All right, they’d work on that later. Tristan flipped over his legs and rolled to the other side of the bed, turning off that lamp, too.

  Darkness dropped into the room, and the only illumination was a trail of moonlight leading to a crescent on the waves outside and far below.

  He scrambled back to her, whispering in her ear, “Jian is in the next bedroom. Are you sure you don’t want to take this back to your room?”

  Her curls slid along his fingers as she shook her head, and she said, “I might lose my nerve on the way, and I don’t want to lose my nerve.”

  “Then you’ll have to be quiet, or else we’ll scandalize him.”

  “I will,” she said, and then her lips found his throat and slid down to his collarbone, her breath trickling inside the collar of his shirt.

  Tristan was going to have a hard time staying quiet, and that headboard had looked like it might not be firmly attached to the wall and might wobble.

  He ducked, caught her mouth with his, and dragged her up with him. Every tiny gasp and hum from her sparked his desire, and covetous energy swept through him.

  Roses and vanilla perfumed her skin, and the fragile cotton of her shirt slid upward against her skin under his palms. His hands drifted lower, searching for the bare skin of her back under the fabric.

  He wrapped his arms around her body, feeling the womanly softness pressed against his chest and his groin. When his hands found her shirt’s hem and sneaked inside to caress the skin over her lower ribs and spine, he felt her breath suck in against his mouth.

  Every inch of his skin desired her. He was already ravenous to know what her body felt like when it was wrapped around his.

  Her delicate fingers picked at the buttons of his shirt, and he forced himself to be still while she undressed him, quelling the urge to grab both sides of his shirt front and rip it open. Instead, his hands roamed her body, tracing her hourglass shape and squeezing the luscious rounds of her ass.

  Finally, she’d gotten three of them unbuttoned, so he dragged his shirt out of his trousers, reached over his head, and pulled his shirt and undershirt over his head with one motion.

  Even while he fought his way out of the dress shirt and threw it on the floor, her cool hands slipped up his chest, her fingers and palms rubbing up over the sensitive circles of his nipples, over his shoulders, and down his biceps.

  Tristan could barely keep his breath as her fingers trailed over the ripples of his abs.

  Her hands went to his waist. One stroked his dick through his pants while her other began fumbling with his belt.

  Oh, this girl was fire. God, he wished they were alone in a house in the woods where no one would hear them so he could ravage her like she deserved.

  Instead, he stripped those light cotton clothes off her and felt his way around her body, lightly pinching and rubbing anything that felt like a peak or a hollow.

  When she’d unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his trousers, pushing at the fabric around his hips, he stepped off the bed to shove them the rest of the way off but kissed her lips and her neck the whole time. He shoved her backward into the pillows and chased her down with his mouth, sucking and laving every bit of her skin. When she hummed in her throat as his tongue found a particular place, he concentrated on that, allowing his hands to explore the rest of her until she hummed with pleasure again, and he traded his fingers for tongue.

  She was rising under him, her fingers in his hair and her breath gasping as her breasts rose in his mouth when his fingers found the wet heat between her legs, and her whole body practically came off the bed.

  He wiggled down the mattress and shoved her thighs up, bending her knees and folding her in half to expose every inch of her cleft, from the hard nub under her skin at the top to the recess that he worked his fingers into and stroked from inside.

  Her breathing became harsh in her throat, and her fingernails bit his shoulders. Within seconds, she was pulling on his arms, whispering, “Now, please now.”

  Tristan crawled up her body, slapping his hand at the nightstand where the condoms were and catching one. He ripped the packet open with his teeth, and his fingertips knew exactly which side was correct as he touched it to the head of his cock and rubbed the sheath onto himself down to the base.

  “I put on the condom,” he whispered in her ear and held the tip of himself against her.

  “Yes, please,” she whispered, her voice gravelly in her throat.

  His head spun with desire. He could make her say that all night and never tire of it.

