Lovely Trigger (Tristan & Danika #3)(62)

I smiled.  She moved away and that was that.  It was sad, but I actually preferred dealing with her to dealing with Mona.

I found a place to sit, on a picnic table that was set near what was turning out to be quite the dance floor.

Almost the second I sat down, I felt my phone vibrating on my arm.

It was Tristan.  I didn’t think I had a chance in hell of hearing him over all the noise, so I dropped the call and texted him my location.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

He was there in less than a minute.  Sitting down next to me, then pulling me unceremoniously onto his lap.

I turned until I was sideways, staring up at him.  “You can go dance if you want to.  I don’t mind.”

“Not without you,” he said, kissing my nose.

“I still have a few moves,” I told him, watching his face.

I loved to make him laugh.

I was flattered by the admiring look he gave me for that.  “Yes, you do.”

I laughed.  “I wasn’t talking about that.  I’m talking about dance moves.”

He looked intrigued.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.  There’s the lasso.”  I showed him that classic, and he laughed.  “And the ‘make it rain,’”  I put my fingers to my palm and imitated flinging cash.  “And the slap that.’”  I put one palm down, and the other moved in a rapid spanking motion.  “And of course the ‘going down.’”  I pointed my palm down, cupped it to imitate it holding the back of a head, and pushed it down, to mimic him going down on me.

I’d just made that last one up.

He was laughing hard by the time I was done.  My whole chest went warm when he laughed like that.

And then we were kissing, making out like teenagers in public again.  I knew I should pull back, but I couldn’t seem to stop.  I gripped his shirt while he gripped my hair, and let our mouths just go at it.  It was a special kind of bliss to just let go like that, for a time.

He was laying me on the bench, his hands getting a touch indecent, when I found the will to pull back.

“We can’t.  Not here.  There are kids around, Tristan.  Not to mention other people.”

He pulled back and sat up.  “I’m going to go grab us something to eat.”

He disappeared into the crowd.

He was back maybe ten minutes later, his arms full of sodas and hotdogs.

I didn’t even complain, just ate the hotdog and drank the coke.  I was so hungry that even that was worth the calories.

We shared a smile as we finished eating, my mind on that ridiculous make out session earlier.

He had a bit of ketchup on the corner of his mouth, and I took a napkin, dabbing at it, smiling into his dear face.

He tilted my face up with his chin.  His expression was raw with things I couldn’t name or didn’t want to.  “Oh, no, you’ve done it now,” he whispered softly.

“Done what?”

“You’re giving me that look.  You know we can’t go back, if you’re looking at me like that again.  You get that, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him, which was a lie.  I could feel it spilling out of my eyes, covering him like some pain-relieving salve.  This was something I gave, and he took, and we were both more lost for it, or at least, that’s how it had worked out the last time.

“Yes, you do.  You can’t give me that look without feeling that look.”  He took a deep breath, and then another.

“It’s probably all this powder.  You’re seeing things.”

That didn’t even faze him.  “I swear, it feels like there’s been a bullet lodged in my gut, buried there for ages, and it just got pried out.  Thank you.”

I looked away.  “Don’t thank me.  Just do what you need to not to hurt me.”

His breathing grew ragged.  “Do I get to ask the same of you?”

We shared a raw look, but I didn’t answer him.

“I didn’t realize how hard it would be, to be around Mona,” I said, changing the subject.  “I think it’s best for me to avoid that in the future.”

He was the picture of yellow, purple, and pink faced remorse.  In spite of myself, I found that so incredibly endearing.  “I’m so sorry for that.  It’s turned into a bad situation.”

I shook my head at him.  “What were you thinking, sleeping with someone you worked with?  When does that ever turn out well?”

He looked wildly uncomfortable.

I shook my head at him some more.  “Oh you naive bastard.  Still thought f**k buddies could work, huh?”

He flinched.  “I did.  I was an idiot.  But let’s not do this to ourselves, okay?”

He had a good point, and I dropped it, since I was done making mine.

We went to his house, and I finally got that tour.

“It’s huge,” I told him before we’d even finished with the first floor.  “What single man needs this much space?”

He gave me an enigmatic look for that bit of sass.

We f**ked our colorful way all over his kinky bed.  Afterward, we took a shower together that bled into a rainbow down the drain and he took me again against the shower wall.