I rolled my eyes at his question and sipped my coffee. "The entire time, doofus."
"I had a lot of fun last night," he chuckled, blushing across his high cheekbones. "Would it be needy of me to say that I'm glad that you know how I feel about you?" He looked up at me through those long, dark eyelashes. "What I want from you?"
There's no doubt in my mind that my mouth dropped open at least a fraction of an inch then, but I hoped that I recovered quickly enough to not look like a fool. "No, that's not needy at all," I said in a breathless voice. I felt like my heart was in my throat. "I like knowing that you want me in your life as more than just your friend. I had no idea, you know? Until you kissed me last week, I didn't have a solid clue that you looked at me as more than just your buddy Kat."
"I don't think I had a clue for a while that I saw you as more than just my buddy. It was like I woke up one day and realized it," he sighed out the words.
I could appreciate his honesty more than I could ever explain because it made sense to me. He had been so hot and cold with me for weeks that his struggles seemed logical. Part of me liked the fact that he grew into his feelings instead of just admiring some superficial aspect of my outer shell. He liked me for me and that just felt right.
"I've always liked you," I blurted out. Shit.
His megawatt smile brightened the room again at my response. "You're just—," he sighed, clearly struggling for words. His eyes were wide and bright as he thought about what he was trying to say.
"Amazing?" I offered with a laugh.
Tristan rolled his eyes then and grinned. "That's not the route I was going but it'll work too." He set his cup down on the side table and crawled over to me. The rippling of his muscles seduced my eyesight for the first time that morning. Mother fuck. All that was mine? He was mine? The clean and distinct curves of muscle that shaped his entire upper body flexed deliciously so close to me, I had to reign in my inner slut to keep from tracing all that flesh with my tongue. "Goldie?"
"Hmm?" My eyes were still glued to the expanse of peachy skin he had exposed.
His large, calloused hand stroked my cheek with a tenderness I'd never felt before. It was enough to make my sight depart from its current residence on the trail of dark hair that led underneath the cotton of his sweatpants. "I just want you to know that I'm dead serious about what I told you last night, okay? You're all I want, and I don't want anything to make you think otherwise."
I took his words and stitched them onto my heart while we showered separately and got ready to head out for breakfast. Tristan dyed his hair while in the bathroom and came out with his mop of black strands for Robby Lingus' short and last stint at the porn convention we were heading to. The whole atmosphere between us was different. It was almost like we had this nice, warm bubble wrapped around us that we used to shield us from the pollution we were heading to. He held my hand walking down the elevator, in the car, into the diner for breakfast, and back in the car. His long fingers reassured my shorter ones constantly. The rough and strong tips of his digits grazed the skin on the inside of my wrist and palm in sensual strokes that made me blush.
I didn't want to constantly keep reminding myself that this thing between us was real, but I had to. I was never blessed with the best of luck, so how could I manage to get this sudden oncoming of greatness? Tristan was not just the most attractive man I'd ever seen, but he was smart, funny, and a little loony. Best of all, he understood me. Every time I thought that, I had to be my own cheerleader and remind myself that I was attractive, smart, funny, and a little loony too. I couldn't sell myself short either despite how much the little voice in the back of my head wanted me to.
"Are you ready?" he asked, as he parked the rental car in an empty spot. His green eyes looked a little wider than normal as they looked at me for confirmation.
I allowed myself to nod in response while he slipped his reading glasses on. We got out and walked toward the entrance at the side of the convention center. Tristan had our passes in hand, both of which spelled out Performer on the credentials in nice, big, block letters for the entire world to see. I groaned when the security guard made me put it around my neck before allowing us to go in. As soon as we were through the doors, my hand was wrapped up in a much larger one, reassuringly. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, maybe massive orgies going on or at least a few practice blow jobs in front of an audience but that definitely wasn't what was there. A few dozen people walked through the hallways that comprised the backstage area, a few of the women weren't wearing very many clothes but it wasn't extreme or provocative.
"Not what you were expecting?" Tristan's low voice questioned me just a few inches from my ear.
I shook my head and grinned at him sheepishly. I hated that he had an idea what I was thinking. "Nope. I thought for sure I'd see some butt sex going on."
He choked. A big choke that led him to start coughing so loud a ton of people turned around to look at him. His normally perfect, evenly toned face was bright red and his eyes seemed to be bulging out of their sockets. "Do you want to see that?"
I started laughing and squeezed his hand before the man I'd met a couple months before came strolling up to Tristan's red face and my amused one. His beady eyes darted between our clasped hands like a vulture would zero in on a dead deer, and it was really freaking creepy.
"Tristan," his icy voice cut through my laugh when he stopped right in front of us. His eyes kept bouncing from my hand, to his, and then back.
"Hey Walter, you've met Kat," the stud muffin holding my hand said in a voice warm enough to melt through his manager's freezing tone.