  Tristan pressed into her slowly, holding himself on his arms above her as he pulsed, listening to her breathing to see if she could take the whole thing. There were hitches in her inhales, but her hips were moving under him as he rocked forward. After an eternity of holding back, his hips nestled into hers.

  “Oh, wow,” Colleen whispered, holding her breath at the end like she was afraid to move.

  Tristan stilled, letting her get used to the feel of him. He was six-four. Things were proportional.

  Her body began to relax around him, and that was when he started to move, pressing and grinding at the top. Her breaths became deeper, and her hips moved with him. Her back arched underneath him.

  “Hang on,” he whispered, and pressed her knee down to lie flat as he rolled her over so that she was on top of him.

  “Oh!” she gasped as her hips settled back. “Where do I put my hands like this?”

  The part of him that liked a woman who was his little was awake. “Anywhere. You can do anything. Some women like to brace their hands on my shoulders, but you also might want to lean back and hold onto my thighs.”

  Damn, he wished the lights were on. He loved seeing a woman arching backward, her body sheathing over his dick as she moved. Someday.

  Her fingers touched his shoulders, and then her hands gripped them as she pushed herself backward and impaled herself on his swollen cock.

  The urge to shove her hips down on himself and surge up into her took hold of him, but he gritted his teeth and just held her hips in his hands, guiding her as she slid up and down his shaft.

  Every movement was torture and ecstasy. Holding himself back from stabbing up into her in search of his release took every ounce of his energy, and he broke a sweat as she explored what it felt like to ride up and down his cock.

  Her breath came faster.

  Her body moved quicker.

  When she was fully on him, his erection inside her, he pressed down on her hips and rocked her, tilting his hips to rub where he’d been sucking on her clit.

  Her breath caught in her throat with each stroke, and her hands tightened on his shoulders as she rode him faster, until her body snapped upward like a whip and she gasped, the tiniest cries escaping from her mouth.

  And she throbbed. Her whole body pulsed on his cock.

  He grabbed her hips, shoving her body down on him as he jabbed upward, only a few more strokes until his balls clenched and the wave of bliss swept through him, blasting the thoughts from his head.

  As the world came back into focus, he was gasping, and she was a limp ragdoll lying on his chest, whimpering.

  He whispered, “Did I hurt you?”

  She rolled her forehead back and forth on his chest, shaking her head no. “Other than I thought I was going to die.”

  “I think I did.” He took a few breaths, but he felt his dick beginning to soften and grabbed the base to hold the condom on. “Time to move off.”

  She did, and he got rid of the condom in the trashcan he knew was beside the bed. He was just reaching for the lamp when she said, “Don’t turn it on yet. It’s almost like a dream, here in the dark. Don’t end it quite yet.”

  So he rolled back into the bed and tucked them both under the covers, spooning around her from behind and wrapping every bit of his body around her that he could.

  She snuggled down with him and sighed.

  He hadn’t meant to drift off, but he’d had a long day.

  Sunlight streaming through the windows and off the ocean woke Tristan the next morning. He was alone in the bed, sated, sticky, and guilty as hell.

  He needed to end his correspondence with QueenMod that day.

  10

  Can We Speak?

  Colleen

  The next morning, Colleen awoke in her hotel room, a small suite with a bedroom, living room, and wet bar area. It was the first hotel room she’d ever stayed in, and she suspected she was now spoiled. As a kid, her parents had taken them to the annual campground family reunion up at Big Lake or, twice, a car trip to visit relatives in Gila Bend where she slept on their floor.

  She stretched in the luxurious, enormous king-size bed that felt like she was sleeping on a plush football field.

  Her phone buzzed on the nightstand with an incoming message.

  When she picked it up, several notification boxes scrolled down the front of it.

  Five were from Anjali, asking, pleading, and then demanding to know if Colleen was all right because she hadn’t heard from her since eleven the previous night.

