“Yes. Feel me. I’m wet. I want you inside of me.”

His fingers snaked down, slipping into me, proving my point with their slick entry. “So you are. Okay, then. Ask me for it.”

I straightened, bumping into him until we were both on our knees, my back to his chest, his legs between mine keeping me wide open. My head fell back so I could look up at him. “What?”

“You want me inside of you. I’m telling you to ask me for it. Be specific, and say please. Also, use my name.”

My first instinct was to tell him to go fuck himself, but something in his tone, some strange possessive thread, made me think he’d do just that, if I didn’t ask. And something about that possessiveness, especially coming from him, just made me more desperate to have him buried deep inside of me.

“Please fuck me from behind, Tristan. Please bury your cock as deep inside of me as you can go, as many times as you can, until I lose my mind.”

My tone was sarcastic, but it still did the trick. He pushed me down until my face hit the mattress, my knees still pushing my ass high, a position he took full advantage of, grabbing my hips and plunging into me with one deep thrust.

I stuffed a pillow in my mouth to keep from screaming as he went at it, rough with me as he’d never been before, his size making it nearly unbearable, it was so intense. And yet, I found myself building up to that pinnacle faster with his heavy, hard, needy thrusts.

He pounded deep, relentlessly bringing me over the edge. He lifted my hips higher as I clenched around him, grinding deep and, with a low groan, emptying inside of me.

He lay heavy on my back when he’d finished, kissing my cheek, and hugging me close.

I was so exhausted that I drifted off before he’d even pulled out of me.

I woke again sometime in the night. It took me a few disorienting seconds to figure out why.

Tristan’s arm had tightened around me, squeezing the breath out of me. He was at my back, leg thrown over my thigh, arm over my chest. Somehow, I still hadn’t woken up in fear. I slept so deeply in his arms, so peacefully.

His mouth was at my ear, his voice a deep, comforting rumble. “Missed you.”

I shut my eyes, a wave of absolute contentment running through me. I love you, I thought. “I missed you, too,” I said.

He relaxed against me, and we fell back to sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I woke up alone. I had a small hope that he was already up, but a quick search of the house dashed that hope in a hurry.

My reaction to his absence was a strong one.

I started making breakfast for the boys, tears running down my cheeks.

I’d never been so emotional, and this one last thing, him disappearing before I woke up, made me realize what a mess I’d become.

I had it together by the time the boys woke up, but my composure was a fragile thing. The morning was torturous, and I had to struggle to be good company for the boys, when it usually came so easily.

After lunch, the boys helped me walk the dogs, a slow, disorganized trek around the neighborhood.

My heart tried to pound right out of my chest when we circled back to the house, and I saw Tristan’s car, and moreover, Tristan leaning against the back end of it, arms folded across his chest, straining the material of his T-shirt rather distractingly.

He grinned as we rounded the corner, and everyone; the dogs, the boys, and me, started rushing to him.

He met us halfway, greeting the boys and the dogs with pats on the head.

His smiling eyes met mine, but the smile died when he saw how I was watching at him.

“What’s wrong, boo?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

I hitched up one shoulder in a self-conscious shrug. “Nothing. I just thought you’d disappeared on me again.”

He straightened from where he’d crouched to pat the dogs, wading through them to move close to me.

He cupped my face with both hands, his eyes studying me carefully. “No. No. No, sweetheart, it wasn’t like that at all. I just went to run some errands. You were sleeping so peacefully; I didn’t want to wake you.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he bent his head down, touching his lips to mine, before I could get a word out.

In front of the kids, the dogs, the neighborhood in general, he kissed me senseless, and Lord could the man kiss. His hands stayed where they were, cupping my cheeks with a soft touch, but it didn’t matter. He turned my thoughts into puffs of smoke with just his lips on mine.

When he pulled back he was smiling, and pandemonium surrounded us.

Ivan and Mat were both shouting questions at us. Embarrassing questions.

“Was his tongue in your mouth, boo?” Mat asked, sounding disgusted.

“Does this mean you’re going to have a baby?” Ivan asked, sounding more disgusted.

“Did you just give each other cooties?” Mat asked, sounding less disgusted, and more fascinated, with that possibility.

“Do you have to get married now?”

All of these questions were accompanied by the dogs howling or barking. Loudly.

I looked up at Tristan, saw the twinkle in his eye, and started laughing. We both did.

We didn’t stop until we’d herded the kids and dogs into the house.

“Did you already eat lunch?” Tristan asked, heading straight for the kitchen.

“We did.”

“Oh,” he said stopping, coming back to help me gather up leashes. “Any plans today?”

“Not really. Just watching the boys until dinnertime.”

