Lovely Trigger (24 page)

Profoundly detrimental, that’s what those scars were.
 

“From the accident?” he asked, face still blank.

“Yes.
 
I just got scratched up a bit.
 
Like I said, totally superficial.
 
Didn’t hurt a thing but my vanity.”
 
Slowly but firmly, I pulled my shorts up, and my shirt down to cover the marks.
 

He sat up, rubbing his palms into his eyes.
 
“I know it’s not your favorite thing, but there is some stuff we need to talk about.”

That pissed me off.
 
Couldn’t we go even a few weeks before we delved into that?
 
Couldn’t I just enjoy myself, for once?
 
But even as I had the thought, I recalled several things that I’d just been dying to have him clear up for
me
.

I stood up and began to pace.
 

“Okay you want to talk?
 
Let’s talk.”
 
My tone was tense, my arms folded in front of me like I was ready to do battle.
 

Because I was.
 

I kept pacing as I asked, “Did you beat up Milton back when I was dating him?”
 
I snapped my neck around to look at him.
 

He tried to give me a very innocent look, but I was not buying it.
 
“Excuse me?”

“Don’t play dumb.
 
Answer me.”
 

“When are we talking about, exactly?”
 

“Oh, did you beat him up more than once?” I shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm.
 
“I went out with him on a Friday.
 
Some charity event.
 
There were photographers there.
 
The next time I saw him, on a Monday, he looked like he’d lost a fight.
 
Was that fight with you?”
 
I spoke slowly, sharply, determined to get a square answer.
   

“Oh, that…” He gave me an engaging sort of grimace that turned into an audacious smile.
 
“Yes.
 
That was me.
 
In my defense, I was provoked beyond all sanity.
 
And the next time, well, he was asking for it.
 
Don’t get all pissy about it.
 
He’s a big boy, he can handle it.
 
I was literally picking on someone my own size.”
 

I shook my head, beyond exasperated, because he clearly wasn’t sorry, and moreover, perversely, I found his shameless confession sort of endearing.

And worse still, I couldn’t keep myself from asking, “You weren’t hurt, were you?”

I was a stupid, stupid girl.
 
Hopeless really.
 

He stood and approached me, and I got the tightest hug for that one, his face buried in my neck.
 
“You’re such a sweetheart, you know that?
 
He didn’t hurt me.
 
Not at all.
 
It was kind of a letdown, really.
 
He looked like he’d be more of a challenge.
 
Do you know that second time was the last time I’ve been in a fight?”

“You beat him up a
second
time?”
 

“I knew he kept calling you, after you’d said to leave you alone.
 
Before you ask how I knew, I made a point of finding him and asking him.
 
That was the second time.
 
He stopped calling, right?”

I didn’t have a clue what to say to that, so I just stared.
 

“Okay, my turn,” said Tristan.
 

He pulled back and all of the happy bled out of his face as he pondered his question.
 
A twitch started pulsing in his temple, but he plunged ahead.
 
“Did you sleep with Milton?”
 
The words churned over in his mouth, like he didn’t have the stomach for them.
 

I rubbed my temples.
 
“Tristan,” I warned him.
 

How quickly we’d wandered out of safe territory.
 

“I’m not going to interrogate you about the last six years.
 
I just want to know about
him
.
 
Consider it my one free question.”

I stood and started to pace, getting more agitated by the second.
 
“He bothers you more than, say, someone more faceless?
 
Someone you don’t know?”
 

“Yes,” he said simply.
 

“Fine.
 
No.
 
I never slept with him.
 
It never got that far.
 
Now, my turn.”

“Your turn,” he agreed warily.
 

“Tell me about you and my
sister
.”

His brows shot together.
 
“Dahlia?”

“Yes.
 
That sister.
 
Tell me what happened between you two.”

“Nothing.
 
Nothing happened.
 
I tried to help her and Jack out whenever I could, tried to be a phone call away if she ever needed help, but that’s all.”
 

“Bullshit.
 
When Jack was three, he told me he’d seen you two kissing.
 
I confronted Dahlia, and she as good as confirmed that it was true, though she stubbornly refused to give me any more information.
 
I want to know
exactly
what happened.
 
Did you date her?”
 

His breath puffed out in an agitated sigh.
 
“No, of course not.
 
You really thought I’d do that?”
 
His voice was full of chastising affront.
 

I set my jaw stubbornly.
 
No guilt trip was going to keep me from hearing what had happened.
 
Not even a very good one.
 
“Tell me what happened.
 
Did you kiss her?
 
And if you didn’t, tell me why Jack thought you did.”
 

“I started checking in on her, as soon as I found out that she was pregnant and alone.
 
Like a big brother would do.
 
Because that’s what I was.
 
I’d married into her family.
 
You know I take family seriously.
 

And she, well, she always had that silly crush on me.
 
Frankly, it was annoying.
 
She never even knew a thing about me when she started with that nonsense.
 
But I always tried to be nice to her, because she was your baby sister, and I tried to look after her, because she was
your baby sister.
 
I guess she was reading more into it.
 
