by Melissa Blue
“Pearson, you’re killing me.”
“Side product, but pleasing nonetheless.” She wiggled her ass as best she could while lying on her side.
His groan made her smile. His cock nudged at her entrance. This wasn’t something more than sweat and come. He’d put on a condom. Goose bumps pricked her skin, but her heart still ached.
“I’m waiting for this incredible experience I’m supposed to thank you for.”
“I’ve turned you into a monster.” His fingers dug into her inner thigh. “I shouldn’t like it.”
The tip of his dick prodded her soaking pussy. Her lower lips parted for him and suckled him, until his next thrust drove him farther. The first stroke never stopped making her nipples tingle and then bead. The thrill worked its way down to her toes. How could her chest not constrict?
She’d started to sweat and his stomach joined the skin of her back. Was it kinky to like the feel of him slicked from her skin? Did it cross a line to crave the way his hips worked behind her?
She didn’t care. His being inside her was enough. The feel of his cock gliding in and out, spreading her, stroking her, built up her next orgasm. She gripped him. Her nails dug into his thigh. When had she grasped hold of him to keep him buried deep? She panted, her vision blurring. Keri tilted her head back, her moans rumbling in her chest and spilling out of her throat.
His hand suddenly clamped around her neck. His roughed palm held her in his grasp, captive to the thrust of his hips, his teeth grazing her ear and his breath shuddering out. Her climax slammed into her and wrenched out a scream as her pussy spasmed around him.
He cursed. She was lost in the ecstasy that drew her undertow. She bit into the pillow, his fingernails scraping against the line of her neck as he let out his own shout of bliss. She melted into the bed, him, and tried to fight off sleep. Not tonight. She wouldn’t lie to herself and think they had more than one more day. The man had itchy feet for any kind of commitment.
“Don’t fall asleep,” he said tiredly. Pulling out of her, he released the hold on her neck and then shifted Keri under him. “Don’t. We’re not done yet.”
She fought against the weights trying to keep her lids closed. She met his gaze. A hit to her gut pushed out a gasp. What she thought she saw woke her like a jolt of caffeine. The emotions swirling in his gray-blue eyes whispered words like I need you, I need this, stay with me—intimacy.
Keri tried to force herself to look away and deny what he secretly asked for, but one more day didn’t feel enough to have all the sex they could have. They shared hurts and that didn’t matter. His skin slicked from her sex did matter. His gaze…she ignored, filed it away for months later when he became a wonderful, cherished memory.
She brushed her fingertips across his lips. “Kiss me.” She demanded what she wanted loud and clear. No shame.
He smiled, resting his head on hers. “You haven’t said thank you yet.”
She breathed in the scent of their sex, thick in the air. “Well, when you earn it, I’ll say it.”
“I shouldn’t like that,” he murmured and then kissed her deeply.
*****
An hour later, Tristan ran his hands over her hips. Lush. Every part of her. Right now, as she panted, she was his. He could revel in the way her skin brushed against his fingertips. He didn’t want to possess her, but there was a comfort in knowing in this moment she’d chose him. She smelled of him.
What he wanted more than anything was for this to be real. For this to last well past when she woke up the next morning. He wanted to always have her legs entangled with his when he woke up. He wanted her to be the one he confessed to. And she’d be the one who didn’t leave him.
But that wasn’t what they were. He tugged on her bottom lip, introducing a bite of pain to her pleasure. Listening, always listening to her body. He reached down between them and spread the folds of her sex. Wet and ready for him again.
She turned her head. “Tristan?”
“Yes.”
She blinked and laughed. “No. Aye.”
He feathered a kiss on her brow. “Aye?”
She balled her hand in his hair. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him closer. “What do you whisper?”
He knew she meant what was the one thing he was scared of asking for. He’d done plenty of things, but none with his heart. None, never with a woman who made his heart pound with just the way she smiled at him.
He cradled her face in his hands. Everything about her was his whisper and he brushed his lips over hers.
“Kiss me,” he said.
See me.
“Touch me.”
Accept me, all of me.
“Give me your everything.”
Love me.
She gasped. “Thank you,” she murmured.
Her fist tightened and she pulled him down to her mouth. He still couldn’t suss out her taste, but that didn’t matter, because she was kissing him and he could taste the salt of her tears at his answer. She was giving her everything in that one simple gesture. He held her tighter. She was real and his for the moment. That was good enough.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tristan wanted to smile down at Keri. She continued her failed attempts with his tie. She needed an excuse to touch him while clothed. Since he decided his heart could go a few more hours without full blood flow, he gave her one. And he shouldn’t have.
“Shouldn’t” became a caveat with his every thought since the night before. He shouldn’t run his hand over her hair while she slept. He shouldn’t kiss her awake so they could go another round. He shouldn’t act like they had all the time in the world.
The borrowed ring she wore glinted in the artificial light, reminding him why they didn’t. No matter how much their hotel room had become a haven, how four walls shut out the world, it wasn’t real. He could pretend all he wanted the past didn’t exist, but it ate at his gut with each passing moment he reveled in.
