by Tara Leigh
“But I didn’t know guys like you existed. And even if I had, you’re not supposed to be interested in girls like me.” She reaches out her hands for mine. “I need you to be patient with me, Tristan. Because I’m coming in blind.”
I swallow. Hard. Her answer, her explanation, is exactly what I needed. Reina isn’t manipulative or calculating. She doesn’t look at me like I’m just the next phase in her devious scheme. She is cautious, and as confused as I am about what we’re doing and where we’re going. My fingers close around hers.
“I’ve never met anyone like you, little thief.” My thumb presses into Reina’s palm, kneading her tender flesh. “The first night we met, when you smiled at me in the middle of the ballroom, even though you looked young, I would have sworn you were five steps ahead of me. Ahead of everyone in the room.”
Reina laughs. “I thought I was. But you shoved me off my pedestal pretty quick.”
“I like you unsteady.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because it means you have to lean on me, just a little.”
She toys with her wine glass, running her finger along the rim. “You don’t mind?”
I smile. Reina is no Claudia. Neither is she Elise 2.0. I don’t exactly know what we are yet. But there is something between us. Something pretty fucking special. “Hell no. I like keeping you close.”
Reina
My heart might burst. I rise from my own chair and swing my legs over Tristan’s strong thighs, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Me too.” There is a muted click, like the sound of a door closing. “I think we scared the waiter away.”
“Don’t worry. He’s all taken care of. I told him to leave once we lost interest in the food.”
“Do you always think of everything?”
He shakes his head slowly. “Not anymore. Lately I’ve only been thinking of you.”
Sentences like that flay my skin with the precision of a vegetable peeler—the kind you buy at Sur La Table, not Target. I feel raw and exposed; even the air stings. So I do the only thing that makes sense anymore. I kiss Tristan with every bit of longing and frustration bubbling inside my veins, giving as much as I take. I pull at his hair, bite at his neck, tear at his clothes. I can feel him holding back at first, thrown off by my urgency. But I’ve crossed the thin line between passion and pure lust. I am lost in a vortex, operating purely on animal instinct. I want Tristan. I want his mouth and his tongue, his hands and his cock. And even his heart. I want everything he has to give.
There is ripping and tearing, and at one point I can swear the chair is going to fly backward and leave at least one of us with a concussion. But Tristan steadies it and in under a minute we are both naked, skin to skin. I groan at the sheer pleasure of it. His touch is everything I crave.
Then he is in me and I am finally full, finally whole. I come in a rush, eyes closed, clinging to Tristan for dear life. He must have pried me off him, because the next thing I know we are standing, then I am leaning over the table and he is inside me again, holding my hips steady as he pounds into me, my breath fogging the ebony table top. A glass topples over and I watch wine spreading across the surface with half-lidded eyes. The scent of sex, of sweat, mixes with the acrid notes of the wine and I cry out, overcome with too many sensory inputs.
Tristan’s rhythm speeds up, and a hand creeps between my ass cheeks. His thumb pushes into me at the last minute, amping up the intensity and catapulting me over the edge. No one has ever done that before. I come again, my orgasm more intense this time. Tristan follows just moments later and I savor the feeling of him deep inside of me.
“That was . . .”
We glance around at the wreckage of the table: broken glass, spilled wine. “Messy,” I finish.
“Yeah. But worth it.”
I wince slightly as he pulls out of me, both places. “Agreed.”
Together we clean up, it doesn’t take long, and get in the shower together. At least five times the size of the one in my apartment, it has more jets and levers and dials than I know what to do with. But Tristan does, handily pointing one of the sprays in just the right position to have me limp and clinging to him, again, within seconds.
He carries me to his bed afterward, where I feel both completely sated and wholly depleted at the same time. In his arms, we alternately chat and doze. And I can’t help but wonder if this is the kind of relationship my mother has, or at least had with Van Horne. In the beginning, maybe. Because this—whatever is happening between Tristan and me—is something I can’t imagine giving up, for anyone.
