“Oh Danika,” he said softly.
I started shaking my head vehemently.
“Tell me, sweetheart. Whatever it is, I’ll fix it.”
I closed my eyes, my face crumbling.
“Oh sweetheart,” he said, softer now, closer now.
“I feel so lost.”
He took my hands in his. “Not anymore. I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
“There is this hollow place inside of me, where my faith in you used to be. I am so full of fear, and I do not know how to let myself trust you again. I don’t have the strength to do this. Not again.”
“I’ve got enough for both of us.” He moved closer, wrapping me in his arms. “It’s about time I got a turn letting you lean on me.”
He’d set me adrift, so very long ago, and I had wandered into deepest waters, with depths far too vast for me to navigate alone.
And here he was, swimming out to save me. Had he been following me all the while? Had I been so blind?
Still, even knowing he was rescuing me, some part of me had to fight him. “What are you doing to me? Don’t you know I can’t take this, Tristan?”
He groaned and pulled me even closer. “You can. You don’t think you can trust me again, and I understand that, but you need to learn. However long it takes, you need to learn that being with me won’t turn out the way it did before. I won’t let it.”
I shook my head, but he was kissing my jaw, my neck, behind my ear, and I didn’t stop him. “You don’t seem to understand, Tristan. I don’t think it will turn out how it did before, because all of the damage has already been done. There’s not enough left of me to break this time.”
“No, you’re wrong.”
Of course he couldn’t know what I was referring to, because I hadn’t told him, hadn’t built up the stomach for it yet.
Even now, when every single defense of mine was disarmed, I couldn’t find the courage to tell him.
“And I won’t be doing any breaking,” he continued vehemently, “I swear it.”
My arms had gone limp at my sides but I raised them now, wrapping them around his neck.
“It’s not only about breaking me.” I took a very deep breath. “I saw it with my own eyes, Tristan,” I told him quietly, wretchedly. “That day at the café, that last time we met up, after the accident. After you’d moved on from me, and you were happy, laughing, healthy. That was when I moved on.”
“Oh, Danika,” he breathed.
“I saw how you were without me, how you’d gotten so much better with me out of your life, and that was when I really let you go.”
“Oh, Danika,” he said emotionally.
“How can we be so good for each other in so many ways, and so bad in just as many others?”
“We were never bad for each other. Never. That’s not what happened with us.”
“What did then? Explain your reasoning to me here.”
“I was bad for us. I was bleeding out. I’m sure you caught on, but I was fucking wrecked by what happened to Jared and everything after, well, I went into free fall, but don’t put that on us. That was on me. All of it. Every fucking ounce of it.”
“Oh Tristan. That’s just not true. I changed too, with you. I enabled you. I made you worse, not better.”
“Oh, Danika.” His voice was still gentle but chiding.
“Don’t ‘Oh, Danika’ me. I obviously couldn’t help you. I tried and tried—“
“And you thought this was your job? To help me? You thought this was your responsibility?”
“Well, yes. But everything I tried only seemed to make you worse.”
“Oh, sweetheart—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Sweetheart,” he emphasized. “No one can help a person in that condition. Sometimes, if we’re really lucky, we come out of it, and we help ourselves, and we do this because of the people we love. You were not responsible for making me worse. But I’ll tell you one thing, it’s a fact that you were responsible for making me better. I’d resigned myself to dying. That I could have handled. But when I saw what I’d done to you—”
“That wasn’t on you.”
“That may be your reality. You’re entitled to see it how you need to, but I can only see it one way. What happened to you was on me, is on me, and when I realized that I wasn’t only hurting myself, was in fact hurting you even more than I was my own numb mind, I found the motivation I needed to stop using, to stop trying to check out of my life. That’s on you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I was just finishing up at work the next day when he called.
“Let’s go out tonight. I want to take you someplace special,” Tristan’s deep voice started purring into my ear before I’d even managed to get a ‘hello’ out.
I took a deep breath. “I can’t tonight.” After the fit he’d thrown about a lunch with Andrew, I knew to brace myself for the worst.
There was a long pause on the other end. “Why not?”
He’d never been a shy one.
“I’m going out to dinner with a friend of mine.”
“Is this a private dinner, or can I come along?”
I thought about that dynamic. I didn’t think Dermot would like him. I couldn’t see the two men getting along well enough for a quiet meal. They were both too overprotective of me in completely different ways. “It’s just kind of a monthly thing. It’s complicated, but I don’t think you’d get along with my friend. I’ll tell him about you. Maybe next time, after I’ve given him fair warning.”
Of course, he only heard one part of my statement.
“Him?”
“Yes. We’ve been over this. I have male friends.”
“Are you going on a date tonight?”
I sighed. Caveman post therapy was still caveman. “No. I am going out to dinner with a friend.” I debated telling him that Dermot was my brother, but decided to ask Dermot about that. His father was still married to his poor mother, and I didn’t want to cause any problems in his family, so I kept it under wraps. Tristan could keep a secret, so I knew I’d be telling him about it, but I wanted Dermot’s go ahead first. It didn’t feel like my secret to tell.
