Lovely Trigger (40 page)

I knew she still loved me.
 
I could see it now, even if she was still in the throes of denial.
 
She didn’t have to say it in words.
 
She spoke to me in so many other ways.
 
Her love spoke to me in every surrendering line of her body.
 

It spilled out of her pure silver eyes every time she looked at me.

She was mine again.
 

And, even when she hadn’t wanted me, when I’d lost all faith, I’d always,
always
been hers.
 

I took her down and arranged her on her back.
 
I peeled off her panties and parted her legs.
 
She was so satiated that she was as good as limp, so deliciously pliant that it made my brain go a little fuzzy with the heady pleasure of it.
 

My fingers slid along the soft skin of her thigh as I straightened, catching one of her sexy little feet and digging into it, rubbing until, even in her complete relaxed limpness, she began to make little writhing motions on the bed.

I kissed the arch of her foot, then her slender ankle.
 
She was so delicate and soft under my hands that every touch I gave her held a shaky restraint.
 

I loved this body, this slender waist, these lean hips, her slim thighs.
 
I adored that what appeared so dainty had a core of steel so strong, so relentlessly solid, that it was the only thing I’d found on this earth fit to cast my lot with, to make my home.
   

She humbled me to this day.
 

My hands were reverent, my lips worshipful as I made my trembling way up her trembling body, so thankful for every touch she allowed me that I was giddy with it,
shaking
with it.
 

Because, whether she would admit it or not, every time we gave in to this hunger, this unforgiving passion, we showed our true feelings to each other.
 
She couldn’t give herself to me without showing me her vulnerability, and I couldn’t take her without revealing my utter devotion, my forever love.
 

I never could keep the filthy diatribe in when I got my hands on her perfect little body, but more and more, the words were as desperately emotional as they were dirty.
 

“How did we do without this, sweetheart?” I asked against her satiny smooth belly.
 
“How could we think that was an option?” I nuzzled along her ribs into the underside of one plump breast.
 
“How could I ever stop this?
 
You know we can’t go back now, don’t you?
 
We can’t go back to that.”
 

She didn’t answer me.
 
I hadn’t expected her too.
 
I knew she was far past the point of a coherent sentence.
 
I’d always loved her smart mouth, but at times like these, I liked it even better when it was incapable of forming whole words.

I took off her blindfold and covered her.
 
I took her again, hungrily, desperately, like a man starved.
 
Even as I was twitching inside her, still shaking from my release, I felt that hunger.
 

Just on the edge of sleep, I caught it.
 
“Fucking Game of Thrones,” I muttered.
 

She laughed beside me.
 

We fell asleep entwined, and I woke up still wrapped around her from behind.
 
In fact, my hard cock was right in the middle of trying to find an entrance before I’d even blinked awake.
 

I sat up, rolling her to her back.
 
It was like eyeing up a feast.
 
I didn’t know where to start.
 

Her jaw was slack in sleep, her lips parted.
 
My hard-on told me very clearly to start there.
 

I climbed up her body, and managed to dig one knee into the bed next to her head, the other stretched clear of her body.
 
I pushed my tip between those inviting lips, trying to go slow, but once I got to her throat, a knee-jerk reaction had me shoving in a little too forcefully.
 

I gagged her twice before she pushed me away, laughing.
 
“You’re too big for that angle,” she told me.

She made a good point.
 

“I wasn’t quite awake yet when I thought of that.”
 

She pushed at me, and I sprawled out on my back for her.
 
“Next time, just wake me up.”
 

Her head started bobbing, and I gripped her hair.
 
“Anything you say.”
   

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

TRISTAN

I always felt the date approaching like a magnet, my mind constantly pulled to it.
 

This year was a little better.
 
I got out the black wristband and put it on with a lighter heart than I’d had, well, since his death.
 

Having Danika back in my life helped me with this, there was no question.
 

Even so, I’d tried to talk to her about it, tried to tell her what was coming up, and hadn’t found the voice to do it.
 

It was the morning of and I’d slept over at her place.
 
I was in her kitchen, sipping coffee and staring off into space, when she finally realized something was off.
 

She studied me for a while, checked her phone for the date, I think, and then approached me looking contrite.
 

“Oh, Tristan,” she said softly, wrapping her little body around my big one.
 
“I am so sorry.”
   

I kissed the top of her head.
 

“I’ll call in sick to work.
 
Tell me how you handle this day.”
   

“Frankie usually comes over, and Cory and Kenny, if they’re around.
 
We tell stories about him.
 
Good stories.
 
We watch all the videos I have of him.
 
We never focus on the bad.”
 

We got dressed and went to my house.
 
Frankie and Kenny showed up at noon.
 
Cory was out of town.
 

I baked a ridiculous amount of cookies, keeping Danika hostage in my kitchen the entire time.

We all sat down in my living room and talked about Jared.
 
I started.
 

I held up a chocolate chip cookie.
 
“Jared’s favorite.
 
He’s actually the reason I learned to bake.
 
As a kid, he had us all wrapped around his little finger, me, my mom, his dad.”
 
