I had no doubt about that. Even more, I had no doubt that I wanted to know more about his mouth. And every other part of him.
"Oh. So what can't you control?"
"Let's just say you do things that make me not have the control I prefer."
His voice was deep and made me want to hear him speak more. "Tell me about what I was like with you."
My words sounded almost like they were begging. Maybe I was. I wanted to know the person he'd fallen in love with—the woman who had made such an incredible man fall for her. Was I still that woman? Or had she been replaced by some cipher who clung to any shred of thought that could attach her to the present in the hopes that it would help her remember the past four years?
"Honest. I never had to guess how you felt."
That was definitely me. I probably told him I loved him before he told me. Honest wasn't terribly sexy, though, usually.
"Did you like that? I can be incredibly difficult with my honesty, if I remember correctly."
He looked away and then back at me with a changed look in his eyes. "I loved it."
"Don't get too many people telling you the truth, huh? Most people don't like hearing it."
"Most people don't tell me anything."
"What do you mean?"
He seemed to think about how he wanted to answer before he finally said, "My work life is one in which very few people speak to me during the day. Most people who want to get to me instead deal with assistants and managers."
"So there's no one above you at your company?"
"Stone Worldwide has a board of directors, which I must deal with, but other than that, no."
God, that sounded lonely. "What about in your personal life? You have to speak to people then."
"I have Rogers to speak to everyone in my personal life. He handles the cook and all the household help, except for Jensen, my driver."
"So you only speak to your butler, your driver, and a few people at work? Why?"
"I speak to you," he said, sidestepping my question and making me feel his life was even lonelier than I'd first thought.
"Yeah, about that. Why would someone who prefers to speak to so few people not only take the time to speak to me but hire me himself instead of making me go through your human resources department?"
"I liked you. I wanted to be around you. I hadn't planned on..."
He abruptly stopped talking and looked away again. What hadn't he planned on?
I reached out and touched his hand as it sat on his thigh. "Don't stop. I like hearing about us then."
"I hadn't planned on meeting anyone that night at the art gallery."
Tristan seemed so reluctant to talk about anything concerning how we met. I'd asked him a few times in the hospital and he'd glossed over our meeting as if it were commonplace, but something in the way he spoke now told me it was very important to him.
"Tell me about what I was like there."
He shrugged and seemed to be at a loss for words.
"Please. I'd love to know about that time in my life. I'd planned on trying to find a gallery position when I was in college, so that I did is pretty important."
He looked at me and shook his head. "I don't know a lot about that part of your life. I only saw you once in your job at the gallery."
"What was I like?"
"Beautiful."
"That's it? Beautiful?"
"That's all I saw. And those little cocktail franks."
"Little cocktail franks?" I couldn't help but giggle. He had the oddest way of describing things. Beautiful and cocktail weenies. "You sure do know how to tell a story. Remind me to begin writing a journal so if one of us loses our memory again at least we have something to look back on," I teased, hoping to see one of his gentle smiles again.
For a second, I worried I had offended him because his expression hardened ever so slightly, but then he gave me one of those smiles that I was sure could melt the iciest heart and quietly said, "I remember the important things."
"Like?" I wanted to know those important things. I wanted to hear him talk about every single thing that meant something to him.
"Like the first time I kissed you. The first time you begged me not to tease you and how much I wanted to be inside you at that moment. What you look like when you sleep, all curled up next to me. How jealous you get. The feel of your hair against my fingers when I wrap it around them while we lay in bed talking."
As he spoke, I watched that beautiful mouth say words that nearly took my breath away. He said so little that when he finally spoke freely, it was like a dam breaking. He never took his eyes off my face, watching for my reaction, I suspected, even as his expression remained calm.
This was the reality of us. He remembered everything and so much of that revolved around me, while I remembered nothing but wanted so much to experience those moments that were so deeply etched in his mind.
My eyes drifted down over his muscular torso, and I saw the outline of his cock through his pajama pants. I couldn't deny I too was excited by his words. I was pretty sure all it would take was one kiss and I'd be more than willing, but I didn't want to make the move on him and he seemed content with just talking.
"I wish I remembered those things, Tristan," I said apologetically.
He leaned in and I waited for him to kiss me. His face was so close to mine I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. Instead, he took a tendril of hair and wrapped it around his middle finger. "There are always new memories, Nina."
I closed my eyes and willed myself not to react to the sound of his husky voice right next to my ear, but it was a lost cause. An involuntary whimper escaped from my mouth as I waited for him to touch me again. God, I wanted him to do something so we could get started on those new memories right then and there!
"Yes, there are," I croaked out as he sat there still as a statue, his breathing the only sound I heard.
He released my hair from around his finger and repeated the action, twirling the strand from the bottom up to next to my ear. When he stopped, he gently tugged on it, sending a twinge over my scalp and making me flinch.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked, but I had the distinct impression he didn't care if it had hurt.
In truth, it hadn't. The tiny bit of pain he'd caused by pulling my hair was intermingled with the pleasure he was creating in me just by being so close that I almost wished he'd do it again.
"No. Is this how you used to play with my hair?"
He shook his head, sighing heavily near my neck, and his warm breath flowed over my skin. "No," he whispered. "I'd play as you rested your head on my chest while we lay in bed. This bed."