Tripp

by Irish Winters

  She arched her hips, meeting his gentle thrust. “I like that.”

  “See? No pain. You’re so ready for me. The wetter you are, the easier.”

  Her hips began to arch in rhythm with his thrusts. Each time he went in a little deeper. Each time she met him with more force. Tripp took over from there, easing in and out, giving her body time to acclimate to his girth. Watching pleasure replace the worry lines on her face. Looking down between her legs, he noticed everything.

  When she finally relaxed completely, his body turned into a giant, feral piston, striving to please her, pushing for more. Deeper. Then deeper still. Ashley growled, their mouths still sealed together, their tongues tangled and mated like their bodies. She was talking to him, saying something with her mouth full.

  He’d never felt anything so intense or this perfect before. Tripp tipped away from her pillowy breasts just enough to see her. “Yes, ma’am?” he huffed, his back already arched into another thrust.

  There were tears in her eyes. Man, he loved this woman. He was so screwed.

  “Do it,” she ordered, her bottom lip quivering. “I’m not going to break. Fuck me, Tripp. Harder.”

  Whoa. He never expected that word out of her mouth. Another side to this amazingly complex woman. Ordinarily, he’d get right to it. Never in his life had he refused an invitation like that. But he couldn’t. Not this time. He came to a full stop.

  Because this wasn’t just fucking. Something else was going on here, on this bed, in this rented room, with this woman. It was that something else most of the guys in Tripp’s office had with their wives. This was that forever thing he’d been resisting ever since he’d seen Ashley fighting for her life on the sidewalk just last Friday. This wasn’t another lookie-loo hook-up. This was that elusive, intangible more staring him in the face, daring him to get close enough to get burned. To finally invest in a life that mattered more than playing hero after dark.

  “Where’d you hear that dirty word?” he asked gently, his momentum blown and his wits scattered. Not that he hadn’t fucked plenty of times before. He had. But hearing it from her mouth…? Reducing what they were doing to—that? Somehow cheapened everything.

  She stilled. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No. Not you. But that word...” He didn’t dare repeat it. He wouldn’t give it power. “That’s not what we’re doing here tonight, Ashley. I hope you know that. That crap happens on TV, on all those bed-hopping soaps. That’s what shallow people do. They’re all cheaters, losers, and users. But us…” He let his words trail away, not quite ready to jump into forever. Yet there he lay, with a woman beneath him who meant more than any other he’d ever taken to bed. For the first time in his life, Tripp wasn’t sure what came next.

  He cleared his throat and told her to, “Look down between us. What do you see?”

  Ashley tucked her chin and did as he asked. It was so damned sweet the way she bit her bottom lip at the sight of his body sealed tightly inside hers. “Umm, us. We’re… together.”

  “We most certainly are.” Tenderness welled in his heart at her total lack of sophistication. Man, the world was a rank, dirty place, and he had no doubt she’d heard that word plenty growing up. So had he. But Ashley was everything that ugly word wasn’t. Even now, with her legs spread for him, with her breasts slightly chewed, her nipples definitely wet and well sucked, she was still pure and holy. She was light and love—everything he was not.

  “We’re making love, Ashley,” he told her, his voice gruff and his throat dry at the precipice he seemed to be standing on. “I’ve got to tell you, I’ve done the other enough to know that this…” He arched his hips into her. “This is honest to God the first time I’ve ever made love.”

  Yes, love, damn it. Tripp was as bad as Jameson, and he knew it. Falling in love at first sight. Thinking of forever after only knowing this woman a few days.

  Ashley blinked those big expressive blue eyes up at him. “I think you love me,” she whispered.

  Did he dare take that last step? “I think I want to get to know you better.”

  ‘Chicken shit,’ his heart whispered.

  ‘Fast thinking!’ his randy cock crowed. ‘Now get on with it.’

