Chapter Twenty-Four
Molly
“Where are we going?” I asked excitedly.
We had spent fifteen minutes in a car driving along Oahu’s lesser-traveled roads. All the while, Tristan had refused to tell me where we were heading. It was nice to sit in the front seat of his convertible, with his hand wrapped around my shoulders. We probably looked like a still out of an old movie, and the thought amused me.
“You’re not going to tell me?” I asked.
He laughed. “I had no idea you were so impatient.”
It was a glorious Sunday, but it was the first time in weeks that I’d gotten to enjoy a weekend. Tristan and I had been working around the clock, and when I did manage to carve out a little free time, he was always busy. So this morning when I had woken up, I had been surprised to see him sitting at the foot of the bed with a huge smile on his face.
He had told me to get dressed because he had a surprise for me. Twenty minutes later, we were driving away from the resort in Tristan’s vintage blue convertible. He had kept quiet about where we were going, and a part of me was intrigued and excited to be left in the dark.
“I can be sometimes,” I nodded.
“Well, you won’t have to wait long now,” he said as he pulled up on the outskirts of the beach.
We got down, and he walked around to me and took my hand. “Ready?”
“We’re going down to the beach?”
“I suppose we are,” he nodded, as he led the way.
“Are we swimming?” I wondered out loud.
“This particular side of the beach is not ideal for swimming,” he said as we stepped onto the soft, warm sand.
Thankfully, I had chosen to wear my flip-flops and a comfortable sundress. “I’m not sure I packed my swimsuit,” I said, biting my lip.
“You won’t need a swimsuit,” he assured me.
We walked down the sloping beach where the waves were lapping against the shore. There were a couple of locals wading in the clear blue water next to a bright yellow motorboat.
“Mr. Tristan!” one of the men called as we approached.
“Akoni,” Tristan waved. “Is everything ready?”
“Everything is ready Mr. Tristan,” he nodded. “Have a good time.”
“Will do,” Tristan nodded, leading me straight to the boat.
I smiled at the men as Tristan helped me into the boat and started up the engine. A few seconds later, we were zooming across the water, and the three men by the beach became little dots in the distance.
“Okay, seriously,” I said. “Where are we going?”
Tristan laughed. “You’ll find out in five seconds,” he said.
I looked out into the horizon, and after a moment, I saw a little island in the distance. It was a tiny mass of land surrounded by shaded trees. I could make out a small structure enclosed within all the green. It looked like something out of a fantasy novel.
I wanted to ask more questions, but I was so consumed with the view that all my questions dried on my tongue as I admired how beautiful it looked. As Tristan pulled up on the shore, I realized that the house was possibly the only man-made structure on the tiny private island. The house itself was shrouded from view, and I could only see a few white shutters and a large ornamental balcony from my vantage point.
Before Tristan had docked the motorboat, I jumped out and ran into the island. It was lovely, and as I walked further in, the trees shielded the whole island from the sun’s harsher rays. I realized there were steps leading up to the house, whose architecture was almost Victorian in its intricate little details.
“What do you think?” Tristan asked, coming up behind me.
“This place is amazing,” I said. “How did you even find it?”
“The previous owner was looking to sell,” he told me. “And, I was looking to buy.”
“You bought the house?” I asked incredulously.
“The whole island, actually. It’s pretty perfect, isn’t it?”
“Perfect is definitely one word for it,” I agreed. “I can’t believe you bought a whole island.”
Tristan looked at me and smiled. “A little extravagant, do you think?”
“Just a tad,” I teased.
He laughed. “Come on, let’s go exploring.”
He took my hand, and we climbed the steps together. The house was a sprawling manor that could have doubled as an estate. “How big is it?” I asked, in amazement.
“Five bedrooms and seven bathrooms big,” he replied.
“Looks like more.”
“The rooms inside are massive,” he explained. “The original owner wanted fewer rooms and bigger spaces. The kitchen and dining room are huge, and the living room takes up half the space on the ground floor.”
“I can’t believe you bought a house,” I said, shaking my head.
“It’s an investment,” he shrugged. “And perfect timing, too. I closed this deal shortly before you arrived in Hawaii. Now whenever we need some alone time, we can just come here.”
I gave him a look.
“What?”
“When will we have time to come here, at all?” I asked. “We’re both so busy.”
“It won’t be like that forever,” he said. “At least, I hope not. We just have to be hopeful.”
The house’s interior was as lovely as it was on the outside. Tristan had been right about how large all of the rooms were. The furniture was sparse, but it was just enough for a house that wasn’t in continual use. We went through every single room while he went through key points of architecture. He was passionate about it, and it made me wonder why he hadn’t decided to become an architect.