The man nodded in the general direction of my face before looking back at our joined hands. "Hi," he said simply, and then cleared his throat. "Is there something I should know?"
I felt Tristan tense up before I saw the muscles in his shoulders and arms go rigid. "What makes you think that there's something you need to know?"
Eyes stayed on the hands.
"I've been your manager for a long time now, Robby," he emphasized the name with the squint of his left eye. "Is she the reason why you're quitting?"
Normally, the top of my head just barely grazed over the highest point of Tristan's shoulders, but after the words slipped out of his manager's mouth, I lost another inch when his shoulders went tense. I looked at the beady eyes in front of me, and then up at Tristan's smooth jawline, eating up the intensity of their conversation and looks. I knew that Tristan had already told him his plans on retiring Robby, but I wasn't sure if he'd given him a reason, not that he really needed to. "We can talk about this later, Walter. In private." Tristan's voice was tight and ready to snap in half.
"I'd rather us talk about this now. You've already brought her here."
Under normal circumstances, I would have said something back to Walter, because fuck if I was ever going to let some douche bag talk about me like I wasn't there. On the other hand, Tristan getting riled up seemed to rile up my panties so I talked myself out of saying anything.
When his fingers started unraveling themselves from mine, I may have mildly started to panic because I thought for one split second that he was denouncing us in front of his manager at the first sign of struggle. I was wrong and I should have known it. His heavy band of flesh slipped over my shoulders and pulled me close to his side, palm cupping my shoulder. "She," Tristan snarled in a voice I didn't think he was capable of imitating. "Is the reason why I'm quitting and you get paid for what I do. I'm here getting paid and so are you, so I'd hope you remember that, Walter," he spat. "We had a good run but it's over." Green eyes glared into murky ones with a fury I'd never witnessed on anyone besides Nicole. "What number booth am I going to?"
With that, Walter barked out a number I couldn't bother to remember, and then turned on his heel to walk away.
Tristan didn't move either, instead he just squeezed my shoulder once before tugging on the end of my ponytail.
I stood frozen watching the slim fig
ure retreat like a dog with his tail between his legs. I was literally dumbstruck. I was stuck between being in awe at what just went down and being really turned on by the fact that he defended not just me but himself.
Fuuuuck me.
I tugged at his sleeve so he could slouch down enough for me to talk into his ear. "You are so fucking lucky I threw away my True Love Waits ring when I was seventeen."
His pale cheeks and ears flushed red at my comment. He grinned and then frowned, like he wasn't sure exactly how to react. Tristan opened his mouth and let out the oddest giggle I'd ever heard in my life. A man giggle?
"Cat got your tongue, Mag?" I teased him with one of my signature, unladylike snorts.
He smiled so mischievously it kind of scared me. When he nodded in response instead of opting for words, and then started pulling on my arm to lead me toward the double doors on the opposite side of the room, I got a little worried. He slung an arm around my shoulders on our way, pulling me in real close to his solid frame. I felt the warm breath on my ear before he whispered, "You're going to have my tongue later, my little gold digger."
I fucking tripped.
What I tripped on, I have no idea. It might have been the air for all I know, but my foot caught onto something, and I was suddenly on a one-way trip heading toward the floor. To make matters worse, I had dumbest look on my face, after all, what other face could I possibly have when the hottest man I'd ever known just finished telling me that I was going to have his tongue? His tongue! I didn't know where but just the way in which he said it was shudder inducing. Or in my case, trip inducing. Tristan could've stuck his tongue in the crook of my elbow or armpit, and it'd be the hottest thing in the universe.
His large hands caught me around the waist before I face-planted. "Whoa there," he laughed, pulling me upright to stand.
I let out a laugh that sounded like a donkey braying and grinned at him. A small group of people were standing off to the side, looking in my direction with smirks on their faces. I held back from flicking them off and flicked my wrist in the sharpest movement, hoping that my asshole wave made up for my lack of an obscene gesture. "Assholes," I muttered to myself before looking back up at my savior.
Tristan turned in the direction we had just walked in with his forehead furrowed. "What did you trip on?" he indicated with his head in the direction of the floor we'd just covered.
"Shut up," I groaned, slightly humiliated.
"Seriously, what did you trip over?" he insisted, laughing really loudly. Green eyes glittered in amusement at my flustered face.
"Don't you have somewhere to be, Robby Lingus?"
He smirked after composing himself. His hand wrapped around my forearm before squeezing. "Yes but don't change the subject." We started walking side by side toward the doors again. He leaned closer to me, "You liked what you heard, didn't you?"
I'm sure my face flushed a color only seen on fire trucks, and possibly lobsters, but I couldn't help the snort that slipped out of my nose again. With a sharp push, Tristan had one of the doors opened that led out to the main convention hall. He strode up next to me after I passed through the opened door careful to keep a short distance between us. I knew that standing next to him or holding his hand was out of the question because he was now in full-blown Robby mode, but that didn't mean I couldn't remind him that he brought me here with him and would leave with me in a little over an hour.
