He both had and hadn’t answered my question, but I suddenly felt silly about the entire thing. He’d only been talking to her, and it wasn’t like they’d gone off alone.

His voice suddenly got very soft and from the first word, I knew I was done for. “Let’s not fight, sweetheart. You know you’re the only one I want.”

Did I know that? The man had gotten around before he met me. Hell, he’d been getting around even after that. But he had been on his best behavior since we’d become exclusive. I should know, since we were practically attached at the hip.

“I don’t want to fight either,” I conceded.

I glared at Frankie as she sent a smirk in my direction. Everyone knew that Tristan had me wrapped around his little finger.

“Does this mean we skip straight to the make-up sex?” Tristan’s low voice rumbled across the line, making things low in my stomach clench. “Want me to pull your hair and give you a rough ride, sweetheart? Fuck the angst out?”

I snuck a peek at Frankie, and by the irrepressible grin on her face, she was hearing every word he was saying. “I’ll see you in a minute,” I barked at him, hanging up.

“You’re blushing,” Frankie observed with a laugh.

“That man is shameless,” I grumbled.

CHAPTER THREE

DANIKA

Tristan was standing in the middle of the street, arms crossed over his chest, as we drove up. He looked ready to fight…or pull some hair and do some hard fucking.

“Man, he’s got some impressive arms,” Frankie remarked.

Did he ever. They were bulging and tatted up and looking ready to bust the seams of his black T-shirt.

He looked mean, and gorgeous, and his glowering expression did contrary things to my libido.

God, I wanted him.

“I’m not gonna lie, he is fucking hot, if you’re into that kind of thing, which it’s apparent you are.”

I barely heard Frankie as I watched Tristan stride around to my side of the car, pulling the door open before we were even fully stopped at the curb.

“Relax, loverboy,” Frankie called to him, “we were only gone an hour.”

He barely answered her, just giving her the most perfunctory wave before he tugged me out of the car.

“Let’s go home,” he growled, pretty much dragging me after him down the sidewalk.

“Goodnight!” Frankie shouted loudly.

“Call you tomorrow!” I yelled back, suddenly just as anxious as Tristan to get us to his car. All it had taken was one smoldering glance.

“You like fighting,” I accused him, my voice low.

“Hardly. What I like is fucking you, and I can’t do that when you’re ditching me at parties.”

I just glared at him, no comeback coming to mind. It didn’t help that he was making me equal parts horny and mad.

“We grabbed a burger. You were busy, so I don’t see how you can complain.”

“What do you want me to do, run when she comes near me? Should I have shoved her in the pool?”

That painted an appealing picture that had me smiling. “You might have earned some brownie points, if you had.”

He grimaced as he handed me into the car.

I changed the subject, just as tired as he was of talking about Natalie. “You sure you’re good to drive?”

“Yeah. We were talking more than drinking.” He got behind the wheel, not looking at me as he started the car.

“Take off your panties.” His tone was casual, idle even.

My nipples tightened, a heavy, delicious feeling pooling between my legs. “We aren’t that far from your apartment,” I protested, even as my hands inched my skirt up, pulling at the tiny string of my panties. I yanked them down impatiently.

“Just a warm up, pudding.”

I swallowed hard as he started driving with one hand, and the other went to my upper thigh, rubbing hard. “I’m already warmed up.” I’d come a long way from needing much foreplay. He had me well tuned, in a constant state of rut that matched his own.

“Open your legs. Prove it.”

I parted my legs, my hips moving towards his hand. He inched it higher, but not enough.

“You wet? Show me. I want your pussy crying for me.”

I grabbed his hand, tugging it until his knuckles grazed my entrance. We both sucked in a breath at the light contact.

He turned his wrist in my hand, shoving two fingers in deep before I knew his intent. My eyes shut and I moaned loudly.

“God, I love your hands,” I groaned.

He dragged his fingers out slowly, wriggling them along my inner walls, making me squirm and curse. He punched them back in hard, and I kicked a shoe off, digging one heel into the car seat, tilting my hips up as far as they’d go, lost to sensation, worried only about my own race toward release, the world coming down to what his fingers were doing to me.

He got me off fast, knowing just where to touch and how hard to work me.

I only realized that the car was stopped as I came back down from my orgasm, his fingers dragging out of me. I started to sit up as I saw that his jeans were unfastened. His cock was bared, hard and prominent, one big hand fisting it.

I moaned at the sight.

“Let me,” I offered, trying to sit up. He jammed his fingers back inside of me, pinning me where I was.

“No. I want this right here,” he moved his fingers to demonstrate what ‘this’ was, “so I’ll wait until we’re home. I want a rough ride, so I’m just warming you up. I’m going to nail you to the wall.”

“Ahhh,” I gasped as his fingers started up a rhythm, then protested when they abruptly left me.

“Buckle up, boo. We’re going home.”