Which makes me feel just a tiny bit less resentful of her leaving me. Van Horne is still a piece of shit for denying my existence, making her walk away and cut all but the most tenuous ties with me, but if what they had was anything close to this . . . I can almost forgive her for going after the brass ring.
“What are you thinking about?” Tristan asks, running the calloused pads of his fingers up and down my arm.
I’m sleepy and lethargic, my brain barely operating at half-speed. I answer honestly. “My mom, actually.”
“You must really miss her.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, feeling like the lowest of the low for deceiving Tristan, for telling him both of my parents are dead. “Yeah. I do.”
“Do you remember the last thing she said to you?”
Of course I do. It’s still weighing on me, actually. The invitation she could have been trying to get out for months. Maybe even years.
If I was a braver person, this would be the perfect moment to tell Tristan that my mother is very much alive. That I lied to shield the truth about my relationship with Van Horne. About me.
But I’m not brave, and I can’t bear to ruin this moment. It’s too . . . perfect.
I make a sound that says nothing, really. And then I turn the question back on Tristan. “How about you?”
“I do, actually. We were in the hospital and she must have known the end was near. She was saying goodbye and I asked her where she was going. She said, “Everywhere. Dancing in the clouds, swinging from rainbows, skipping from star to star. I’ll be watching over you from every sunrise and sunset.” And then she told me to make her proud.”
A tear slides from the corner of my eye down my temple. “Is that why you named your fund Polaris? It’s the North Star, right?”
“Yeah. The brightest star in the sky. I guess I hope that if she really is up there, watching over me, she’ll know I’m still thinking about her.”
My heart tumbles inside my chest, like it’s been tossed off a cliff. Round and round, down and down. Where it will land, I don’t know.
My voice, when I finally manage to say something again, is hoarse. Like it, too, is out of my control. “Did I ever tell you that the only thing I really hate about living in New York City is never getting to see the stars? There’s something unsettling about looking up and seeing nothing. Just an inky purple smudge that never deepens to navy.”
“I know what you mean. I’ve spent hours looking up at the sky. Greenwich, Connecticut is so close to Manhattan that, even when we got out of the city, I didn’t see many stars at night either. For years after she died, though, I don’t think I missed a single sunrise or sunset. I tried to hunt down every rainbow, and I spent entire days lying on my back, just trying to find my mom up in the clouds.”
“Did you?” I ask softly.
“Nope. Not once. ” He shakes his head, planting a kiss on the tip of my nose. “When I left for boarding school, the best part was finally getting to see the stars at night. I even took an astronomy course.”
“They had stars in Massachusetts?”
“Sure did. Whole constellations of them. The Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Cassiopeia, Orion’s Belt, the Great Square of Pegasus, the Pleiades. And Ursa Minor, of course, which includes Polaris. Sometimes, on an especially clear night, you could even see a planet or two.”
“I’ve always wanted to be able to do that—to look up at t
he sky and know what I was actually looking at.”
“I’ll teach you. Once things with the fund settle down, we’ll get out of the city for a night or two. Maybe drive up to Rhode Island, or Vermont. We’ll go star-gazing.”
“Promise?” If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Tristan, it’s that he always keeps his word.
“I promise.”
I fall asleep cocooned within Tristan’s arms, lulled by the steady thud of his heartbeat and the rhythmic movement of his chest with every inhale and exhale. And when I dream, it’s of a soft bed in the middle of a grassy field, under a rich navy sky blazing with stars.
And Tristan, holding me close.
“Come on, get dressed.”
“Hmmm?” I’m still in Tristan’s bed, exactly where I’ve spent most of the weekend. I lift my head, disappointed not to feel him still curled around me, so close we only need one pillow. “Why? I thought you liked me naked.”
Striding to the bed, Tristan lifts the covers, his eyes lighting up with appreciation. “Oh, I do. But I don’t want anyone else to have the same pleasure.”
