"I'm not sure what that means," she said, searching his face, her brown eyes full of questions.
"Whatever label you want to give this, whatever I am to you… it's up to you, beautiful. I'm bad at this shit, Lillian, but I told you I'd try. I want you. Only you." He didn't care what they called it. Whatever made her comfortable, he'd accept for as long as she'd have him.
"I want you, too," she whispered.
He reached out, stroking her cheek again. "What am I to you, beautiful?"
She swallowed, her eyes tangling with his.
"Tell me, beautiful," he whispered.
"Boyfriend?" she mouthed the word, like she wasn't sure it was something she could ask of him.
It wasn't something he'd ever been before and not something he was sure he knew how to be at all. But for her? At this point, he was pretty fucking certain he'd give her anything she wanted if it meant she kept looking at him like she couldn't live without him.
"Boyfriend," he agreed.
She searched his face intently for a minute before relaxing.
He smiled, leaning forward to brush his lips across hers.
Boyfriend.
Yeah, he could figure out a way to be that for her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
"Hey, Tristan?" Lillian called from the bedroom late the following evening.
He stepped out of the bathroom, towel in hand and jeans slung low on his hips, to find her slipping a pair of ballet flats on. As usual, she was dressed in a simple and far too sexy skirt, a little flirty white number this time, and a black tank-top that flawlessly hid the gun he knew she had holstered to her back. She looked as much the ballerina as always, and as edible as ever.
"Christ, you look good," he murmured, stepping up behind her to press his lips to the side of her neck.
"So do you." She leaned back into him as he loped an arm around her waist, the towel hanging loosely from his other hand.
"You need something?"
"I have a question."
"What's up?" He turned her around in his arms so he could see her face clearly, only to find her worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
"Why hasn't anyone tried to approach Francisco's guard?" she blurted out.
"What do you mean?"
"To identify him. Why haven't you had someone go in and try to find out who he is?"
He looked at her carefully, not liking the casual way she asked. "Beautiful-"
"Just think about it, Tristan," she interrupted before he could tell her there was no way in hell he was letting her stroll up to the bastard to shake his hand. "If he knows anything at all about me, it'll be that I was a ballerina."
He started shaking his head as soon as she started talking, little barbs of fear racing up and down his spine. "No, Lillian."
"But you need-"
"No," he said again, the word succinct.
"But-"
"Dammit, Lillian, no!" He tossed the towel aside, his heart clenching at the thought of her even attempting to get close to the blond. It was bad enough that he dragged her through the doors every night, unsure if they suspected him of being DEA. There was no way in hell he was going to let her take a risk like the one she was suggesting.
"Dammit, Tristan!" she shot right back, glaring at him. "You need to know who he is."
"And you think you should be the one who finds that out? Not happening."
"Why not?"
"Because you're a ballerina, not a fucking agent!"
She flinched and he instantly felt like a prick for yelling at her.
"Christ," he swore and took a deep breath, trying to rein in his temper. "Look, beautiful, I appreciate that you're willing to try, but it's not safe. If they're already suspicious of me, having you stroll up to the bastard to say hello isn't going to make the situation any better." The thought of one of Francisco's men having a reason to focus on her was beyond intolerable. Tristan already kept her as far away from the blond and Anton Vetrov's people as possible when they were inside Teplo, and he planned to keep it that way.
She continued to scowl at him for a minute before she sighed. "Fine, but I still think someone needs to find out who he is for sure."
Yeah, so did he, but it damn sure wasn't going to be her that took the risk.
Tristan leaned against the brick wall inside Teplo, his eyes closed and his jaw clenched tight. Lillian watched as he took long, deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. His grip on her arm was tight, and the rigid way he stood gave her chills. Not one word had passed his lips since they'd made their way inside the club. He hadn't smiled at her or brushed his lips across her cheek. His hands hadn't strayed from her waist to graze across her hips, or from her arm to brush across her breasts, either.
The blond stood right beside the storage room door, propped up on the wall. He hadn't moved all night.
Lillian's heart ached at the defeated, angry look on Tristan's face.