One day she kissed me, planted one on me right in front of Jack.
 
I let her get it out of her system; let her see that there was nothing on my end to feed whatever delusions were happening on her end.
 
That was it.
 
She got the picture. The end.”
 

“Why wouldn’t she just tell me that?”
 

“Who can say?
 
She always resented the way I felt about you, the power you had over me.
 
Maybe she saw it as a small way of getting back.
 
The point is, there was nothing between us.
 
Of course there wasn’t.
 
I’d never do that to you.
 
Your baby sister?
 
Come on.
 
Never
.”
   

I felt such a wave of relief I nearly staggered with it.

I believed him.
 
I just did.
 
Moreover, I wondered how I’d ever been so certain he could do such a thing.
   

Perhaps I’d wanted to believe it.
 
Perhaps I’d been looking for more reasons to bring him down in my esteem.
 

I had been in survival mode for a very long time.
 
And whatever was happening to me now, well, that could only be the opposite.
   

It had only taken a few questions to get Tristan out of his fishing for information mood.
 
I’d known that would work, had counted on it.
 

He wasn’t the only one with an arsenal in this war of ours.
 

What I didn’t plan on, though, was him behaving himself.
 
He left not much later without even kissing me, or even trying to, and I told myself that was good.
 
Maybe we were getting better.
 
Maybe my theory (Familiarity breeding self-control) had been correct.
     

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I didn’t hear from him for a few days after that, and then when he did call, wanting me to come over, I was in an airport, heading to New York for five days.
 

Within a five-minute conversation though, he convinced me to come over to his house the day I got back.
 

In fact, jet lagged, travel weary, I found myself driving directly from the airport to his place.
 
What could I do?
 
He was bored and waiting for me, he’d told me over the phone.
 
Who could turn that down?
 

Apparently not me.
     

I grabbed us takeout from this old, Italian place, Sophia’s, that was conveniently located just five minutes from the airport.
 
We used to have it delivered to Bev’s, back in the day.
 
It was killer, and I hadn’t had it in six years.
 

I wanted that takeout.
 

We shared a long hug when he opened the door for me, looking delectable in a white T-shirt and jeans.
 

We pigged out on stuffed shells and the greasiest garlic bread I’d ever consider worth the calories.
 

I had almost stopped to grab a bottle of wine at a liquor store on the way to his house.
 
I’d parked the car before I’d remembered why that was a bad idea.
 

That calculatedly absent alcohol was the only thing that made our dinner together that night any different from the old days.
 
No, not the old days.
 
The
good
old days.
 
The great ones.
   

After dinner, I found myself on the couch again with him, watching our favorite show together and letting him slowly take liberties that I knew from the start were going to lead farther.
 

Eventually, he eased into lying behind me on the couch, an arm thrown over me, the other under my head, being used like a hard pillow.
 

I laughed at the show we were watching, and my body moved just enough to brush him.
 
With that brief contact, my back arched instinctively, pushing my butt hard into him in an artless invitation.
 

My head said no to that, but it was, unfortunately, several seconds slower than my traitorous body.
   

He sucked in a harsh breath.

We were on the thinnest of ice, so when it cracked, and we both went crashing through, I couldn’t even pretend to be surprised.
 

Any vague remnant of caution I’d felt walking through his door was quickly overrun by the promise of sheer carnal oblivion.
 

Physical need could be a terrible thing, and I didn’t even need to get into how messy the rest of our baggage was.
   

His hand covered my breast over my clothes, fondling, fingering my hard nipple, kneading at my pliant flesh.
 

My top had a built in bra, so when his hand delved into the side of my blouse, it made direct contact with skin.
 
I pushed myself into his hand, gasping.
 

His mouth was on my neck, my eyes closed with pleasure, when my hands went to the front of my slacks.
 
I felt him working at the fastening of his jeans behind me.
 

I didn’t get my pants all the way off, just pushing them past my hips to bunch around my knees.

I didn’t even manage to turn around.
 
The second I felt his bare skin against me, his hardness digging into me, we shared but one goal.
 
To get him inside of me, by the fastest means possible.
 

One of his hands gripped my hip, anchoring me as he pushed hard against me.
 

My back bowed; my body contorting until I was angled to allow him entry.
 

He started to surge into me with a rough curse.
 
He had to work in slowly, the fullness of it overwhelming, the voluptuous sensation of every raw tender nerve being worked making me so frantic that I bit my fist in some desperate attempt at restraint.
 

His hand snaked down, rubbing my clit with a light, fast touch, meanwhile the progress of his cock into my cunt was at an all-time slow.
 

“Please,” I called out.

“I can’t rush it.
 
I don’t know when you’ll let this happen again, and the last time few times were so fast, so fucking rushed, that I’ve regretted that I didn’t savor them more.”
 

I wiggled my hips impatiently.
 
He kept moving deeper, stopping completely when he was fully submerged.
 
Instead of pulling out, or thrusting, he began to circle his hips, shifting inside, dragging his shaft around and around, hitting nerves, setting off sparks.
 

The sensations that caused had my eyes rolling up into my head, and I was shaking like I had a fever.