washes over me at the thought of everything I put her through. “I'm sorry for everything I put you through.” I reach up and tuck a piece of hair behind her ear.
“It's the past, Tristan.” She smiles softly. “I'm not looking to the past anymore. It's the future I'm looking toward now. Our future. You, me, and Jax.” She kisses my lips softly.
I stare into her eyes, and a wave of emotions crash over me like a tsunami. “I fucking love you.” I swallow, looking into her eyes.
“Ask me again,” she whispers. I turn my head to the side. “Ask me to marry you again.”
My eyes widen a fraction. “Hold that thought.” I lift her off my lap and sprint up to our room and into my bedside drawer to grab what I came for.
Walking back into the room, I see Lillia staring into the fire. I let out a breath I had no idea I was holding and walk towards her. Getting down on one knee, I take her hand in mine and ask her once more. “Lillia, will you marry me?” I hold out the ring I bought what feels like a life time ago, the same ring I proposed to her with at Jax’s christening. She throws her arms around me, screaming, “YES!”
I finally place the ring on her finger. I may have taken a year to get it there, but it’s there and it’s never coming off.
Waking up the next morning, I hope and pray that last night when Lillia agreed to be my wife wasn’t a dream. I look down at her hand resting on my chest. I smile when I see my ring on her finger. I haven’t been this happy in forever. I was happy when we got together the first time but this time feels different; a good different. I feel more at peace with myself. I’m still working through some of my issues but I’m calmer than I have ever been in my whole life. It took Lillia leaving me to make me get my act together. I dread to think what would have happened had we stayed together. Lillia would probably be miserable and I would probably be in jail for beating up someone.
“What are you thinking so hard about at six a.m.?” Lillia’s voice, full of sleep, hits my ears. Bringing her hand up to my mouth, I kiss her fingers. “Tristan, you okay?” She sits up, more alert. Looking into her beautiful green eyes, I smile. Reaching up, I place my hand on her cheek and stroke my thumb over her cheekbone.
“I’m more than okay.”
“You sure? This isn’t too much too fast?” She looks down at her ring.
Placing my fingers under her chin and lifting it so she looks at me, I smile before I reply. “This is everything I have ever dreamed of, Lillia.” I kiss the corner of her mouth. “I’m not the same man I was a year ago. I’m calmer, and that’s all down to you.” Her eyes glisten with tears. “If you didn’t break things off, I don’t know where we would be, but I know we wouldn’t be happy.”
“I didn’t sleep with Trevor,” she blurts out, killing any chance of morning sex. I sit back, my back resting against the headboard. Her shoulders slump and she sighs. “I’ve killed the moment, haven’t I?” She looks at me with sad eyes.
Pulling her towards me and placing her head on my chest, I stroke her hair the way I know she likes. “A little. I may not be the same guy I was back then, but I still get jealous. That’s one thing I don’t think will ever change.” I swallow. “But, Lillia, I’m still working on a few things and my jealousy is one of them. I need you to be patient with me.” She nods her head. The shame washes over me again as I think back on my actions when she was pregnant.
“I only got with him because Avery told me you were dating someone,” she admits.
A smirk pulls at my lips. “So, let me get this straight. You started a relationship with someone on the basis that the father of your child, the love of your life, was seeing someone else?” She swings her legs out of the bed, attempting to get up. I hook my arm around her waist and pull her back down, lying on top of her, my knee opening her legs further. “So, it seems I’m not the only jealous one in this relationship.” Her face reddens with embarrassment and she pushes my chest, trying to escape. “I would never cheat, you know that, right?” I run my nose down hers.
