The effect on him is instant. A tightening of his shoulders, his spoon clanging against the ceramic of his bowl as it fallsfrom his fingers. With none of his usual grace, he jerkily scoots his chair back, nearly tipping it over before he makes it to his feet.
His phone is still buzzing against the counter as he snatches it up to check the screen. And just as instantly, his shoulders relax and the lines of tension smooth from his face.
“Hello?” His voice is pure coffee-shop Tristan as he answers; perky and bubbly, and sure enough, “Oh, poor thing! Course I can come in early. Just give me twenty and I’ll be there for you, kay?”
“Work?” I question after he hangs up, my mind still replaying the way he’d looked before he’d realized who was calling.
“Yeah,” he shakes his head, returning to the table to gather up his bowl and spoon. “The girl I usually work with was doing a double this morning, but she just got a call from her kid’s daycare saying he’s sick, so she wanted to know if I could come in early to cover for her so she can take him home.”
He pauses partway through rinsing his bowl, looking back with a half-hopeful, half-wicked expression playing on his lips. “After work though…” He pauses, letting his lower lip slip from between his teeth as he lifts his brows. “If I come back over here, do I still not get to touch you?”
“Would it matter if I said no?” I shake my head at him, completely unable to keep a smile from splitting my face at the way he’s just invited himself back tonight.
He tilts his head consideringly for a moment before breaking into a grin of his own. “Nah. But only ‘cause Iknowyou want me to.” And then, so suddenly so serious that I can’t help taking a step toward him across the kitchen, “You do want me to, right?”
“Jesus, yes. Of course—”
“Oh, well in that case,” all traces of seriousness are gone in an instant, replaced by the most shit-eating smirk I’ve ever seen on anyone’s face as he stalks toward me, reaching up to catch me around the shoulders and pull me down for a slow, deep, cinnamon-sugar kiss I can feel humming through every nerve in my body.
His hands end up tangled in my shirt, and only when both our chests are heaving and my dick is so hard and desperate for more that I’m unable to keep from rolling it against him with each sweep and suck of tongues and lips, does he pull away, darkened eyes glinting with mischief.
“Too bad for you that teasing’s a game two can play, sunshine,” he grins at me, slipping out of my grasp to saunter away to the bathroom, only pausing to grab the neatly folded white long-sleeved shirt and black jeans he’d left in the one available spot on the top of my cluttered dresser.
Tonight suddenly seems like a very long time away.
Even so, it’s with a heart at once lighter and fuller than it’s felt…Christ, maybe ever, that I stare after him, long after he pulls the door shut behind himself.
35
Tristan
“You’re heartless, you know.”
My sunshine’s standing outside the bathroom door, arms folded across his chest, staring at me with the sexiest,most unsuccessfulstab at a scowl I’ve ever seen in my life. It turns his already lush lips all pouty and extra plush, and gives his eyes this super intense, piercing look that honestly makes me feel more like he’s giving me a good eye fucking rather than even trying to look put out.
“One,” I hold up my index finger, ticking it off with the other, “isthatone of the not-even-the-half-of-it things you still have to say to me? And two,” a second finger joins the first as his mouth opens and his eyes go wide in absolutely fuckingadorableprotest. “Maybeyouthink I’m heartless, but I’m pretty sure Reagan doesn’t.”
“Who’s—” Jesse’s choked splutter over the name, “Reagan?” is priceless.
“What, feeling jealous, sunshine?”
I let him visibly internally melt down for only about half a sec before I take pity on him and let out the laugh I’ve been holding in. Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about the possible implications of what I was saying until the words were out ofmy mouth.
“Reagan,” I pause for effect,andto let out another laugh, I have to admit, “is thegirlfrom my work. The one who called to ask if I’d take over early for her today?”
Yeah, so it had started as an accident and turned into a joke, except now, the relief on Jesse’s face is something else entirely. It sets my stomach flip-flopping and my pulse pounding with that spreading swell offeelinghe’d filled my chest with last night, all light and so damn happy I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be able to wipe this crazy-ass grin off my face.
The weird thing about it though? I’m not freaking out. Not about those feelings. Not about the shit I told Jesse last night, or even about the fact that this thing between us feels hella big and hella real and like nothing I’d ever thought I’d get the chance to have.
“I forgot to tell you—did you see you’d gotten a couple messages earlier?”
Shit.
Thatdoes wipe the grin right off my face.
“I just heard your phone go off while you were sleeping,” he hurries to explain, like he thinks he’s upset me, which tells me that he’s totally picking up on the alarm that’s suddenly spiking through me.
It was probably just Reagan. No biggie—
