For all that I can’t let go of my mixed-up fear of heartbreak and guilt over what it means to want someone who’s not Stephen as badly as I want Tristan, and much as I know I should at least try to take things slowly between us, I’m notsure how long I’ll be able to hold out.
As I wordlessly nod, not exactly caring whether I’m answering his spoken or unspoken question, I realize my hands are trembling and my heart racing against the serious danger of giving in to anything and everything he wants from me this very moment.
23
Jesse
The look Tristan shoots me is positively wicked as he smirkingly grins up at me before giving me a light shove away from him. “Anything you say, sunshine. More music coming right up.”
Suddenly, I’m well aware of what he clearly already knew. Much as I do want to hear him play more, that was not the question I’d meant to answer.
“Now who’s a tease?” I grouse, as, with his characteristic easy grace, he perches himself on the shabby piano stool, turning his full attention back to the keys in front of him.
“Why, sunshine,” he gasps, glancing back at me, eyes dancing over his expression of mock outrage, “I’monlydoing what you said you wanted.”
I have no idea how he manages to look simultaneously the picture of offended innocence and pure evil, but somehow, that is precisely what he does.
Something tells me that it’s every bit as purposeful as it is distinctly unhelpful.
“You know exactly what you’re doing,” I shake my head at him, unable to keep a smile off my face as the first notes of his new piece flow from under his fingers.
Trying to shift my thoughts back to listening and watching instead of the promise that had burned through the last dark-eyed look and knowing smile he’d cast me before turning away, I tug my chair a few feet over so I’m at his side, then settle into its familiar comfort, unable to hold back a totally different sort of smile.
Little as I can wait for whatever will come next, I love this thing I think I’ve just discovered about Tristan. Much as I think (and so desperately hope) he wants me as badly as I want him, I don’t think he is just teasing me by making me wait while he keeps playing. No, I think his passion for music is so great that this is genuinely the thing he wants to do most in this moment, and it is impossible to help being moved by that.
Another nudge down the slippery slope of infatuation.
And as his fingers move over the keys, in turn caressing and flying and dancing, I can’t look away from him any more than I could want to stop listening to the music swelling through the room at his touch.
That first moment I saw him in Upshot, I was struck by how gorgeous Tris is; his slim, firmly sculpted body, his shining dark hair that is forever tumbling into his warm, changeable eyes, the contrast of black ink curving up along his pale skin, his grace, the full softness of his pink lips.
Now though, watching the way his face lights and transforms with each new mood of his playing, my heart flutters in my chest and I feel my attention transforming into staring.Staring hard.Harder than that first day I saw him at the coffee shop and could only dream of what’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.
My eyes drift down from his face, down his chest and stomach, taking in the places the thin material of his shirtclings to his body, then back up, tracing over the curve of his neck and the mesmerizing way his tattoos shift over the muscles beneath his skin with each breath he takes; breaths I can’t help noticing are heavy and fast, like my own.
And then I realize the sound of his music is gone, replaced by silence and the whisper of our breathing as he stares back at me.
Maybe I should be embarrassed that he’s caught me so lost in exploring his body like this. Maybe I should look away and attempt to salvage my dignity by trying to pretend I wasn’t looking at all, but when my eyes nervously flick up to Tristan’s, instead of warm, dancing hazel, his stare is dark and smoldering, the half-smile curving his lips somehow both smug and downright sinful.
“Beautiful.” The word escapes me on an exhale that turns it from the compliment for his music I think I’d meant it to be into something else.
“You think so?” His voice is a positive purr as he pushes off from the piano stool and steps toward me in a movement that brings us nearly chest to chest.
When had I stood from my chair, let alone gotten so close to him?
Sexy and confident as everything about him is, his eyes have that flicker of vulnerability once again as they linger on mine, like he’s checking to see if I’m being sincere. Suddenly, my own reserve and nervous self-doubt crumble in the face of his uncertainty, overwhelmed by the need to reassure him that he is exactly what I’ve said. That and so much more.
“So beautiful,” I whisper over the pounding of my heart; a heady mix of residual nerves and dizzying want and the thrill of his nearness.
I can’t tell if it’s him that surges up to meet my lips or if I bend down to capture his. Maybe we both move at the same time. It doesn’t matter because all I know is that the next moment, there’s nothing but him. His smell, the sweet taste of his lips and the feel of them parting under mine, the intoxicating, compact solidness of his body beneath my hands.
And fuck— His body—
It’s impossible to keep my hands in just one place, so I let them wander, exploring, drinking in the discovery of each new gasp and moan he gives me. Everywhere I touch him, the feel of him, even through his clothes, burns through me like wildfire. I can’t get enough of the hard, lean swell of muscle in his arms and shoulders, the smooth dip of his lower back, the slim firmness of his waist as I drag him closer.
This kiss is as hungry and intense as earlier in the kitchen, but slower. Deeper. There’s an intent in it, in the way his tongue seeks out mine, in the heaviness of our mingled breath, in the way we cling to each other as his fingers tangle in the front of my sweater, pulling me urgently to him as my hands tighten their hold on his waist, refusing even the smallest space between us.
The feel of his lips curving up into a smile and the breathy gust of his laughter over my skin tell me he feels it too.
