"You make me crazy, beautiful," he said, shaking his head as if in disbelief.
She wanted to tell him that he did the same to her, but she didn't. Instead, she stood quietly within the warm circle of his arms, trying to beat back embarrassment, and trying just as hard not to melt into him.
He sighed and then murmured something under his breath. It sounded like feels so fucking good, but she couldn't be sure.
"Meet me here tomorrow?"
She hesitated, knowing she needed to tell him no. Knowing she shouldn't do this again, that she shouldn't want to do it. She wasn't that girl. She didn't do random hook-ups with strangers. She didn't let them touch her, taste her, or play her body like a violin. It frightened her that, for him, she would be that girl. That a large part of her wanted to be that girl.
"Don't regret it," he said when she remained silent. "Don't overthink it. Just… don't. Meet me here tomorrow. Please. I need this." His breathless confession sounded almost desperate, uncertain. The same confusion lurked in his gaze. Whatever drove her to this, whatever made her feel like this, he felt it, too.
Her resolve wavered and collapsed half an instant before she heard her agreement falling from her lips. "I will."
Tristan breathed in audible relief, hugging her tighter to him.
Lillian's taste lingered in Tristan's mouth as he left temptation behind and stole around the side of the building, blending easily with the deeper shadows there. She still stood where he'd left her, staring down at the ground with a thoughtful frown on her face before looking in his direction. He edged deeper into the shadows to avoid her notice and waited to make sure she was left alone.
His mind spun.
He had no idea who she was, but she didn't belong at Teplo. Maybe though… maybe….
He shook off the thought before it could form, refusing to consider it. She was a risk he couldn't afford to keep taking, a liability he didn't need. As desperate as he'd been to see her again tonight, he knew it couldn't last. He had a job to do.
No, that wasn't quite right. Working with the DEA wasn't just a job to him. At least, it hadn't been before he'd met Lillian, and he didn't want it to be just a job now either. People like those inside needed his head clear. They needed him focused on the goal, not on his own pleasure. Lives depended on it, theirs and his. Hers, too. Dragging her inside night after night was a bad idea all around.
He had a feeling she knew it too.
So… why didn't he want to stop?
As he watched from the shadows, trying to make sense of the way he wanted her, Lillian curled her hands into determined fists and stepped from the sidewalk onto the street. The bouncer at the door nodded in her direction, his mouth moving. Lillian offered him a smile in return.
Did they know one another?
Tristan's confusion turned to a sharp gasp of surprise as she shuffled across the deep, pitted lanes and hobbled up the steps to the brownstone across the street, reaching into her bra to retrieve a key.
"Son of a bitch," he swore beneath his breath, stunned.
She lived across the street from the shit going on inside the club!
Tristan shifted forward to go after her, but stopped cold when the cool calculation that had saved his life time and again flared hard between one breath and the next.
The way she looked at him as if seeing him clearly.
The fact that no one inside had bothered her even though she was alone.
That exchange with the bouncer.
Hell, her very presence in such a place, and the fact that she'd appeared at his favorite restaurant today….
Was she as unaware as he'd assumed or had she been at Teplo for some other purpose?
Aside from himself and Anton Vetrov's employees, she was the only other person he'd seen in the club who wasn't flying higher than a kite. And the way she'd given in to him so easily, and then slipped the very moment he stepped into the dining room at Kristal today, as if expecting him to catch her….
Doubt wriggled its way in, turning his blood to ice.
Tristan didn't believe in coincidence, but he wanted to. He desperately wanted to believe that Lillian had an innocent reason for being there. That seeing her at lunch today was simple happenstance. That she'd let him touch her because she felt that same unrelenting hunger still gnawing at him.
But why would someone like her be at Teplo in the first place?
Something wasn't right, and he wasn't stupid enough to ignore the warning bells screaming at him now.
Lillian wasn't who he'd thought she was.
The thought eviscerated and infuriated him in turns.
Chapter Four
"Let me get this straight," Tristan's boss, Jason Ames, said less than an hour later, leaning across his kitchen table to glare at Tristan. His wife – Tristan's cousin, Zoë – perched on the granite countertop, covering her mouth with her hand as she tried to contain her laughter.
Tristan felt vindicated that Jason, at least, didn't share her amusement.
"You want me to run a background check on Lillian of no last name to find out if she's involved with the Vetrov family because you practically fucked her in the middle of their club, made out with her in the bathroom of Kristal, and then went back to Teplo to do it again? Before you found this out?"
Tristan cringed at his friend's callous, frustrated summary, and then nodded. He'd fucked up. The more distance he put between himself and Lillian, the more appallingly clear that fact became.
"Christ, Tristan." Jason shook his head in obvious disappointment, and then reached for his phone. "What the hell happened to your rules?"
Tristan only wished he knew. Away from Lillian, he was appalled that he'd capitulated to the lust that hummed between them. To do so went against everything he knew, everything he was. It was dangerous and worse, his cock was still hard, begging for her. To do it twice with no idea of who she was or why she was there? That was suicidal and he fucking knew it.
