Page 72 of Black Heart

“And that’s how long I plan on loving you,” Tristan said, turning his head and kissed the side of her neck, making it difficult to focus.

“I haven’t told you that I love you yet,” Marty pointed out, only to close her eyes on a soft moan when Tristan brushed his lips over her neck.

“I don’t need to hear it to know that you love me,” Tristan whispered against her skin, making her breath catch.

“Damn, you’re cocky,” Marty said, loving the way his lips felt as they pulled up into a smile against her skin.

“Yes, but you love me anyway,” Tristan said, making it really difficult to think while his lips brushed against her neck.

“I do love you, Tristan, even if you piss me off,” Marty admitted on a soft moan as she dropped her head back more, giving him better access.

“Enough to spend the rest of your life with me?” Tristan asked before kissing a path along her chin to her mouth and-

Tore a soft moan from her as he took her mouth in a slow, hungry kiss that left her struggling to remember why they couldn’t do this.

There was so much that they needed to talk about, so much that she didn’t know about this man. They needed to slow down and think this through, Marty told herself as she pulled her hand free so that she could turn around on his lap and wrap her arms around him.

This was a mistake.

And in a minute, she would tell him that before they did something they’d both regret.

CHAPTER26

One month later...

“Ireally don’t see why yer so angry,” Shayne said as he leaned back in the overstuffed recliner that he’d demanded Tristan buy for him so that he could watchGilligan’s Islandin comfort.

Breathe in. Breathe out, Tristan told himself as he clenched and unclenched his fists, struggling against the urge to strangle his best friend.

“It’s hardly my fault that Marty is pissed at ye, lad,” Shayne pointed out with a shrug as he focused on some lame-ass 80’s monster movie.

“She’s not pissed at me,” Tristan bit out through clenched teeth.

Shayne sighed heavily as he sent Tristan a pitying look. “Lad, when are ye gonna learn that when a woman is screaming at ye that yer in deep shit?”

He had to close his eyes and take a deep breath before he answered, truly afraid that he’d say something that he’d regret...eventually.

“For the last time,” Tristan bit out, opening his eyes to glare at the annoying bastard, “she wasn’t screaming at me.”

“I could hear her all the way down here, lad. She sounded pretty pissed if ye ask me.”

“She wasn’t screaming at me, you asshole! She was screaming my name!” Tristan snapped.

“Yes,” Shayne agreed slowly as though he were speaking with a small child, “as she yelled at ye, lad. I’m thinking that after a month of her screaming at ye like that, that ye’d finally get the hint and move on. Ye really should take the hint, lad. It’s kind of pathetic at this point.”

“For the last time,” Tristan ground out, “my wife wasn’t screaming at me because she was mad at me, you jackass! She was screaming my name while I was making love to her!”

Shayne frowned up at him. “And ye actually stopped just to come down here and tell me that?”

“No, what I came down here to tell you was that another one slipped by you,” Tristan said tightly as he jerked a thumb in the direction of the dead bastard who actually had the balls to ask if he could take over Tristan’s body so that he could “Get some of that.”

Up until that point, Tristan had been able to ignore the bastard’s presence, but the moment he’d laid his hands on him to take over, which wasn’t even fucking possible, he’d lost it. The ice-cold pain and anguish that seeped into his skin made it difficult to focus on anything other than getting the bastard out of the room and away from Marty. When she managed to ask him why he’d stopped, he was forced to tell her that he heard something downstairs.

Again.

If it wasn’t for their family’s tendency to let themselves in and make themselves at home, she’d probably think that he was crazy every time he abruptly left the room. He really needed to have another talk with them, but right now, he was more concerned by the fact that over the past month spirits had been getting by Shayne left and right and bugging the shit out of him.

When he saw the asshole throw a look of longing towards the stairs, Tristan shook his head, once. That’s all it took to keep the man from going upstairs to stare at Marty. If he so much as looked in the direction of the stairs, Tristan was going to bring the bastard down to his knees again.

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