  So, he did. Like the big, mean guardian angel Ashley believed he was, Tripp gave her his all. He didn’t dare say the L word, but he proved it by taking her with soft, loving thrusts. For this very first time in her life, Tripp made the gentlest, truest love. He took her step by cautious step. Slow and easy. When at last she moaned his name and her legs stiffened…

  When her body quaked, and she scored his shoulder with her fingernails…

  When Ashley lay shattered in his hands, like the fragile piece of perfection that she was...

  Only then did Tripp close his eyes and allow his release to blow through his body. He didn’t chase it this time. Didn’t need to. Not with this woman. It just roared through him like a hurricane. Because Tripp was in love, and he damned well knew it.

  When the act of what was most definitely love, was complete… When he bowed his head to her sweaty forehead and breathed in the sweet, musky scent of their lovemaking, worshipping her, wanting her still… Tripp knew damned well that fucking could wait for their next go around. Maybe later. Maybe never. Because Tripp couldn’t imagine a time that he’d ever want to just fuck Ashley. Did. Not. Compute. He’d found her, and he would cherish her forever. Together or not, from this day forward, he’d find a way to watch over her. Somehow.

  Maybe he was the elusive guardian angel she thought he was. Maybe he wasn’t. A tear slipped out of the corner of his eye at the thought of giving her up, of letting her go. But that was what guardian angels did. They never hung around; they hovered, unseen, but always nearby. Close enough to rescue. Never intrusive, yet ever ready to protect and serve. In the shadows. Like him…

  Chapter Forty

  Ashley couldn’t believe she was crying. After that! After finally making the most beautiful love with her fierce guardian angel, she fell apart. Sticking her nose in his neck, she wrapped her arms around him and sobbed. Just sobbed. She’d never felt so treasured, nor so loved before in her life. So special. Like she was truly important. Like she meant something to him. So what if Tripp hadn’t said he loved her back. That wasn’t why she’d said it to him. There were no words to describe the depths her broken, battered heart had plummeted before she’d met this man. Just as there were no words for the soaring height her soul had reached now. She’d flown! Because of Tripp, she’d found heaven, and it was inside his arms and against his chest.

  Tripp rubbed his massive palms up and down her arms and waist, still holding her as if she were fragile, which, apparently, she was. How had he known that? At last, she swallowed her emotions, licked the tears off her lips, lifted her chin, and faced him.

  He bowed his head, looking down at her. In one swift rollover, he was on his back, her hands were on his chest, and her legs were splayed over his hips.

  “Hey,” he murmured, his deep voice rumbled through her tender, sensitized skin between them. Not one part of her wasn’t still singing. She’d become a bundle of live wires, his hands on her hips and his thumbs on her tummy the only things holding her together.

  Ashley half-murmured through her tears, half-choked at the mixed feelings pouring out of her. “You must think I’m crazy, crying like this.”

  Tripp had the best smile. When he was happy, it covered his entire body. Even his cock twitched between her legs.

  “Not at all. But I do think you’ve been holding a lot of hurt inside these past couple years. I know you said you’ve been to a counselor, but we’ve got a pretty neat lady at the office you could talk to. Her name’s McKenna, but we call her Doc Fitz. I talked with her a couple times when I first hired on. She’s Beau’s wife. You’d like her.”

  “I might do that.” Tipping forward, Ashley crossed her arms under her chin and flattened herself onto Tripp’s chest. A counselor w
as the last thing she wanted to talk about, but first… “Don’t think just because I said I love you that you—”

  “It’s only been a few days. I just need to—”

  “It’s okay if you don’t love me, Tripp,” she insisted. “That’s not what love is about. It doesn’t make demands, and it’s not quid pro quo. It just—” her shoulders lifted “—happens.”

  “Damn it, listen to me,” he growled. “You’re emotional right now. You’re overwhelmed. You don’t know what you’re saying. Besides, I’m not the marrying type, and you deserve someone better than me. But I—”

  “Who said anything about marriage?”

  He cupped his hands to both sides of her head and pulled her up his body, closer to his face. “Let me finish, woman,” he muttered, then kissed her and sucked the air out of the room. His was a kiss of fire and passion, a mind-melding clash of lips, tongues, and teeth. By the time Tripp finished devouring her tonsils, Ashley had forgotten her name. He ended the kiss by bumping his forehead to hers. “I want to see where this thing between us is going.”

