Fall into Me (Heart of Stone #2)(16)
Author: K.M. Scott

I ran my hands over her stomach and caressed the tops of her thighs. She let out a tiny moan as my thumbs slid over the insides of her legs.

"I’m sure I was wearing a suit. I do all the time."

Nina wriggled her ass against my thighs and smiled. "Except now. I like the way you look now too. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man more perfect than you. Successful, wealthy, gorgeous, and a body that looks like a Greek god’s."

"I guess all those hours at the gym have paid off. The other stuff really isn’t in my control, though."

Her fingers slid over my abdomen and up over my chest to my shoulders. "It isn’t a good idea that I adore you so much already, Tristan Stone. No one should be this crazy about another person."

"Maybe it’s okay since I’m even crazier about you."

She leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips. "I better find something about you I don’t like before I become totally lost in you. Hurry up and tell me one of your bad traits."

There were too many to even get into. I knew that. My past. My family. The club I’d taken her to just that night. But I couldn’t tell her about those, and even if I could, I didn’t want to. I had my Nina back and I wasn’t going to let her go.

"Well, I don’t talk much. Some women may think that’s a bad trait."

"Yeah, but then you do that strong, silent type sexy guy thing and make even the lack of talking a good thing."

I crossed my hands behind my head and smiled. "I guess I could work on being a bad man. Any suggestions?"

The smile she gave me was so sweet I almost pulled her to me and kissed away anything she could have said.

"I think maybe an eye patch could work."

"An eye patch? That would look great with a suit."

"Mmmm… now that’s a man I wouldn’t be able to say no to. Sort of a pirate meets a tycoon."

"I’m not sure I can pull off pirate. Something about having to say arrrgh all the time might not work in meetings."

Nina ran her fingertips across my hipbones and grazed the head of my cock. Gliding her tongue over her lips, she looked down at me and smiled. "It’s too bad. I could definitely be into a pirate."

"Arrrgh."

"I do love a man who can be persuaded."

Both of us stopped our joking, and her eyes grew wide at what she’d just said, as if she’d let something bad slip. I didn’t want her saying she loved me if she didn’t mean it. I’d wait as long as it took to have her say those words if it meant they came from her heart.

She rolled off me onto the floor and looked up at the ceiling. "I don’t know if I’m in love with you, but I’ve never felt like this in my life. Well, I don’t know. Since I was in love with you, maybe I did feel like this." Turning her head, she smiled at me. "I guess I’m not making much sense, am I?"

I propped myself up on my elbow and nodded. I understood what she was trying to say. "I get it. As long as you’re happy, that’s enough for me. It’s only been a few days since you came home from the hospital, so maybe this is good."

"I hear that thing in your voice, though. I know you wish for more."

I knew the thing she was talking about. I wouldn’t have been able to hide it even if I wanted to. A mixture of loss, sadness, and regret, it was in everything I said to her.

Twisting a long wave of her hair around my finger, I forced a smile. "I’m happy, Nina. You do that for me. No one else has ever made me happy like you do. So it’s not the same as it was. Maybe this time will be even better."

"It breaks my heart to hear you say things like that. You have everything a person could want. I can’t imagine not being happy with money, success, power—all the things everyone thinks ensure happiness."

"All they ensure is that you’ll have people wanting you for everything but you."

"Like Chase tonight?"

I gave a snort at the sound of my Top partner’s name. "Chase is one of the best examples of the people money brings to you. If I didn’t have the money to help him get that business going, I’d be invisible to him. Not that being invisible to the likes of Chase Mitchell is a bad thing."

Nina rolled over and propped her head up on her hand. "How did you get involved with him and that club? You two don’t seem a thing alike."

"Chase is a remnant of my time before I took over Stone Worldwide. Remember I told you that I wasn’t always the man you see?" For a second, I couldn’t remember if I told her in the last few days or before the accident.

She gently touched my shoulder with her fingertips. "No, no. I remember. You said when you were twenty that you would have been just like any other guy I’ve ever met. And I can tell you that I think you’re full of it. There’s no way you would ever be like anyone else I’ve ever met."

"Yeah, well, Chase is from those days. He comes from money. Not as much as I came from, but his family’s got some. Not that they would have been interested in giving him a dime so he could set up his club in a sleepy town outside New York City. That’s where I came in."

"If you’re not into that, why did you agree to be his partner?"

"Silent partner."

"Okay. Why did you agree to be his silent partner?"

"Because I know a good investment when I see one. When he came to me with his idea, I knew it would make money. So I agreed to go in on the club with him as long as he agreed that I’d have nothing to do with the day-to-day operations."

"So you just sit back and collect the money?" she asked with a sly grin on her face.

"Exactly. I prefer to stay in the hotel business and keep my involvement with Top silent."

"Why stay silent about it?"

"I don’t care what people like, but there are certain segments of society that wouldn’t approve of the owner of the Richmont Hotel chain as co-owner of that kind of place, even if he’s a silent partner."

"Doesn’t the board of your company have a problem with it?"

Shaking my head, I explained, "They don’t know. I financed Top with my own money, not Stone Worldwide’s money or credit."

Her eyes grew wide as saucers. "Holy shit! You are loaded!" Instantly, she covered her mouth with her hand and mumbled from behind it, "I’m sorry. That’s not the way the girlfriend of someone like you should act."

I pulled her hand away from her face. "It’s not a problem. I am. I always have been. Money is something I’ve been blessed with. I’m not one of those people who thinks it isn’t important. It is. But it’s not the most important thing in life."

"I always hate when you see wealthy people or movie stars talking about their success in interviews and saying things like the money isn’t something they think about or it doesn’t mean anything to them. That kind of thing just bugs me. For those of us without money, it’s a big thing and we always think about it."