And it makes me feel illicit.
Shameful.
I love that feeling…when it comes to pleasure.
I love it.
When Tristan called me his slutty little girl, it shook the bedrock of my femininity. I loved being so tempting that it almost angered him. I loved being the girl with the tight sex he couldn’t help but rut. Forbidden. Dangerous. Bad. The disgrace that comes along with opening my legs for my stepbrother makes me lustful in a way I barely understand.
Out of bed, though…I worry about a different kind of shame.
Regarding who I am. Where I came from.
While I understand the Garners’ reasons for fitting me into a new wardrobe and giving me speech lessons, I don’t think I was so terrible in the first place. Was I? Hartford is beautiful in its own way, and Lord, Tristan is here. But I looked in the mirror tonight while brushing my teeth and I barely recognized the girl staring back at me. It made me nervous.
Makes me wonder if they would want me at all unless I change.
If Tristan would want me.
The phone quiets. A beat passes and it starts ringing again.
Despite the conflict inside me, I couldn’t keep from answering it if I tried.
Daddy is calling.
Pulse tap dancing, I pick up the device, tapping the green button with my finger and holding it up to my ear. “Hi, Tristan.”
His exhale sends a hot shiver down my back. “Sweetheart. I was getting worried.”
“Sorry.” My voice is breathless. “I hate this thing sometimes.”
“The phone?”
“Yes. It steals me right out of my thoughts.”
His laugh is sensual, raspy in my ear. “And what were you thinking about?”
My inner thighs flex and I press them together, but there’s no way to stem the warm rush of moisture that slicks the flesh in between. “A lot of things. My fireflies. The party tomorrow night.” A melting sensation in my belly has me closing my eyes. “You.”
We both let out a slow breath. The admission is like helium seeping out of a balloon. It’s a dropping of pretense. “I’ve thought of you without cease for weeks, Cate.”
A smile teases my lips. “Even while you were on television?”
“Even then. It why I’m outside right now.”
I whirl back around to face the window, as if I’m going to see him standing there. “You’re here? Now?”
“The back of the building in my car. I can’t fucking stay away.” His breath is harsh, labored. “One day without my stepsister and I’m a madman.”
“I miss you, too,” I whisper, my fingertips sliding up and down my belly, body swaying side to side, my blood heating at the possibility of seeing him soon. Having him touch me. Master me. “Are you going to…come up?”
“I was hoping you’d come down.” The pause is thick. “God help me, I’m already taking risks, but…I need to bring you to my home. I need to fuck you in my bed.”
That welcoming slide of shamefulness, the intimate kind, envelops me. This part of our relationship is vital. Compulsory. It’s separate from the shame I feel over my past. Who I was before they swooped in and made me over.
At least, it’s separate for now.
I’m not sure what I’ll do, or how I’ll feel, if it doesn’t stay that way.
At this very second, though, I can do nothing but dance around in a circle. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
With an incessant fluttering of excitement in my tummy, I strip down to my skin and put on a loose, peach-colored, baby doll dress and a pair of sandals. Run a brush through my hair. I throw a change of clothes and my toothbrush into one of the fancy purses mama insisted on, adding some panties as an afterthought. Grabbing my apartment keys on the way out the door, I fairly run down the hallway to the elevator, taking it down while bouncing on the balls of my feet. I’ve never been out the back entrance of the building before, but it’s easy enough to find, marked with a glowing, red exit sign.
On the way to the door, one of the security guards gives me a speculative look from his room full of monitors and briefly, I worry about the risk Tristan is taking, but he must know what he’s doing, right? After all, he’s the master of the universe.
I slip through the exit door and find Tristan leaning against a low, silver luxury car. For once, he’s not wearing a suit, but jeans and a black sweater, a baseball cap pulled down low to hide his face. I’d recognize that square jawline anywhere, however, so I hurry in the direction of his car, gasping when he catches me in his arms, lifting me off the ground into a hug.
His rocky exhale stirs my hair, his hold tightening around me. “And just like that, I feel human again.” Strong hands rake down my back, fisting in the hem of my dress. “Let’s get you home before I have you against the side of this car,” he breathes in my ear.