We circled back to the massive living room, and I settled down on the sofa. “Did you ever think about getting into architecture in college?”
Tristan sat down next to me. “I thought about it a lot, actually,” he admitted.
“But?”
“Dad was grooming me to take over his empire,” he said. “And…I guess I couldn’t turn him down.”
“Is that one of the reasons why your relationship with him was a little…prickly sometimes?”
Tristan looked at me and smiled. “I wasn’t aware that you were aware of my prickly father-son relationship.”
“You forget that I spent half my life watching you,” I said. “I noticed things—the way you spoke about your father was one.”
“He had a vision for my future, and I didn’t necessarily agree with that vision at first,” Tristan said. “But once I got into his line of work, I realized that I actually enjoyed it. And, I have gotten to dabble in architecture every now and again, it’s just not what I do.”
“It was lucky that you enjoyed running the empire.”
“I think about that every day,” Tristan nodded. “If I hadn’t, I’d probably still think about my father with resentment. But as it stands, I just miss him.”
“I can imagine,” I nodded, thinking about my own parents. “I don’t know what I would do if something happened to my dad.”
“Before he got sick, Dad was like a machine,” Tristan said, with his eyes far away. “He worked twenty-four-seven. Sometimes, it felt like he never slept. I swore to myself that I would never allow myself to work like he did; but now, here I am, working like he did.”
“He was probably lonely,” I suggested.
Tristan turned to me. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know; I guess I just assume that people who work that much are naturally lonely. Why else would they give their lives over to work?”
He looked at me thoughtfully. “I had never considered that before,” he said softly. “And now that you mention it, he never really dated after Mom and he divorced. Maybe that was the reason he was so ambitious. Maybe it wasn’t just ambition. Maybe it was self-preservation.”
Tristan turned to me and sighed. “We only started seeing eye to eye when we knew we had run out of time,” he shared. “I never got around to asking all the questions that I was curious about.”
“Like?”
“Like… Did his career really satisfy him that much?” Tristan said. “Did ambition really fulfill his life? Was that the reason that he and Mom split up or did it come after? He got sick so fast, and afterward it was all about his illness. It didn’t feel right to bring up stuff that was ancient history.”
I leaned over and hugged Tristan. After a moment, I felt his lips on my head. I turned my face up to his, and we kissed slowly until it turned into a more passionate embrace. When we pulled apart, I could see the hot flame of desire reflected in his eyes.
“I like talking to you,” he whispered to me. “It’s easy—it feels natural. I’ve never had that before.”
“You’ve never been able to talk to any of your ex-girlfriends?”
“No, they were so…removed from my life,” Tristan admitted. “I just couldn’t open myself up to them.”
“But you can with me?”
“You’re different,” he said.
I smiled as he pulled me onto his lap, and his hands pushed up my skirt and started caressing my thighs. I could see his hard-on pressing up against the crotch of his pants, and I slipped my hands down and unzipped him. I lifted myself off his lap so that he could slip off my panties. Then we fucked on the sofa, christening Tristan’s new house.
After we were done, we embraced one another and lay on the couch, as he played with my hair. “This is nice,” he said, almost as an afterthought.
“This is all new to me,” I confessed. “I’ve never had a relationship like this one before.”
He looked at me questioningly.
“I mean, a relationship that is based on friendship and passion and love and sex. I underestimated how important sex can be in a relationship.”
He smiled. “That makes one of us.”
I smirked at him and got off the sofa.
“Hey,” he called. “Where are you going?”
“I want to go down to the beach.”
“That’s a great idea,” he nodded with a twinkle in his eye.
“Except I don’t have a swimsuit,” I pointed out.
“This is a private island,” he reminded me. “You don’t need one.”
He stripped down completely and stood before me—naked as the day he was born. I looked him up and down, feeling a little tingle between my legs.
“Your turn,” he said challengingly.
I started to strip. When I was naked, Tristan reached out and cupped my breasts in his hand. Then he took my hand and led me out of the house and towards the ocean. I felt like the modern-day Adam and Eve as we waded into the cool water together.
Once lapping waves surrounded us, I felt a brilliant and inexplicable sense of freedom. It was just Tristan and me, completely naked, surrounded by the ocean under a clear blue sky. It was perfect.
I felt my desire for him expand once more. This time, I pulled him to me and started to kiss him with purpose. Having sex in the ocean was an altogether different experience. It was harder, clumsier, and unpredictable, but it was also carnal and natural and extremely exciting.
Tristan fucked me hard as the water pushed us from side to side, and when I came, I threw back my head and screamed without inhibition, without reservation, and without any sense of self-consciousness.