Silently, he stared up at me and moved his hands from my hips, giving me the freedom to do just as I promised. With every tilt of my hips and every thrust of his cock, we raced toward that happiness we gave one another. His hands guided my movement, and mine clutched his broad shoulders until my body exploded into a million pieces, each one sublimely happy and fulfilled. Moments later, he plunged into me one last time and came almost violently, as if some demon inside of him released its control over him to me.
Smoothing the tiny beads of sweat from his forehead, I smiled down into that gorgeous face now so placid as he stared up at me. I loved him, even if I had never said the words, and I knew he loved me. We shared a need for each other that went far beyond what our bodies craved, and I cherished that vulnerable part deep inside him that he showed me in moments like this.
The memory of that night left me longing to hold him and tell him I missed him. Nothing compared to him for me. He was everything to me, and I was lost without him.
Chapter Two
Tristan
Mid-afternoon was the hardest. I could deal with early morning. I felt like shit the moment I opened my eyes, but I could handle it. Nina’s texts after I’d been up for hours doing nothing but thinking—that killed me. Every day I had to talk myself out of calling her and hearing her sweet voice tell me she missed me. I knew I shouldn’t, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to.
I scrolled through months of texts, feeling worse with each passing one. Telling myself what I was doing was for her benefit did little to make me feel like a hero in this. Four months had gone by, and other than feeling like I wanted to die most days because of what I was putting Nina through, I was no closer to finding out what Karl believed was in Joseph Edwards’ notebook. I’d read it from cover to cover, dozens of times reliving the horror of what my father and Taylor had done, but still I couldn’t find the slightest detail to explain why my possessing those notes meant anything to Karl or the Board.
Each day I spent hours emotionally crucifying myself, only to hear my phone vibrate in front of me with Nina’s good morning text that never failed to rip my heart out. I imagined her waking up in our bed alone, all curled up like she always was in the morning, her hair all tousled and that sleepy look on her face.
Fucking hell! How long was I going to have to pay for what my father and brother did?
The first few months I barely remembered. Between the coke and the alcohol, I’d succeeded in losing days at a time, intent on finding some way of blunting my unhappiness. Easier than facing reality, all the self-abuse ended up achieving was making me feel worse.
Hidden in this secret place no one but Daryl knew about, I was more dead than alive, except for those moments when Nina’s messages jolted me out of my own personal hell to the one I shared with her. I had all the money I could want in this world, but it was meaningless without her. I wanted for nothing but for the one thing my life with her had given me.
Love. With Nina, I finally understood what it meant to love and be loved. We’d endured her accident and even her learning the truth this time. I’d known by the end of that first day away that she’d forgive me, which made having to stay here even harder. Every ounce of my being wanted to return to her, but I had to find out what Karl was looking for first.
If you see these, you need to know that today’s a hard day for me. It’s never easy, but today’s really hard. I miss you so much.
I wanted to text back and tell her I missed her too. How I would have given anything to hear her ask one of her questions, even the ones that put me on the spot and I didn’t want to answer. How just the thought of sharing a pitcher of semi-flat birch beer and a tray of pizza at our favorite restaurant made me more homesick than I’d ever been in my life.
But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to risk putting her in danger any more than I already had.
Two hours later, my phone vibrated across the tabletop again, and I looked down to see not a message from Nina but one from Daryl. He only texted after he’d seen her or when he had something important about Karl to tell me, so I read his message with a knot forming in the pit of my stomach.
Coming to see you. We need to talk. See you tomorrow afternoon.
I looked around at the mess of my rooms in this place I’d visited first as a child with my mother. The old hotel she’d fallen in love with was now a building under construction, except for this part I’d taken over. Dirty clothes hung over the backs of chairs, unwashed dishes sat on the table and piled high in the kitchen sink, and newspapers lay strewn across the couch I sat on and the floor next to me. Too fucking bad if Daryl had a problem with the way things looked. He’d complained the last time he’d come to see me, not that I cared then either. I didn’t need him to act like a parent. I needed him to act like a fucking detective and find out what I couldn’t so I could get home to the woman I loved.