I sat up and fastened my seat belt, eyeing up his bared erection as he started to drive. I lasted maybe thirty seconds before my hand began to inch toward it.

I gripped him hard, having to lean far to the left to get a good hold of it. My fingers barely touched around the girth of him. I thought that was the hottest thing in the world.

I stroked him roughly once, twice, before he stayed my hand. I watched in rapt fascination as one pearly drop of liquid seeped out of his engorged tip.

I was out of my seatbelt, leaning over him the second he pulled the car into the parking lot of his apartment, my mouth hungry as I tongued the head of his cock.

He pulled me off him by my hair, giving me a pained smile. “Like I said, I’m waiting to fuck you. Get out of the car, boo.”

I had a brief urge to sass him for that, but I squelched it, instead hightailing it upstairs. He had plans, and I was on board with them, regardless of what exactly they were. My libido had gone into overdrive with this man, and become a thing beyond my control.

It was like a magic trick in itself, the speed in which he unlocked the apartment door, shut it behind us, and had me pinned against it.

My heels dug into his ass as he ground into me. Our kisses were hard and rough, hot and intoxicating, hungry and insatiable.

He buried himself inside of me with one sure thrust, and the fever took us as he gave me the rough ride he’d promised, muttering curses and endearments into my ear as he rocked my world.

“Gonna fuck you ’til neither of us can walk straight tomorrow,” he growled into my mouth.

I melted. Deep waves of rapture took me as he pulled out and shot back in with long, heavy thrusts, fast and hard, my hips moving with him, each thrust slamming me into the door at my back.

“Love you,” I gasped as I came.

His back bowed, and he came, buried deep inside of me, shouting with his pleasure.

“God, that was intense,” I breathed.

“Oh, we’re not finished.”

He pulled out still twitching, no sooner letting my feet touch the ground than he was dragging me straight to his bedroom.

He pushed me onto the bed, his expression fierce. And tender.

God, I loved him, loved this, adored everything he did to me, every touch, every taste, making me love an act that had terrorized me for most of my adult life.

He flipped me onto my stomach, lifting my hips to just the right angle, the head of his cock pulsing against me, barely pushing inside, instead teasing me relentlessly.

“Talk to me, sweetheart,” he rasped into my ear. “I want you to tell me just what you want. Make it dirty.”

My hips strained back against him, my back arching as his hand palmed my breast. “Fuck me hard.” I gasped as the first perfect inch of him breached me. “Pull my hair and pound me into this bed.”

That startled a rough laugh out of him. The laugh was cut off short, though, as he sank into me, pushing hard and deep, stretching me, filling me until every nerve inside of me vibrated to life.

He took my request literally, pounding into me until I thought I’d leave a permanent indent in his bed, my face buried so deep in his soft mattress that I had to push up on my elbows just to take a breath.

He didn’t let up, taking me with relentless purpose. It was a sheet clawing kind of fuck, and he had me screaming before he was done.

He lay heavy on my back after we finished, panting, his hips still grinding down, pinning me. “You okay?” he panted. “I think I lost all brain function for a bit there.”

“Mmmhmm,” I murmured, still breathing hard as I drifted back down to earth.

It was a long time before he shifted off me, and even then he draped himself over me. My man was a cuddler, and I couldn’t have been happier about it.

“It’s going to be tough to give this up for five days a week,” he mused, his voice sleepy.

That made me stiffen. I’d nearly forgotten about the record deal. Maybe my mind had blocked it out. The entire thing terrified me. I knew it wouldn’t be good for us. Good for Tristan, maybe. At least I hoped so. But certainly not good for the two of us together.

His hand tightened on my hip, and I realized that I’d been spacing out while he’d been asking me a question. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? If you don’t like it, I won’t do it. I don’t want to be gone that much anyway.”

I patted his hand, shutting my eyes tight. He was hugging my back, and didn’t see the tears slipping past my lids. “Of course I’m okay with it. You can’t pass up this chance, Tristan, and we’ll still see each other on weekends.”

“God, that sounds awful. Five days a week is ridiculous. I’ll see if I can’t change their minds about the schedule.”

In the end, they stuck to the schedule. Five days away, two days home, week after week. It began to take its toll on us almost right away; Tristan coming home more tired each time, more strung out. I felt him inching further away from me every time he left, and the absences started to stretch into longer lengths of time, days turning into weeks.

We were drifting apart. I felt helpless to stop the pattern, but still, I held onto him for dear life.

CHAPTER FOUR

MONTHS LATER

DANIKA

The neighborhood was scary, even by trailer park standards. It was just the sort of place I’d pictured her living for all these years apart. In my mind, it had always been either a dump like this or her not living at all. She just led that kind of a life.

I knocked on the door, waited a solid minute, then knocked again. I could hear the TV on inside and there was an old, beat-up Nissan Sentra in the carport. This was the place, and somebody was home. I wasn’t leaving until that somebody answered the door.