"Tristan, let me go talk to him," she said. "Find out hi-"
"No," he interrupted, his eyes popping open. The way he focused on her made her shiver. His gaze was dark, stormy, volatile. "Don't go there again, Lillian."
"Tristan, that's-"
"Fuck." He jerked away from the wall, releasing her arm as he did so. "What part of no don't you understand? No. N-fucking-O. No. Stop being so goddamned impossible, sweetheart. I'm not letting you near him. Let it the fuck go already." He raked his hand through his hair and glowered at her.
"You're being ridiculous. I just want to-"
"Lillian, do not fucking push me," he warned her.
She growled and turned away, too irritated to just stand there and listen to him curse and rant at her. It wasn't like she was asking him to take her skydiving without a parachute, for God's sake!
He didn't even let her get half a step away before he grabbed her about the waist, reeling her in. "Don't even fucking think about it," he breathed in her ear. "I will carry you out of here kicking and screaming if you so much as attempt to get close to him."
"Then stop cursing at me," she shot right back, knowing full well she wasn't about to approach the guy without Tristan's permission. She wasn't stupid, but she wasn't about to stand there and let him bully her into submission, either.
He took a deep breath and then nodded. "Fine."
"Fine." She clenched her jaw and let him lead her onto the dance floor, too frustrated to try to argue further. It wasn't like arguing would get her anywhere anyway. He would just shoot her down again. And dammit, she'd listen to him because he was right. This was his world and she didn't know nearly enough about it to just ignore what he told her. But she wanted to help ease some of the burden resting on his shoulders before it drove him to his knees.
Apparently, that wasn't going to happen though.
She was the pretty toy on his arm inside these walls, nothing more.
That bothered her more than she cared to admit considering she'd signed up for the job.
Tristan strode through the crowd on the dance floor like an avenging angel, tugging her along in his wake. People moved out of his way without complaint, either too drugged or not brave enough to speak up. Times like this, she didn't understand how no one realized he was so much more than a cocky playboy with too much money and an affinity for partying. He was so self-assured, so damned lethal.
No playboy she'd ever met had that same dark, commanding vibe that rippled from Tristan in waves when he was angry. None looked like an angel either. Light and dark… the man was both, in spades. And dammit all, he was authoritative and autocratic enough to drive her insane.
She huffed when he turned toward her, his jaw set and his expression one of distress. That look made her heart ache. Made her feel guilty, too. Sometimes, he made it really hard to remember he wasn’t just autocratic for the hell of it. He was worried. Terrified something would happen to her because he'd dragged her into this mess. Except he hadn’t.
She'd chosen to come here with him. It had been
her decision, made of her own free will. Though true, she doubted that argument would sway him any.
He pulled her to him. "Dance with me, beautiful."
She wrapped her arms around his neck and began to move with him, gyrating to the beat. He stared at her, scouring her face as if searching for something. She wasn't sure what he found there, but his expression softened.
"Tristan-"
"Shh," he said before she could apologize. "Just dance with me."
She sighed softly.
"I hate arguing with you," he whispered in her ear suddenly. "I fucking hate it, beautiful."
"I hate it, too." She pushed herself a little closer to him as frustration gave way entirely at his pained confession. She couldn't stay angry at him. Even when he was a domineering pain in the ass, he made it so hard to stay angry. "I'm sorry, Tristan."
"I know." He sighed quietly, his breath a warm rush across her ear, and wrapped his arms around her a little tighter. His lips skimmed across her cheek, searching for her mouth. "Open," he demanded, his tongue darting out to flick at the side of her mouth.
That's all it took for her to open for him. That's all it'd ever take for her to open for him.
Stainless steel doors, one stacked upon the other, stretched as far as Tristan could see. Up. Down. Every which way he turned, his eyes locked on identical doors, each casting his reflection back to him in odd, rippling distortions. In each of those reflections, he was half a man, cut off at the waist by the unusual size of the doors. None were more than three feet high, but they sent cold dread licking up his spine.
His heart hammered painfully. His lungs burned beneath the taste of bile clawing its way up his throat. He knew those doors, knew they signified something dark and violent, and yet he couldn't place them. All he knew for certain was that he needed to get out and find her.
Lillian.
She needed him.
