Ravished (The Teplo Trilogy #1)

by Ayden K. Morgen

  Tristan lay sprawled across the bed on his back, with one arm thrown over his face as if to protect it from the light filtering in through the window. Bursts of color were tattooed above his heart in stark lines. Tracing them with her gaze, she realized they made up a bird with one wing tucked against its body. The other wing spread across his chest, the tips grazing his ribcage. A date had been inked beneath. The day his parents died, unless she missed her guess.

  The grief displayed in the tattoo took her breath away. So did the fact that she'd never have guessed he had it had she not seen it for herself.

  Something in her chest loosened, the last vestiges of her anger at him unfurling and then vanishing.

  With his loss permanently etched into his skin, right there in front of her, holding on to anger just didn't seem fair. How could she blame him for jumping to conclusions and castigating her when people just like the Vetrov family had murdered his parents?

  She couldn't, and she didn't want to either. He never should have said the things he had said to her, but being pissed when he was obviously hurting wouldn't change anything. He'd apologized to her more than once. She had to let it go.

  Unable to stare at his memorial when he went to such pains to keep his grief hidden, Lillian averted her gaze, only to have it land on his stomach. His nude, muscular stomach. She gulped, tattoo all but forgotten as her gaze followed the little trail of hair beneath his hand down, down, down as if pulled. The sheet covered one hip, but had fallen away from the other. He hadn't been kidding when he'd said he slept naked. Not. At. All.

  Hip bone and a tantalizing peek at the V waited for her the further down her gaze traveled. The tented sheet was obvious. Lillian's legs felt weak as she devoured his body with her gaze, remembering the way he felt pressed against her.

  He stirred, moaning.

  Lillian jumped and then froze, certain he'd caught her staring.

  But he didn't open his eyes.

  She fled, pulling the door closed and limping down the hall. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest. Her entire body felt flushed as she scurried into her studio, inhaling air like a woman starving.

  Oh God. She would never sleep again with him right across the hall. Not now that she knew he hadn't been joking. Her dreams of him naked hadn't done him justice. He was beautiful. All contoured muscle and smooth olive skin. She pressed her legs together, trying to ease the ache between them to no avail. It wasn't going anywhere. Not anytime soon.

  With a frustrated groan and a silent curse at herself for peeking in that door in the first place, she tossed her water bottle down and turned on the music before inching her way down onto the floor to begin her stretches.

  Tristan stopped in the doorway to Lillian's spare bedroom, drawn by the soft strains of music whispering through the small space. The music wasn't what made him linger though. Lillian demanded his gaze, keeping him riveted to the spot, mouth half open as if to call her name.

  She stood in front of the closet doors, focused intently on her reflection as she lifted her bad leg in some sort of dance step. The sole of her foot came to rest on the inside of her knee, her arms lifted into a classic ballet position he couldn't even attempt to name. He wasn't sure what she was trying to accomplish, but the faint sheen of sweat on her face and the determined set to her jaw led him to believe she'd been at it for a while.

  He couldn't look away.

  The dark gray leotard she wore hugged her beautiful body in ways that made him clench his teeth. His erection jerked at the memory of his hands on said body. And her legs? Definitely not covered in tights. The angry red scar on her thigh stood in stark contrast to the pale perfection of those long legs.

  And Christ, those legs….

  His erection jerked again.

  Yeah, this day promised to suck. Hard.

  Lillian lost her balance and tottered to the side before steadying herself.

  Setting her jaw, she muttered something under her breath before attempting the same step. Only this time, she rested her full weight on her bad leg, and lifted the other to do the little foot to knee thing. She lost her balance as soon as it was up, but this time she couldn't catch herself. The way her leg twisted beneath her ensured that.

  "Oh, shit!" she cried out, her arms wind-milling wildly.

  Tristan crossed the room to her in three steps, grabbing her before she hit the floor. He half expected her to slip through his fingers, and waited to hear her bone snap. A picture of her crumpled on the floor in pain shot through his mind, jarring him. His heart hammered painfully.

