Bad Things (Tristan & Danika #1)(91)

At some point, someone began to open the sliding glass door. The door itself was quiet, but the racket they made moving the blinds out of their way was loud enough to give us warning.

“Go back inside and shut the f**king door!” Tristan barked out, not even slowing his strokes. Sure enough, that worked like a charm.

And strangely, hearing that rough command in his voice, that raised voice he almost never used, brought me over with a helpless little moan.

That had him moaning and jack-knifing into me, shouting out my name with his own release. “You like it when I yell at people, huh?” he panted into my ear as he leaned hard against me, both of us recovering.

I didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge the question. I wasn’t sure what to think of it myself.

He nuzzled his face into my hair as he pulled out of me, doing it slowly, making me want him all over again just from the long exquisite pull of him.

I turned into his arms after he’d gotten loose, throwing my arms around his neck, and then, when he hugged me back hard, lifting me slightly, my legs around his waist.

I kissed his ear. “I love you,” I said, never able to hold back the words.

He squeezed me, kissing my cheek in the sweetest way. “Thank you for that, boo.”

I tried not to let myself be hurt by that all too neutral response to my nowhere near neutral feelings.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The words he didn’t say started to weigh on me more and more as time went by. I knew that I’d fallen way too fast for him, but as we approached the one month mark of our relationship, it started to feel like, if he didn’t feel it yet, then he never would, and that thought consumed me.

I had seen how easy he was with his ex. The sort of careless flirtation, the easy affection he felt, just seemed so brutal to me the more I thought about it. I never wanted to be that to him—a woman who he’d owned completely and would never want again.

She’d cheated on him, and then he had moved on. I knew this, just as I knew that I would never do that to him, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that he could never love me like I loved him.

I became almost clingy in my affections, which I’d never been before. I’d get upset about being clingy, and become withdrawn, which drove him insane. Clingy, he could deal with, withdrawn, not so much.

We kept the crazy club hours, and I became worse and worse at my day job, which I beat myself up about often. I loved the kids, loved Bev and Jerry. They’d done so much for me, and had helped me out a lot with school and just general employment, and I knew that I was becoming a bigger flake by the day. Still, I couldn’t seem to keep away from Tristan, not even for an evening, and the man couldn’t stay home for one damned night.

The band started playing every other weekend at Decadence, and that was both heaven and hell for me.

I loved to watch Tristan on stage, the way his presence seemed to suck the very breath right out of a crowd.

If the place was so packed that the room got warm, he’d whip off his shirt, tucking it into his belt, and boy did that get a reaction. I saw him naked all the time, spent hours staring at his beautiful body, but even I was blown away by the sight of him, tattooed and huge and toned within an inch of his life, the cut of his abs even more stark when he was belting out a song. That was the heaven. That and his voice washing over the throng in deep, intoxicating waves, making me warm all over.

Like me, Frankie never missed a show. We went together, always watching the performance from a few rows back. Tristan told me he preferred this, since I tended to distract him, if he could see me in the crowd. I was torn on this, liking the way I distracted him, but wanting so badly to be front and center.

Rosette, the pink haired slut from hell, never opened for them again, but Tristan’s female fans were nearly as bad. In just a few performances, I’d seen panties thrown on stage, a topless woman, and several with tops, try to grope Tristan, and heard things shouted at my boyfriend that no one should ever have to hear without a plate handy to throw. That was the hell.

I’d learned to focus on Jared when this happened. He was nearly as arresting as Tristan singing when he strummed on his guitar, a look of absolute bliss on his face. If the lead singer had been anyone but Tristan, I was convinced that Jared would have stolen the show. He was fond of taking off his shirt about halfway through the show, which the crowd always appreciated, showing that appreciation with screams and catcalls. How he was a relationship guy, and managed to stay single, I would never understand. Part of me wished I’d seen him first, like there was some chance that I may have been a different person before I set eyes on Tristan.

At the band’s third appearance at Decadence, I got to see firsthand why Tristan didn’t want me at the front of the stage, distracting him. In all fairness, though, there were extenuating circumstances…

Frankie had pulled me front and center between the opening act and the band coming out, spotting a friend of hers. It was a lovely Hispanic woman with an hourglass figure, and I saw right away that Frankie was interested in her. She’d told me many a time that this was her type.

We’d barely gotten introductions out before Tristan was filing on stage, the rest of the guys behind him. He’d spotted me before he even reached the mic. He sent me a slightly puzzled look, but that was all. He quickly looked away. He’d explained to me before that he needed to focus when he was up there, that no matter how many times he did it, it still gave him a strange bout of nerves, to the point where he couldn’t handle the level of distraction I caused him with my presence.