Chapter Sixteen
Tristan came stomping in around dinnertime. He hung up his coat, then slipped out of his boots before entering the kitchen. The few minutes allowed Heather to watch him openly without having to conceal her feelings.
It wasn’t the first time she wished that she was a normal woman with uncomplicated feelings. But her baggage included a whole armada of suitcases.
He turned, and Heather immediately focused back on the potatoes she was currently peeling. She had spent all afternoon cutting up a whole grocery store of fresh food. Her fingers were sore and stiff, but she didn’t complain. There was something very therapeutic about cutting up vegetables.
Tristan grabbed a beer out of the fridge. He turned to face her as he popped the top. She was acutely aware of his stare though he didn’t say a word. By the end of supper, her nerves were stretched to the breaking point. He left immediately after, walking out of the kitchen without so much as a good night.
Tony, Jim, and Duke left a little while later, so Heather helped Mabel wash dishes and clean up the kitchen. Yet through all the chores, her mind stayed focused on Tristan. It seemed all she did lately was think about him. When did that happen? When Mabel excused herself to go check in on Lincoln, Heather quickly dried her hands and left.
She banged on his screen door until he opened it with force.
“What?” he said with a growl.
“Let me in.”
“No.”
“Tristan, let me in.”
With a sigh, he turned and stalked back inside. She followed, walking up to him, and though she didn’t touch him, she felt the coiled tension thrumming through his body. A muscle jumped in his clenched jaw as he regarded her with wary eyes. She swallowed heavily, her heart beating like a hammer. “Tristan, touch me.”
She thought he was going to ignore her. She could see in his eyes that he wanted to tell her to get the hell out, but she also felt the threads of desire weaving around them. Ensnaring them. And he was just as helpless to ignore them as she.
With a groan he reached for her, yanking her into his body, folding her back as he took her mouth with a kiss that touched her soul. He mastered her mouth, dominating it, his tongue sweeping inside to twirl with hers. Heather strained against him, feeling his erection, hot and hard for her welcoming warmth.
Tristan took her shoulders and pushed her back until she hit the wall, then he brought her hands up and held onto both of them with one of his.
“What are you doing?” she demanded as she tested the strength of his grip.
“You came to me,” he told her.
She struggled. “Let me go.”
He leaned in close, sniffing the fragrance of her hair near her temples. “Don’t you trust me?”
He wedged his knee between her legs, causing her breasts to be thrust upward. He bent his head and nuzzled her cleavage.
“Heather?” he prompted, his breath tickling against her sensitive skin. “Do you trust me?”
There came a point in every relationship, good or bad, where trust had to be considered. Heather thought back to every moment with Tristan and realized that, yes, she did trust him. She’d trusted him from the moment she met him so long ago.
“Yes,” she replied softly.
He jerked his gaze to hers. Something passed between them, tangible and electric. He took her mouth again with his, the kiss somehow deeper. Emotional. He picked her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he took her to the bedroom. He practically threw her on his bed, and before she could gather her scattered wits, he was on her, ripping clothes away. His, hers, they all disappeared in moments.
He kissed his way down her body, licking, nipping, making her cry out with pleasure. His hard body pressed against her, branding her. His scent, a blend of sweat, male, and wind, filled her senses. She wanted him, wanted everything about him.
Tristan flipped her over, brought her to her hands and knees, positioned himself behind her, and thrust hard, impaling her. Heather cried out at the exquisite feeling as he slid in and out, stuffing her full. Her sex sucked him in deeper as she used her walls to milk his pleasure. She was so wet that a syrupy sound accompanied each thrust.
Eventually her arms collapsed, unable to hold her up any longer, and she fell facedown. Tristan held her ass up by curving one hand around her waist and propping the other on the bed.
“Yes, oh God yes,” she panted. “Harder.”
She pushed against him as much as she could, reaching under to flick her own clit against his onslaught.
“Heather!” he said with a groan. “You’re so beautiful. So tight. God, I can’t last!”
With a loud moan, his climax shot out of him. He stiffened, jerking once, his ragged cry triggering her release.
They collapsed in a pile of sweaty arms and legs. She felt his lips kiss her tenderly on the top of her head, and emotions she’d never felt before suddenly crashed over her in waves. There were so many, it became difficult to sort through them, to identify all of them. Heather tried reining them in, pushing them away. Not here, not in his arms. She couldn’t lose it now.
But her mind no longer controlled her heart, and before she knew it, tears were sliding down her cheeks as words she never thought she’d say came tumbling out of her mouth.
“I was raped.”
Heather felt him stiffen, but he didn’t pull away. That gave her the courage to soldier on, to open the wound that had been festering for years.
“After I left here, we went back to L.A., but things were already deteriorating between my parents. They should never have gotten married, and they most certainly never should’ve had a kid.”
His arms tightened around her, but he didn’t say anything.
Heather cleared her throat. “In a typical teenage thought process, I determined that it had to be my fault, that they were both stuck in the awkward situation because of me. So I tried everything to make sure I didn’t cause them any problems. But my dad, you know, he was just too immature to be a family man.”
