An hour was as long as I lasted. I told Sandra that I was taking lunch and hurried to the parlor as quick as my faltering step would take me there.
One of Frankie’s artists led me to the back room where Tristan was being worked on. I knew the room well. I’d gotten my own tattoo there. I didn’t let myself think about the other things that had gone on in that room.
I almost turned away when I realized where it was, but I was too late.
Frankie had spotted me.
She lifted the needle from that gorgeous back, grinning at me. “Danika!” She completely ignored the camera crew. She was used to them.
I wasn’t. So when they turned to me, my face was stiff. I moved past them, getting closer to the shirtless man on the table that, in spite of everything, still consumed my every waking thought.
Tristan lifted himself up enough to smile at me. I tried not to linger on the way that made the muscles of his shoulder and back shift, but it was too delicious of a sight to ignore.
“How’s it going?” I asked him, moving close to his side.
“It hurts,” he said, lying back on the table. He reached a hand out to grab my hip, pulling me closer. “Hold my hand?” I could hear the smile in his voice.
The man was working me, but I found myself taking his hand, gripping it tight.
“Mmm, thank you. Much better.”
Frankie went back to work, and I studied the back of Tristan’s head, letting my other hand stroke over the silky strands of his hair. I loved the new length. It was just perfect for gripping.
“Do you like the tattoo?” Frankie asked.
I didn’t look at it. “I’ll look when it’s done. I can never get a clear picture, until I see the final result. It’s what makes me a good appreciator, rather than an artist myself.”
“But this is a work in progress tat. It will never be done. He’ll be getting one of these blossoms, every single sober year, for the rest of his life.”
That had me looking. The word blossom raised some red flags, and I thought, oh no, he wouldn’t have.
But he had. On his back, scrolling over most of one shoulder was a cherry branch. It wasn’t on the same spot on his back as it was on mine, but there was no mistaking that it was a mirror of my tattoo.
On the branch were five small blossoms, each a slightly different shade, each with a number, bold and in red. One, two, three, four, five, and soon, already more than half finished, a six.
I clenched my jaw, closed my eyes, and bowed my head. I couldn’t stop the tears, but I could keep them quiet and hidden, bowing my head far enough to let my hair fall over my face.
I still held Tristan’s hand, and gripped his hair, but now I was doing it just to stay upright.
“Cut,” Frankie called. “I need a break, guys. Let’s take it outside for a minute, grab a coke.”
I didn’t acknowledge her thoughtful maneuver, didn’t so much as look up.
“Do you like it?” Tristan asked, his voice telling me that he knew I was reacting, and not reacting well.
“Am I supposed to like it?”
He didn’t answer me.
“Am I supposed to like it?!” I asked again, voice raised, filled with rage. With pain. “Or be ruined by it?”
He moved so fast that it startled a yelp out of me. He raised his body, and flipped up into a sitting position so fast that it was like a trick. Part of his act.
He grabbed me, not timidly, no, aggressively, yanking me against him, between his legs, pushing my face into his chest. “No, sweetheart, no. Not ruined. It was a tribute. It was not supposed to hurt you. It was as much for me as for you. However we ended, however you hated me, I didn’t ever want to forget what we had, or to forget what I’d done to deserve losing it.”
“That’s not a good recovery tattoo, Tristan. It sounds more like an albatross around your neck to me. Aren’t you supposed to celebrate your successes, not wallow in your mistakes?”
His lips were on my jaw, his breath hot. “I’m not wallowing in the mistakes, Danika. I acknowledge them, give them their proper due, but those mistakes aren’t my obsession. You know what is.”
His lips were open, moving down my neck, then up again, until he was breathing at my mouth, his minty breath mingling with my own. “Do you remember this room?” he breathed.
I closed my eyes and trembled.
It was too much. I was done for. Defeated.
I hadn’t had any of my defenses left coming in here, and he’d pulled no punches at all.
He gripped my hair in both hands, anchoring me while he tilted his head, and brushed his lips across mine. Softly, too softly, his mouth teasing back down to my neck, rubbing that irresistible scruff of his into that most sensitive area.
I moaned, loudly, and he covered my mouth with a short bark of a laugh. “I don’t suppose we can take our time right now, huh?”
I just shook my head, my trembling hands going to his chest, tracing over his glorious ink.
He moved in a flash, grabbing me, turning, and perching me on the table, until our places were reversed. He started inching my loose skirt up my hips, and once it was up around my waist, he parted my legs wide and stepped in, two fingers pushing into the side of my panties, feeling at my sex.
He cursed and praised me as he found me wet and ready for him.
It was a rush job after that. There wasn’t even time to take my bra or panties off. He just opened the front of his jeans, pulled his jutting erection out, and guided it with his hand against my pussy.
His other hand pushed my small panties to the side. We both watched, rapt, as he thrust forward hard and his cock disappeared inside of me.
I braced my hands behind me, still watching as he slid out, then in again, a few test drives before it turned into a full-on hell bent fuck.
