A warm body slid beside him. Her breath whispered in his ear. “Thank you so much for helping me out. Any problems?”
He studied her in the flickering shadows. The fall of her fiery hair, the soft dew of her white skin, the smattering of freckles bridging her nose. She was wearing an interesting outfit of tight, bright leggings, furry boots, and an oversize shirt. She was sexy and adorable, and in that moment, he had so much respect for her for raising a daughter on her own and doing a slam-dunk job of it.
’Cause after only a few hours, he was ready to raise the white flag.
Slowly he smiled and reached out to squeeze her hand.
“Everything was perfect.”
She relaxed and let him hold her hand for a little while longer.
And he remembered.
“My mother is dead.”
He uttered the words with a numbness that caused a flash of guilt. He should be more upset. It had been two weeks of nonstop chaos, grief, and anger, and then nothing. He hadn’t cried at his own mother’s funeral. Cal had. So had Dalton. Not him. He’d just stood there on the muddy ground, staring at the casket while the priest muttered words that meant nothing. Her death should have brought him closer to his brothers and healed the growing rift between them.
Instead, the rift had only widened, until they could barely stand being in the same room with one another. They fought and blamed, and their father was in the background, muttering about their beloved mother’s betrayal.
She’d left them all. Left her family. Left him.
For some strange man he didn’t even know. She was going to run away with him with two tickets to Paris found in the wreckage.
One-way. She wasn’t planning on coming back.
His entire life swiveled on its axis and shattered into fragments. He didn’t know what was real any longer or what to believe in. He had no one to talk to. He had nowhere to go with this burning emptiness that slowly ate at his gut and devoured his soul.
He’d come to Sydney because she was the only one who’d loved his mother with a depth that shadowed his own. His secret affair with Syd had started off as a sexy, intense interlude that lasted through the summer months, but when fall returned and it still raged on, his brothers had discovered the secret. After an explosive fight during which he’d punched Dalton in the nose and Cal had given him a black eye, they’d reached an understanding. They stayed out of his business and backed him up by not telling his father. He’d convinced them he and Syd were friends, respected and cared about each other, but it wouldn’t be a long-lasting relationship. Sydney had confirmed it. With a blush on her cheeks, she told his brothers to mind their own damn business.
Eventually they stopped giving him a hard time. The months drifted into almost a year, and he and Syd were still going strong. Tristan didn’t like to think about it or classify what they had. Yes, she was young. Yes, sometimes they fell into ridiculous arguments because she was jealous of every other woman he talked to. Yes, she was insecure, and sometimes clung a bit too hard despite her guise of not caring.
But then his mom had died, and everything had changed. He was floating out there in space with no anchor to Earth, and for the first time, he was scared of who he was becoming.
There’d always been a coldness deep within him, an ability to shut himself off from the world to avoid messy emotions. But lately he’d been living in that place. His mother had always been able to pull him out.
So had Sydney.
As he stared down into her face, she did the only thing he needed in that moment.
She said no words of inane comfort. She reached up, gathered him in her arms, and held him. He leaned his cheek against the top of her head, breathing in the scent of orange blossoms while he soaked up the warmth of her body heat. Her fingers stroked the nape of his neck, and she whispered low murmurings of nonsense into his ear.
The block of ice trembled, and chips began to fall away.
“Why? Why did she betray us all, Syd?”
“I don’t know. All I know is she’s been unhappy with your dad for a long time. But I swear to you on everything I know and believe, Tristan, she was coming back to you.”
“She never said anything to you? Not a word about this guy she was seeing on the side?”
“No, nothing. I knew she was going to an art class she loved, but that’s all. I didn’t know about the teacher.”
“She said nothing to us about this man. She had no return ticket. She was going to lose herself in Paris and forget her sons.”
She yanked her head back from his chest, stood on tiptoe, and met his gaze with a fierceness that took his breath away. “She was coming back,” Sydney repeated. “I know Diane, and you were everything to her. If you believe only one thing, you must believe me.”
He stared at her for a long time and found only a knowledge and resolve that eased some of the tightness in his gut. The words spilled from him in all their raw, awful, naked truth. “I’m so lost, Syd. I don’t what to do anymore.”
Her eyes shone with tears. “You’re going to believe what I tell you, Tristan. She was coming back.”
Every time she repeated the phrase, he seemed to believe it more. His head spun, and his heart ached, and with a low groan, he dipped his head, desperate to feel alive again.
She welcomed his tongue, clung to his shoulders, and kissed him back full force. Slowly the kiss grew to something bigger, until they were ripping away clothes, falling on each other with a vicious hunger they needed to sate. Her hands burned on his skin as she fisted his throbbing length, lowered her head, and took him deep in her mouth. He threw his head back in surrender, loving the scrape of her teeth, the wet cave of her mouth sucking him tight, the slow lick of her tongue.
He reached down in a frenzy, picking her up and laying her out on the bed. Parting her thighs, he donned a condom and slid deep within her hot, swollen folds, burying himself balls-deep, taking her completely.
She cried out. Biting down on her lip, she seemed to try to fight him off, but he plundered her lips, sinking his tongue as deep as his cock, chaining her to the bed, chaining her to him.
“No, tonight I need all of you, baby. Give me all of you,” he grated against her mouth.
His words caused her to tremble wildly, but then her muscles relaxed, and her hips arched for more. With a low growl of satisfaction, he pulled out in one slow slide, then pounded back into her with a ruthless desperation he couldn’t control.
She matched him thrust for thrust, not only giving him everything she had but demanding everything from him. He fucked her and made love to her in a way he never had before, opening himself up to every delicious sensation wrecking his body and mind, until she screamed her release, shuddering underneath him, and he allowed himself to let go.