He endured Jason's wrath in silence, knowing he deserved that and more. He would be lucky, damned lucky, if he didn't pay for his mistake dearly. If Lillian worked for Anton Vetrov, all she had to do was hand over his info and the entire case would go up in flames.
Zoë burst into laughter.
Tristan and Jason both turned their heads to glare at her.
"Sorry," she said, her light eyes twinkling as she held her hands up to fend off any retort to her giggles. "I'm sorry, but oh my God, Tristan. You're a voyeur!"
"I'm not a voyeur," he snapped.
"He's an exhibitionist," Jason said. "Voyeurs watch. He participated. Twice."
Zoë launched into another round of laughter.
Tristan jerked to his feet, infuriated by the reminder of what he'd done… and by his body's unflagging desire to do it again. He strode from the kitchen and into the dark living room, heading straight for the stocked bar Zoë and Jason kept there. Grabbing the bottle of Stoli and a shot glass, he filled it to the brim before knocking it back and then filling it again. He knocked that one back too before he snatched up the bottle and glass and stalked toward the plush couch.
"Fuck," he muttered as he flung himself down, nearly spilling the vodka across the dark fabric of the sofa. He glared up at the ceiling as the quick shots burned in his stomach.
What the hell had he been thinking?
The DEA didn't pay him to fuck around with complete strangers in the middle of an investigation. They paid him to help bring assholes like the Vetrov family down. To save people like those already lying in the morgue.
He was slipping, losing his edge. That was intolerable, and completely his own fault.
He knew better.
Dammit, he knew better.
"Tristan?" Zoë called from the other side of the couch.
He turned his head in her direction.
His cousin frowned at him, her shoulders hunched. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have laughed."
"It's fine." He waved her off, feeling like a bastard. "I deserv
ed it." That was nothing but the truth. Had anyone told him yesterday morning that he'd be here now, he would have told them they were insane. He didn't hook up with random women in the middle of an operation. He didn't get off on bringing them to orgasm in the middle of a crowded dance floor. He didn't spread them across benches in drug lounges and bury his head between their legs until they screamed. And he didn't feel betrayed when he found out they lived across the street from the hellhole at the center of an investigation. But there he was anyway, feeling exactly like that after having done exactly that.
The real hell of it?
Even with his newfound doubts about whether Lillian was as innocent as he'd first believed, he still wanted her. Desperately.
"You like her, don't you?" Zoë stepped around the couch before perching on the edge of the coffee table beside him.
"I don't even know her," he said, refusing to go down that path now. It didn't matter whether he liked Lillian or not. He couldn't see her again.
I need this.
Why had he ever said those words to her?
He poured another shot and downed it.
"What do you think happened to her leg?" Zoë asked, acknowledging with a single nod that he didn't want to talk about whether or not he liked Lillian.
He frowned up at the ceiling, thinking about the scar on Lillian's thigh. Femur breaks weren't common. Femoral shaft fractures like hers were even less so. It took a lot of pressure to break a leg where hers had been fused back together with a steel rod and metal plates.
That haunted look in her beautiful eyes flashed through his mind.
What had happened to her?
Dammit.
He tossed the shot glass onto the sofa beside him and took a swig straight from the bottle, desperate to quiet his thoughts.
"Tristan-"
"Don't, Zoë," he said, shaking his head. "Just don't."
His cousin sighed, but didn't push. The two subsided into silence, his thoughts slowing as the vodka finally began to do its job and numb the edges of his racing mind.
Jason strolled into the room a few minutes later and tossed the phone down onto Tristan's stomach.
He jerked, almost spilling the vodka all over himself and the sofa in the process.
"You have something already?"
Please, let me be wrong. Just… fucking hell, let me be wrong, he prayed silently.
Jason grabbed the bottle from Tristan's hands before taking a swig. He eased down into an armchair diagonal to the sofa. Zoë hopped up from the table and bounced to his side. Tucking his arm around her waist to pull her down into his lap, he looked at Tristan.
Tristan's heart plummeted at the aggravated expression on his friend's face.
"Tell me," he demanded.
Jason hesitated for a moment longer and then sighed. "Her name is Lillian Maddox. Seattle P.D. has her in the system in relation to a Schedule III narcotics investigation. Her current address is red flagged."
Tristan wanted her to be the innocent, out of place woman she portrayed. He wanted to be able to lose himself in her.
I need this.
Anger stole his breath. He fought not to shatter his shot glass against the wall.
"Lillian Maddox?" Zoë piped up, scrunching her nose.
Jason nodded.
Lillian's sober presence in the club and her involvement in a narcotics investigation, added to the fact that she lived right across the street and had to know what the fuck was happening there, didn't look good. The fact that she'd let him do what they'd done…. Tristan didn't do coincidence.
"She works for the Vetrov family," he said aloud, forcing himself to admit what he didn't want to believe. She was off-limits. One of them, a Vetrov puppet willing to do whatever her bosses commanded of her, including seduction and murder.
Tristan reached over and snatched the bottle from Jason before taking another long pull. He was furious. Livid that his instincts had been wrong and enraged that his cock still didn't give a damn. He was pissed he'd led with his dick in the first place. Furious he'd been so enamored of her, he hadn't even bothered to ask questions.