I didn’t last long, my head dropping back as I started clenching on his plundering cock.
He grabbed my ass in both hands, lifted my hips off the table, and started drilling into me, keeping it up until he was emptying himself.
I stroked his hair, his shoulders, his face as we leaned against each other and panted, taking forever to recover from that madness.
“We weren’t quiet,” he murmured against my cheek. “I was trying to be quiet, because this clearly isn’t private enough, but I failed.”
I giggled. “Yes, you did. What’s your problem?”
He pulled back to give me a playful glare. “I’m not sure if you realize this, but you were much louder. There is no way Frankie isn’t going to know exactly what just happened. I hope you were ready for her to know.”
I flushed. I didn’t think I was ready, but it was too late now. My complete lack of self-control where Tristan was concerned had just shoved all discretion out the window.
“She’s going to ask me,” he said quietly, back to kissing my jaw. “What would you like me to tell her? The truth, or some other version to buy you time to come to terms?”
I wanted to take exception to what his words implied, but that was sort of difficult as I was still squirming on his cock, and little shivers of aftershock were still running through my body from an incredible orgasm. “I guess, just tell her that you and I have become close again, friends again, and the rest is none of her damn business.”
“Tell that to her favorite tattoo table.”
In the end, I’m not sure what he told her, because I ducked out right after the tattoo was finished, and left it for him to handle.
Frankie shot me a few inquisitive glances, but I ignored them, and that was that, for the moment, at least.
I was still trying to figure out how I felt about the whole thing; I certainly didn’t need anyone else to weigh in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DANIKA
I avoided him for a few days after that, but he was persistent, and even I knew that it wouldn’t last long.
It was the evening before a day I knew we both had off when I broke.
I found myself stalking hi
m on Facebook. It was embarrassing, but I didn’t stop doing it, in fact spent hours going through his photos, wondering about every damn chick that he’d taken a picture with in the last two years, even knowing that most of them were likely just fans.
Finally, I found myself messaging him. I told myself it was just boredom. The quiet time I’d once enjoyed alone in my house had suddenly turned into tedium for me, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.
Danika Markova: Want to hang out tomorrow?
He didn’t respond, and that messed with me. It wasn’t what I’d come to expect from him. Was he getting bored with this whole messed up thing? I hated to think it, but that was where my mind immediately went.
When I realized I was acting desperate, I walked away from my computer.
I’d brought two portfolios home from work. I went through them, taking notes, feeling aimless, despite the fact I was doing a task that almost always drew me in.
When even work couldn’t distract me, I went to the market. I shopped for an hour for nothing, going up and down the aisle. I spent two hundred dollars on food, then wondered the entire way home what I would do with it all. I just didn’t eat this much. Some of it was canned, which would keep, but a lot of it was produce and meat.
I was still berating myself as I pulled up to my house. My heart started pounding when I saw a familiar black Challenger parked at the curb.
I was smiling as I got out of my car and met him in the driveway. “Hey, what’s up?”
He didn’t answer at first, instead helped me unload my groceries.
I thought his silence was strange. “Did you get my message earlier? About tomorrow?”
He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Yeah. I’ve got plans.”
I blinked. This was different. I wasn’t accustomed to hearing no, not from him. I shrugged. “Okay. That’s fine. No worries.”
“I’d cancel, but it’s a sponsored charity run. Nothing big, just a 5k, but all the press attached is going to take forever. And there’s an after party. We do stuff like this all the time.” I really tried not to dwell on who the we was in that sentence. “It’s usually an all-day thing. I could come by after.”
I nodded. “Yeah, whatever. I mean, call after, and we’ll figure it out.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t know if he didn’t want to invite me to participate or if he felt awkward asking me. Maybe he thought I couldn’t do something like that? He had to know that I could walk three miles. I had a limp, but I was still in good shape. I made sure to work my knee out every single day.
“Is it a serious 5k? I mean, strict runners only, or are there some slower participants?”
He sat on one of the barstools at my counter, his eyes steady on mine. “Anything goes. It’s all to raise money for some local charities. I’m just going to bring some attention to it.” He swallowed. “You’re invited, if that’s something you could do, that you’d want to do. I didn’t want to pressure you or to come across like an insensitive prick. I know you do your stationary bike every day, and that you swim, but I wasn’t sure…”
I shrugged. “I can do it, but only if you want me to go. I don’t want to impose, and I don’t want to slow you down. You can, you know, feel free to run ahead of me.”
“You’re not imposing. I want you to go. And you won’t be slowing me down. It’s not that kind of a race. I won’t raise more money for charity if I finish faster.” There was a very long pause. “Mona will be there. All of the girls from the show will be.”
I rolled my eyes, none too pleased about seeing Mona, but it was certainly the lesser evil. At least he wouldn’t be spending the day with her without me now, with me at home alone on my day off.
“Do I need to sign up somewhere or do anything special?”
He shook his head. “I’ll get you signed up, and I’ll drive. I know where it is. The only rule is that you have to wear white.”