  Her wide-eyed gaze flew to his.

  She gasped as he drew her nearer, securing his hold on her.

  "Are you okay?" he asked, running a hand down to her leg.

  Nothing felt any worse than usual, thank God.

  "I'm fine," she gulped.

  "What the hell are you trying to do?" he demanded, the feel of her in his arms hitting him like a fist as soon as the initial wave of panic receded. Pure electric pulses surged through him, relief mingling with irritation.

  "I'm-"

  "Are you trying to break your leg?" He set her back on her feet to glare at her, pissed off at her and at himself. The shit he'd dragged her into was far worse than anything she could do to herself in the middle of her makeshift studio.

  Her mouth fell open and then she narrowed her eyes on him. "The rod won't break, Tristan."

  "So you're going to try to kill yourself so you can forget that?"

  "Of course not." She crossed her arms over her chest in a familiar, defensive move. "I have to stretch every day. I told you this already."

  "That was not stretching," he said, jerking his head toward the center of the room. Did she think he was an idiot? "That was you nearly falling on your ass because you're trying to prove something to yourself. Is being a famous ballerina really so fucking important that you're willing to risk your own safety just to have it back? Christ, Lillian, you're smarter than that!"

  Lillian stiffened, her eyes flashing. "What I do is none of your business."

  "The hell it isn't!"

  Her expression firmed at the iron in his voice. "What is your problem this morning?"

  Besides the fact that she'd scared the hell out of him? "Not a fucking thing," he said, lying through his teeth. He took a deep breath, trying to temper his tone. "If you want to do that shit, ask me to help you."

  "Why? So you can feel better about that fact that I won't beg you to sleep with me?" she demanded and then shook her head, disgust stamped across her face.

  "That's not-"

  "You think it'd be enough for you that you make me so crazy I can't think straight, but you aren't satisfied unless you're in complete control, are you? What I want doesn't even matter to you, does it? Just so long as I'm an obedient little toy, how I feel doesn't even register with you!" she snapped.

  Tristan gaped at her, not sure what to say.

  Did she really think he saw her as nothing more than a toy?

  "Sometimes, you're a complete ass." She stumbled around him to the iPod dock and pressed a button to stop the music. With that, she hobbled out of the room, pausing only long enough to slam the door behind her.

  Well, fuck.

  Tristan ripped the door open and followed after her, catching her before she made it halfway down the hall. He swung her around to face him, pissed off that she'd just walked away from him. And pissed off she thought he saw her as a toy, something to play with. She was a whole hell of a lot more than that. Sometimes, he was pretty fucking certain what she wanted mattered to him more than anything else. And wasn't that the problem? She mattered, a whole lot more than he was prepared to deal with.

  "I'm doing my best to keep you safe," he said. "The least you can do is make that a little easier by not breaking your own damn neck."

  "No one asked you to keep me safe. And if I do break my own damn neck," she mimicked his tone, glaring up at him, "it's none of your business!"

  Tristan growled.

/>   "Let go of me." She jerked on her arm and he let her go, instead putting his hands on the wall on either side of her head to keep her from storming off.

  "I am so sick of your mood swings, Tristan. Yesterday, you were amazing. Last night, you were almost perfect. This morning though? Not even close. I expected this to be awkward. I expected you to pretend last night changed nothing. Hell, I expected you to keep on with this begging crap, but I didn't expect you to be a complete jerk. I thought we might have actually moved past the whole yelling at each other part of this… this… whatever this is!"

  "What is this, beautiful?" he asked, the desire to fight draining from him.

  "I don't know!" she shouted, her expression wavering between anger and hurt. She pushed against his chest. "Get out of my way, Tristan. I don't want to deal with you right now."

