I turned around and left. I didn’t need to see that, or hear it, or ever think about it again.
I couldn’t, however, manage to keep my mouth shut for even a second when he approached me again, several minutes later.
“God, it was bad before you were famous. You must have to beat them off with a stick now. Or not, I guess. There’s plenty of you to go around.”
His expression, which had been smiling, wiped clean, becoming very blank. “I don’t think we want to go there. Either of us.”
I rolled my eyes, because it was no competition. His revolving bedroom door and my locked one were not even in the same category.
“Am I allowed to ask if this is jealousy?”
I bristled. “No, you’re not. You do whatever you like. It’s no business of mine.”
I started to move past him, but he caught my arm, turning me slowly back to him.
“That’s quite an invitation. Anything I like, huh? Let’s go back to your hotel room. Right this second.”
I rolled my eyes, jerked my arm out of his hold, and stormed away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TRISTAN
It took her hours to finish up, but I waited patiently. Better to wait hours here, then days, weeks, months, somewhere else. And in spite of all that had happened, I had no doubts that it was a very real possibility she would just cut me out again, if I didn’t press the issue now, tonight.
“This can’t be convenient for you,” she told me sassily as I held the door open for her. Even her walk, limp and all, was sassy.
I felt myself getting hard.
“This isn’t really about convenience, now is it?” I asked her pointedly.
She didn’t answer, just folded her arms across her chest and stared at me.
The gallery shared a parking lot with a Cavendish resort, so I assumed she had a room there for the night, since it was clearly too late for her to make it back to Vegas.
“Let’s go talk in your room,” I said with a smile, watching her face for a reaction that I was way too excited about, considering that I knew it wouldn’t be a positive one.
She gave me a dirty look, and I shoved my hands in my pockets, my c**k twitching restlessly.
“I’m so not taking you there. No way in hell.”
I tried not to let my grin grow too big. “I saw an all-night diner on my way here, maybe five minutes away.”
She gave her narrow eyed agreement to let me take her there.
We stared at each other across a tiny table and ordered cheeseburgers. The table was so narrow that our legs would have touched if I hadn’t spread mine wide, letting hers rest between.
It was surreal, just to get to stare at each other under bright, unforgiving lights.
Of course, Danika didn’t need forgiving lights. She was perfection, even under the harshest of conditions. So beautiful that my chest was aching enough that my hand had been rubbing at it for a solid minute before I caught myself and lowered it. And the entire time, I just kept drinking in the sight of her.
There were so many shocking, drastic changes and painful, wrenching similarities between the girl and the woman. The girl had been playful, fresh-faced, and beautiful as a freshly bloomed flower. The woman was quiet and elegant, and so heart-wrenchingly exquisite I would have given up another piece of my soul just to keep looking at her.
I couldn’t believe she’d let me have her again. Even as I clearly recalled the encounter, how she’d let me inside of her, bare; let me come in her, skin on skin; let me empty myself deep inside of her, I almost felt as though I’d dreamed the whole thing.
That was all we did for the longest time, just stared at each other. I was hesitant to be the first to start talking. The faster we talked, the sooner this was over, and I was content to drag this out until dawn.
“Does this place even have good burgers?” she finally asked. “Because I’m warning you right now, I’m not wasting calories on a bad one.”
I smiled fondly at her. “What, you think I’ll get upset with you if you don’t eat the food you order? Who do I look like, Ike Turner?”
She stifled a laugh, and then refused to look at me for a while, not talking either, just staring down at her hands in her lap while I marveled at how even the curve of her brow was just lovely.
Very slowly, I closed my legs until my knees touched each of hers. I reached under the table, cupping her clenched hands in my grasping ones.
Her chest shuddered as she took in a very deep breath. “So what are we doing here? Tell me how you see this playing out.”
I wasn’t sure which version to give her, but I didn’t think I should start with the brutal truth. I sugarcoated the hell out of it, going into pure survival mode. “I think we should become friendly again. I come say hi to you at work, we grab a bite to eat, and make each other laugh, etcetera, and so on.”
“And the rest. What happened at the ranch, back at the gallery. What’s your solution for that?”
To do it every chance we get, day or night, until we pass out, or hell, f**king keel over and die.
I had a very vivid but too short vision of her sprawled out na**d on this very table, taking every inch of my cock, no, not just taking, begging for it. I figured my chances of f**king her again this very night were slim to none, but a guy could dream.