By the time he climbed onto the bed, Cree was asleep, and Tristan chuckled. Some things never changed.
As he curled up next to her, his eyes grew heavier by the second, and his last thought before sleep consumed him was that he couldn’t wait to do this all over again.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next morning, Tristan woke to the smell of coffee, but it was too early. Too early to open his eyes. Too early to move. It was even too early for coffee as far as he was concerned. Surely, he had just closed his eyes. There was no way it could be morning already. Not when he was still exhausted and felt as if he could sleep a week.
He lifted his wrist, surprised he had slept in his watch, and squinted at the face of the expensive time piece.
Five-thirty in the morning? Why the hell was Cree up so early? She didn’t have to be to work until eight, or maybe it was nine. Whatever time she needed to be there didn’t warrant her being up at the butt-crack of dawn.
Since retiring, Tristan rarely got up before nine, and even now, he had every intention of going back to sleep. But first, he needed to check on Cree.
As he thought about his gorgeous woman, a smile crept across his lips. The day before had been one for the books. It was official. Cree was finally his again, and this time it was for keeps. His win-Cree-back plan was working, but of course his life wouldn’t be complete until he had everything back that he had lost thirteen years ago. He wanted it all and more—his wife, a home, and kids someday. He wouldn’t give up on that dream. Life was short and could end in a heartbeat.
Tristan had found that out when he got hurt. Yes, he lived to tell about it, though at the time, he felt as if he was dying. One minute he was a superstar on the football field, and the next minute, doctors were telling him he wouldn’t be able to play again.
In his mind, his whole world had been ripped from him, and he hadn’t known what to do. Football was his everything, and when it was over, he’d had to take a long look at his life and what he wanted to do with it going forward.
That’s when he’d made the decision that he’d do whatever he could to get Cree back. Though he had tried years ago, this time failure hadn’t been an option. She had always been in his heart, and now she was a part of all his future plans. His life had been incomplete without her in it.
If Tristan didn’t learn anything else over the last few months, he learned you couldn’t take anything for granted. Time didn’t wait for anyone, and there were no guarantees that he and Cree would be alive tomorrow. So he wanted to take full advantage of every minute.
On that thought, he really should go in search of Cree and grab some coffee. But before he got up, the bedroom door slid open, and there she was wearing his shirt while holding two coffee mugs. Her hair was sticking up here and there and her face was scrubbed free of makeup. Yet, she was still the most beautiful woman to him.
His shirt stopped just below her gorgeous ass giving him an unobstructed view of everything below that. His gaze ran the length of her bare legs down to her hot pink toenails. “You have the prettiest legs I’ve ever seen,” he said. Not only were they flawless and shapely, but they were nice and long, seeming to go on forever.
Then memories of her performance the night before flashed through his mind. That and her incredible costume which had showed off all her most impressive physical assets. Tristan would love a repeat of her striptease.
“Good morning, Mr. Irresistible, and thank you. I’m glad you like them,” she said, her voice husky as if she’d just woken up. She lifted the mugs in her hand. “I took a chance on you wanting coffee. If not, you can pretend to drink it while I drink mine. So I don’t have to drink alone.”
He chuckled and leaned against the headboard while pulling the covers up to his waist. As Cree handed him one of the mugs, she bent down and gave him a lingering kiss on the lips. Yeah, this was how he wanted to wake up every day—with her wearing his shirt and her mouth anywhere on his body.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he said when she pulled back. “Why are you up so early?”
Cree strolled to the other side of the bed and climbed in. “I usually wake up pretty early so I can ease into the day. Besides, we fell asleep before ten last night.”
That was true. They’d fallen asleep earlier than he usually went to bed.
After taking a few careful sips of the steaming brew, Tristan sat his mug on the nightstand and then reached for Cree’s cup to do the same.
“Come here,” he said as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. When she was snug against his body, Tristan kissed her again, savoring her tantalizing lips. When he dipped his tongue into her mouth, she tasted like coffee and chocolate which might’ve been from the creamer she added to her mug.
As their tongues tangled, he pulled her even closer to where she was draped across his chest and cradled in his arms. He dominated her mouth, savoring the moment, and seriously thinking about stripping her of his shirt.
His hand glided along the side of her leg, marveling in the softness of her skin. But when his hand inched below the shirt, her cell phone alarm went off.
“Maybe if we ignore it, it’ll shut itself off,” he murmured against her lips, and Cree laughed and pushed herself up.
“I don’t know what type of fancy phone you have, but mine is not that sophisticated,” she said as she turned off the alarm.
“Neither is mine. I don’t think.” He honestly didn’t know and had never thought about that type of feature.
She scooted back against the headboard. “Can you hand me my mug?”
He did and grabbed his too. “What time do you have to be to work?” he asked as they enjoyed their coffee.
“I’m working from home today, and I’ll probably start around nine.”
