My throat tightens.
I laugh once, shaky and embarrassed and more honest than I have ever been in my life.
“I guess I did.”
He closes his eyes for half a beat like the answer physically hit him.
When they open again, the look there nearly folds me in half.
Need.
Wonder.
Desire so deep it’s almost reverent.
He drags in a breath that shudders on the way out.
And for the first time all night, for the first time maybe since he picked me up in that alley, I see the full force of what this means land in his body.
Not just that he wants me.
That I trusted him enough with all of me. That I waited. That maybe some part of me always knew it was always him.
His hand comes up, trembling just slightly, and cups my face.
“Then I’m glad I put you on that plane, Stells,” he says, voice low and unsteady and full of something bigger than hunger. “Because tonight—” He swallows. “Tonight and forever is ours if you want it.”
My eyes burn again.
I lean into his palm.
“Yes,” I whisper.
The word changes him.
Not into something rougher.
Something deeper.
His forehead touches mine once more. When he speaks again, his voice is steadier, but only just.
“Come on, baby.”
He laces our fingers together.
And this time when he leads me away from the dance floor, away from the curtains, away from the room where everything first broke—I know we’re not leaving because the magic ended.
We’re leaving because it finally began.
The ride back to the hotel feels like floating through somebody else’s dream.
I barely remember getting into the limo.
Only Tristan’s hand around mine.
The warmth of his thigh beside mine.
The way my pulse has not once settled since I whispered the truth behind those curtains and watched it change his entire face.