  "Well, doesn't that just suck for you?" No way was he letting her go until she promised not to try that shit anymore. Forcing that promise from her probably made him an even bigger hypocritical ass, because he got it. He really did. If he were in her shoes, he'd fight tooth and nail, pushing himself beyond his limits just because they'd told him he couldn't. But he'd promised to keep her safe, and he intended to keep that promise even if it meant he had to keep her safe from herself, too.

  "Let me go," she demanded.

  "No."

  He had a thousand different things to say to her, but when her body skimmed across his, heat bubbled up from the pit of his stomach, ripping away every single rational thought in his mind.

  "What are you trying to prove, Lillian?" he whispered, shifting around until he caged her body more firmly between him and the wall.

  "Nothing," she snapped.

  "No?"

  "No."

  "Liar."

  "Go to hell, Tristan."

  His thigh grazed hers as he put his lips to her ear. "Ask me to help you if you want to push yourself like that, sweetheart." He sucked the lobe into his mouth. "I don't care why you're doing it. Just let me help."

  "It's not your business." She shivered, some of the tension draining from her body.

  He loved that. As pissed off as she was, she felt it too, felt that flame dancing between them. Her body responded to his just as much as his did to hers. And that probably shouldn't have made him happy considering the night he'd had and everything coming their way, but it did.

  "Everything about you is my business," he said, trailing his mouth down her neck to suck at the skin there. With sweat drying on her, she tasted more potent than ever.

  "No," she whispered even as she wound her arms around his waist, pulling him closer.

  "Yes." He nipped at her, raking his teeth across the silky skin not covered by her leotard. "Promise me, beautiful."

  She shook her head, a groan falling from her lips.

  "Promise me," he demanded, pulling her skin into his mouth and biting lightly. He shifted around, moving her until he could wedge his knee between her thighs.

  She moaned, setting his heart to pounding all over again.

  His cock kicked in his pants, ready to fight its way free and burrow between her legs.

  "Promise me you'll let me help, Lillian."

  "Why do you even care?"

  "I need you safe, beautiful," he whispered the fervent words against her skin before swirling his tongue across the same spot, driving himself wild in the process. "Don't ask me to stand by and watch you get hurt if I can do something to stop it." He lifted his head to meet her gaze.

  "I'm not." She barely breathed. The angry lights in her eyes dimmed, slowly replaced by something softer – lust, need… affection? Understanding?

  "Aren't you?"

  She swallowed. "Why does it matter to you?"

  "You know why," he said. "You aren't just a toy. You know that." Christ, she had to know, right? She had to know that she drove him toward something she couldn't afford for him to feel for her.

  Something flickered in her expression, something warm and honest… something that had him ready to plead with her to give him this. To tell him that she knew, that she really did understand what she did to him.

  Fuck.

  "Please, baby."

  Lillian swallowed hard. Her eyes fell closed. "Fine."

  Tristan sighed and then tore himself away from her, his chest aching. Little by little, she was killing him. And that terrified him.

  "I'll meet you in the kitchen," he murmured before slipping through the door into his bedroom, breathing hard and praying to a God he didn't even believe in to stop this feeling. To freeze it in its tracks before he got her hurt or killed.

  He couldn't stop it though. He knew he couldn't.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Lillian emerged from her bedroom forty-five minutes later, Tristan had showered and found his way to the kitchen. French toast sizzled in the skillet before him. He felt calmer, but by no means peaceful. His thoughts skittered all over the place. To Lillian, the Vetrov family, Pedro Francisco, and then back to Lillian.

  If they didn't make progress soon, things were going to get ugly.

  Fuck.

  He flipped the burner off and placed the last two pieces of toast on a plate as Lillian grabbed milk from the fridge, not speaking. The thoughtful frown on her face made it clear her mind was a million miles away.

  He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her until neither of them could think, but didn't. He hadn't really kissed her since she agreed to let him move in. If he did kiss her, he wouldn't be able to stop.

  "Thanks for cooking," she mumbled as he carried breakfast to the table.

  "Welcome." He set a plate in front of her before taking his own seat.

