I felt myself clenching around him right before I lost it, my head pushing back into the bed, a rough, desperate cry escaping my lips, as I came.

I knew that he followed me as his mouth latched onto the pulse in my neck, his breath escaping in a raw gasp of a noise, his hard length grinding right into the end of me and holding himself there, wedged deep, his length pulsing with his release.

“You feel so good, sweetheart. I swear nothing’s every felt better in my whole f.u.c.king life.”

I felt my body go limp as the powerful tremors eased, and his words made me literally melt. I had the oh so stupid girl thought that if I could just have Tristan, I’d never need anything else, not ever.

I had the crucial and inescapable realization that I wanted him. Not just in bed. Not just as a friend, but all of him. Every piece of the puzzle. I’d never wanted anything so badly in my life.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

He left me briefly, presumably to take care of the condom, but I didn’t even lift my head up to look. For what I mused was the first time in my life, I felt well and truly sated.

I’d never come with a man inside of me. h.e.l.l, before yesterday, I’d never even had an o.r.g.a.s.m with a man in the same room. Tristan always liked to joke that he had magic hands, but I was beginning to lean towards the idea that he had magic in every part of his body.

Turned out, feeling sated made me talkative, and so I found myself spouting out revealing little confessions between bouts of s.e.x.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever come with a man,” I told him as I felt his weight on the bed. My eyes were closed, and I didn’t think I’d moved even one inch since he’d left me.

His hand went to my belly in a light caress. “You want to tell me what that’s all about?”

My breath trembled out in a long sigh, and I very deliberately didn’t open my eyes. “Do you really want to know? I’d hate to unload on you if you don’t feel like hearing my life story.”

His hand went still on me, and my eyes shot open, going to his face.

He was glaring, and it made me flush. “Please tell me you know me better than that, Danika. Seriously. That hurt my feelings. Of course I want to know. Tell me.”

I just nodded and closed my eyes, not wanting to look at him while I spoke.

“s.e.x…didn’t start out good for me. In fact, it was pretty horrible.” My voice was almost cold as I told it. Just stating facts, I told myself. It was the old you. Nothing to cry about now. “I was,” I searched for the right word, the word that made me sound less like a victim, “coerced.”

“Coerced?” There was already clear rage in his voice. G.o.d, the man could get worked up in a heartbeat.

“There’s a bit of a backstory, but it’s boring—”

“Danika,” he said darkly, censure in every syllable. “You know me better.”

I did know better. He’d always been a great listener, a great friend.

“My mother disappeared on me and my sister when I was about fifteen. We tried to hide the fact that she was gone. We were good at covering up for her. I can’t remember a time when we didn’t have to, for one reason or another. She was an addict. Hardcore. Opiates had her basically bedridden for my entire childhood. She wasn’t a functional person; she probably didn’t even know what that was.” I’d spent a lot of time trying to forgive her for that, but it hadn’t been easy, and I still wasn’t sure some days if I even knew what real forgiveness was.

“When she wasn’t bedridden, she was gone, doing G.o.d knows what.”

He’d grabbed my hands, rubbing the stress right out of them as I spoke. It helped. It felt good, distractingly good, which was what I needed. I hadn’t told this story in a long time, and it wasn’t an easy one to tell.

“We hid it for about a month before social services got wind. I suppose it was with good intentions that we were placed together into a foster home. It wasn’t much of a home, it was a trailer actually, and the family we were put with was…not ideal. It was an older couple, poor as dirt. The wife worked. She was gone a lot. The husband wasn’t.”

His hands tightened on mine briefly before starting up again.

“There might be people with good intentions that help with foster care, but that system is broken. So broken that it puts young girls with old perverts without a qualm.”

“G.o.d, Danika.”

My voice was calm and steady as I continued, just stating facts, “We weren’t there long before he started…coercing me. He knew which b.u.t.tons to push, as predators tend to. Lucy told me that. She’s helped me work through it.”

“He told me that he liked young girls, younger than me, in fact. My sister Dahlia was the perfect age, he told me. But he could be nice, he said. He’d let me be a good big sister and take her place, and if I cooperated, and didn’t tell, and didn’t complain, or cry out, or scream, he’d leave my baby sister alone.”

“How long did this go on for?” Tristan asked softly, something dreadful in his voice. I was thankful that dreadful thing wasn’t for me, but it still made me shiver to hear it.

“It felt like eternity, but it was just over a year. It happened often. In the middle of the day, in the kitchen, anywhere he wanted. He loved to pounce on me in the washroom. He’d bend me over the washer a lot, and I couldn’t make a peep.”

I couldn’t believe that I was telling this to him while I was lying on my back naked, but I didn’t feel the need to cover up, as though I just trusted him that much.