“Jerry’s home. He was out late, but he should be up soon. I’ll tell him to watch the boys while we go do some shopping.”

“Shopping? For what?”

“Shit for my apartment.”

“Boo, he said a bad word!” Mat shouted from less than two feet away, taking off his shoes.

“Fuck, sorry,” Tristan said, heard himself, then smacked his palm into his forehead. “My bad. Boys, will you go see if your dad is awake?”

They took off for Jerry’s room.

I waited until they were out of earshot to speak. “Shit for your apartment?”

“Yeah. You know, plates, silverware, pots, pans.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know why he didn’t have any of that stuff already, considering he was in his mid-twenties, so I didn’t ask.

“Come with me? You can come check out my apartment, help me get settled in.”

“Sure, if Jerry doesn’t mind.”

“He won’t,” he assured me.

Jerry was a good sport about the whole thing. He usually was. He took the boys to play in the backyard, and Tristan started tugging me toward the front door.

I pulled back. “I need to change. I can’t wear hot pink cheer shorts and a half-shirt to the store.”

He glanced back, giving me one of his mind-shattering once overs. “Yes you can. That outfit is fucking hot. Throw some flip flops on, and we’re good to go.”

I ran my hands through my messy hair. I’d washed it earlier, and hadn’t even brushed it before it dried. I’d been in a bit of a state.

Now it was a messy tangle down my back.

“I’m a mess, Tristan. Give me ten minutes to make myself presentable.”

He yanked me to him, pulling my head back by the hair to plant a kiss on my nose, his golden eyes smiling, dimples flashing. “You look drop-dead gorgeous. Most beautiful girl in the world. Perfect.”

He pulled back, giving me a firm slap on the ass. “Now get those flip flops on, and let’s go.”

I didn’t begin to know how to argue with that, and I’d be lying if I said that his flattery didn’t affect me. It always had.

“Where are we going to get all this shit?” I asked after we were in the car, and heading out of the community gates.

“Costco over by the Galleria Mall.”

“Costco?”

“Yeah Costco. You ever been there?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know you could get all of that stuff there.”

“Hell, yeah. You can get just about anything at Costco.”

And so we spent the afternoon shopping for his new apartment. I had to admit I enjoyed myself. We spent hours in the warehouse store, looking at everything, from sofas, to vitamins, to books, to camping gear. We wound up shopping for food to fill his empty fridge, founds some nice square white plates, silverware, pots, pans, glasses, and even paper towels.

We went through every aisle in the place, just looking at everything. It was one of those moments where I realized how fun everything was with Tristan. I could enjoy spending time doing just about anything with him.

He grabbed a bouquet of pale lavender roses. They were pale at the base, the color growing more vibrant at tips.

I smelled them, charmed by the unusual color.

“An exquisite flower for my exquisite girl.”

I blushed, at the compliment, and the fact that he’d called me his girl. I was scared to read too much into anything with him, but it was hard not to hope.

“These are for me?” I asked him, smelling them again.

We were in line, five carts back, and he tugged me to him, stroking a hand over my hair, giving me a look that could only be described as fond. “Of course they are.”

I felt myself having to blink back tears, calling myself a stupid girl as I glanced down at my feet. “No one but Bev has ever gotten me flowers before.”

His hand clenched in my hair, and I thought it was involuntary, because he loosened his hold almost instantly. “That makes me want to kill somebody, sweetheart.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept staring at my feet.

“Namely, someone who sports skinny jeans, and weighs about as much as one of my arms.”

That made me smile. “Thank you for the flowers,” I told my feet quietly.

He tipped my chin up with a finger, then slanted his mouth over mine. Right in the middle of Costco. I thought it was the sweetest thing in the world.

“Anytime.”

“Why lavender?” I asked, when I re-gained the ability to speak.

“They struck me as different. Exotic. Like you. Just…unexpected. And of course, they were the prettiest flowers in the place.”

I blushed. “You’re such a flatterer.”

His thumb skimmed along my cheek. “Only with you, sweetheart. I’m not like this with anybody else. And you have to know that I mean every word.”

I didn’t know whether to believe that, but Lord did I want to.

He took me back to his apartment. It was on the third floor in one of the mass-apartment communities that littered the valley. It took us several trips to get everything into his kitchen.

He didn’t give me a tour of the place, explaining, “Dean is probably still passed out in his room, but I’ll show you my room after I cook you dinner.”

I put his things away, while he started making us spinach and parmesan pasta with marinara sauce.

“You’re making us frozen pasta?” I asked, as he did just that. “Isn’t that blasphemy? Aren’t you supposed to like, make the pasta from scratch, and maybe squeeze the tomatoes into sauce by hand?”

He laughed. “Squeeze the tomatoes into sauce? Is that how you think it works?”