  “Oh,” she squeaked breathily. “But you don’t have to. I mean, we only just met and—”

  “You really don’t know how to make friends, do you?”

  Friends. The word stung more than she expected. Was that all she was? His friend?

  “I… Me? No, I…” He’d flustered her with that one word. Ashley hadn’t wanted Tripp to feel pressured. She’d been trying to offer him a way out, but now that he’d taken the offer, was she just a friend with benefits?

  She gulped so hard that her swallow got stuck in her throat. Was he right? Did she know how to make friends? Short answer, not really. She’d closed down years ago, long before that creep had ever broken into her college apartment. With her mom’s transient lifestyle, she’d never lived in one place long enough to find or make real friends.

  One did not garner personal power or self-confidence from a childhood caught between a self-serving, narcissist father and a self-effacing mother. If one wasn’t badgering, bullying, and belittling his only child, the other was stuck in denial, always defending the man who’d never worked a day in his life. Ashley knew now that her parents were forever half of a nauseating, codependent whole. The false narrative she’d grown up with had left her confused and forever uncertain.

  Until she’d left home, Ashley had been batted back and forth like a badminton birdie, in a game she hadn’t been able to win. Simply because children didn’t understand their parents’ twisted, messed-up adult relationship rules. Ashley’s determination to leave home, to be independent, and to get away from her mother’s idea that self-martyrdom was any kind of happily-ever-after, had come crashing down the afternoon of Driscoll’s first assault.

  He hadn’t taken her virginity, but he’d surely taken her momentum, her freedom, and her dreams. He’d taken her tiny shred of self-esteem, which hadn’t been much. He’d stolen her confidence and, indirectly, her life.

  Was that her problem? Had she been so worried about her personal safety, that she’d never let anyone close enough to love her? Well, duh. Why go looking for more pain? Why not shut the hard world out and buy a bird who adored her? If she couldn’t make friends, how could she expect to keep a lover?

  Suddenly, Ashley was back at square one, on her way to a lifetime of cloistered anonymity, the invisibility enjoyed by victims the world over. Only… she knew better now. Driscoll hadn’t taken anything. Uh-uh. Just because her one and only role model, her mom, had turned victimhood into a fine art, that didn’t mean Ashley had to. Driscoll hadn’t stolen anything. Ashley had freely tossed her independence and confidence out the door with him when he’d run off that day. She’d made the choice, not him, and it had been the wrong choice. Safe? Yes, sort of. But not really. And it had been stifling the heck out of her ever since.

  All along, keeping safe had been an illusion. Safe wasn’t behind deadbolts or bigger locks. Driscoll had proven that. Safe was that cocky, brash something Tripp carried with him wherever he went. He cared about people enough to put himself in danger protecting fools like her. Safety was in being prepared, trained, and strong. In knowing who you were before you stepped off your doorstep each morning. In relying on yourself, instead of a stupid deadbolt.

  How pitiful she’d been, quivering behind black-out curtains like a scared rabbit in its hole. No. More. She, Ashley Cox, had challenged a serial killer with nothing more than her bird’s perch today, and by heck, she could do it again.

  Leaning his torso up into hers, Tripp pressed his warm lips to her forehead. “I’d like a year to date you, Ashley. A year to fall in love. If that’s what this feeling between us is, I want time to get it right.” He bumped his hips between her thighs.

  “Want to know what gave you away?” Ashley asked slyly, needing him to back off the love train and focus on something else.

  “Gave me away?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.” She dropped a big wet kiss on his mouth, ending it by nipping his bottom lip. “You’re my angel. You can’t fool me.”

  “Trust me, I’m no angel.”

  “Yes, you are.” Ashley shook her head, denying his denial, as she tossed her hair over his face. “You bite your bottom lip just like he did. You’d smeared grease paint on your face and neck, and you wore a black beanie to conceal your hair. But it was you. I’d know your voice anywhere.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him short. “Never mind. I want you to teach me how to shoot and defend myself. I’d like to know my way around guns, and I want a conceal carry permit. Could you teach me parkour? That’s what those bars on the walls and ceiling in your extra bedroom are for, right?”