I thought that was odd, but I went into my room and started going through my closet. “Tops and bottoms?” I called to him.
“If you can,” he answered from close behind me. “Just make sure it’s not any clothing you’re real attached to. It may not survive the day.”
“What, you going to rip it off me?” I shot him a sassy look, and he laughed how I loved, from deep in his chest.
“It’s quite possible. I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.”
I pulled up a pair of white track shorts and a white modified muscle shirt. “These work?”
“Perfect.”
He didn’t stay long that night, which was disappointing, but I supposed it was good that at least one of us was showing some restraint.
“I’ll be by at eight to pick you up in the morning,” he told me as I walked him to his car.
He kissed me goodbye, pulling back quickly. “I need to go get some stuff done, and I know that if we get into this we’ll never stop.”
I nodded, stepping back. “Goodnight,” I murmured, then went back into the house without looking back. If he could pull away, I told myself, then so could I.
I was ready, dressed in white down to my shoes, my hair tied up in a messy ponytail, knee brace on, when he pulled up the next morning. I didn’t make him come to the door, going out to him before he could walk up to the house.
We met halfway, in my driveway. He looked so different, dressed all in white, in a V-neck T-shirt and athletic shorts. Each piece had a small Cavendish Resort logo embroidered on it.
Even his shoes were white, and he was wearing a white sweatband.
“You’d look so preppy, if I couldn’t still see all of that ink.”
He grinned. “There’s a perfectly good explanation for why I’m dressed like this. You’ll see what it is when we get there.”
Before I could respond, he was bending down, lifting me into a tight hug that took my feet clear off the ground. My arms wrapped around his neck.
I lifted my face and closed my eyes as his lips made their way to mine, wishing he’d shown up earlier, or stayed the night before, or something, anything to give us a few more stolen moments we could have had to feed this hunger enough to keep it at bay.
We were not in any way assuaging this need of ours. With every encounter, we only seemed to be making it more acute.
His lips became insistent, his hands grabbing my ass so he could keep me anchored while he ground hard against me.
It was a few drugging minutes before he tore himself away.
“Christ. Do you want me to fuck you on your lawn, or was I misreading that?”
I giggled as he set me down.
“You’re right. We can always just apologize to your neighbors later.”
I backed up a few steps, warding him off with my hands. “One question. Is the race going to start without you, if you’re late?”
His breath whooshed out of him in a noisy, annoyed breath. “Not likely.”
“Is there any way we have time to run into my house and have a quickie, and still make it on time?”
“Not fucking likely,” he growled, his mood darkening by the second.
“Okay then. Get in the car. We’ve got to go. You are not going to make everyone wait on you.”
He cursed his entire walk to the car, kept it up as he held my door open for me, and even for part of the drive there.
“You should have come early,” I told him.
“Well, thank you for the invitation, but it’s a little fucking late.”
I laughed. I don’t know why, but I’d always gotten a kick out of grumpy Tristan.
I saw when we got there that everyone participating wore white. There was a huge banner at the starting line that read Color 5k for Charity, and I began to get an inkling of what I was in for.
“White, huh?” I shot him a look.
He grinned. “It’s fun. You’re going to love it. Trust me.”
Those were the strangest words.
Trust me, coming from him of all people. My head and my heart
went to war when he said those words, even in a lighthearted way.
Because I wanted to trust him. A part of me needed to. I wanted to trust him with the best of me, the worst of me, and everything in between.
So much of me instinctively reached for that trust. Sometimes it felt like my very soul had cast its lot with him, and even in the years apart, it had clung to him, leaving the rest of me to wither.
But I had trusted him. Trusted my whole heart with him, and he’d crushed it into little tiny pieces, seemingly uncaring of the carnage he’d left in his wake.
But he’d changed.
It was hard to deny that the things about him that had destroyed me once had been transformed, or disappeared, or been left behind.
And so, the battle inside of me raged on, and that charming devil of a man just went about his life, smiling while he slowly broke down all of my defenses against him.
Defenses I’d worked hard for.
Defenses I’d earned.
It wasn’t fair, just as it wasn’t fair when he gave me a mischievous grin that made me melt, and I quickly lost my train of thought.
That was what I was dealing with.
I was outclassed and outgunned, and I was only realizing it when it was too late to do a damn thing about it.
A heart could only break so many times before the cause was lost.
We were separated once we got near the starting line. He was hosting the thing and had to wade into the center of the chaos, so I waved him on, hanging back.
I could do a 5k, I knew it. But I hated that I’d be the slowest one, and everyone knew why just by glancing at me. Even after years of dealing with it, it was a difficult pill to swallow.
Still, I swallowed it every day and did my best. Today was no different, just a bit more public.
There might have been people I knew there, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t look for anyone. I didn’t want to slow anyone down.
I suddenly wished I hadn’t come. It wasn’t like I’d really be spending time with Tristan. But it was also too late to back out.
Still, I briefly considered hailing a taxi and just cutting out.
For some reason I didn’t. For some reason I stayed.