"Looks like it," Jason said with a grim nod. "Seattle's system is offline, so Jackson wasn't able to find out the particulars about her involvement. He should have something for us as soon as they get their system up again. In the meantime, I want you to stay away from Teplo and this girl. Don't do anything until we know exactly how she's involved."
Tristan didn't bother to tell Jason that staying away wouldn't solve anything. They were already screwed. She'd kept him occupied long enough for the Vetrov boys to piece together who he was and clear the club out. And he'd been too fucking blind to notice.
He'd failed.
For the first time since–
Tristan jerked to his feet and thrust the bottle back to Jason. "I'll be at home," he muttered and strode from the room, the sting of failure as brutal and unwelcome as unrelenting attraction.
"You aren't driving."
"No shit. I'm walking," he muttered, not even stopping to remind Jason he wasn't a complete fucking moron. He knew better than to drink and drive.
"Tristan," Zoë called after him, "wait! I think you may be-"
He slammed the front door hard behind him, cutting her off mid-sentence.
Chapter Five
The shrill ring of the telephone ripped through the darkened room. Tristan jerked upright in his bed, his erect cock in his hand. Lillian's name still echoed in the corners. A vision of her spread naked in front of the windows in his living room while he pumped into her hung front and center in his mind.
Jesus Christ, he'd been dreaming about her.
"Motherfucker!" he swore, his heart pounding, though he wasn't sure if he cursed because the erotic images running through his mind were just a dream or because he didn't want to be dreaming of her at all.
Another shrill ring ripped through his bedroom.
Tristan cursed before flipping on the bedside lamp and grabbing his cell from the nightstand. His leg brushed against something wet.
What in the…?
He glanced down, and barely kept from throwing the phone in frustration as his eyes landed on a wet spot spread across the sheet. "You have got to be kidding me," he ranted to himself at the sticky evidence that his cock had found its way into his hand more than once during the night. At some point, he'd come. And still, his cock ached just as it had when he had his tongue buried between Lillian's thighs.
"Son of a bitch!"
"Hello?"
"What?" he barked into the phone before swinging around to sit on the side of the bed, a string of curses still bouncing around in his head. He was a twenty-nine year old man, not some untried teenage boy in the throes of his first wet dream. Jesus Christ.
And that dream?
Murdering, lying, beautiful….
His cock twitched, jerking as Lillian's cries of pleasure reverberated in his head.
"Agent Riley?"
"What?" he said again, his tone still harsh, angry.
"This is Aaron Lesley with the Seattle Police Department."
Tristan's stomach turned as soon as Aaron identified himself. Irritation at dreams and being called at the crack of dawn evaporated in a roiling cloud of defeat. He didn't even wait for an explanation. It wasn't one he needed, and it wouldn't change anything.
"How long ago?" he asked, raking his hand through his hair as frustration and anger rolled through him in a great, big wave.
"The call came in from the E.R. at Northwest about two hours ago, sir," Aaron said. "The victim was found outside a vacant lot. She was D.O.A. The attending at the E.R. called it on the spot. Our detective spoke to Dr. Swanson at the Medical Examiner's Office, who requested we contact you and Jason Ames."
The Vetrov family had just claimed another victim.
Tristan took a deep breath as Aaron provided him what information he could over the phone. He didn't even bother to write it down; he didn't need to any more than he needed
to open the case file in his safe to remember the name, rank and social of the other seven victims. The details were branded into his brain and would be until the Vetrov family was in prison or all hope vanished.
Thanks to Lillian, he no longer knew which it would be.
"Yeah," he said, all but checked out on whatever Aaron asked. "I'll be there in a while." He clicked the End button and dropped the phone to the floor before hanging his head, images from his dream flickering through his mind on a loop.
The way Lillian had thrown her head back and moaned for him.
Her body pressed into the cool glass.
Other dreams and faces poured into his mind in a great big parade of death. Cold, hard skin over still, lifeless bodies.
"Son of a bitch," he swore, grabbing the glass of water off the bedside table and launching it across the room. Water and glass rained down in turns, coating the white wall while fury ripped through him, leaving a stinging pain somewhere damn near his heart.
Lillian was poison. Pure fucking poison.
"You're late," Dr. Marita Swanson said as soon as Tristan stepped through the autopsy suite into her office nearly eight hours later. She glanced up from the computer and smiled that vivacious smile of hers. She looked exhausted, but that had never slowed her down. "Jason came by over two hours ago. Rough day?"
"Something like that," Tristan said, leaning back against the door jam. His head pounded, and he hadn't eaten since sometime yesterday. Too much alcohol and too little sleep, followed by hours of combing through the vacant lot with Seattle's homicide team hadn't left him feeling any better.
"You missed the autopsy."
"I know." He would have gone bat-shit crazy if he'd had to witness another autopsy. Instead, he'd hit up his informants after leaving the scene, which got him nowhere. They knew nothing about the Vetrov operation. Nothing but the same damn rumors he already had, anyway.
"What do you have for me, doc?" he asked instead of dwelling on that infuriating fact. He was pissed off enough without adding fuel to an already raging fire.
Ravished (The Teplo Trilogy #1) Page 5