In the past, had anyone looked at me with such blatant appraisal, in the bright light of day and without a stitch of clothing on, I would have snatched the covers from his hands, blushing furiously. But this morning, with this man, I don’t. My skin warms, but not from embarrassment. I stretch. I smile. I fucking preen. Tristan has made no secret of the fact that he loves looking at my body, and I like the person I see reflected in his gaze. “Why? Are you expecting company?”
“No. But I can’t stay inside for another day, not even with you.” He gestures toward the wall of windows. “It’s a gorgeous morning. Let’s go outside, walk around, find someplace to have brunch.”
I shake my head, trying to knock the sleepy cobwebs loose. “Sure I can’t tempt you to come back to bed for a little while longer?” Tucked away in his penthouse with a stack of takeout menus handy, we’ve been practically inseparable for thirty-six hours. Even so, I’m not quite ready to face the real world yet.
No such luck. Tristan throws the covers to the side, his hand coming back to rest on my hip. “Not even you can tempt me to stay inside today. I feel like a lab animal trapped in a cage.”
I glance around his luxurious, multi-million-dollar enclosure and laugh. “Pretty nice cage.”
I catch a twitch of Tristan’s lips before I’m scooped into his arms. He kisses me until my head is spinning, and I start to think for sure we’ll wind up back in bed, exactly where I want to be. But then he relaxes his grip, letting me slide down his body to stand on my own two feet. Rather than fight a losing battle, I head off to shower and dress, grumbling to myself the whole time.
Yanking on my hoodie, jeans, and Chucks, I realize I don’t know enough curse words to properly deride the ridiculous wardrobe choices I made on Friday. I didn’t intend to stay the night, let alone the entire weekend. I could kick myself for not tossing more than a toothbrush in my purse. With no pencil to fill in my nearly invisible brows or mascara to darken my pale eyelashes, and only a swipe of gloss on my lips from the lone tube tucked into a side pocket, I look like a teenager.
Tristan laughs as I emerge from his bathroom. “I’m going to get arrested for robbing the cradle.”
I twirl. “What, you don’t like my comfy college look?”
“College? You look like you’re in high school.”
Deciding the ponytail isn’t helping my cause, I pull at the elastic, letting my hair fall free onto my shoulders. “Better?”
Tristan’s lips twitch as he strides toward me, wrapping his hands around my waist and pulling me against him, our eyes meeting in the mirror. “You went from cute junior to sexy senior.” He bends to kiss my neck. “But I’ll take it.”
Tristan
Reina’s reluctance as I enfold her hand within my own only makes my grip tighter. Why? I have no idea. PDA isn’t usually my thing. But being within arm’s length of Reina and not touching her at all feels completely unnatural, especially in light of how close we’ve been the entire weekend.
“Hungry?”
Reina grins. “Yeah.”
“What are you in the mood for?”
“You mean, besides you?”
My cock twitches. “Minx.”
“Sorry, can’t help it. Um, what’s good around here?”
I shrug. I’ve never really done couple things, like sipping Bloody Marys at a sidewalk café or strolling hand in hand. But here I am, strolling hand in hand, and damn if I don’t want a Bloody fucking Mary too. “No idea. I usually wind up grabbing something from a deli on my way into the office.”
“Even on a Sunday?”
I chuckle. Just because the stock markets isn’t open, doesn’t mean there’s no work to be done. “Especially on a Sunday.”
“Is it too late to get breakfast pizza? We could do that instead and then go to the office? Or I could head back home and get out of your hair.”
“No.” I rake my fingers along my skull for effect. “You’re definitely not in my hair, and I already went for a run and got some work done while you were sleeping.”
She casts a sidelong glance at me as we cross the street. “This morning?”
“Yeah. You must have been pretty worn out after all those orgasms I gave you.”
