Bad Things(37)

“I know, but I didn’t mean it.”

“I think I’ll listen to drunk you, since she claims to like me more.”

I threw my hands in the air, giving up, standing up, and walking inside.

“I’m going to bed,” I told him.

I felt him directly at my back all the way to my room.

“Me too, pudding.”

I shut the bathroom door in his face, or I’d swear he would have followed me in there, too.

I made sure he got his own set of covers, and set a pillow pointedly between us on the queen sized bed. He didn’t try to stop me, thank God.

“Goodnight, boo,” he said quietly, as we lay in the dark, backs facing each other.

“Goodnight, Tristan,” I said just as quietly, closing my eyes.





I felt a hand on my belly, and stiffened.

Oh no, I thought, caught somewhere between a dream and waking thoughts.

Please no, not again.

The hand began to inch down, and I whimpered, instantly feeling terrorized, because this had happened too many times to count, and I’d thought it was over forever now.

The hand disappeared at my whimper.

“Fuck. I’m so sorry, boo,” Tristan said sleepily, kissing the top of my head, before he rolled over on his other side, facing away from me.

The instant I realized it was Tristan, I felt a wave of nearly overwhelming relief. That relief made me realize how profoundly I already trusted this man. We’d known each other for so short a time, but already I knew with certainty that he would never hurt me.

I rolled over, pressing my face into his back, happy to have him there—a comfort to me, rather than a terror.





CHAPTER TWELVE





We were hitting the club again the next night. We were out the door nearly the second after I’d put the boys to bed.

Tristan’s friend Cory was pulling a shift at the Cavendish resort, and so we got decked out again.

We drank too much, and danced for hours, before changing into swimsuits and taking a swim in the warm pool beside the bar Cory was working.

Some brunette with huge fake boobs brushed against Tristan in the water, giving him a very bold look as we passed her.

I rolled my eyes. “So you’re hot. That doesn’t give her the right to act like a cat in heat about it.”

“So you think I’m hot?” Tristan asked, letting those infuriating dimples do their worst.

I shrugged, giving him my steadiest eye contact. I could hide my drunk with the best of them. “You aren’t much to look at,” I said with a straight face.

He threw his head back and laughed, enjoying my sarcastic sense of humor, as always. It was one of my favorite things about him.

“You aren’t much to look at,” I said again, when he was done laughing, and just back to giving me a dangerously fond smile. “But your personality makes up for it, mostly.”

He tugged on my hair, still grinning. “You are so damned cute.”

I gave a heavy sigh. “Yes, I’m very cute. Adorable, really. I’m sorry you’ll only ever know what it’s like to have a cute personality.”

He was laughing so hard by the time I’d finished that he was doubled over. I thought that I’d never wanted to kiss anyone so badly in my life. I restrained myself, just smiling affectionately at him as he straightened.

“Where have you been all my life, Danika?”

“Not skanking it up in enough bars to find you, apparently. Silly me, spending all my time working or at school.”

“Silly you,” he said softly, touching my chin. “Didn’t you know I was out here, just waiting for a friend like you?”

My heart did a slow, painful turn in my chest. It was pathetic how easily he had me wrapped around his little finger. “Of course I didn’t know. I’d have been dancing on top of every bar in town, instead of studying, if I’d known that.”

He didn’t laugh, as I’d intended, but leaned in close. “Tell me not to kiss you,” he said, when his lips were a breath away from mine.

“Don’t kiss me,” I told him, my voice a breathless rasp.

“Mean it,” he said, crowding me into the corner of the pool.

He tilted my chin up with his finger.

“I can’t,” I gasped.

The words had barely left my lips before he was kissing me.