“I know. It’s just…” She sighs before continuing. “It’s just hearing that you had moved on so quickly, my heart broke for the last time and I thought that was it. I was giving you a year to sort yourself out and was going to see how it went, but then I scolded myself, and said, ‘Why would he wait for you? Look at him. He’s not going to sit around and wait.’” An amused smile pulls at my lips again. She looks at me curiously. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing. Just that I had the same thoughts when Aiden informed me of you dating again.” She raises an eyebrow. “But, no. I haven’t even thought about dating anyone else. There’s no-one for me in this life but you and Jax.” I kiss her forehead. It’s true. The person I took to Dad’s wedding was my receptionist. She has no interest in me and I have none in her. “I love you, Lillia. It’ll always be you.” I kiss her lips. “Always.”
After a whole morning and afternoon of love making and making up for lost time, we’re ready to go over to Emmett’s place to have dinner and pick up Jax.
I stare out of the window, lost in thoughts. I wonder what my mom and dad would say if they were here to witness their first grandchild growing and learning each and every day. I sometimes look at Jax and see little bits of Dad in him; the way he smiles up at me when I give him a kiss goodnight, the way his eyes light up when he sees the cookies I made, or the way he laughs at the most ridiculous things. Then there are the parts of him that remind me of my mom; the scrunching up of his nose when he doesn’t like something, or his laugh and his smile. I just hope I’ve done them proud. I look down at my left hand, the light hitting the diamonds of my engagement ring. It hits me. My dad isn’t here to walk me down the aisle. There will be no father/daughter dance, or watching him tear up as he gives me away, his only daughter, to a man he had every ounce of love and respect for.
“Baby, are you okay?” Looking up through blurred vision, I realize I was so lost in thought that I didn’t realize we had arrived already. Tristan covers my hands with his. “Baby, you’re scaring me.”
“My parents aren’t here. They aren’t here to see me get married to the man I’ve loved forever. My dad won’t get to walk me down the aisle and hand me over to you.” The tears flow faster.
“Hey, shh.” He pulls me to him and kisses my head, cradling my head against his chest. “They will be there. They’ll be watching you walk down that aisle. The most beautiful, the smartest woman, walk towards your future and your happiness. They will be proud and I’ll thank them every damn day of my life, until my dying breath, for them bringing you into my life.” He pulls my head up to look me in his eyes and wipes my tears away. “They’re here forever, Lillia.” He places his hand over my heart. I place my hand over his. “Don’t forget that.”
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I love you too.” He kisses my nose. “Are you ready to face them?”
I nod with a smile on my face, wiping the tears away.
We walk in hand in hand, and the smell of lasagna hits my senses. I let out a moan, causing Tristan to pause and look down at me. “I can’t help it. Your dad’s cooking is like an orgasm in my mouth.” I shrug and continue towards the sound of voices.
“I’ll show you what a real orgasm is like when we get home,” Tristan whispers in my ear, causing a shiver to run do
wn my spine.
“Mama!” Jax’s little voice squeals. Everyone turns to look at us. Avery throws a wink at me, making me blush. Jax falls halfway to greet us. Like his dad, he gets back up and continues walking to us.
“Hey, little man. Did you have fun with Grandpa and Grandma?” I bend down to pick him up and hold him close, breathing in his scent. He called Sally “Grandma” from the moment he could talk. Let’s face it, she’s more of a grandma to him than that waste of air, Darlene. He nods his head, his blond hair falling forward, covering one eye. “We really need to get your hair cut.” I giggle, moving it out of the way.
“Leave his hair. He looks like me with his hair like that.” We all turn to see a tired-looking Aiden smiling. I narrow my eyes on him, taking in his body language. His smile is off; he seems closed off.
“Which is precisely why we need to get it cut,” Tristan jokes, taking Jax out of my arms and tickling his side, causing him to have a fit of laughter.
“Aww, don’t be like that. Just because he loves his Uncle Aid more than you, don’t take his good looks away from him. He’s already got your temper.”
“He doesn’t love either of you more, he loves me more, right, little man?” Lennon walks over and kisses my head.
“Grandpa. Love.” We all laugh when Jax makes it clear who he loves the most out of the men.
