“Your dad hit on you?” he asked, shocked.

“You saw my mother.  I look just like her.  I guess he has a type.”

“Don’t try to pretend that is even remotely normal!  I ever see that guy, I’m kicking his a.s.s.  Period.  That is happening.  f.u.c.k, I think I’ve met that dude.  Un-f.u.c.king-believable.”

I thought that about summed it up.

He started tugging me through his house, up the stairs, straight to his bedroom.  He cornered me against his unorthodox bed and started stripping me.  “You just tortured me for hours,” he said, voice low and gravelly.  “Now it’s my turn.”

TRISTAN

She loved to make cracks about what she called my ‘kinky’ bed.  I thought it was time I showed her what it could do.

I stripped her down to her little tiny thong and blindfolded her.  I looked my fill of that intoxicating sight before I took her into the bed and made her stand.

I fastened her arms above her with padded leather cuffs that attached to the ceiling of the st.u.r.dy bed.

And then I went to work on her with my mouth, starting at her jaw, working my slow way down her neck, her collarbone, spending extra time sucking at her puckered ni**les.  Gripping her br**sts into two perfect handfuls, I rolled them against my tongue, kneading.

I loved her body.  In fact, it was a little alarming how obsessed I was with it, the vast amount of hours I’d spent fantasizing about this right here.

I fisted my c**k as I nuzzled into her navel.  I was loud with it, and when she heard me working at my own fist, she moaned and squirmed.

I knelt in front of her and buried my face between her thighs, throwing her legs over my shoulders.  I shoved her panties to the side and went to town, using every tongue trick I had to bring her, again and again.

And then I went to work on her with my hands.

When I finally stood up and started f**king her vigorously, she was pliant under my hands.

After I came, I just kept pumping into her, letting her milk at me for a long time.

This right here.  Heaven.

“I love you,” I told her, not in the throes of pa.s.sion, but in the clear moment after.  I would keep telling her, conditioning her to it.  I’d keep trying forever, if I had to, to make her trust me again.

I knew she still loved me.  I could see it now, even if she was still in the throes of denial.  She didn’t have to say it in words.  She spoke to me in so many other ways.  Her love spoke to me in every surrendering line of her body.

It spilled out of her pure silver eyes every time she looked at me.

She was mine again.

And, even when she hadn’t wanted me, when I’d lost all faith, I’d always, always been hers.

I took her down and arranged her on her back.  I peeled off her panties and parted her legs.  She was so satiated that she was as good as limp, so deliciously pliant that it made my brain go a little fuzzy with the heady pleasure of it.

My fingers slid along the soft skin of her thigh as I straightened, catching one of her s.e.xy little feet and digging into it, rubbing until, even in her complete relaxed limpness, she began to make little writhing motions on the bed.

I kissed the arch of her foot, then her slender ankle.  She was so delicate and soft under my hands that every touch I gave her held a shaky restraint.

I loved this body, this slender waist, these lean hips, her slim thighs.  I adored that what appeared so dainty had a core of steel so strong, so relentlessly solid, that it was the only thing I’d found on this earth fit to cast my lot with, to make my home.

She humbled me to this day.

My hands were reverent, my lips worshipful as I made my trembling way up her trembling body, so thankful for every touch she allowed me that I was giddy with it, shaking with it.

Because, whether she would admit it or not, every time we gave in to this hunger, this unforgiving pa.s.sion, we showed our true feelings to each other.  She couldn’t give herself to me without showing me her vulnerability, and I couldn’t take her without revealing my utter devotion, my forever love.

I never could keep the filthy diatribe in when I got my hands on her perfect little body, but more and more, the words were as desperately emotional as they were dirty.

“How did we do without this, sweetheart?” I asked against her satiny smooth belly.  “How could we think that was an option?” I nuzzled along her ribs into the underside of one plump breast.  “How could I ever stop this?  You know we can’t go back now, don’t you?  We can’t go back to that.”

She didn’t answer me.  I hadn’t expected her too.  I knew she was far past the point of a coherent sentence.  I’d always loved her smart mouth, but at times like these, I liked it even better when it was incapable of forming whole words.

I took off her blindfold and covered her.  I took her again, hungrily, desperately, like a man starved.  Even as I was twitching inside her, still shaking from my release, I felt that hunger.

Just on the edge of sleep, I caught it.  “f.u.c.king Game of Thrones,” I muttered.

She laughed beside me.

We fell asleep entwined, and I woke up still wrapped around her from behind.  In fact, my hard c**k was right in the middle of trying to find an entrance before I’d even blinked awake.

I sat up, rolling her to her back.  It was like eyeing up a feast.  I didn’t know where to start.

Her jaw was slack in sleep, her lips parted.  My hard-on told me very clearly to start there.

I climbed up her body, and managed to dig one knee into the bed next to her head, the other stretched clear of her body.  I pushed my tip between those inviting lips, trying to go slow, but once I got to her throat, a knee-jerk reaction had me shoving in a little too forcefully.

I gagged her twice before she pushed me away, laughing.  “You’re too big for that angle,” she told me.

She made a good point.

“I wasn’t quite awake yet when I thought of that.”

She pushed at me, and I sprawled out on my back for her.  “Next time, just wake me up.”

Her head started bobbing, and I gripped her hair.  “Anything you say.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

TRISTAN

I always felt the date approaching like a magnet, my mind constantly pulled to it.

This year was a little better.  I got out the black wristband and put it on with a lighter heart than I’d had, well, since his death.

Having Danika back in my life helped me with this, there was no question.