“Long story short, my sister walked in on us. I wasn’t fighting him, in fact I was cooperating, so she thought it was something I’d wanted. That ugly confrontation revealed that he’d lied about not touching her. He’d pulled the same routine on us both. I was a s.h.i.tty big sister, and I’d failed miserably at protecting either of us. She ran away, haven’t spoken to her since. No idea where she is, but I know that she hates me for what happened to her, and what she saw. She was pretty clear about that. I tried to explain myself to her, but she didn’t want to hear it.”

“G.o.d, Danika…”

“He didn’t hurt me.”

He made a choked noise in his throat that told me he took strong exception to that statement.

“Well, what I mean is, he didn’t hit me or anything, but it did hurt. It was horrible, in fact. It’s hard to describe, but when someone takes that choice out of your hands, even takes away your choice to struggle, well, it kills something important inside of you. I’m still struggling to find that something I lost. I struggle every day with it. To feel whole. To feel a sense of self-worth that Lucy tells me everyone should have. It colors every little thing I do, if I’m honest, but one of the most obvious results of that ugliness is that it’s important for me to feel in control.”

“I got a boyfriend when I was about seventeen. He said he loved me, seemed to mean it, and I was so ready to love somebody that I fell for him hook, line, and sinker. I probably rushed into the s.e.x part of that, but it was actually my idea. I wanted to get it over with, especially doing it with someone my own age. It was never about liking it. It was about…enduring it, and feeling like it was my choice. My next boyfriend was a slight variation of pretty much the same d.a.m.n thing.”

My voice had stayed steady, my breathing even, as I told the embarra.s.sing mess of a story, but Tristan’s wasn’t. His breathing was uneven, and messy, and spoke clearly of temper.

“Where does he live?” Tristan asked very, very quietly.

“Who? The old man?” I’d never say his name, not ever.

“Yes. Where does he live?”

“What? You making plans to go kick his a.s.s?”

“Or kill his a.s.s.” He sounded so deadly serious that I opened my eyes to study him.

“He died of a heart attack when I was seventeen. Been in the dirt for years now. No need for murder.”

I was teasing him, but he didn’t look amused. He looked troubled, and it was the kind of trouble that didn’t go away with teasing.

“I didn’t mean to kill the mood, but that’s it, that’s why I think s.e.x hasn’t been good for me.” My tone was flat, but I felt so vulnerable, so open, and ready to be wounded again, and I strongly suspected that wound would come from whatever his reaction might be.

Words seemed to pour out of me in a jumble, as though I couldn’t say them fast enough, because I’d clearly rather wound myself, than have it come from someone like Tristan, who could really do some damage. “Probably not the sort of thing you want to hear about someone you’ve slept with. I’ll totally understand if you don’t want to do anything else with me. The things I’ve done are…disgusting. Believe me, I know that better than anyone.”

He was on me, angry and domineering, before I’d finished speaking.

He slanted his mouth over me, his movements angry, but his kiss so soft. When he pulled back to speak, his words were soft too. “You could never be disgusting, sweetheart. Never. I’m so sorry for what happened to you. You deserve so much more than what life gave you, and I wish to h.e.l.l I could go back in time and kill that sick old man before he ever hurt you.”

“Thank you,” I told him, my voice thick. He’d hit all of the right nerves with a few short statements, soothing my wounds, instead of inflicting new ones. I should have had more faith in him. “But I really will understand if you don’t want me anymore.”

His answer was to move down my body with soft, feather light kisses, the contact sweet, his intent just the opposite.

He buried his face between my legs, eating me out with enthusiasm and skill. Skill and…talent. He had me gasping out his name, just on the edge, before he pulled back, turning me onto my stomach.

He pushed my legs out and up, until my knees were bent, my thighs spread. I tensed as I felt him positioning himself on my back.

He rubbed my lower back, and murmured soothingly. “Relax and arch your back for me a bit. I’ll make it good, sweetheart, I promise.”

“Are you putting on a condom? I can’t see.”

I felt him sigh against me. “Yes, of course I will. You made your wishes very clear. I wouldn’t take that choice away from you.”

I relaxed. He’d grasped that situation quickly.

The old man had never used a condom, never given me a choice about it, and I’d hated that so much.

“Thank you.”

I heard a foil packet being opened. “Tristan,” I said quietly.

“Yes, Danika.”

“I trust you. It’s really nice.”

“It is really nice. Thank you, Danika.”

His fingers moved between my legs, slipping between wet folds to plunge into me. He started up a steady rhythm with those magical fingers. He only pulled them out when I was on the edge again, panting and twisting against the contact.

“Danika, sweetheart?” he rasped.

“Yes, Tristan?”

“I’m done being sweet, if you don’t mind. I need to f.u.c.k you really hard now, if that’s okay.”