“There’s your answer. He loves his grandpa more.” Emmett laughs, taking Jax from Tristan and placing him on the ground to go play with his cousins who are now awake.
“Aiden, he gets his temper from his mother,” Lennon declares, backing away from me. My mouth pops open in shock.
“I don’t believe that for a second.” Aiden shakes his head. “She’s the calmest person in this room.”
“Yeah? Tell that to the scar I have on my head, and the scar on my left leg.” He looks at me and smirks. I feel heat begin to rush up my face.
“You told me you got that from a skiing trip,” Avery pipes up, folding her arms over her chest and staring at an embarrassed-looking Lennon.
I decide to save the poor guy. “It was from a skiing trip.” I stand next to Lennon. Who am I kidding, I’m not saving him. Time to embarrass him further. “Tell them how you got those scars.” I nudge him.
“Nah, I’ll let you tell the story of how you nearly killed me.” Lennon smirks down at me. I narrow my eyes once again, shrug, and begin to tell the story.
“Well, as you all know, Lennon loves to tease me about how I never go out and have fun and I’m always cooped up inside reading and stuff.” I raise my eyebrow at Lennon who just shrugs.
“It’s true.”
“Anyway, we had a skiing trip with our old school in San Francisco.” A pain in my heart appears when I think of my old friends. Josh told me that a group of them went on a trip and a couple of them died through drug overdoses. A couple of weeks later, our best friend, Alice, committed suicide. I feel tears building up and a hand on my shoulder, squeezing, I glance to my left and see Lennon smiling sadly at me. Taking a deep breath, I continue to embarrass Lennon. “Lennon decided to take all my books I had packed to read at night when everyone was out in the snow throwing snowballs at one another. Anyway, he sneaked into my room and buried them all in the snow.” Avery gasps in horror, knowing I would kill anyone who touched my books without permission.
“In my defense, it was for your own good. You needed to get out more instead of having your nose stuck in a book twenty-four-seven.” Lennon holds his hands up in surrender.
“Normally I would agree with you about her getting out more, but dude. Never touch her books, man.” Tristan chuckles, shaking his head.
“See? He knows.”
“Well, now I know not to even breathe near them.” Lennon laughs, shaking his head.
“Back to the matter at hand. I walked out to find all my books gone, vanished. I searched my whole hotel room. I marched down to reception about to scream at them that I had been robbed.”
“Really? If someone was going to rob you they wouldn’t just take your books, Lil.” Emmett laughs.
“They were first edition Harry Potter books,” I snap.
“Oh my God, Lennon. You didn’t!” Sally gasps in horror like Avery. It makes me smile that they all know me so well that they know not to touch my books.
“Woah. You’re all looking at me like I just killed your beloved pet or something. They were just books.”
I stand up straighter, ready to make another dent in the other side of his head. My hand balls into a fist. Tristan must sense my aggravation as he grabs my hand.
“Dude, do you want to see your girls grow up?” Aiden chuckles.
“They were first editions, Lennon. You buried them in the freaking snow!” I try not to swear with the kids only inches away from us. “I was so mad at him. The next day we were skiing up one of the experienced hills. He tried to talk to me and give me reasons why he had done it. I started skiing down the hill and he was right behind me. I swerved to my left, making him lose balance and he skied right into a tree.” An evil smirk appears on my face. “He broke his femur in two places, pulled his groin, and had a huge gash on his head.”
“Lillia, you could have killed him.” Emmett stares at me in shock, much like everyone else.
“I could have, but I didn’t. I did feel a little guilty for him missing a huge football game the following week. But at the same time, he ruined my books for a stupid reason. I got suitably punished for that as did he for ruining expensive books that Mom and Dad had gotten me when they bought him WrestleMania tickets.”
“Well, it’s less than what I would have done to Tristan if he had done that to any of my books.” Aiden chuckles.
