"Come for me, Nina. Let me feel you surrender to me."
His hand tightened around my throat, and I came so hard I was afraid I might collapse if he wasn't holding me to him. I heard him groan and just as I was sure I couldn't take anymore, he thrust his cock into me one last time and came, sending jets of hot liquid deep inside me.
He held me close until our bodies finally calmed and kissed me softly on the cheek. "I love you, Nina. Thank you."
He slid out of me and eased me down onto the bed, taking me in his arms. I looked down our bodies to see our legs entwined as if we were one. With my head on his chest, I heard his heartbeat slowly return to a normal rhythm. I'd never felt so relaxed and safe in my life.
"Tell me your favorite memory," I whispered against his skin.
"Right now," he said. "I've never been happier than right now."
"Even when we were together before?"
Tristan sweetly pressed a kiss on the top of my head. "Every day is better than the last one. No matter how happy I was then, I'm even happier now."
I lifted my head from his chest and looked up at him. "Why?"
"Because we've been given a second chance. Not everyone gets that in life. I've gotten it twice now."
"What was the first time?"
A look of sadness settled into his face. "When I didn't die and the rest of my family did."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know. Well, you know what I mean."
He nodded and forced a smile. "It's okay. I understand."
I looked down at the tattoo on his chest and traced the outline of the two snakes that formed an inverted heart over his left pec, lingering on the place where they joined at a point. "What's this tattoo mean?"
"I got it after the accident. A metal rod pierced me just above the heart there where the scar is and continued to run through my brother's heart, killing him. It symbolizes our twin hearts joined even in death."
"I'm so sorry, Tristan. Were you identical twins?" I asked, hoping to lighten the mood slightly.
"Yes. We looked the same. Many people couldn't tell us apart, unless they knew us. But we were like night and day otherwise."
I heard something in his voice—a change in tone or a hitch that told me their differences weren't as simple as that. "Who was older?" I asked with a smile, knowing how silly the question was.
Tristan returned my smile with a tiny one of his own. "Taylor was by seven minutes. He never let me forget that he was my older brother either."
"I've always wondered what it would be like to have a sister my same age. Kim is six years older and we've never really been close. Those six years were always between us."
"It's like having any other sibling, just that you look exactly like another person."
His voice trailed off as his sentence ended, and I got the surest sense talking about his brother was painful for him. I didn't want to ruin our time together, so I hastily changed the subject. "Did you get the tattoo on your arm after that one on your chest?"
He looked down at his left arm and shook his head. "No, that one is from those days before I became the man I am now I told you about. My wilder days."
That was a topic I wanted to hear more about. "And about this wilder days guy, was he really different from the Tristan of now?"
He hesitated a moment before he answered. "Yeah, a lot."
I was nothing if not inquisitive, and this sounded like a mystery. "Tell me about him. I can't imagine you were that different than you are now."
"I can barely remember him anymore. He wasn't anyone you'd want."
"I can't believe that, Tristan," I said and kissed him.
His face told me he was uncomfortable. "You should. That man wasn't someone who would deserve someone like you."
"I probably would have been crazy about that man and he wouldn't even have known I existed is more likely."
Turning toward me, he lifted my chin with his forefinger. "Then he'd have been an ass not worthy of your time."
"Tell me about those wilder days, Tristan. I want to imagine you as the type of guy you were then."
Instead of telling me anything about his bad boy days, he rolled me onto my back and pinned my hands above my head. He loomed over me, his deep brown eyes staring down into mine, and said in a low voice, "I've got something far better in mind."
By the time I woke in the morning, Tristan was gone and I saw through the window that snow was falling, covering the grass and making it finally look like winter. My room was still warm, though, and my thought of venturing outside to go to visit Jordan suddenly seemed like something for another day.
Thoughts of the Atlanta suite filled my head, so after lying around enjoying memories of my time with Tristan just hours before, I finally crawled out of bed to face the day. Throwing my robe around me, I knew he'd be long gone at work, but I walked to the kitchen for my morning coffee with the hope that he'd be there to join me for breakfast.
Disappointment washed over me as I rounded the corner and saw no one there. I understood a man like him had to be a slave to his work, but always waking up alone in bed made me feel as I was something extra in his life, like an addition he didn't need.
I was being silly. I knew Tristan loved me, and the wonderful life he offered didn't come easily for him. Being CEO of Stone Worldwide was a twenty-four hour a day job, if the phone calls and emails he received at all hours of the day and night were any indication. That we got to spend any time alone at all was something I should appreciate instead of whining to myself about waking up alone.
The French Vanilla roast in my mug began to work almost immediately, and I was wide awake in no time. Grabbing a sesame bagel Rogers had brought home from the local bakery, I headed back to my room to get ready for my day of research for Atlanta.
Chapter Thirteen
Tristan
"Mr. Stone, Mr. Dreger is here."
Ten o'clock. Karl was getting a late start to his daily stalking today. I looked over at the speaker on the edge of my desk and groaned. No day was a good day to deal with him, but after the night I'd just spent with Nina, I didn't want him to ruin how good I felt.
The man himself opened my office door and without even being asked in made himself at home on the leather couch on the side wall. A big man, his scalp showed more of his large bulbous head every day, and he seemed to be gaining weight in exchange for the loss of his hair. The seams of his suit pulled, as if at any moment it was going to give way and cease to hold back the girth it was containing.