Lovely Trigger (37 page)

I shook my head, and started moving towards the door.
 
“Nu-uh.
 
Not here.”

He stalked me into the next room, but I evaded him, going to stand near Lana, who was busy making out with her powerhouse of a husband.
 

Tristan had no choice but to retreat.

Over the next thirty minutes, I proceeded to collect four diaper pins around the room by walking Javier, Jackie, Akira, and Bianca into saying the word baby.
   

In my peripheral, I could see that Tristan was doing the same thing.
 
From the loud commotion that occurred, I figured that he collected pins from James, Stephan, Marnie, and Lana.
   

Tristan and I wound up sitting next to each other for the diaper/candy bar smelling game.
 
This was the game where they smashed different melted candy bars up into diapers, and we had to guess which candy bars they were.
 

It was disgusting, and funny, and I’d never been to a baby shower where they didn’t play it.
 

I was just sniffing something that I thought smelled and looked like a Snickers bar when Tristan’s phone started ringing.
 

Loudly.
 

It was the most bizarre timing, because I’d never even heard his phone ring before, but suddenly his ringtone started playing
loud
, and it was my giggling, out of tune voice rapping, “
Pussy, pussy, pussy, that is all on my mind…
”

I blushed but couldn’t help giggling as the room erupted in laughter.
 

“I’d swear that sounds just like Danika’s voice,” Bianca said, her gaze swinging to me.
 

“Oh that’s definitely her,” Frankie assured her.
 
“I’ve heard that out of tune singing before.
 
No mistaking it.
 
It’s great to learn you love pussy that much, Danika.
 
How did I never know this?”

I shut my eyes, and shook my head, blushing down to my toes.
 
Even so, I couldn’t stop laughing.
 
“I lost a bet,” I explained.
 

I shot Tristan the stink eye, plotting revenge.
 

The bastard winked at me.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It was ten minutes later, and I was sniffing a diaper that smelled like an Almond Joy when I passed it on to Javier, then reached down into my bag, grabbing my phone.
 

Danika:
 
I’m ready for my dick pic.
 
Your ten minutes start now.

I sent it and watched Tristan as he felt his now silenced phone vibrate and reached into his pocket.
 
He pulled it out and checked the screen.

I was already biting my lips to keep from laughing when he looked up, his eyes wide, and said loudly, “Really!?
 
Are you fucking kidding me?
 
You’re doing this now?!”

I was doubled over laughing, but I still managed to nod.
 

He stormed from the room.
 
I finally straightened to find everyone looking at me in wide-eyed shock.
 

Frankie was the only exception to this.
 
She looked frankly gleeful.
 
“Wow.
 
So the crazy train is going full speed ahead, huh?
 
‘Bout fuckin’ time.”
 

I waited about five minutes before I felt my phone vibrate in my hand.
 
I had one new text.
 
I checked it, and sure enough, I’d gotten nothing but a picture from Tristan.
 
It was taken using the mirror in the bathroom, not thirty feet away.
 

He’d taken his shirt off, and unbuttoned his jeans.
 
He was giving a very toothy grin to the mirror, one big hand fisting his big cock.
 
He’d gotten himself hard.
   

I blinked.
 
I’d done the whole thing because it was funny.
 
I’d never imagined a dick pic could actually be hot.
 
It looked like he was inviting me to join him in the bathroom, which he probably was.
 

I ignored the possible invitation, putting my phone away, my face so red I could feel it.
 

My eyes went nowhere but the crotch of his pants when he came strutting back into the room.
 
At least he’d gotten a handle on his hard-on, though I wasn’t going to ask how he’d done it.
 

He raised his brows at me expectantly as he sat down beside me again.
 
“You get it?”

“It’s not time-stamped.
 
Do it again.”

I couldn’t keep a straight face when I said it and neither could he.
 

“You can see that it is in their fucking bathroom,” he said between heaving laughs.
 
It was a straight belly laugh for him.
 
My absolute favorite.
 
I would have gone through hell and back to hear that laugh come out of him.
 

Had gone through it.
 

Would again.
 

“The conditions were very clear.
 
Time.
 
Stamp.”
 

He looked around the room, shaking his head in laughing disbelief.
 
He pointed at me.
 
“This woman is evil.
 
Never lose a bet to this woman.
 
What, do you think I anticipated that you’d make me do the picture in this very house, and just happened to have one already taken, in that same bathroom?”
 

I tapped my imaginary watch.
 
“Time’s a wastin’.”

“James, do you have a newspaper somewhere?
 
I need to timestamp a picture.”

James, who was across the room, chatting with Akira, gave Tristan a thoroughly disgusted look.
 
“Seriously?
 
You think you need a newspaper to timestamp a photo?
 
Get out of the stone ages, Tristan.
 
Just hand me your phone and I’ll do it.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to see this.
 
Newspaper?”
 

James stood up and went, I assumed, to get a newspaper.
 

Tristan turned his laughing attention back to me.
 
“You need to erase the other one.
 
I did not agree to two, and you are being a snot, so I’m not giving you a freebie.”
   

I looked around, hoping we hadn’t brought too much attention to ourselves, but of course we had.
 

Still, I looked back at Tristan, smiling at him with my eyes.
 
“Make me,” I mouthed.