  “I intended teaching you to shoot,” he muttered quietly. “But those bars are for pull-ups, not parkour. There’s a good parkour course at work. Jameson would be a better teacher for that.”

  “I think I’d like to learn how to box, too. Zack said he’d teach me.”

  Tripp trailed the back of his fingers down the side of her face, then traced the pad of his thumb over her lips. His eyes had gone dark emerald. The barest tip of his tongue peeked over his bottom lip. “You don’t have to do everything at once, you know.”

  “No, but I have to do something. Hiding sure hasn’t helped me, has it?” Her poor heart fluttered with hope, followed by the tiniest frisson of dread. Tripp was going to do it. Say it. He was going to tell her he loved her.

  Instead… “I need to run over to the hospital,” murmured out of his mouth. “Come with me?”

  “Umm, yeah. S-sure,” Ashley stuttered like the disappointed star struck fool she was.

  Was this how it started? That thing called codependence? With her needing more than he would ever be able to give? Was she falling for a guy who was more like her father than she’d thought? Was she more like her mom than she’d dreamed?

  But she wanted to meet Tripp’s mother. So, Ashley nodded, swallowed hard, and shoved her needs back and away, down where they apparently belonged. They’d certainly lingered there long enough, like all of her adult life. Ha. What a joke. She wasn’t an adult. She was just her mother’s daughter.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Tripp tucked his wrinkled shirt into his wrinkled pants. He’d showered alone, which he hadn’t expected, not after making love the way he and Ashley had. She’d gotten quiet and had politely declined his invitation to join him.

  But what the hell could she expect? Him to declare undying love after knowing her less than a week? Sure, there was a definite physical attraction between them, a powerful magnetism he couldn’t deny. But adrenaline was a potent aphrodisiac. It messed with people’s heads and their hearts. Everyone knew that, and this had been a week full of some hellacious adrenaline spikes. He hadn’t been thinking any clearer than she had. So what if he’d come close to saying the L word? Not that he didn’t love Ashley. Tripp knew damned well that he did. But he wasn’t the right man for her. From
the first moment he’d seen Ashley, he’d known she was an angel, that he’d always be the sinner. When it came down to it, he loved her enough to let her go.

  As if things weren’t strained enough between them, someone had posted a video to YouTube. Since it claimed to have been taken in Alexandria, the local news stations were airing it. Wasn’t that just special? The poorly shot clip of him had already garnered thousands of views and comments. Also, a terse invite to the inner sanctum of Alex Stewart’s office, first thing come morning. That ought to be fun.

  Ashley sat at the end of the bed, staring at the TV on the credenza across from her, watching the grainy image of an unidentified man dressed in black defending a homeless Vietnam War vet over the weekend. Tripp watched himself toss those two punks into the Potomac again, like the garbage they were. He was proud of what he’d done. Those kids deserved what they’d gotten, and the old guy they’d slapped and kicked around, deserved a helluva lot more than just one night in a homeless shelter. But he’d been thankful for the assist. Grumpy, but thankful.

  That was what kept Tripp on the streets after dark, grumpy old men and stupid young guys. Women who thought they were safe when they weren’t. Honest hard-working people who’d lost track of time and stayed too late at work.

  His glance strayed to Ashley. She’d popped in and out of the shower after he’d finished in the bathroom. Her wet hair was now braided and curled into a shiny, tight knot at the back of her neck. She was back in jeans and her light gray Henley. His jacket lay like the child of divorced parents, bereft on the bed between them.

  “Would you like to stop and grab something new to wear before we go see Mom?”

  She shook her head. “No thanks. I don’t have any cash with me. It’s in my bag, and my bag is…”

  Still at his place. “No worries. My treat.” Knowing her need to be in control, he back-pedaled on that offer. “Or you can pay me back.”