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And somehow, I found myself telling him our story, the long version—The Saga of Tristan and Danika.
The battles and the victories.
The defeats and the triumphs.
The tragedies and the trials.
Somewhere in the middle, I had him tearing up, which I’d never seen him do, and I tried to tell it all with less dramatic flair, but it was what it was.
“Wait, so you haven’t told him that you can’t…?” he asked, somewhere near the end.
I looked down at my lap.  “I don’t know how.”
“I’m so sorry, Danika.”
I shrugged it off.  “Anyway, do you mind if I tell him that you’re my half-brother?  I thought I should ask first, because of, well, you know.  And as I’m sure you’ve gathered, he’s the insanely jealous type.  He was none too pleased when he heard I was going to dinner with a man.”
“I don’t mind at all.  I don’t keep our relationship under wraps, Danika.  I’m sorry you thought that I did.”
“Well, I just thought, because of your mother, you’d want to keep it secret.”
“You’re not a secret, you’re a person.  My parents’ mess of a marriage is their business, and it will never affect the fact that you are my sister.”
That warmed my heart.  He was a good brother.
I went straight to Tristan’s after dinner.
He was still tense and upset, but nothing like he’d been when I’d gone to lunch with Andrew.
“Okay, let me have it,” he started in on me right away.  “What’s the big mystery about this buddy of yours?”
“He’s my brother.”
That deflated all the sass right out of him.  It was kind of nice.  I had a brief moment of wishing I could bottle that ability up.  It would make a good superpower.
I found myself storytelling for the second time that night, giving Tristan the full rundown on my deadbeat dad.
“Your dad hit on you?” he asked, shocked.
“You saw my mother.  I look just like her.  I guess he has a type.”
“Don’t try to pretend that is even remotely normal!  I ever see that guy, I’m kicking his ass.  Period.  That is happening.  Fuck, I think I’ve met that dude.  Un-fucking-believable.”
I thought that about summed it up.
He started tugging me through his house, up the stairs, straight to his bedroom.  He cornered me against his unorthodox bed and started stripping me.  “You just tortured me for hours,” he said, voice low and gravelly.  “Now it’s my turn.”
TRISTAN
She loved to make cracks about what she called my ‘kinky’ bed.  I thought it was time I showed her what it could do.
I stripped her down to her little tiny thong and blindfolded her.  I looked my fill of that intoxicating sight before I took her into the bed and made her stand.
I fastened her arms above her with padded leather cuffs that attached to the ceiling of the sturdy bed.
And then I went to work on her with my mouth, starting at her jaw, working my slow way down her neck, her collarbone, spending extra time sucking at her puckered ni**les.  Gripping her br**sts into two perfect handfuls, I rolled them against my tongue, kneading.
I loved her body.  In fact, it was a little alarming how obsessed I was with it, the vast amount of hours I’d spent fantasizing about this right here.
I fisted my c**k as I nuzzled into her navel.  I was loud with it, and when she heard me working at my own fist, she moaned and squirmed.
I knelt in front of her and buried my face between her thighs, throwing her legs over my shoulders.  I shoved her panties to the side and went to town, using every tongue trick I had to bring her, again and again.
And then I went to work on her with my hands.
When I finally stood up and started f**king her vigorously, she was pliant under my hands.
After I came, I just kept pumping into her, letting her milk at me for a long time.
This right here.  Heaven.
“I love you,” I told her, not in the throes of passion, but in the clear moment after.  I would keep telling her, conditioning her to it.  I’d keep trying forever, if I had to, to make her trust me again.
I knew she still loved me.  I could see it now, even if she was still in the throes of denial.  She didn’t have to say it in words.  She spoke to me in so many other ways.  Her love spoke to me in every surrendering line of her body.
It spilled out of her pure silver eyes every time she looked at me.
She was mine again.
And, even when she hadn’t wanted me, when I’d lost all faith, I’d always, always been hers.
I took her down and arranged her on her back.  I peeled off her panties and parted her legs.  She was so satiated that she was as good as limp, so deliciously pliant that it made my brain go a little fuzzy with the heady pleasure of it.
My fingers slid along the soft skin of her thigh as I straightened, catching one of her sexy little feet and digging into it, rubbing until, even in her complete relaxed limpness, she began to make little writhing motions on the bed.
I kissed the arch of her foot, then her slender ankle.  She was so delicate and soft under my hands that every touch I gave her held a shaky restraint.
I loved this body, this slender waist, these lean hips, her slim thighs.  I adored that what appeared so dainty had a core of steel so strong, so relentlessly solid, that it was the only thing I’d found on this earth fit to cast my lot with, to make my home.