  It was only seven in the morning, but the most recent message was Anjali freaking out that she’d turned into her Indian mother, but she needed to know where the HELL Colleen was RIGHT NOW.

  Colleen called Anjali back and mollified her with pictures of the hotel room and the view of the corrugated Pacific Ocean from the balcony outside.

  “Do you need an assistant?” Anjali asked, and they laughed and hung up.

  Most of her other notifications were requests for a moderator’s backup from the Sherwood Forest forums, and then notifications saying that somebody else had already taken care of it.

  She was sore between her legs from the previous night with Tristan, a guilty pleasure.

  The bruise on the inside of her thigh, where she’d pinched herself in punishment at TwistyTrader’s command, also hurt, and the dotted lines from his teeth and the suction he’d applied to mark her were also tender.

  That was why she hadn’t wanted the light on with Tristan the night before, not when she had a thigh hickey from some other guy right next to her flaps. It was just too embarrassing.

  Not to mention the very faint welts on her ass and the backs of her thighs. Even the next day, only faint pink lines had marred her skin, but she hadn’t wanted to explain them, either, if he had noticed.

  And speaking of welts, bruises, and hickeys, the last message on her phone had arrived only fifteen minutes before she’d awakened. Twist the TwistyTrader had sent a message asking, Can we speak?

  Dizziness shook her, and for a moment she thought there’d been a small earthquake. After all, they were in California.

  However, the curtains surrounding the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony were not swaying.

  Must just be devastating guilt.

  Not that Colleen had any reason to feel guilty. When she’d met Twist at the Devilhouse, they’d both agreed it was a one-time deal. He’d even said that he was probably not going to come back to the United States for a long time, and she knew there was no way she was going to get to Europe, probably ever.

  Although his dirty texts had been fun, they didn’t constitute a relationship, as he’d even said.

  And so she shouldn’t feel guilty.

  And yet, she felt as if that earthquake had caved in the ceiling and she was being crushed.

  Colleen typed back, Yeah, we need to talk. I’m kind of busy right now for a few hours. I don’t know what continent you’re on, so I don’t know what time zone you’re in. Maybe we can talk tonight, Mountain Time?

  And with that, Colleen swiped out the direct messaging app and turned off notifications because she was sure she would have a busy day. Tristan had told her to be in his suite by eight o’clock that morning, so she had just under an hour to shower and slap some makeup on her face before she had to present herself.

  Boinking him last night probably hadn’t changed their schedule for the day.

  Colleen rapped on the door to Tristan’s suite with two minutes to spare, her backpack with her computer slung over her shoulder.

  Jian opened it immediately. “You’re expected.”

  His solemn face gave nothing away, so he must have either not heard them the night before or he was supremely pissed at her for scruffing his boss.

  When she entered the penthouse suite, Tristan was standing near the windows, talking on the phone. His suit jacket hung over the back of one of the chairs, and his white dress shirt was open at the collar, exposing his throat where she’d kissed him last night.

  Her skin warmed under her clothes.

  He saluted her with the coffee cup he held in his other hand and continued talking.

  Jian asked her, “Have you had breakfast? I ordered enough for all of us.”

  Tristan called across the room to her, “Good morning!” as he lowered his phone and returned to the dining room where a large breakfast, enough for Colleen and all her siblings, was laid out on the table. “Ah, good. You brought your laptop. We got the usual danishes, scrambled eggs, and fruit, but you should let Jian know if you want anything else.”

  Colleen sat at one of the place settings and forked two danishes, grabbed a heap of strawberries, and spooned several cups of scrambled eggs onto her plate. “There’s so much! I don’t know how we’re going to eat all this.”

  Tristan waved his hand over it. “It’s just here if you want it.”

  She glanced at Jian, who shrugged.

  Okay, rich people wasted food. That probably wasn’t surprising. Colleen began eating because they had to leave soon.

