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“Cora. Stay. I’ll feel better about abandoning you on our anniversary if I knew I was leaving you in good hands.” Matt says at the same time. He kisses me on the cheek and after Tristan tells him not to worry about the check, he leaves.
“Your anniversary.” Tristan is looking at me, a hard edge in his voice.
I raise one shoulder in a careless shrug.
He whispers something to Celine, and she smiles at me. “It was such a pleasure to meet you Cora. I’m afraid I also have to leave now.”
I try to keep my voice level as I tell her it was nice to meet her. After she has gone, I turn to Tristan. “You can just dismiss them like that when you want?”
He looks amused. “Celine is a dear friend...whatever you’re imagining our relationship to be, it’s all in your dirty mind.”
“My dirty…” I shake my head. “I don’t have to sit here with you, Tristan. I’m leaving.”
“Don’t.”
Something in his voice keeps me in my seat. “Seriously, Tristan. What do you want? Now you have me alone. What are you going to do? You want to hurt me now? Well, you can’t. You want to show me how big and successful you are? It’s obvious. You want to punish me for daring to leave you? You already have, Tristan. What more do you want?”
“Right now?” He shrugs. “To take you home.”
Images of me and him, together somewhere, wherever he’s staying now, locked together in beautiful, explosive, sheet-clawing passion… I swallow. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I hiss.
Somehow, he knows what I’m thinking. His eyes glint with amusement. “I meant to take you home, Cora, to your home, not mine. Believe me, even if you were willing, I wouldn’t try to get you into my bed. Your body holds no secrets for me.”
He could have cut me with a knife, and it would hurt less. I breathe deeply, aching to hurt him somehow. Unperturbed, he rises to his feet in a graceful and dismissive movement, buttoning his jacket in a fluid motion.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get you home.”
I follow him outside, keeping as much distance between us as I can. In front of the building, his car is waiting for us, a black luxury car I now realize I’d seen outside the museum the day he’d surprised me by appearing out of the past. He opens the rear door for me and when I’m inside the car, goes over to the other side. A moment later, he joins me in the back.
We’re both silent as the car starts to move. I keep my gaze outside the window, looking at stores, diners, and pedestrians like they’re the most interesting things in the entire world. I ignore the man beside me with every effort I can muster. I pretend that I can’t smell the faint spiciness of his cologne, that I can’t feel his nearness like a constant wave, battering me again and again while I slowly erode into self-loathing desire.
He’d given my address to his driver outside the restaurant, and I’m not surprised that he knows it. When the car stops in front of my building, I’m torn between rushing out of the close confines, or lingering so I can continue to feel the power that emanates so easily from him.
I reach for the door handle, stubbornness winning over. I can’t… won’t allow him to draw me under his spell again.
He doesn’t stop me when I open the door, and since I don’t look in his direction, I don’t know what he’s doing. I mutter a quick thank you and slide out of the car, hurrying along the short expanse of sidewalk to the front entrance.
The car door opens and shuts behind me.
“Cora.”
Tristan’s voice is not loud, but the command in his tone makes me stop and turn around. I don’t know what he plans to say, and I don’t want him to think I’m eager to hear it, whatever it is. “Did I forget something?”
His lips lift, just on one side. “No.” He walks right up to where I’m standing. “I just want to say a proper goodnight.”
Ignoring the warning tightness in my lower belly, I raise my eyebrows. “And what would that–”
He doesn’t let me finish. One minute, I’m talking, and the next, his lips descend on mine with a brutal, punishing force, and my body turns to liquid. I should push him away, tell him to go to hell, to never come near me again, but I don’t want to. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this kiss, wanting it, for the past five years.
His hands circle my waist, firm, sure and familiar. He half lifts me against his body, so I’m pressed against him and my feet are not quite touching the floor. My breasts are crushed against his chest, my thighs cradling his blatant arousal. Warm desire pools between my legs and I kiss him back, my tongue twining with his. I’m heady with want, uncaring of anything but the need to touch him, to feel him, to remind myself of him.
Of Tristan.
The realization of what I’m doing is like cold water on my skin. This is Tristan, the man who hurt me worse than I ever thought it was possible to hurt.
I tear my lips from his, stepping back, afraid that now he’s no longer touching me, I might fall to pieces.
He looks almost as shocked as I feel. His hair is mussed, and I realize my fingers did that. I want to cry. To erase the last few seconds, to make him disappear, to kiss him again.