“I don’t even want to know what you would have done to your brother. I’d probably be visiting you in jail serving a murder charge.” Emmett shakes his head and heads to the kitchen to check on the lasagna.
“Will Naomi be joining us, Aiden?” Sally asks with a smile. Naomi is Aiden's fiancée; they’re due to be married in a month and a half.
Aiden’s smile falls when he hears Naomi’s name. “Um, no. She’s busy on a shoot in Fiji.”
“Hopefully we can all get together before the wedding,” Sally suggests, walking by to help Emmett in the kitchen.
I sit down beside Aiden and watch Tristan, Lennon, and Avery playing with the kids on the floor.
“Everything okay with you and Naomi?” I ask.
He glances at me with sadness in his eyes; a sadness I know all too well. I’ve felt it, been through it. Hell, Avery even bought me a t-shirt. “We broke up.” He sighs. I’m about to ask if he wants to talk about it but he beats me to it. “I don’t want to talk about it, Lillia. I just want to enjoy tonight with my family before they’re all disappointed in me.”
My brows knit together and I tilt my head in confusion. “Why would we be disappointed?”
I don’t get my answer because Emmett announces that dinner is ready.
“Oh God, Emmett, marry me.” I groan, taking the last bite of my lasagna. He really does know how to make a mean lasagna.Everyone chuckles apart from Tristan, who's staring at me. We haven’t announced our engagement yet and I’m worried that comment has sent him back to the way he was.
“Well, I guess our engagement is off then.” A smirk appears on Tristan's face, telling me it doesn’t bother him one bit.
Avery squeals, scraping her chair, and rushes around, pulling at my left hand to inspect my ring. “When you came in I thought something was different.”
“Are you pregnant?” Lennon queries.
“Oh God, no. No way!” I shake my head.
“You don’t want more kids?” Tristan asks. I look around at him. He looks confused by this statement. I never thought about having kids at all before having Jax. I mean, like most women, I would have loved to have kids one day, but I didn’t feel like I had to have them. Either way, I would have been happy just having a husband -Tristan.
“No. I mean, I don’
t know.” I shrug. He nods his head but I can sense we’ll need to have this conversation before a wedding happens.
“Naomi and I broke up,” Aiden announces, sensing my discomfort.
“What?” Emmett asks. “What happened, Aiden? You get married in less than two months.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Aiden drains his wine and pours some more.
“Well, that’s just too bad, Aiden. Start talking.”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.” Aiden slams his fist on the table in anger. “Congratulations, guys. You guys deserve all the happiness.” He raises his glass, empties it, and slams it down on the table, making me jump again. He storms out into the backyard. Emmett stands to follow him out, but I stop him.
“I’ll go.” I walk towards the patio doors and stand next to Aiden, pulling my jacket closed in the bitter mid-November air. “Want to talk about it now?”
He sits on the steps leading down to the yard, and I join him. “She cheated on me.” He sighs, throwing a stone. “I thought she loved me, Lillia. Thought she was the one to spend the rest of her life with me. Guess it was all too good to be true, huh?” He sighs, looking up at the sky.
“Hey, don’t be like that. Her loss is someone else’s gain. She’s an idiot to let you go, Aiden.” I place my hand on his knee.
“Maybe I’m the idiot. I knew something was going on before I proposed.” He looks me in the eye. My mouth pops open slightly, shocked that he would still propose to her even when he knew she was up to no good behind his back. “Don’t look at me like that, Lil. I know I’m an idiot for still doing it. I just… I just wanted someone. I don’t want to be alone all my life.”
“Hey, you’re never alone. Do you hear me? You have me, Tristan, Jax, your dad, Sally, Lennon, Avery, and their girls who adore you. Do I need to go on?” I smile, raising a challenging eyebrow.
“It’s not the same. I want to come home from a shoot and be greeted at the door by a little army of mini-mes and a loving wife who wants me for me and not what she can get out of me.”
She Loves Me. He Loves Me Not. Page 29
