Page 43 of The Good Girl

“Do you like them?” he whispers, and I shiver, leaning back ever so slightly into him. I may have pretended that he didn’t exist for the last five years, but he clearly hadn’t done me the same courtesy. He was always watching, waiting in the shadows since we were children.

“Why?” I murmur. “Why did you paint me?”

His hand slides around my waist, and I can feel the heat of his touch through the silk fabric. His aftershave lingers, wrapping around us in a haze of warmth and spice, and I realize that the smell of tobacco and weed is completely gone.

“Why do you ask stupid questions when you already know the answer?” His lips brush against the curve of my neck, words sinking into my skin, and I tremble. Not because he makes me nervous, but because he was my constant. In the madness, the bloodshed, the pain, the humiliation…he had been there, refusing to give up.

“You cut my strings,” I accuse, already knowing it was him. No one else would have dared to touch my instrument, but Tristan didn’t understand boundaries. He never had.

I feel his mouth twitch against me, just below my ear. “You should’ve stood your ground and told him no.”

Spinning around to face him, I pause, he looks devilishly handsome in a navy suit with a cream shirt. When did he look so...grown up? His navy and silver mask is resting on top of one of the display cases, and I’m glad, because it would be a waste to hide that beautiful face. His smug grin doesn’t detract from my annoyance fully, and once again I feel that ball of anger in the pit of my stomach. Who did he think he was? He was no better than my father trying to control me.

“Look at you, Lena.” He pulls me in closer, until our lips are just inches apart. “You need to let go of all that rage.”

“I can’t,” I snarl. I need to be a good girl. I need to behave. I need to represent the Montgomery family. I need to make my father proud.Except, nothing was ever good enough, the small voice at the back of my head whispers harshly. “If I lose control…”

I try to explain that losing control would cost me everything, but the words die on my lips. I can’t verbalize why letting myself go would be the end for me, it just would.

“You’ll what?” he taunts with a stupid half-smile as I grab his lapels, my fingers turning white as I hold on tight. “Hurt someone? Kill me?”

His hands come over mine, and instead of pushing me away, he brings them up to his neck. “Then go ahead, Princess. I’d rather die at your hands than anyone else in this messed-up town.”

I squeeze, feeling him swallow beneath my touch. “You don’t understand!”

I had an anger that couldn’t be tamed, it was there all the damn time, and being around Tristan made my grip on my temper tenuous. I wanted to kill him half of the time, and the other half...well, that was just hormones. Wasn’t it?

“Don’t understand?” he says softly as he takes off my mask and throws it to the ground, letting it shatter. “I see you. Every damn day. I see you pushing it down, swallowing the bullshit, pretending not to be angry. You are not a pretty little doll. Not a puppet for that wanker, Randolph. You do not have to be perfect. You are beautifully flawed, and people need to be reminded of that.”

He takes a step back, taking me with him as my hands are still wrapped around his throat. Another step. And another, until he’s sitting back on a chaise longue and I’m leaning over him. His dark eyes never leave mine as he murmurs, “So, show them your monstrous side. Remind them who the fuck you are.”

Seeing him below me, offering himself up like a sacrifice to my fury, has me feeling all kinds of things that I just don’t have the words for. The anger that bubbles away is still there, but it’s simmering, moving between rage and lust, and I realize that’s exactly why he’s been pushing my buttons for weeks. Tristan Radcliffe wants me to come undone. He wants me to burn up in my rage and lose my sanity to his taunting.

And I give in.

His hands are on my dress, pushing it up my thighs so that I can straddle him as I take what he’s offering. My lips crash against his, and there’s no kindness or softness there, only need. Only raw emotions, as I keep one hand on his neck and tighten my grip, while the other comes up into his hair, and I yank his head back. Peppering little nibbles and kisses along his jaw, I love feeling his moans as they rise up his throat. His hands slide further up my legs,

as I bite down on his bottom lip before sucking away the pain.

I grind against him, feeling his hardness through the material of his pants. His hands cup my ass as I do, pushing me harder against him. Tristan is the only one who makes me burn like this, the only one who takes me to the edge with his stupid words.

“No panties?” he breathes against my mouth, before letting out a groan that makes me flex my grip on his neck.

“Not with this dress,” I groan as his fingers feel the wetness between my thighs.

“You really are trying to kill me…” He tilts his head back and groans, allowing me to move my tongue over his Adam's apple before gently sucking.

Two fingers slide inside me, making me buck my hips against his hand like I’m losing my mind. His thumb brushes against my clit with every roll of my hips, and I’ve never felt anything like it. His free hand moves up my body, and this time it’s him who grabs me by my hair and demands my mouth once again.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t ask for it,” I say, pulling away with a wicked grin as my orgasm builds. My breasts are held firmly in place by the corset part of the dress, but that doesn’t stop him from kissing anything he can gain access to as I fuck his hand. His mouth moves over my collarbone as I lose control. My fingers dig into anything they can, his hair, his shirt, his shoulders. I have this overwhelming urge to touch him everywhere as if he’s not close enough, I want more. I need more as the feeling inside me grows, building and building until I begin to fall apart.

He doesn’t stop until I’m trembling, my forehead pressed against his as I try to control my breathing. I feel as though I’ve been through a storm in a paddle boat by the time we’re done, but the anger I felt earlier is gone. There is something so right about this moment that I’m stunned into silence. There's no knot in my stomach, and I feel weirdly calm as he whispers against my skin, “Fuck, Princess.”

“Fuck indeed,” a voice hisses behind us, and my heart stops.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Tristan

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