Bad Things (Tristan & Danika #1) (43 page)

He nodded, looking more miserable than I could stand.
 

“It hurts your heart that we kissed?”
 

He winced, but he nodded, and it was perverse, but I loved that I could affect him.
 
He never gave me words of love, so any hint that I’d touched his heart had an impact on me.
 

“You know it won’t happen again.
 
You can trust both of
—”

He cut his hand through the air in a dismissive motion.
 
“Of course.
 
I know I can trust you both.
 
It just hurts.
 
Probably because it reminds me how close I was to losing you, and how much I don’t deserve for you to give me a chance.
 
I should have given in to my feelings for you right from the start.
 
I regret everything I did to push you away, and every time I lied to myself about how I felt.”

“Do-over?” I asked him, which drew a small smile out of him.
 
This smile told me that he thought I was cute.
 
I loved reading his smiles, and that I was learning what each one of them meant, day by day.
 
He had the
best
smiles.
 

“Deal,” he said softly, drawing me to him.
 
“Let’s start fresh, and forget about all the mistakes I’ve made.”

“
We’ve
made,” I chided, letting him pull me close.
 

We were in the middle of a casino, slot machines clinking in the background, and I didn’t care.
 
I let him kiss me.
 
I’d let him kiss me anywhere.
 

It wasn’t a light kiss.
 
It wasn’t a romantic kiss.
 
It wasn’t innocent, or casual, or appropriate for public.
 

It was a down and dirty, suck at my mouth kind of kiss, demanding, hungry, and perfect.
 

By the time he pulled back, I was clutching at his shirt, and shaky at the knees.
 

His mouth went to my ear, his voice rough and unsteady.
 
“I need you.
 
Now.
 
I can’t wait even a minute to be inside of you.”
 

That had my brain go fuzzy as I tried to figure out what he could mean.
 
He didn’t keep me in suspense for long, pulling me into the nearest women’s restroom.
 

It was huge, with marble floors and counters, and stalls with doors that went floor to ceiling, covered in opaque glass that frosted as you locked the door.
 

The stalls were so big, in fact, that they could accommodate a beast of a man like Tristan.
 

One woman gave us a strange look as she walked out, and we walked in, but luckily for us, she was the only one we came across before we were locked away.

Tristan pushed my back hard into the door of the stall.
 

I licked my lips as he worked himself loose from his jeans, his cock already huge and throbbing for me.
 
He bunched my skirt up at the waist, running a finger over my cleft.
 
He sucked in a breath when he found me wet.
 

He didn’t even take off my panties, just shoved the thin thong aside, both hands pushing my skirt up, and lifting me.
 
He pushed into me with a hard stroke, and a rough groan.
 

“If anyone comes in, they can see our shadows through this door, so I need to make this quick.
 
I need you
.”
 
Each word he said was a rough pant into my ear.
 

I moaned, gripping at his shoulders as he ground into me.
 

He was in a hurry, but even then, he still saw to my pleasure with a soft touch on my clit, and hard thrusts into my core.
 

“I love you,” I cried as I came.
 

With a rough cry, he followed me.
 

It was a hell of a walk of shame through the casino to the valet.
 
“I need a shower,” I muttered, tugging my skirt down as far as it would go.
 

He squeezed my hand.
 
“We’re just lucky it’s so late at night that no one came into the bathroom.”
 

“True.
 
I doubt we could have pulled that off if it wasn’t nearly four in the morning.”
 

He kissed my hand, giving me his wicked smile.
 
“We could have.
 
We just would have gotten ourselves arrested in the process.”

I rolled my eyes.
 

“I think I fucked the drunk out of you.
 
I’ll have to remember that little trick.”
 

I giggled, because I was way more sober than I’d been when we’d started, so it was kind of true.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

My next jealous fit had a different start, but the same ending.
 
Of course, everything between Tristan and I seemed to end with sex.
 
Good sex.
 
Great sex.
 
The best sex.

A few weeks after Dean and Tristan moved into their apartment, they threw a huge house warming party.
 
The place was packed, so packed that once I lost sight of Tristan, he stayed lost for a good thirty minutes.
 

I should have known something was up when Dean cornered me in the kitchen the second we were separated.
 

“Chinese and English,” was how he began, reminding me once again why I didn’t like him.
 
I knew what he meant with the vague start, because I’d played this game way too often.
 
It was the ‘guess Danika’s race’ game, and I
loathed
it.
 
One of my favorite things about the Vega brothers was that neither had ever played this stupid game with me.
 

“Wrong and wrong,” I told him, my tone flat.
 

“Swedish and Vietnamese,” he tried again with a greasy smile.
 

“Wrong and wrong.”

“Why don’t you like me, Danika?
 
You’re dating one of my best friends.
 
You should try to be nice.”

“Ditto.”

“You never even smile for me.
 
I smile at you all the time.”
 

