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“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask, voice gruff and annoyed no matter how much I try to calm myself down. I don’t want him leaving this bed for the next ten hours if I can manage it.
“I—” he turns to look at me, looking startled, he swallows hard and starts again. “I thought I’d go home?” he phrases it like a question, so I give him my answer.
“No.”
“No?” He looks amused now.
“That’s right, no. I want you to stay here instead of asking me to tell Matt to take you back to Brooklyn at eleven P.M. on a Saturday.” All true, but also a handy excuse.
“I was thinking of calling an Uber.”
I scoff. “You can’t be seen leaving my home on foot to get into an Uber, Tristan, are you insane?” He looks at me expectantly, like he knows I have another real reason for fighting this. When I stay stubbornly silent, he arches an eyebrow at me, waiting me out, and I love it.
Even when he said he’d follow my orders in the bedroom, he still expects me to be honest. Iwantto be honest with him. Honesty is important to me, may seem hypocritical with my history and considering all the secrets I keep every day, but that’s exactly why it’s so important to me. Ican’tbe honest all the time, so whenever I can, I take the chance with both hands.
I flop back down on the bed and scrub a hand down my face. “I don’t want you to go, Tris,” I say looking at him again. He only stares, so I elaborate. “I won’t order you to stay, of course, and Iwillcall Matt to drive you home or even take you myself if you really want to leave, but I want you to stay the night. So I can wake up with your ass pressed against me in the morning and fuck you slow for an hour, then I want you to have breakfast with me and maybe spend tomorrow making some plans for these next few months.”
He unleashes that smile on me again. Good thing I’m lying down because otherwise, he’d knock me on my ass or have me falling to my knees. It’s lethal. The most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.
He leans down and gives me a soft kiss, laying his hand on my chest, then he cuddles close to me, resting his head on the crook of my neck, and whispers, “Okay, I’ll stay, Harrison, because I want all of that, too.”
“Good,” I say, resolute, then I kiss his forehead. I reach the light switch and once the room is dark, I close my eyes and murmur, “Good night, Tris.”
He kisses my chest. “Night, Harrison.”
* * *
The alarm hasmy heart racing out of my chest. I don’t even think about moving but I’m sitting with the phone to my ear in a second flat. The blare always brings fear, so when I hear Tristan groan grumpily behind me, I pay him no mind, hopefully, he’ll go back to sleep.
“Yes,” is all I say, I don’t even know who’s calling, but it can only be four people.
“Eian is here,” Matt says. “He’s taking a shower, but he told me to wake you up and ask if you can lend him a pair of shoes and bring them down to your office. He wants to talk to you.” I take a deep breath, no one is dying or getting kidnapped or being extorted.
“How did you fare meeting him for the first time?” I ask the newest member of my security team. Matt has been with us since February, and in the summer, when it was decided he’d hold a permanent spot in my security team, I—along with Eian and Connor—decided to tell him about my connection to Eian and explain why it’s so important that the world never finds out he’s my cousin or that Ihavea cousin.
Eian hasn’t visited since January though, so this is the first time Matt’s had to deal with his petulant ass. He always comes in the middle of the night, which is understandable but fucking annoying.
“It was fine,” Matt says eventually.
“Good.” I sigh. The last thing I need is Eian running off my bodyguards, especially after I go to such lengths to choose them. He—and this will forever grate on my nerves, but it is what it is—has a say in who I hire, too, so it’d be pretty infuriating for him to do it, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Eian is… Eian.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” I say and end the call.
And he always has to take my fucking shoes.He never sends them back like he says he will, I think, annoyed at being woken up in the middle of the night and torn away from the angel in my bed. I turn to look at him, hoping he went right back to sleep.
I’m shit out of luck because Tristan’s looking at me, wide awake. Fuck, I see millions of questions swirling in his eyes. He can’t ask those questions. Because I’d have to lie, and I don’t want to lie to Tris.
Ever.
Fuck, he’s the one I’m supposed to be lyingwith. Not to.
Somewhere between me telling him I want him in my bed and getting there, I started thinking of him as way more than my fake boyfriend and potential hookup. Now I want him to be my… accomplice? Partner in crime?
Wrong choice of words.
This is not the moment to try and decipher my startlingly big feelings for Tris. I don’t have the time, Eian wouldn’t hesitate to come up here and barge in like he owns the place if I’m not in my office when he’s done showering.
I stand and go to my walk-in without saying anything. I have to think of the perfect words to say, to somehow express how much Tris shouldn’t come downstairs but do it without making him even more curious.