“A male friend. That’s a date. What’s his name? Where does he live? I bet I can take him.”
I giggled, though he was only half joking. “It would only be a date if we were romantically involved, which we’re not. Listen, it’s complicated, but I promise to explain it to you, after I talk to my friend about it.”
He was so distraught after that I almost canceled.
He wasn’t yelling, or screaming, or even trying to talk me out of it.
He just became so quiet and withdrawn on the other end that I could barely stand it.
“Okay, you know what? You need to knock it the hell off. Do you see me telling you that you can’t be friends with Mona anymore? No. And you’ve slept with her. I have never slept with Dermot.”
“His name is Dermot,” he interrupted dully.
“Yes, Dermot, who I would never sleep with, not in a million years. Not even if we were characters in Game of Thrones.”
That drew him out of it, or confused him out of it. “What the hell does that damn show have to do with anything?”
I’d recently started making him watch it, and he went from grudgingly liking it to hating it from one episode to the next. He was only on the first season though. If I just got him through the one, I knew he’d be as hooked as I was.
I smirked. “You’ll figure it out, eventually.”
I tried to tell him goodbye.
“I want to come with you,” he growled into my ear.
I took a deep breath. Why on earth did I still have such a hard time telling him no?
“Boundaries, Tristan.”
He let me off the line, but I knew he wasn’t happy.
Dermot and I never told anyone that we were related. We never had to. Neither of us were answerable to anyone, so the world just thought we were close f
riends, or so I’d assumed.
It hadn’t occurred to me that my meet-ups with Dermot looked like dates. I’d never had to worry about it before.
Andrew had been the kind of boyfriend that was understanding to a fault. He’d never even questioned that I often liked to go out to dinner with another man.
“I’m seeing someone,” I told Dermot, after we’d ordered our food.
He looked surprised but not displeased. “Well, that’s great. Is it serious?”
My mouth twisted. “Like a heart attack. Whether we have a shot at anything lasting is another matter entirely. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Have you known him long?”
It was the strangest thing. I’d been raised with Dahlia, but Dermot was so much easier for me to open up to. It’d been like that with us from the start.
And somehow, I found myself telling him our story, the long version—The Saga of Tristan and Danika.
The battles and the victories.
The defeats and the triumphs.
The tragedies and the trials.
Somewhere in the middle, I had him tearing up, which I’d never seen him do, and I tried to tell it all with less dramatic flair, but it was what it was.
“Wait, so you haven’t told him that you can’t…?” he asked, somewhere near the end.
I looked down at my lap. “I don’t know how.”
“I’m so sorry, Danika.”
I shrugged it off. “Anyway, do you mind if I tell him that you’re my half-brother? I thought I should ask first, because of, well, you know. And as I’m sure you’ve gathered, he’s the insanely jealous type. He was none too pleased when he heard I was going to dinner with a man.”
“I don’t mind at all. I don’t keep our relationship under wraps, Danika. I’m sorry you thought that I did.”
“Well, I just thought, because of your mother, you’d want to keep it secret.”
“You’re not a secret, you’re a person. My parents’ mess of a marriage is their business, and it will never affect the fact that you are my sister.”
That warmed my heart. He was a good brother.
I went straight to Tristan’s after dinner.
He was still tense and upset, but nothing like he’d been when I’d gone to lunch with Andrew.
“Okay, let me have it,” he started in on me right away. “What’s the big mystery about this buddy of yours?”
“He’s my brother.”
That deflated all the sass right out of him. It was kind of nice. I had a brief moment of wishing I could bottle that ability up. It would make a good superpower.
I found myself storytelling for the second time that night, giving Tristan the full rundown on my deadbeat dad.
“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 ass. Period. That is happening. Fuck, I think I’ve met that dude. Un-fucking-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 sturdy 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 nipples. Gripping her breasts 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 cock 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 fucking 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 passion, 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 sexy 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 passion, 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. “Fucking 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 cock was right in the middle of trying to find an entrance before I’d even blinked awake.
I sat up, rolling her to her bac
k. 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.
Even so, I’d tried to talk to her about it, tried to tell her what was coming up, and hadn’t found the voice to do it.
It was the morning of and I’d slept over at her place. I was in her kitchen, sipping coffee and staring off into space, when she finally realized something was off.
She studied me for a while, checked her phone for the date, I think, and then approached me looking contrite.
“Oh, Tristan,” she said softly, wrapping her little body around my big one. “I am so sorry.”
I kissed the top of her head.
“I’ll call in sick to work. Tell me how you handle this day.”
“Frankie usually comes over, and Cory and Kenny, if they’re around. We tell stories about him. Good stories. We watch all the videos I have of him. We never focus on the bad.”
We got dressed and went to my house. Frankie and Kenny showed up at noon. Cory was out of town.
I baked a ridiculous amount of cookies, keeping Danika hostage in my kitchen the entire time.