Color comes to my cheeks, and I can’t hold back a laugh. I bite my lip a moment, looking at his outstretched hand, and then I take it. It closes around mine in a firm, warm grip. There’s a lot of strength in that grasp, I realize as another rush of warmth runs up through my body.
And California is a big state to explore.
Marble Mountain Wilderness. It’s a four-hour trip up there, but with each passing minute next to this towering, unreal guy, I feel better and better about all this.
Tristan drives a car that’s like something out of a dream. It’s a light blue Aston Martin, and it looks like it’s a model from the 60s that’s been restored. He hasn’t mentioned whether he restored it himself, but he doesn’t need to. I can tell by the way he handles the rumbling vehicle with such intimacy that you only adopt from something you built up from nothing yourself.
We stopped by my house to grab a few things and let me change — I figure a 50s waitress outfit isn’t exactly the best thing to go on a road trip with a handsome stranger in.
I threw on a flowy white shirt, some denim shorts, and slipped into a pair of pink converse, and stuffed a few similar outfits into a grocery store bag before running back out to the car.
And just like that, I was off on a road trip with a man I met a few hours ago. I always lived such a careful life, and maybe it’s just because of what those girls said, or maybe it’s because of how unbelievable hot Tristan is, but right now I need to take a chance.
“Alright, so,” I say over the classic rock blaring out the speakers, and Tristan turns the volume down just enough that we can talk comfortably as the wind whips around us, “tell me a little about the guy whose hands I just put my life into.”
He grins, the kind of grin you see in a dad who knows better than his child but wants to entertain her anyway, lovingly. “Well, guess there’s no hiding where I’m from, but if you want to get specific, I’m from outside a little town called Rookswood in the south part of the UK. My family kind of owns some land on a hill overlooking it.”
I try to hide my widening eyes as he speaks.
“I...don’t keep up with the rest of the family,” he says in the tone of one who knows he should be ashamed but really isn’t, and it makes me grin.
“Not on the best terms?”
“Well, when you drop out of boarding school and tell your Dad to ‘fuck off’ when he asks about college, you tend to put some distance there.”
I giggle, blushing, but something about all that is a little different from the usual runaway story you hear around my hometown. “Fair enough, but hold on, hilltop landowners? Boarding school? Tight-knit family?”
He frowns a little for the first time, but even that carries a rugged handsomeness that warms me up nicely. “I won’t lie, we’re—no, they’re well-off.” He flashes a smile at my raised eyebrow. “Trust me, though, family affairs are the farthest thing from my mind.”
Later on, we finally pull into the camping spot at Marble Mountain, way out in the middle of nowhere. The California summer breeze is blowing all around us, rustling the beautiful trees and lush scenery that goes for miles and miles from the mountainside vantage point Tristan picked out for us. I’ve lived in California all my life, but this? This is really breathtaking.
Tristan sets up our tent in a matter of minutes as I finish telling him about the situation with my ex.
“Sounds like hell,” he agrees, shaking his head and wiping the sweat from his brow once our tent is set up, and I finish putting together what’s soon to be our campfire. “I just can’t believe that a guy would pull something like that on you.”
“What do you mean?” I laugh, putting my hands on my hips and stepping over toward him. “Guys do that all the time.”
“Maybe, but a girl like you is hard to come across, Sienna,” he says, and I feel my face go pink, my body tingling at the sound of my name on his lips. “You’re a one-of-a-kind find.”
I chew on my lip a moment as he takes a step closer, looming over me as his irresistible scent hits me. “Figure that out in the five hours we’ve known each other, did you?”
“Sienna,” he says with a single laugh, so much like an older man chiding a young girl for being silly, even though we can’t be more than a few years apart. “I knew that the moment I set eyes on you.”
He reaches around, and I feel like my dream is bursting into reality as his huge hand takes a firm grip on my ass and pulls me forward. I’m brought into his chest, his masculine scent filling my world before he bends down and pulls me up into a kiss.
I feel like the tension that’s been hanging between us since we first met is shattering in triumph as his hands grope me, feeling up every inch of the body his eyes have been roving over at every spare second.
When he feels me, I can tell he’s savoring every part of me. His fingers press into my ass, feeling the give, taking in its shape before going up to my hips and doing the same. A hand reaches for my hair, grabbing a fistful of it to better press my lips into his, the stubble on his face brushing against my cheeks as he breaks the kiss to go down to my neck.
I want this. I need this. Most of all, I want him.
“I’ve been thinking about this since I walked into that diner, Sienna,” he confesses between kisses, and I gasp as a hand goes to my breast while his teeth graze the sensitive skin of my neck. I want to reply, to tell him he’s all I’ve ever wanted, that he’s the escape from all this that I’ve needed so long and literally dreamed about, but now that he’s a reality in front of me, all I can focus on is how needy my pussy is for him.
In a fluid motion, his hands grab my shirt and pull it off as I lift my arms, and my bra is off before I realize what’s happened. I breathe sharply, looking up for a moment at the wide-open sky. We’re totally out in the open, nothing but the forest and mountains around us as he strips my breasts bare.
r /> “No fair,” I say with a playful grin, my fingers going to his shirt, but I know I can’t get that thing over his towering shoulders, so he chuckles and helps me along with his huge, strong grip, pulling his button-down open and letting it slide off his shoulders.
“Holy fuck,” I hear escape my lips as I see what’s under that shirt.