I run my thumb in another circle as I release her nipple, and bring my lips back up to whisper along her ear. “Please what, mo chuisle?”
She rises up on her tiptoes, trying to escape my probing fingers. “It’s, I can’t, oh, God.” Her head slumps forward and back again as I add a second finger, moving them inside of her, as I continue to run my thumb along her clit, and bite gently on her ear.
“Please what, mo chuisle?” I ask again, but she just shakes her head in response.
She’s close. Her face gives her away, and everything inside of me wants to push her over that edge. To watch the ecstasy steal across her face. It’s so very rare to see her with her guard down, but at this moment I know the walls have dropped.
So I do too. I drop back to my knees, pulling at her sweats as I go. I inhale her scent, the soft, sweet smell of peaches, mixed in with the heady scent of her arousal. I nudge her knees apart with my shoulders, then slide my fingers back inside of her as I simultaneously lick the crease of her right thigh. She purrs like a fucking kitten, so I move to the other side and move my tongue across the soft skin I find there.
It’s only when her entire body starts to shake, and her hands sink into my hair, that I move my mouth over her clit, licking it once, twice, three times before settling my mouth fully over it and sucking hard.
It doesn’t take long before she’s erupting in my mouth like a fucking volcano. Listening to her cry out my name as she comes, makes me feeling about twenty feet tall. I lick my lips as I lean back and then push back to my feet.
Tristan has basically melted into the door. I’m pretty sure it’s the only fucking thing holding her upright. With a grin, I pull her sweats back into place and then her bra and shirt before leaning down to drop a quick kiss on her lips. She’s still in a daze when I reach down to grab all the bags she’d dropped earlier.
“Hope you didn’t have anything breakable in here.”
She blinks. “Fuck me.”
“That”—I tell her with a grin—“we don’t have time for.”
“I had eggs in the bags. Dammit. I hope they aren’t all broken.” She pushes off the door, reaching for me, but I move neatly out of reach. “Owen.” She manages to get a hand on my arm, pulling me back toward her.
“We don’t have enough time for everything I want to do to you. To do with you,” I tell her softly. “Later, we’ll make time. For now, let’s go see if your eggs are broken or not.”
She snorts. “How do you make the smallest things sound dirty?”
“It’s a gift.” I set the bags on the counter and start pulling out the contents. I find the eggs quickly, popping them open before letting her know that only three appeared to have broken in their fall. I think she’ll agree with me that it was totally worth it. “Do you still have enough for whatever you need?”
“I should.” She runs a quick hand down along the tail of her hair. “I should have run through the menu with you before I went shopping this morning, but I was kind of excited about cooking. I don’t cook like this very often.”
“Mo chuisle.” I wrap my hands around her waist and pull her against me. “We aren’t picky. You could have picked up a couple of trays at the grocery store, and we’d have been all right.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before I went shopping?” She wiggles out of my grasp, grabbing a large package of ground beef. “I need a skillet and a slow cooker for the meatballs. I should have brought mine because I’ll probably need multiple slow cookers since I’m making sloppy Joes, as well. I didn’t think about that.” She’s studying the kitchen counter like whatever it is she’s looking for is going to magically appear.
I just stare at her blankly. “What the hell is a slow cooker?”
Laughter tumbles out of her but stops short when she looks at me and sees I’m serious. I shake my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Tristan, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have whatever it is you’re looking for. But Roe will. I’ll get you the skillet and then go bug her. Want me to stop at your place and pick up yours?” I move to the back door while I talk, opening it up and whistling for Huck. I can drop him off with Roe and Stella, which will delight the dog and the little girl to no end. The lab runs into the house, takes his usual tour of the kitchen, around the island and the table, before stopping to sniff at Tristan and then heads straight for the front door. This is the new part of his routine. The one I had mentioned to Tristan the other day. He would start to whimper in a minute, anxious to go out and see if Stella was home. I’d never seen a dog as in love with a human as my dog with Stella.
“That would be great, thanks.” She releases her hair, the loose curls cascading down around her shoulders, and I shift my weight in a feeble attempt to get more comfortable from my growing hard-on. I was already hard and aching from earlier, but I was honest when I told her there wasn’t enough time for what I wanted from her. Getting her off would have to be enough for now. It just didn’t make the perpetual hard-on I had around her any better. In fact, it really made it fucking worse.
Time to get out of the kitchen before I forgot that in a few hours my house would be overrun by family and friends.
“Okay, I’ll be back soon.” She’s too busy tying her hair back up in some loose knot on top of her head, shoving impatiently at the strands that automatically fall from the hairband to frame her face and neck. It strikes me then, just how beautiful Tristan Maddox really is, and how utterly clueless she is about it. I’ve rarely seen her in more than jeans and loose shirts, her scrubs, or a pair of sweats, but even dressed down she’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen, like physically-take-my-breath away beautiful.
She waves her hand absently in my direction, letting me know she’s heard me say I’m leaving, but she’s already started cooking up the ground beef, so I head out the front door, making quick work of crossing the distance between my yard and Roe’s. Roe has her front door open, which doesn’t surprise, nor impress me.
I don’t hear her or Stella in the house, so Huck and I meander our way through to the back door. A quick glance out the window shows Stella racing around the yard in circles, chasing bubbles from the bubble machine my mother had insisted on sending home with her last night.
Stella already has both of my parents wrapped around her little finger without even trying. My mother warned me last night that I needed to make sure I didn’t screw this up. I think she was hinting that if I did manage to fuck it up somehow that she was going to be on Tristan, and therefore Stella’s side.
I watch the little girl run around for a second. She looks so much like Tristan that it’s almost like Trevor wasn’t involved in making her. I’ve tried not to think about Tristan’s relationship with Trevor Clemmens. I remind myself that it’s stupid to be jealous of a dead man. Trevor gave the ultimate sacrifice, and I’m pissed that he had Tristan before me. It makes me feel like a jackass. Without Trevor, there would have been no Stella, and based on the little that Tristan has told me, Stella is the reason she chose to move to Broward. I am a firm believer in “everything happens for a reason,” and I know that Tristan had to go through losing Trevor and having Stella, to get her to me, but it doesn’t make thinking about her with another man any easier.