Reina’s throaty giggle is a welcome addition to the typical Manhattan orchestra of buses, taxis, and swearing pedestrians. “Obviously I didn’t give you enough.”
“Oh, you did.” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “I just have more endurance than you, on account of your young age and all.”
“Okay, old man. Maybe we should stop at a pharmacy to get you a little blue pill, in deference to your advanced years.”
“Touché,” I concede.
“Oh, hey.” Reina points to a restaurant with a red awning stretched over a cluster of tables. “I know that place. Lots of brunch options, and I’ll bet they make a great Bloody Mary.”
Chapter 14
@BettencourtBets: Hmmm. IVy didn’t come into the office this weekend. What game was he playing at home?
Reina
There are a handful of tables available inside, and a line of people waiting for the one open table outside. But of course, after a brief conversation with Tristan, the hostess escorts us to it immediately. How does he do that?
My stomach flutters as he holds out my chair, the old-fashioned, chivalrous gesture taking me by surprise.
When he sits down, the hostess hands him two menus (and probably her phone number). Tristan gives one of them to me, flashing a grin that warms me from the inside out. “Let’s brunch.”
I give a half-hearted eye-roll, before perusing the menu and quickly settling on an egg-white omelet with sun-dried tomatoes and pesto. And a Bloody Mary, of course. Halfway through my meal, I pluck a french fry from Tristan’s plate. French fries are my kryptonite. “You were right, you know.”
“About ordering real food rather than whatever it is on your plate?”
No question, his side of fries is definitely better than the dandelion greens accompanying my eggs. But that isn’t what I mean. “About getting out of the apartment. This is nice.” Maybe I can get used to the whole dating thing.
Tristan reaches across the table for my hand. “Yeah, it is.”
I pull mine just out of reach, staring at his wide, blunt-tipped fingers, his creased knuckles, the network of veins running beneath his skin. Those hands have touched me in my most intimate places, have held and caressed me.
Everywhere.
We held hands as we walked down the street, and now he wants to do it again. How far can we push the envelope before getting caught? “What if someone sees us?”
Tristan’s grin falters. “What if they do?” It’s a bright, clear day, and neither of us is wearing sunglasses. The challenge in his gaze is obvious.
“They might get the wrong idea.”
“About what?”
I take another sip of my cocktail
before answering. “About us.”
“That we’re hungry?”
“That we’re a couple. Someone might think we’re a couple.”
“And that would be bad.”
I nod. “Very bad.”
“For you, or for me?”
“For both of us.”
Tristan’s expression turns serious. “I’m a big boy, Reina. I can handle myself. And I won’t let anything happen to you, not because of me.”
My stomach lurches. It’s one thing to spend the weekend in bed together, to eat takeout and watch movies. To hide. But are we really ready for public scrutiny? For any scrutiny at all?
It would be so easy to give in. To follow Tristan’s lead and sit here holding hands and enjoying our lunch date. But I’m used to living, even thriving, in the shadows. The two of us, in public, in the bright light of day. . . I feel like a mole forced above ground, blinded by the sun. Every instinct is telling me to dive back into my safe, subterranean tunnel.
“A scandal could tarnish your reputation, just when you’re starting to make a name for yourself. Are you sure—” I lick my suddenly dry lips. “Are you sure I’m worth it?”
Tristan’s brows pull together over his nose, his forehead crinkling into a series of horizontal lines. “What the fuck kind of question is that?”
I jerk back from the ferocity of his words, feeling like I’ve been slapped. But before my spine can touch the rattan backing of my chair, Tristan grabs for my wrist. He sighs. “That came out wrong. I just . . .” Another sigh. “Yes. Of course, I’m sure. One hundred percent.”
I fidget in my seat, feeling both petulant and ridiculous. I want to take my hand back, but Tristan’s grip is firm, his thumb rhythmically pressing into my palm. “Listen,” he continues. “I’m going to let you in on a secret, but only because it’s something you should already know.”