I looked down at my hands.
 
“This one time he got hurt.
 
I’m not even sure how it all went down, but he was horsing around with Dean in his room, and wound up falling out of the second story window.
 
I was twelve, and I was supposed to be watching him.
 
It was terrifying, but he hadn’t broken anything.
 
I think he was just scared, but he wouldn’t stop crying.
 
He was inconsolable, and the only thing that got him out of it was the promise of cookies.
 
We didn’t have any cookies, but we always had baking supplies, so I learned to bake cookies that day.
 
He loved them so much that he started to fake getting hurt, just so I’d bake.
 
I never minded.
 
It was never a secret; I’d have done anything for that kid.”

How do you recover from a loss like that?
 
One day at a time was the only way I knew how.
 
We’d been so close that he was still a part of me, always would be.
 

Danika, who’d been sitting directly to my right, hugged me hard.
 
I threw my arm around her.
 
Having her here, right now, meant
everything
, and I savored it, even amidst the bittersweet reminiscing.
 

Kenny went next.
 
“It was Jared and I that originally started the band.
 
We both picked up the guitar, but he was always so much better than I was.
 
I was so impressed with that kid.
 
He was five years younger than the rest of us, and he put me to shame, talent wise.
 
He never had an ego about it, though, he just enjoyed it.
 
He had the purest love for his craft.”
       

Frankie was bawling by the time we got to her.
 
She didn’t hide her grief and that had always made it easier for me to express mine.
 

“He was just the nicest,” she began.
 
“I’ve thought about this a lot.
 
I spent so much time with him.
 
We had a lot of fun together.
 
And in all of that time, I can’t ever remember him saying one negative thing about anybody.
 
How is that even possible?
 
He was just so
good
.
 
I miss being around him.
 
I miss his smiling face, and how he’d come to me when he needed help solving a problem, no matter how silly the problem.
 
To Jared, the sweetest angel in heaven.”
 
She took a big bite of her cookie, like it was a toast.
 
You had to get creative around alcoholics like me.
 

I held up my cookie like a toast, then took a big bite.
 

I hadn’t expected Danika to say anything, I don’t know why, but of course, she did.
 
She’d always had a way with words, a way to shape them into something that could bring me comfort.
 

Her mouth quirked up in a half smile before she began.
 
“He used to call me sis.
 
I loved that so much.
 
And I loved talking to him on the phone.
 
For hours.
 
He was the best talker.
 
And listener.”
 
She bent down and reached into her bag, pulling out a flip phone.
 
The thing was a relic.
 

Her smile died, turning into the face she made when she was trying hard not to cry.
 
“This thing can’t keep a charge for ten minutes, but I’ll never get rid of it.
 
I didn’t find this until after he passed.”
 

She pushed some buttons, and then the sound of Jared’s voice came out of the phone.
 
“Hey sis.
 
I know you’re upset with him, but trust me when I tell you he regrets everything he said.
 
Just give me a call.
 
We’ll talk it out, okay?
 
The Vega brothers love you, sis.
 
Never doubt it.”
       

That one gutted the room, and no one talked for a long while.
 
Even with the way it’d hurt, it’d still felt so damn good to hear his voice.

“Remember that night he and I got completely blitzed at the sportsbook in the Cavendish casino?” Danika finally spoke to say.
 
“We had so much fun.
 
He was always so much fun.”

Frankie smiled, mascara trails all over he pretty face.
 
“I remember that night.
 
You were off with Jared, while Tristan and I complained, for hours, about how crazy women are.
 
Your name might have come up a time or two, in the crazy column.”

She rolled her eyes.
 
“I’m sure I took up most of the crazy column.
 
Hell, I probably had my own page.”
 

I’d pieced together every video ever taken of Jared years ago.
 
There were only a few of us as kids, but thank God there had been several years worth of camera phones before he’d passed.
 
That made up the bulk of it.
 
We watched them all, then told some more stories.
 

It was a good day of remembering.
 
It hurt, sure, it would never stop hurting, but it was better with her there.
 
Everything was.
 

I’d missed a few calls over the hours we’d been reminiscing and had a few messages.
 
I grimaced when I saw that one was from Mona, and I almost just erased it.
 
I’d gotten her contracted to another act in two months, and she was not happy about it.
 
But she’d been acting strange since Danika and I had gotten back together, and it made me realize not to trust her, to in fact keep my distance, and that’s what I was doing.

Still, I listened to it, because it was unusual for her to leave a message.
 
I was a little stunned at what I heard.
 
And sad.
 
What were the odds, on today of all days?
 

I went to sit back with the group.
 
“Tony Biello just died,” I said numbly.
 
I knew the numbness wouldn’t last.
 
He’d been a mentor to me, a father figure.
 
He’d been scheduled to make a guest appearance in a few weeks.
 
“I guess I shouldn’t be this shocked.
 
He retired his act because his health was bad.”
   

Danika hugged me hard.
 
I’d never talked to her about Tony, but I had a feeling she knew everything.
 
She’d been more secretive about it than I had, but we’d both been keeping tabs on each other over the years.
   

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE