There was something so heartbreaking about him. So sad. Because she could almost see the little boy who lived inside him. The boy who was sorrowful to learn that his father wasn’t the man he’d always idolized. That he’d cheated on Tristan’s mother. Cheated on their family. “I promise,” Samantha whispered back.
There were tears in her eyes, threatening to spill over. He grabbed her face, his fingers wrapping around her neck. He looked like he wanted to say something. To do something, but he wasn’t sure what. She searched his eyes, silently asking him what he needed, because in that moment, she would do anything.
He finally settled his mouth upon hers, hard, rough, and crushing, as though he needed her body to pull him back from his grief. From the sadness inside that was too hard for him to bear. She kissed him, giving him everything she had. All her hope, all her strength, all her love.
He made love to her again, this time with his whole body. He kissed every inch of her, spilled his seed inside her belly, until his entire weight collapsed on top of her. Heavy, strong, beautiful. She wrapped her arms around him and took all of it. Because something between them had shifted. He’d shared a part of himself that he’d never shared with anyone else. He’d shared his secret, his burden, and she grabbed hold of it knowing she’d never let it go.
They fell asleep a moment later, tangled in each other’s arms. Exhausted. Wasted. And everything between them forever altered.
22
Chapter Twenty-two
It was still dark when she opened her eyes again. The bed was cold beside her, and she instantly knew something was wrong. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she found Tristan sitting on the edge of the bed, looking off into the distance. She instinctively reached out to him, and he turned around.
He looked tired, thoughtful. “Did I wake you?” he whispered.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, yawning “What time is it?”
“Four in the morning,” he replied. “Go back to sleep.”
But there was something in his voice that frightened her. Something soft, uncertain, that told her what he said wasn’t at all what he wanted. “Is something wrong?” she asked softly, sitting forward to gently rub his back.
“Nah,” he whispered. He hesitated, only a second, but it was long enough. It was as though he had made up his mind about something. He turned around to face her, laying his knee up on the mattress to get comfortable. His face was partially covered by shadow, and he cleared his throat before he began. “I’m going to ask you a question,” he said seriously, “and I want you to be completely honest with me.”
Her breath caught in her throat and she froze, because she didn’t have the faintest idea what had brought this on. What had made him wake so late at night and look so heavy. She nodded though, because the tone of his voice told her it was important. Because the tone of his voice told her that how she answered meant a whole lot to him.
“How have I ever made you look like a fool?” he asked then. He wasn’t angry, and he wasn’t emotional, but there was something in his voice that was somewhere in between.
She pulled in a breath, then looked down to her hands and shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He turned completely around, his face now illuminated by the moonlight coming in from the window. “You said it in the car. On the side of the road. You said not to make you look like a fool again. What did you mean?”
She hesitated, but he grabbed hold of her hands, forcing her to look up at him before letting go. “If we’re going to do this, I don’t want anything between us.”
Her throat was so tight she could barely swallow, but she knew he was right. She had to talk to him, to get everything out in the open. Because if their past wasn’t put out there, they had no shot at a future.
She met his eyes, forcing herself to look at him even though it terrified her. “After the cabin,” she said, playing with the edge of the sheet between her fingers, suddenly feeling all the emotions of a broken sixteen-year-old girl come crashing to her shoulders. “I saw you with a girl at the pool table. I thought you saw me, but—”
He suddenly closed his eyes, then made a noise, deep in the back of his throat, cutting her off. His head fell back to his shoulders, and he made a sound that could have been a laugh, or a cough. “That,” he whispered. “That.” But this time it was with a hint of amusement. He was quiet a moment, then he lifted his head to look at her, his blue eyes brilliant even in the faint light of night, as he stared straight into her soul. “I’m a jealous man, Samantha,” he finally stated, as though that simple sentence was all that was needed.
She reached for his face, trying to understand what he meant, but he continued.
“I wanted to make you jealous too.”
She shook her head, not comprehending why he would do that, but then she replayed the night over in her head and she remembered. She covered her mouth with a hand and her throat went dry. “You saw Steven kiss me, didn’t you?” He didn’t respond, but the look in his eye told her that was exactly what happened. “Oh, my God.”
“Samantha…” But he said it in a way that dismissed their past. He said it in a way that said it didn’t matter.
But it did. “When he kissed me, I was shocked, but I let it happen. Partially because I was young and didn’t know how to push him away. He was my friend. One of my best friends, and I didn’t want to hurt him. And partially because I wanted to know if kissing him felt even half as good as it felt kissing you. It didn’t. It never did—”
He grabbed hold of her face, his eyes penetrating hers, his lips millimeters away. “If he didn’t kiss you like I did, if you didn’t feel with him the way you did with me, why were you still with him when I came back to visit? Why were you still with him six years later?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, because he was asking the hard questions. Asking the questions she’d asked a thousand times but never let herself answer.
“I don’t know…”
He shook his head, as though saying her answer wasn’t good enough.
“Because…” she continued. “He was my friend! And I didn’t want to hurt him. He was my friend, everything was easy, comfortable, and I didn’t want our relationship to fail. To fail at one more damned thing…” Her words trailed off, and she looked up at him through tear-laced lashes. “It wasn’t until you came back into my life that I realized all I was missing…”
He cupped the side of her face, sending her pulse racing.
“I never thought I could have more. That there was more. Because I’m so scared, Tristan, so scared out of my mind of failing, that I haven’t let myself live.” The words came choking out of her, as if they were clawing up her throat, needing her to confess them. Ragged, with torn up edges, coming from deep within her soul.