Over my shower that morning, I decided that I needed to get my shit together and support him through this. I tried to mentally prepare myself for what could potentially happen while at the convention. Some gonorrhea-infected sluts might try to kiss him or grab his bubble butt. Women with loose, flapping pussy lips that were capable of clapping would try to hug him and whisper suggestive things in his ears. I was going to try my best and be okay with it. It was just an act. I mean actors had to kiss other women on sets, right? Tristan was technically an actor, but in his case, his dick was the main attraction.
Ugh. I wanted to cry.
As I looked up at him, biting my lip to keep from sobbing out to the holy spirit that matched people together, I caught him looking down at me with the sweetest smile on his face. His beautiful, clear eyes were wide, and he looked so damn happy right then that suddenly all my insecurities went away. That smile was mine. It wasn't for anyone else, it was meant for me and caused by me.
Plus, didn't he just tell Walter that he quit for me? Me? Little, old Kat Berger that laughed like a man? I wanted to jump up and down then do the running man in joy. Tristan didn't say things just for the sake of using his vocal chords, so I knew it was true. I wanted to ask him about it but figured right then was not the right moment for that conversation.
Maybe later when he was using his tongue. Ha.
All of a sudden, a really ingenious idea formed in my head. I tugged at the sleeve of Tristan's v-neck t-shirt again. He leaned down and I brushed my bottom lip lightly against the shell of his ear. "I think you should meet my tongue later," I said in a throaty voice.
I heard him gulp from his spot next to me.
I wasn't really sure where exactly I was getting these brave words from, maybe Nikki was channeling a bit of herself into me for moral support. Maybe she wasn't. I knew that I wanted Tristan to think of me while he was stuck signing autographs for other women who found him just as attractive as I did. It might have been a little insecure of me to desire that, but I refused to think of it in that way.
We walked through the first row of booths in silence with quick side glances at each other and sly smirks. I couldn't find it in me to pay attention to the booths and businesses we walked by because my main focus was on Tristan's pink face. He kept pushing his eyeglasses up his nose even when they weren't shifting in the slightest. Evidently, he knew where we were going or had an idea of the way the booths were set up because in no time we were approaching a booth that had the same large picture of Robby Lingus I'd seen just a couple months ago when we met.
My stomach churned painfully at the raw sexuality and masculinity that the picture exuded. The big E-sized tits belonging to the topless woman in the picture with Robby seemed to mock me from thirty feet away. The flat slope of her stomach and definition in her abs cracked jokes about my plain, flat stomach as I made it closer. His hands seemed larger and more possessive in the poster this time than they had the last and only time I'd seen it before. Why did looking at that poster, even though I knew it was old, hurt so damn much?
Tristan turned to me and placed a warm, sweet kiss on the hollow behind my ear. "I'd do this all over again a hundred times as long as I met you in the end."
He took off before the words were completely out of his mouth, leaving me a trail of verbal breadcrumbs in his wake. To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. Where did he get this from? This Tristan, who up until two weeks ago just clenched his jaw when he overhead me talk about hanging out with other men. This Tristan, who even then maybe didn't comprehend he felt something for me besides those feelings that all friends have with each other.
I valued his bravery and newfound openness more than I valued just about anything. When and where did this man grow some balls?
I followed after him, keeping to the plan we'd decided on in the car. He'd suggested that I walk around until he was done or just hang out and watch if I wanted to, an idea that he wasn't completely crazy about. I decided to hang around for a while until the urge to puke all over his fans got too overwhelming. Or until I began to get homicidal and started looking for the first spork I could find to inflict bodily damage, whichever came first.
The line in front and around the booth where his naughty poster was perched was at least twenty people deep. Apparently, Robby had fans that were as different as the dogs you'd find in a shelter. Fucking bitches. Each woman had the same expression on her face: slack jawed and bug-eyed. It looked like they thought he was the second coming or something. He was going to be some kind of coming later, and it wasn't going to be the sa
me way in which the kind they were referring to was spelled.
I forced myself to take a deep breath and parked myself at the booth across from Robby's so I could keep an eye on my raven-haired boyfriend. Boyfriend? Was that what he was? It was the wrong moment to deliberate what kind of wording could be used to describe the sex god standing across the walkway from me. He was already sitting down behind a table, signing away pictures or whatever the women were handing him. Possibly naked pictures of themselves, ugh.
The booth I was at had a large cross hanging from the curtain behind it and three pretty blondes smiled sweetly at me. They had pink shirts on with 'I Love Jesus' written across the front. "Hi!" one of them greeted me the moment she caught me looking at the cross.
"Hi," I responded, trying to smile just as warmly in return.
"I'm Bambi, and these are my soul sisters, Lady and Jasmine," she said, and immediately I frowned more at myself than at her. "Do you know Jesus?"
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