“I remember him,” Tristan replied.
“In school I was this nerd who kept to herself, usually reading or drawing.” She shuddered as the memories tumbled forth. “And then he asked me to meet him under the bleachers after a game, and I went because I wanted to know what it was like to be popular, to have the captain of the football team like me.” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “No one believed me when I said he raped me. He told everyone I asked for it, that I led him under the bleachers, that I seduced him. They called me a tease and a slut, and he got away with it.”
“Your parents—”
“Believed him. At least my dad did. My mother didn’t want to upset my dad any further, so she said nothing.”
The tears burned her skin. She quickly wiped them away, ashamed of the weakness.
He lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were dark, searching. Unreadable. She had no clue to the thoughts tumbling in his head. But did it matter? Did she really care about his opinion of her? Why did she tell him about that part of her past anyway? It had been a door she never opened, so why did she feel the need to unlock it now?
“You don’t believe you asked for that, do you?”
She pulled out of his arms, sitting up to wrap her arms around her knees. “I tried ignoring what everyone said about me, but if you live with a lie long enough, then the truth disappears.”
“Heather-”
“At first I was hurt, disappointed in my parents, in the teachers at school, in me. But then I got angry, and I … I don’t know how to let go of that anger. I’ve learned that I can use sex to get anything I want, that if I play the bad girl everyone expects me to be, then I don’t have to fulfill any expectations.”
Tristan placed his hands on the sides of her face and turned her to look at him. She thrust out her chin and compressed her lips, defiance oozing out of every pore. But the look in his eyes took her breath away. Compassion, warmth, admiration. What she didn’t see was pity, condemnation, disappointment, or mistrust, everything she had expected to see shining back at her.
It made her heart soar. It thawed the ice that had frozen her deep inside.
Their lips came together softly. His thumb rubbed against her chin, a light caress that encouraged her to open for him. His tongue swept in, meeting hers in a dance. His lips moved over hers in a sensual rhythm that slowly built in need.
But with a little shove, he fell back on the bed, and she quickly straddled him, giving him a kiss made to burn. She raised his arms and held them above his head with one of hers. At any moment he could easily take over, dominate her, but he must have sensed that she needed to be in control, right now after sharing so much of herself.
Her other hand started running over his chest, his arms, touching everywhere she could reach. She pinched his nipples until he squirmed deliciously. She kissed and nipped her way over his jaw, licking the salty sweat from his skin.
“Keep your hands up,” she ordered.
He obliged, grabbing hold of the headboard as she let go to explore over his hardened body. Even though he had hit his forties, he really didn’t show any signs of aging. His abs were firm, contoured, with a sprinkling of hair that condensed into a line that ran to his groin. His cock had surged back to life and lay curved upward almost long enough to touch his navel. A drop of precum glistened at the tip, and she bent her head to lick it.
Tristan groaned, and his hips shifted a bit, but he still held firm to the headboard. Encouraged, she took his cock in her hands and felt the stickiness of their encounter. She licked more, tasting him, tasting herself. It jumped like it had a mind of its own.
His hair encircled the base, wiry against her hand as she held him up to her mouth. She swallowed him, sucking hard, the tip hitting the back of her throat. She swallowed against her gag reflex and relaxed the muscle. Up and down she slid her mouth. Tristan kept moaning, and his hips kept moving, so she straddled his legs and held his hips down to keep him still. She wanted his torture. She wanted his pleasure to be uncontrollable.
“Stop, or I’m going to come in your mouth,” he hissed between clenched teeth.
“Then come,” she said.
“No. I want to be in you.”
The mental image blossomed in her mind, and suddenly she was so turned on she couldn’t think straight. All she wanted was his big cock stuffed inside her, so she pulled back and shifted her hips higher, holding his large cock in her hands as she sank onto him.
Both arched in hot, primal lust at the sensation. Heather put her hands on his pecs as she started to ride him, slow at first, but quickly building the tempo. She rocked him, feeling him deep inside. She felt his thigh muscles clench every time she impaled herself onto him, straining upward to meet her. Over and over she pumped herself, and her own muscles started to burn with the ride.
Heather threw back her head. She felt her hair tickle her ass. Tristan must have liked the sensation as well, because he bucked at the tickling swish of the strands over the tops of his legs. He started trembling. She felt his cock twitch and expand inside.
Sweat ran off their bodies, making the skin slick. Heather reached down between them to find her clit. She flicked it once, gave it a pinch, and exploded just as he slammed up hard.
She screamed in pleasure, and as her pussy clamped down on him, Tristan groaned deep in his throat as his orgasm broke. He finally let go of the headboard to grab her hips. He slammed her down once, twice, then held her still a third time as his cum filled her up.
She collapsed on top of him. Boneless. Sated.
“Jesus, woman,” he managed to say as he sucked in a lungful of air, “you could kill a hard-working cowboy.”
She smiled against his slick chest.
He put his arms around her, nestling her into his body.
For the first time in her life, Heather relaxed into the arms of a man, feeling safe. Warm. Home.
“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.
And just that quickly, her ease and comfort disappeared.