He grasped her wrists to still her movements. She met his gaze and the smile she wore died away. He could live out this charade. The coward in him wanted to, but he’d promised himself he’d never lie to another woman about what he was. He made vows he’d broken to help his brother. How could he have ever imagined Keri would turn into this ache in his heart? He couldn’t have. How could he have dreamed of this? He wasn’t the kind of man who deserved to have a woman like her fixing his tie. So how could he have ever foreseen her walking into his life?
“What is it?” she asked, running her hands down his chest. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing.”
She was trying to comfort him and that twisted in his gut. “Let it go, Keri. We have a dinner to go to.”
Anger darkened her gaze. “No. You’ve had that expression all day and I’ve ignored it. Tell me. Whatever it is, just tell me to get it over with.”
He brushed his finger over her lips because soon she wouldn’t want him to touch her. “My brother calls me a dick for a reason.”
Her gaze shuttered. She was bracing herself for what he had to say next. She couldn’t possibly know, but his tone wasn’t flirtatious or teasing. “I thought we’d gone over this already,” she said.
She’d adorned her ears with dangling clip-ons. After they’d been invited to a dinner at a posh banquet, they’d gone shopping. Currently out of work, she couldn’t afford it. He footed the bill. A gesture that… Fuck. Fuck. He didn’t want to hurt her or tell her the hard truth about him, but she had to know all his ugly, because despite his warning, she trusted him. He could feel it in the way she leaned into him as he cupped her face. Her earrings bit into his palm. Tristan let go of any hope she’d look past his ugly. No one ever did.
“When I first started to con, I did it to help feed my family, and then I did it because I was good.”
He gauged her reaction. She didn’t look disgusted yet, but she would. And then what? His heart felt sick. “My specialty was bilking women. I knew the right words to say because after I sent my moth
er on her way, I made it my life’s calling to understand women.”
He dropped his hands; she hadn’t noticed what he’d done. His stomach tightened. “Rich and lonely divorcees were the best marks. I’d sweet talk them and fuck them and make them mine.”
She jolted back. “What?”
He opened his hands. Her earrings sat in his palms. “If they noticed what I was doing, they never said. It was almost like a silent arrangement between us. I’d make them feel good, beautiful, desirable, and they’d ignore all the red flags about me. Or maybe they just never noticed what I was doing. They never suspected me because I made them feel good, beautiful and desirable.” He tossed the baubles on the bed and stepped forward. “No amount of reform can take back that’s what I used to do.”
Whatever soft and appealing gaze she held whenever she looked at him died and would never come back. He could leave and she wouldn’t hurt over it, because he’d already broken the fragility of what they had. “So, lass, I may be a decent enough human now, but I wasn’t always.”
“I got it the first time.” Her voice didn’t waver, but her eyes had a glassy sheen. “Maybe I’m not the one who needed reminding.”
“There’s never a moment I can forget.” He glanced down at her hand and sighed. “You’re wearing my reminder.”
She glanced down at the ring. “Had a feeling it was real. Who did you buy it for?” She laughed and shook her head. “Who did you steal it from?”
She wasn’t running and the tightness in his stomach eased. Maybe she’d stay. Maybe she’d be the first to. “Serena, my last mark, gave it to me. Like I told you, I got sloppy. I got caught. Ian talked her out of pressing charges.”
Confusion wrinkled her brow. “Why would she give you a ring?”
“I got sloppy because I started to care for her.” A few years older than him, she was bold, vivacious but lonely. She wanted a boy toy and he happily obliged. Any other time he’d have smiled at the memory of her, because she was the woman who made him change. But his heart twisted at the expression on Keri’s face.
“She wanted me to give it to the woman who I’d want to be an honest man for. A woman who I’d take care of, protect and treat the way I treated her, but for real and with all my heart.”
She nodded. “Who gave it to her?”
He blew out a breath. “She was a widow.”
“And you gave it to me to pull off a con?” Her eyes widened and she took a step back. “If you truly wanted to change, you’d have never given this to me.”
Tristan flinched. He hadn’t given it to her because he never wanted to change, but that he never believed he could. He’d never fathomed it was possible he could ever be or want to be a better man. Not until now, until her. He nodded. “Because I’m not capable of change.”
From the horrified expression on her face, she probably wanted to walk out the room, not bothering to take her clothes. She swallowed. “We should go or we’ll be late.”
“Keri?”
She bypassed him to pick up her earrings off the bed as though their conversation had never happened. She clipped on the left one but faced him. “Yes?”
“You’re fine with what I just said to you?” he asked, incredulous.
“One more day and you’ll fulfill your duty to Ian. I’ll get his reference, on top of adding what I did yesterday to my résumé. And you had…fun with me.”
“Had fun with you?” Tristan started to say more but clamped his mouth shut.
He had no right to get pissed about the way she was handling his confession. He could despair about the fact she’d gone cold on him. But he couldn’t tell her she was wrong, to get past it, because that was the one thing he liked about her the most. She gave him honesty, even when it was the last thing he wanted. He tried not to ache at the way she’d filed him away.
But isn’t that what you expected?