He got up and walked out of the room, headed down the hallway that led to the bathroom.

He looked agitated.
 
The good kind of agitated.

James came back into the room carrying a newspaper.
 

I intercepted him, holding out my hand.
 

“I’ll take it to him,” I told him with a smile.
 

He looked taken aback, but he handed it over with no hesitation.
 

“Thank you,” I said cheerily, heading down the hallway, where Tristan had disappeared.

The bathroom door was slightly ajar, light on.
 
I stepped close to the door, as though to knock, when it swung completely open, and a smiling Tristan snatched me inside.
 

He’d surprised me, and just going on instinct, I smacked him in the chest with the paper I was holding.
 

I did it again, holding it out for him.
 
“You better hurry.
 
I think you have like thirty seconds left.”
 

He shut and locked the door behind me, swung me to sit on the long bathroom counter, then started shrugging out of his shirt.

“If you don’t hurry, you’re still going to owe me on this bet.”

With a curse, he pulled his dick out, grabbed his phone and the paper, and took a hurried shot in the mirror.
 

I was still laughing when he hit send.
 

I stopped laughing when he moved close, his hands going to my thighs and parting them so he could step between.
 
His eyes and his hands were all over the one knot that was keeping me dressed, but not for long, since he untied it faster than I could say, “We shouldn’t.
 
Someone will hear.”
 

He was parting the two sides of my dress, folding it back over my shoulders.
 
“You didn’t wear this dress so I wouldn’t fuck you the first chance I got.”
 
He unsnapped the front of my bra, pushing both cups to the side.
 
“And look at this.
 
I got a chance.”

It was by all definitions a quickie.
 
A panties shoved to the side, cock shoved in, yanking out, rocking, rutting, quickie.

A fast, swift, brief, hasty, fleeting, hurried, rushed, quickie.
 

A hard, rough, vigorous, brutal, crude fuck of a quickie.
 

That’s not to say it wasn’t awesome.
 
I got off, he got off, and I could have spent the rest of the day sleeping on his chest and dreaming about how sweet life could be.
 

And that was the problem with quickies.
 
They were always quick for a reason, and then you were thrust back into real life, when all you wanted to do was loll about, sated.
 

I washed up as well as I could, then started straightening my clothes while Tristan cleaned up.
 
I was just tying my dress when Tristan moved close and kissed my forehead, then my cheek, then the corner of my mouth.
 

“Love you, sweetheart,” he said quietly but vehemently, then walked out the door.
 

I stood there, frozen, staring into space like a lunatic, for the longest time.

The words just stayed there, right at the edge of my thought, distracting enough, but somehow hard to focus on, in the light of day.
 

And then, as though I’d just snapped out of it, I went back to the party and had a mostly good time.
 

Not all the way good, but mostly.

Mostly because there was one very bad moment when I walked out back to find Tristan performing one of his tricks for the handful of tiny kids that were having a pool party while the grownups had a baby shower.
 
He was so good with kids.
 
Amazing.
 
I watched the entire thing with what could only be an infatuated smile on his face.

That wasn’t the bad part, not yet.
 

The part that turned the day just a touch sour was when he walked up to me after moving close, and with no hesitation, he stroked his hand over my lower belly, stroked it right
there
, and he didn’t have to say a word.
 
I could read his mind.
 

I got away as fast as I could, going inside, trying to stay far away from him until I could breathe again.

And I did bounce back, even tricking Tristan into letting me win the diaper pin game.
 
It was easy.
 
I had some dirty tricks up my sleeve, too.
 

I grabbed a marker, a Sharpie to be exact, from one of the tubs of supplies in the living room turned painting studio, and went into the bathroom.
 
I pulled my dress down all the way to my bra, and wrote BABY on the skin right above.
 

I tugged my dress back into place, dropped the sharpie back in the bin, and went in search of Tristan.
 

When I found him talking to Akira who was on his way to feeling up a giggling Lana, I quietly pulled him aside.
 

He raised his brows, looking very happy.
 
“You ready for another round?”
 

I shook my head and pulled my dress down far enough to show him what I’d written.
 

He cocked his head to see the words, and read slowly, “Baby.”

His eyes widened, neck straightened, and he pointed at me.
 
“Wow.
 
You
are
evil.”
 

I held out my hand, and slowly, grudgingly, he unfastened all of his pins and gave them to me.
 
“I hear it’s a deluxe spa package,” I taunted him.
 
“I’m pretty stoked.”
 

“I know.
 
I was going to use it to bribe you into doing me sexual favors.”
 
He said it in a pout.

As though he needed a bribe.
   

It was only later, at night, as I lay in the dark that his words began to move in my head.
 
To circle.
 
In a crazy loop.

Here’s all you need to know about crazy:
 
Crazy’s favorite shape is a circle.
 

Broken records, crazy urges on a loop.
 
Any of this ring a bell?
 
That’s how crazy works, and why it keeps repeating itself.

And boy was it repeating itself now.
   

It was all happening again.
 
Every insane fucking bit of it was back.
 

The all-consuming infatuation. Back.
 

The tight pull in my chest every time I looked at him.
 
Back.
 

Falling asleep in his arms and still dreaming about him.
 
Back.
 

Insane psychotic jealousy.
 
Back.
 
Doubly, because we were both afflicted with it.