  Tristan’s phone rang again, and he stepped away to answer it.

  When she flipped over her coffee cup on its saucer and started to reach for the coffee carafe, Tristan waved his hand and held up a finger. Though he was reciting numbers the whole time into his phone, he walked over to a catering cart Colleen hadn’t even noticed, retrieved a tall paper cup with a lid, and set it in front of her with a wink.

  She sniffed the sipping hole in the lid, and the aroma wafting through was rich with espresso, caramel, and cinnamon. When she sipped the caramel macchiato, the sweet and spicy flavor was how she liked it.

  Dang, he’d even figured out the cinnamon-sugar sprinkle on top of the extra whipped cream.

  Colleen melted a little bit inside.

  Between phone calls, Tristan briefed her on the upcoming meeting, which was to be with a wealth management agency with substantial banking ties.

  “What do you need all this money for?” she asked him.

  He waved his hand as he chomped on a danish and washed it down with black coffee. “A debt has come due. It’s too complicated to explain.”

  “Are you sure you’re not in the Mafia?” Colleen asked and pretended like she was joking.

  Tristan shook his head as he ate and glanced at his phone. He rubbed his lips with a napkin. “We’ve got to leave in five minutes.”

  He rose from the table and disappeared into his bedroom.

  Jian was rushing around, checking Tristan’s laptop bag and talking on the phone to the concierge service to make sure the car would be pulled around.

  In the mad rush to leave, Colleen checked her purse for some paper and a pen to take notes at the meeting.

  Jian slung the laptop bag over his shoulder as he walked, saying, “The car is waiting downstairs,” and he sped out the door.

  Tristan came back and plucked his suit jacket from the dining room chair as he walked.

  She trotted toward the entrance with Tristan hot on her heels.

  Just as she arrived at the still-open door, Tristan reached over her head and slammed it in front of her. “Hey!”

  Colleen turned, and Tristan loomed above her, his hand still pressing the suite’s door shut. “About last night—”

  “Look, I don’t have any expectations,” she said.

  Tristan asked, his tone serious but a little breathless, “But do you have any regrets?”

  She lifted her chin to make herself look liberated and fierce. “None. You?”

  “Absolutely not. I was wondering if you’d like to go to dinner again tonight? I know an amazing rooftop restaurant here in LA where we can look at the lights of the city and the stars.”

  Okay. Okay, this was how adults did dating, or at least how they did hookups.

  That tryst with Twist at the Devilhouse had been a turning point for her. She wasn’t going to be ashamed or too caught up in the future or what anything meant. “Yes, please.”

  Subtle expressions ran over his face, a flicker of his dark eyebrows and a slight curve of a smile on one side of his mouth, and then he ducked his head and kissed her.

  His mouth met hers, and the thrill and delight lifted her to her toes. Dang, he was so tall that he was bent nearly in half to kiss her, and Colleen steadied herself against the door as she tried to rise up higher. The notepad and her purse dropped from her hands, and she reached her arms around his shoulders because his kiss seemed to pull all the attention and sensation in her body to her mouth.

  His breath puffed against her lips, and he pulled back for just a second, looking at her with slightly dazed blue eyes before he swooped back in for more and lifted her under her arms.

  She wound both arms around his neck and held on.

  The door slid behind her back, ruffling her skirt and blouse, and he stepped closer to press her against it. She grabbed him around his waist with her legs, hooking her ankles behind his back, which meant his body ground between her legs.

  Her skin tingled. Her breasts felt heavy, constricted in her bra, and her body flushed with wanting him.

  Tristan grabbed her ass with his hands, his body rubbing against her as his mouth dropped to her neck. He sucked and raked his teeth across her throat, the roughness so different from his careful, almost tender touch the night before. Colleen raised her head, a low moan escaping from her throat.

  The sound seemed to spur him, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her ass and pushing against her. One of his fingers wiggled past the leg band of her panties and pressed inside her.

 

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