“I can’t live without you, Nina. If truth is what it takes to make you happy, then it’s yours. I just hope the real me is what you want.”
She wrapped her arms around my neck and stood on her toes to kiss me softly on the lips. “I’m madly in love with the real you, Tristan Stone. I know you’re not perfect. I just need you to promise no more secrets. I can’t live like that.”
I cupped her nape and looked into those gentle blue eyes. “No more secrets. But right now, I don’t want to talk about secrets or anything else. I don’t want to think about anything but you and me and reliving our last time here.”
Her body melted into mine as my lips covered hers in a kiss full of need. She was perfect in my arms, right where she was meant to be. I slid her shirt over her head and her jeans from her legs to reveal mismatched bra and panties. I couldn’t help but smile. All the money in the world, and she still was that wonderfully unspoiled Nina who stole my heart all those months ago.
“You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?” she said with a sexy smile.
I slowly lowered myself to my knees and looked up at her. “No. Not laughing. Charmed.”
A delightful blush colored her cheeks. Biting her lip, she rolled her eyes. “Charmed, huh?”
Hooking my thumbs under her panties, I gave them a slight tug as she wiggled her ass to help me remove them. They easily slid down her gorgeous legs, and stepping one foot out of them, she kicked them away, leaving her standing there open to me.
I licked my lips in anticipation of tasting her sweetness on my tongue, dying to feel her slick pussy grind against my face as I slowly and methodically inched her toward release. She looked down at me, so sexy yet innocent, and I couldn’t wait anymore. With my hands on her ass, I pulled her to me and slid my tongue the full length of her wet slit. Her body trembled when I touched her swollen clit, and I flicked the tip of my tongue once more as she whimpered my name.
Her hands skimmed over my scalp, gently pulling me closer to give her what she desperately wanted. My mouth devoured her, loving every moment of pleasure her pussy gave me. I wanted to give her that pleasure back. I wanted to be the only man who made her body sing.
“Tristan, my legs can’t hold me up when you do that,” she whined sweetly above me as I sucked her clit between my lips. “I’m going to fall…”
Lifting my head, I smiled and licked my lips to taste her. “I won’t let you fall. Just hold on to my shoulders. This was all I could think of the whole flight here.”
I wasn’t lying. To ward off the anxiety that always came with flying, I’d spent the entire time fantasizing about making love to her. It had been the best flight I’d ever had.
“You were pretty confident I’d take you back, weren’t you?”
I slid my middle finger through her wet folds and sucked the taste from the tip into my mouth. “I had to hope.”
Her expression softened as one finger slid slowly inside her. “I do love a confident…ohhhh…man.” Another finger made her eyes roll back. “And a man who knows how to…oh God…work with his hands.”
“Hang on.” While my fingers fucked her, my mouth fastened on her clit and I sucked softly, bringing her to the edge before easing back. I wanted this to last.
Nina’s fingers pressed hard into my shoulders just as she was about to come, but by the fourth time, I was ready to give her what she wanted. One last thrust into her made her cunt contract, and her legs buckled. I held her there as waves of pleasure rolled through her, my fingers and mouth unrelenting as she begged me to never stop.
Finally, when her legs stopped trembling and I knew she could stand on her own, I sat back on my heels and smiled up at her. “Welcome home, Ms. Edwards.”
She dropped to her knees and kissed me full on the mouth. “That’s one hell of a welcome. If I didn’t hate being away from you so much, I’d leave more often.”
I fisted my hands in her hair, pulling it loose from the bun. “No more leaving.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nina
The room was the same as last time we’d been in Venice, but we were different. The Tristan and Nina who’d found each other then hadn’t been the real us. They’d been pretending. I’d thought I’d known him, but I’d only scratched the surface. Now I knew the man I loved more than anyone in the world was so much more than a gorgeous billionaire crazy about me. When all the money and possessions were pushed aside and it was just him and me, I saw how deep his emotions ran. The rest of the world could go on believing they knew him, but I knew the truth.
I knew the real Tristan Stone was the man who sat in front of me now. Imperfect, troubled, and bound to fuck up again, he’d bared his soul to show me the man he’d been and now had changed to be. That honesty was worth more than any amount of money.
And who was I on this second visit to Venice? I’d been pretending too—pretending that the fantasies of a teenage girl were reality. When I met Tristan, he appeared to be everything any woman could want. Gorgeous, wealthy, and confident, he was perfect. I’d never allowed the idea that he could be human with flaws like any regular man to get in the way of my fantasy of who I believed he was. Then, when I found out he wasn’t perfect, I’d run.
Months without him had shown me I didn’t want to run anymore, or so I’d thought. Then Kim’s poisonous words flooded my ears and I lazily slid back into my teenage fantasies, condemning him for a past I’d never even given him a chance to explain.
Now it was time for me to grow up, to accept the fact of who Tristan truly was. The man who would fly around the world to impress me and protect me, even though flying terrified him. The man who agreed to bare his soul in the Piazza San Marco not once but twice. The man who’d promised to give me whatever my heart desired, and never once failed.
The man who even with his flaws had proven himself time and again. Now it was time for me to prove myself.
Tristan stared down into my eyes with a look that told me he had other ideas than a discussion of how I’d been a goddamned fool. As he tenderly stroked my jaw line, a look of need sparked in his eyes. “Come with me, Nina. I want to show you something.”
His hand grasped mine, but I pulled him back. “Not yet. I want to say something first.”
Those beautiful chocolate brown eyes filled with worry, and I watched as he knitted his eyebrows. “Okay. Say whatever you need to. We’re all about truth.”