“He doesn’t expect anything from you. You know that.”
Tristan’s eyes cinch closed when he tips his face skyward. “I treated him like shit, even after I found out he and Aleksei were my brothers. I never gave them a chance, and now I can’t with Aleksei.”
Because of me.
Aleksander and Tristan aren’t the only ones harboring a mountain of guilt.
“I’m so proud of you and Aleksander for taking that leap of faith.”
Tristan pulls me fully on top of him, his wide palm settling on my hip. “I don’t think it would have happened without you.”
My eyebrows wrinkle with confusion. “If you haven’t noticed, no one can make either of you do anything that you don’t want to do.”
Tristan’s grin goes a little smirky. “And ifyouhaven’t noticed, Red, you’ve got us wrapped around your finger. We can’t say no to you.”
I brush my nose up his neck. “Oh, yeah?”
“Pretty much.”
Taking advantage of that, I sit back on his legs. The throw slips from my shoulders as I pull the long-sleeved nursing shirt over my head and undo the padded bra. Not the sexiest things to wear, but a necessity during the cold nights while I’m still breastfeeding. The crisp early dawn air puckers my nipples, but Tristan’s fervent gaze and the way his whiskey browns eclipse into midnight set me on fire.
“Touch me.”
“With fucking pleasure.” His large, calloused hands mold over my swollen breasts, possessive and reverent at the sametime. “Still tender?” he asks, lightly swiping the pad of his thumb over the milky bead of liquid that pearls.
“A little.”
Sitting up, his lips are brushstrokes of gentle kisses across my collarbone. “You are so fucking beautiful,” he whispers, his fingertips eliciting tingles of goose flesh as his sensual caress lights sparks along my skin as they travel down my torso. When he gets to the scars and old grafts that trail up my left side, he says, “Beautiful chaos.”
My thoughts transport to the memory of when he first said that to me. It was the first time I let him touch me. A life-altering experience. Whenever I looked in the mirror, all I saw was the ugliness of the scars that marred my body. But Tristan never saw them that way. All he saw wasme.
“There’s this rare orchid in Australia,Rhizanthella. Its flowers are pink and quite lovely, but unless you know where to look, you don’t see them.”
Intrigued, I ask, “Why?”
He kneels behind me, and our gazes meet in the window glass.
“Because they grow completely underground. You have to dig just below the surface to find one.”
His hand reaches around and grips my neck. It’s nothing like the way Hendrix grabbed me. Tristan’s thumb tenderly caresses under my chin as he gradually tips my face until I’m gazing at myself in our dual reflection.
“Do you see the orchid, Syn?”
The pressure around my neck tightens when I swallow. It’s not painful. The opposite. The slight constriction is unexpectedly…pleasurable.
“I don’t understand,” I rasp.
The heat of his breath on my neck incites my senses even more.
“Tell me what you see.”
His eyes shimmer off the clear glass and bore into mine. I try to avert my gaze, but his hand holds fast and refuses to let me look away.
Ugly. Damaged. Unworthy. Freakish. That’s what I see when I look at myself.
“Chaos,” I answer.
His lips tease my outer ear. Such a simple thing that sends my nerve endings off-kilter.