I gave him a forced smile that was all teeth.
 
“Better?” I asked.

He nodded, not acknowledging my sarcasm.
 
“Japanese and Norwegian.”
 

I rolled my eyes.
 
“Close enough.
 
Japanese and Russian.”
 
It was always an awkward subject for me, since I’d never know the other half of that equation.
   

“That’s a fucking hot mix, let me tell you.
 
Between your body and your eyes, I’d say you got the best of both.”

“Gee, thanks, you sweet talker.”
 

“Sassy piece of work.
 
My favorite kind.
 
I bet you fuck like a wildcat.”
 

He was crowding me into the counter, and I pushed on his shoulders, officially done with the conversation.
 

He didn’t budge, just pushing closer.
 

“What is your problem?
 
Why do you thrive on stirring up shit?”
 

His smile was huge.
 
“Do I need a reason?
 
Don’t you ever like to light things up just to watch them burn?”
 

I shoved him hard, getting past him and away, troubled as to whether I should tell Tristan about how Dean had just acted.
 
It seemed like a lose-lose scenario to me.
 
Either it would get Tristan mad at his friend and bandmate, or at me.
 
Lose-lose.
 

I found Jared passed out on Tristan’s bed, Cory in the living room making out with some chick, and Kenny in the hallway chatting with people I’d never seen before.
 
No one knew where Tristan was, and the apartment was not that big.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that he had to be out on the balcony, or gone.
 

The balcony that attached to the apartment was small, and sat right off the living room.
 
The blinds were drawn, making it look like no one was out there.
 
I checked anyway.
 

Tristan was out there, and he wasn’t alone.
 

I’d only met Natalie once, but I recognized her even from the back and with dim lighting.
 
Apparently she’d made an impression on me.
 

I stepped out onto the balcony oh so quietly.

Tristan’s profile was facing me.
 
He was leaning against the rail, drawing on a cigarette and giving his ex his inscrutable smile.

She had both of her hands on his chest, leaning into him, her voice low and earnest as she spoke quietly to him.
 

Her nails were bright red, and so it was easy to follow their movements as she stroked them over his chest to punctuate her words.
 

Her voice was soft, but I caught a bit of what she was saying.
 

“I saw your new girlfriend.
 
What is she, like, sixteen?
 
What the hell, Tristan?”

Tristan’s mouth twisted into his bitter smile.
 
“Well, she’s not sixty, so I can see why you’d be confused.”

She smacked his chest, lightly, and her tone was more playful than offended.
 
“When are you going to get over that?
 
And when did you start robbing the cradle?”
 

“Jealous, Nat?”
 

Every word they exchanged denoted a sense of their history.
 
The fact that both of their voices held a strange note of affection amidst the catty things they said to each other told me a lot of things that I really didn’t want to hear.
 

My heart twisted in my chest.
 

“Of course I am!
 
We were each other’s firsts, Tryst.
 
That’s not something you forget.
 
Or do you?”
 

“Of course not, Nat.”
 
His tone was gentle, almost tender, and I thought I might be sick.
 

“So tell me what a sixteen-year old can do for you?
 
You know I’m single again, right?
 
Don’t you miss me?
 
I know you remember what
I
can do for you.”

His wicked smile showed me that he was more than a little drunk, but that was no excuse for his revealing reply.
 
“I remember very well.”

I couldn’t bear to hear another word, and I was moving, striding to them, gripping a hand into her hair to wrench her away from him before he’d finished his sentence.
 

I used even more force than I intended, sending her sprawling somewhere behind me.
 
I glared at Tristan, feeling jealous and hurt and betrayed.
 

He straightened.
 
“Danika—”

“What is she doing here?” I asked him, wondering just how deep this went, but knowing that, even if it was shallow, it still
felt
like a deep cut.

“Dean invited me!” Natalie said, out of breath as she got back to her feet behind me.
 
“You know I went to high school with them, right?
 
That was about the time you were starting kindergarden.”
 

“Fuck you, Twatalie,” just sort of slipped out.
 

“Danika—” Tristan began, his tone annoyed.
 
With me.
 

I exploded.
 

“You two can have each other!
 
Have fun being whores together!”

I tried to storm away, but Tristan stopped me with a hug from behind.
 
“Danika,” he said again, squeezing hard enough to get my attention.
 

“Nat,” he addressed his ex.
 
“Give us some privacy, please.”

She didn’t say a word, just walked back inside, looking putout.
 
That was fine with me.
 
She was lucky that all she lost was a handful of hair.
 

Tristan’s mouth moved to my ear, and I elbowed him hard in the abs.
 
I didn’t even get a satisfying grunt of pain out of him, which infuriated me, too.
 
In fact, I didn’t think there was anything that could calm me down just then, though I would have liked to throw some plates.

“Whatever you’re thinking that was, you’re wrong,” he explained very quietly.