Bad Things (Tristan & Danika #1)(81)

I didn’t even speak. All that I’d had to say had been said with the breaking of six white plates.

He spoke, murmuring apology after apology into my ear. I found that so strange that I didn’t even process it right away.

A shirtless Dean burst into the kitchen, with not one, but two naked skanks at his back, the one before, and a redhead. He started yelling as he took in the damage.

“What the f**k, man? I was sleeping, and you’ve got some chick breaking f**king plates in our kitchen? And Kendra tells me she tried to hit her with one!”

“Go back to bed, Dean,” Tristan told him, sounding riled, which he hadn’t sounded when he’d been talking so softly into my ear. “This is not your business.”

“Of course it’s my f**king business,” Dean said. “This is my f**king place, too.”

“What’s your problem?” Topless Kendra asked, speaking to me, I assumed.

“Her problem is that she’s my girlfriend,” Tristan answered. “And she was just disrespected in my home.”

Kendra’s lip shot out in a pout. “You didn’t have a girlfriend four nights ago,” she pointed out.

“We were on a break, but we aren’t anymore. Dean, get them out of here.”

“Fuck you, man. You get to keep that cunt around, and I have to get rid of them?”

I felt Tristan stiffen against me. His voice when he spoke was scary. “I’m only going to warn you once. You talk to her or about her like that again, we’re going to have a f**king problem. Apologize, and then get the f**k away from me before I take your ass to task for what just came out of your mouth, and this ends with more than a warning.”

Dean cursed under his breath, turned on his heel, and left the kitchen, muttering a very insolent, “Sorry,” under his breath.

Slut one and slut two followed quickly behind him.

Tristan bent, scooping me up into a cradle hold, and carried me to his room.

He bent, laying me out on the bed. He lowered himself over me until he was pinning me down with his body, chest to chest, thighs straddling my hips. He pulled my arms up high, pinning them over my head with his hands on my wrists.

He brought his face very close to mine, his golden eyes gone soft. “I’m sorry.”

I wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, and I thought I should probably apologize for breaking all of his plates, and trying to hit him with them in the process, but I just couldn’t do it. The man made me lose my mind, and I was still upset about that.

Still, there was one thing, one question, that persisted, dominating my thoughts more than anything else that had happened.

“Why did you say I was your girlfriend? That was a lie. We were never together, not like that.”

He took a deep breath, rubbing his chest along mine. I saw a flash of something cross his expression, and I thought it might have been pain. “It wasn’t a lie. It was the way it should have been, if I wasn’t so f**ked in the head. I’ve handled things badly from the start with you, and I’m sorry for that. The way I feel about you…the way it’s been between us from the start, I was an idiot for denying it to myself. I want to be exclusive. No just friends, no f**k buddies, no more avoiding commitment. I want to be with you. I’ve made it way more f**king complicated than it needs to be, and I want to un-complicate it. I’ve no right to ask it, but will you give me the chance to prove that I can be better than I’ve been?”

My heart was pounding about a million miles a second, in joy…and terror. He’d broken my heart before ever promising me anything. How much worse would it be, if he crushed me like that again, after I let myself hope for something more from him?

Unexpectedly, ridiculously, I burst into tears.

It wasn’t a quiet affair. I let out big, gasping, ugly sobs, and once it started, it didn’t stop.

It was the first time he’d ever seen me cry. A little sound of distress escaped from deep in his throat, a noise of deepest sympathy.

He nuzzled his face into my ear. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’d take it all back if I could, but I can’t. I will try to make it up to you, though, okay? Please, just give me the chance. Please.”

I was able to calm myself when I realized that the strongest emotion I was feeling was actually relief. The idea that I could fall so hard for him, that I could feel this so deeply, and have him feel none of it had just been so awful for me, and coming back from that feeling was an emotional breakdown.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I never could keep my mouth shut. The good, the bad, the ugly, it all came out, and this was no exception.

With Tristan’s weight on me, his soothing whispers in my ear, and the knowledge that he couldn’t resist this thing between us any more than I could, had me spewing my heart out in minutes. I’d wanted to hold it in, because some confessions demand reciprocation, but my big damned mouth took the decision from me, as usual.

“I love you,” I told him, my voice unsteady.

I knew he wouldn’t say it back. I was prepared for that. But he did the next best thing, moving his mouth over mine in a ravenous, desperate kiss, his tongue invading my mouth.

I moaned against him, moving my body into his hard form restlessly.

He broke off, studying me. I moved my hips, trying to dislodge his uncompromising thighs. I wanted him between my legs, not straddling them.