Maybe she needed time to stop looking at him in a way that twisted his gut. He couldn’t choose how she reacted to the truth or how long it took for her to swallow the sharp edges down. She still hadn’t answered his question. Time. He could give her that to sift through what she thought were lies. He couldn’t have let her keep looking at him with such emotion without being honest. He could give her the truth and time because there was nothing more he could give.
Keri picked up her mobile from the dresser. Her hand trembled, but she hid the action by gripping it. Fuck. He glanced away, his skin tight from holding himself in place.
A jazz melody suddenly filled the silence. “It’s Jocelyn’s ringtone,” she said. “Excuse me.” Her red dress fluttered as she escaped to the bathroom. She didn’t slam the door but might as well have.
He focused on his tie because that was something he could fix. He’d told her the truth. He’d hoped—didn’t matter now. She deserved better. Maybe at one time he deserved better too, but he’d… That had been so long ago, back when he was a different boy, not even a man yet.
He glanced at the bathroom door. Keri had every right to feel what she felt, even if it killed him. He had no one else to blame.
*****
Keri had to stop pretending. Did he see through it? Was that why he’d pounded into her that he’d leave, that he wasn’t the man who’d soothed her, sexed her and just been the kind of man she hadn’t known she wanted?
He’d bilked women. How exactly should she respond to that? He made her toes curl, her heart flutter, made her giggle and come her brains out…because he’d learned those same traits to con women? Was she easy practice?
She slumped to the floor in her knee-length dress and tried to get her head to stop spinning. She didn’t feel conned, but that was how every mark must have felt. She glanced at the ring on her finger. The woman, Serena, had given up a three-carat ring with a con man’s promise he’d give it to the woman he fell in love with. Keri slipped it off and let it clatter onto the bathroom floor.
He must have been one hell of a criminal.
Tristan made women love him. Despite all the possible red flags, their safeguards, friends and likely family…he made them love him. They handed over their deceased husband’s rings because deep down they still believed a man who bilked women could be capable of love.
She’d thought him capable of anything, but hadn’t imagined something like this. She pressed a fist to her chest. A sob had curled there and made a home. The unbidden sorrow clawed at her. The whole time she’d told herself everything with them was real. He hadn’t touched, kissed her, to get Jocelyn and Ian their home. He hadn’t made sure her giggles, her blushes, were for show. He hadn’t seduced her inside and out to make sure behind closed doors and in front of audiences she acted like what he needed.
But he was the pro. What better way to get the amateur to do exactly what he wanted than to make her head over heels for him?
No. He hadn’t done that. Had he? No. She repeated that and some small part of her couldn’t believe it. That small part sounded like logic, because wasn’t she defective? What man could care for a woman who muttered about mammary glands during foreplay? She was odd and awkward and pretending to be vivacious, smart-mouthed and beautiful. He couldn’t care for the real her. A man who was a people person in his sleep couldn’t give a shit about someone who got nervous in a crowd of three.
She scrubbed her hands over her face, likely ruining her makeup, but that she could fix. She had to pull it together. Keri would have to face him again. She had to act like his confession didn’t kill a piece of her newfound confidence. She had to act like they were nothing but sex and a short-lived thing. And last night hadn’t felt right, so right it shook her bones.
She picked up the ring but wasn’t ready to put it back on. She stood, calling on every single reserve she had. Facing herself in the mirror, she detailed the damage. Didn’t take long to fix the tear smears she’d left in her makeup. She wouldn’t cry again and ruin it. There was no reason to. Logic told her so. Her heart was an organ. It could only feel physical pain. A heart pump
ed blood, not emotion.
Maybe ten minutes had passed, but she’d detailed all the parts of a heart and only had to fix her makeup once more. But she pulled herself together. Enough so that she could put the ring back on. Now knowing without a doubt it was real, she could see the princess cut had such clarity.
Capable.
She just wasn’t ready to consider the possibility that he was capable of real emotions, at least with her. She felt too raw, too stupid to have not known he bilked woman as his specialty. How else could he have known her every desire, how to touch her, kiss her? She was smart in an intellectual way, but how dumb was she to blithely ignore his warnings about being a shite of a man? Because he had told her more than once that he was a man who shouldn’t be trusted.
Hell, he’d told her outright he was a con man. Did she take a pause? Did she think, for even a moment, that maybe what they had was real? Yes, but she skipped right past that and imagined he’d— Keri exhaled and slipped out of the bathroom. He’d finished dressing. Concern pulled his mouth into a tight line.
Was it real?
“What did Jocelyn need?” he asked.
The lie sprang to her lips. She’d only pressed a button on her phone to make it ring. “The lab results. I’ve sent them off, but she wanted details.”
He sighed, stuffed his hands into the slacks’ pockets. His shoulders bunched high, but he didn’t push. “I’ll get us out of the dinner in under an hour.”
And then they’d go their separate ways. She couldn’t sleep in the same bed with him tonight. Not like she had the days before. His touching her made her stomach ache. Her brain told her to reject any caress, but her body continued to hunger for his touch. Prolonging their goodbye wouldn’t make his actions any clearer or easier to understand.
“Let’s get to the dinner, then,” she said.
He gestured to the door and sighed. “Ladies first.”