Rock Bottom (Tristan & Danika #2)(20)

There were things I needed to explain to her, about the girl she’d been, the girl who’d needed a protector, and hadn’t had one, and how she’d never be that girl again, because she had me, and I took my duty seriously.

It was why I went crazy when any man so much as looked at her shifty, I explained carefully. I couldn’t regulate that part of myself. No anger management class in the world could convince me that there was a way I could keep her too safe.

That seemed to bring her peace, and her eyes closed, the gentlest smile transforming her lovely face, her hand laying quiet on my racing heart.

And that brought me peace, because she was my perfect girl, and as much as I needed to safeguard her, she needed what I had to give her just as desperately.

We lay on the front yard like silly teenagers, for minutes, for hours.

It was one of those slowed moments in time, where things became clear, and parts of the past were brought to rest. I’d learned long ago that moments like these were few and far between, and I tried to remember everything. The rustling leaves in the tree overhead, the nearly cloudless sky, the mild autumn weather.

The perfect, intensely trusting tranquility written on her face as she lay with her head on my shoulder.

And later, when we finally rose from the grass, I remembered the slip of paper in my back pocket.

I handed it to her gingerly. It contained no words, just a phone number.

Her brow furrowed in question, her teeth catching her lip.

“Dahlia’s phone number. Your mother gave it to me.”

She hugged me so hard that I could feel it down to my soul.

CHAPTER EIGHT

TRISTAN

I was shrugging into a dark blue T-shirt when I froze mid-motion, not quite believing my eyes.

“There is no f**king way you are wearing that,” I told her, sitting down on the edge of my bed to watch her, equal parts pissed off and turned on at the sight of her.

She was wearing tiny black cheer shorts that didn’t belong outside of a bedroom, and a black half-shirt that read ‘Fuck No.’ It left all of the skin bare from two inches below her naval to the top of her ribs, just covering her br**sts. She wasn’t even wearing a bra.

My jaw went slack, my eyes glued to the sight.

She didn’t have huge br**sts, but they were a handful, and they were f**king perfect, soft and pliant in my hands, and when real tits went braless, there was no mistaking it.

“Fucking no way in hell.”

“I can’t wear a bra after the tattoo, and the half-shirt makes it so I won’t have to take off my top for the cameras. Frankie told me exactly what to wear, and I’m wearing it, so wipe that Neanderthal look off your face.” As she spoke, she twisted her hair into a bun on top of her head, the shirt riding up, bearing the undersides of her br**sts.

“Are you f**king serious?”

She rolled her eyes, completely blowing me off as she slipped into flip-flops.

“It’s important for me to be comfortable and properly prepared, Frankie says. If you can’t behave yourself, you are staying home.”

“Are you f**king serious?” I repeated. “I took a week off just for this, and you’ve had to postpone it for weeks, just so I could go with you.”

“So behave yourself if you actually want to come.”

I clenched my jaw to keep from arguing, counting to ten, my eyes glued to the front of her shirt.

“Fuck No?” I asked her.

“Frankie says it’s a great way to let the censors keep you modest. If my ni**les are hard, they won’t pick it up, because they’ll already be blurring the word f**k. She loaned me the shirt.”

No shit, I thought. It was clearly a Frankie creation.

She moved to stand in front of me, hands on her sexy little hips. I reached up, palming her br**sts with both hands. I closed my eyes, not quite managing to stifle a groan.

“We’re already late, Tristan, and the camera crew is on a tight schedule.”

My eyes snapped open to glare at her. I lifted her shirt that minuscule degree it took to bare her tits, cursing loudly and fluently as I leaned forward, framing her br**sts in my hands and sucking one hard nipple into my mouth.

“I’m going to pin you to that table when she’s done with you and f**k your brains out.”

She gasped, and one of my hands snaked down, sliding into the waistband of her shorts to finger her. I yanked it out with a curse, using the leg of her shorts instead to ram my finger into her hard.

“If I can get at your pu**y this easy, that’s a good sign that your shorts are too tiny.”

Her hips twitched, moving on my finger, and I went back to sucking on her nipple and working her on my finger.

I waited until she was close and pulled away, extricating my finger slowly, teasingly. “We’re late, boo. Remember? Tight schedule.”

She glared at me, backing away.

I grinned at her and winked.

I could barely keep my eyes on the road as we drove to Frankie’s tattoo parlor, glancing over at her every time she shifted on her seat.

She was jittery with excitement, and every movement, every twitch of her body was distracting in that barely there excuse of an outfit.

I fondled her with one hand until she moaned, trying to push my hand away.

“Quit teasing me,” she complained. “I don’t want to be turned on right now. It’s going to be hours before we can do anything about it.”