  They sat in silence for a moment and then he sighed.

  Lillian looked up, but didn't say anything.

  "We have to test these tonight," he said, reaching for the little box of dilation drops.

  "Tonight?"

  He nodded.

  "Why so soon? I thought we had more time. I mean, I thought we…." She trailed off, scrutinizing his expression. Whatever she saw there made her hands shake.

  Tristan ached to reassure her, but nothing he said now would make what he needed to tell her any easier.

  "What's wrong?" she asked, a quiet tremor in her voice.

  He reached across the table to squeeze her fingers, trying to soothe her. Funny thing though… he didn't know how to ease her mind when his refused to cooperate. The thought of dragging her into a club full of strobe lights and drug addicts with those drops in her eyes didn't sit well with him anymore, if it ever had at all. She'd be blind, surrounded by people who had no fucks left to give.

  "Tristan, please talk to me. You're freaking me out."

  He debated how much to tell her and then sighed, unable to lie to her no matter how much he wanted to do exactly that for her sake. She deserved the truth. Hell, she deserved a lot more than that, but the truth was all he had to give her.

  "Paulo Vetrov has been in touch with a cartel in Mexico."

  "A cartel?" Lillian blinked.

  "Yeah."

  "Like a Mexican drug cartel?"

  He nodded.

  "Holy shit," she whispered, her eyes widening. "That's bad."

  "Yeah, it's bad."

  "When? I mean, how long-?"

  He knew what she couldn't seem to force out. How long did they have until all hell broke loose? If they were lucky, they had six weeks before Vetrov and Francisco started shipping the shit out by the boat load. Tristan wasn't counting on those six weeks though. The stakes were too high to take that kind of risk.

  "Three weeks. Tops," he said.

  Lillian paled visibly.

  "We're going back to Teplo tomorrow night, sweetheart."

  Lillian swallowed hard, her gaze skittering away from his.

  He watched her for a long time, waiting for her to say something, but she didn't. She stared down at the table, her expression carefully blank as the little clock over the table ticked. The loud cl
icks were the only sound in the room. One minute dragged by and then two. Three. Four.

  His heart threatened to explode while he waited for her to say something.

  "Okay," she finally whispered, refusing to meet his gaze. Her hand shook when she reached for her fork. Halfway through cutting a piece of her toast, she dropped the pretense, letting the fork clatter to the table on a choked whimper.

  That frightened sound tore through Tristan like a bomb. He rose to his feet and circled around the table before the utensil settled, sinking into the chair beside her. With one finger beneath her chin, he tilted her face toward his. That same haunted look he'd seen in her gaze inside Teplo glittered in her warm brown eyes.

  His heart fucking clenched at that terrified look on her face.

  "I'm not sure I can do this," she admitted, the words full of fear.

  "Hey," he whispered, cupping her face gently in his palms. His fingertips swept across her cheeks. "It'll be okay, sweetheart. You'll be okay."

  "Will I?" she asked, staring at him. The question trembled on her lips. "Will you?"

  "You'll be safe," Tristan murmured, stroking the sides of her face with his thumbs. "I'll be with you the entire time. You'll be okay. We can – we can stop this now. You can back out. You should."

  The slight tremor in his voice seemed almost pleading, but Lillian barely noticed. She was too focused on what he hadn't said, on the promise he hadn't given. The one where he made it out unscathed. Where he was safe.

  His lack of assurance scared her.

  So did the look on his face, like he was drowning.

  "Wh-what about you?" Her voice shook.

  "Don't worry about me, baby. I'll keep you safe. That's all that matters, okay?"

  She stared at him, unconvinced.

  He tucked a strand of hair behind her right ear. Offered her a thin smile.

  "Tristan, I-"

  "It doesn't matter, beautiful," he interrupted, the quiet words leaving no room for argument.

  She wanted to argue though, because his safety did matter. To her, it did.

  A Mexican drug cartel.