He spun to his left, searching for a way out of the hellish maze, but found none.
Row after row of those doors waited, the stacks growing before his eyes. The air in the room was stifling, heavy. Growing heavier by the minute as one door after another joined the others, piling up in what free space remained.
Panic began to scratch its way through Tristan with each rasping, rattling breath he took, hopelessness and desolation tearing through him as he realized that he could not get to her. He was stuck – dying – and she needed him.
He felt her fear clawing at him like a tangible, living thing. Whatever was happening to her, whatever had her so frightened – he couldn't save her. Couldn't even save himself this time.
His eyes fell closed, his breathing labored as all those doors sucked the oxygen from the room. It was oppressive, pushing against him like a weight… a physical thing forcing him to his knees in the floor. He fell forward, slapping his hands onto the cold cement. His arms strained as he fought to remain on his knees instead of falling on his face. If he did, there would be no coming back. No getting up again.
When he fell, he died.
He fought against that truth, refusing to just let it happen.
Struggling to catch a breath, he fought to slow the ferocious pounding of his heart and the muddy thickness clouding his mind. His vision began to dim around the edges, tunneling until the squat, steel door directly in front of him was the only thing visible through the black spots caused by lack of oxygen.
He needed to open that door.
Now.
The command reverberated in his mind like the strike of a gong.
He grasped for the handle, swaying. Cold steel slipped in his sweaty palm, but he held on anyway. Wrenched it open as his heart began to race at a rate far beyond what could be safely withstood for long.
Metal screeched as the door moved outward, not in a familiar arc but in a straight line.
He moaned as it slid open for him an inch and then one more. Cold billowed out in a rush, but did nothing to beat back the heaviness hanging like a living thing in the air.
It wasn't a door at all, but a drawer.
A deep, cavernous freezer.
He swayed forward, lost his balance, and fell.
He struggled to push himself upright, his body exhausted into unwilling submission as his mind grasped what he did not want to remember. There were people in these drawers. Stiff bodies and pale, chalky skin. People he hadn't been able to save. People who had needed him.
People like Lillian.
He slumped onto the freezer, his gaze catching on something inside.
No. No, no, no!
Lillian stared up at him. Her beautiful brown eyes were clouded with death, her mouth open in a soundless scream. Her lovely skin was hard and grey, lifeless.
No.
No, no, no.
What little air remained erupted from Tristan's lungs in a strangled rush. A bolt of terror shot through him, adrenaline firing his synapses and causing him to jerk against the cold steel. He tried to cry out for her, to apologize for failing her, for not protecting her, but it was already too late.
Like thick blinds falling closed over windows, everything went black.
Tristan shot upright in the bed, a strangled moan breaking from his lips. His heart raced. Sweat drenched his body. He took a deep, gasping breath, trying to calm the panicked roar of his mind. To assure himself he wasn't dying.
He wasn't.
Lillian.
He whipped his head around.
His ballerina lay beside him, her hair spread across the pillow. One arm draped across his stomach. Her feet were tangled with his beneath the blankets.
She was safe.
A sigh burst from his lips.
They hadn't been separated by a steel army of mortuary freezers. She wasn't dead.
It was a dream. Just a dream.
"Fuck," he swore, his hands shaking as he lifted them to grasp at his hair. He let them fall and reached for her instead, needing to touch her, to assure himself that she was really there.
"Tristan," she mumbled as he swept his hand across her cheek, pushing her hair away from her face so he could feel her skin beneath his palm. She was warm, soft.
He sighed again as the last of his panic began to blur and fade away, and slid back down onto the pillows, pulling her closer in the big bed. Her form molded to his.
Safe. She was safe.
He took a deep breath, but did not close his eyes. Every detail of that nightmare stayed with him – the doors, the panic. Her lifeless body. He had no doubts the rest of the freezers were full of people the drug war had already killed. He'd had similar dreams before, but none like this. None so terrifying.
He buried his face in Lillian's hair and breathed her in. He didn't want to lose her. He couldn't lose her.
She was killing him, completely undoing him. In the dark, with her body wrapped around his, the truth shook him to his core. He was falling in love with her, not in stages, not bit by bit, but all at once, completely. And taking her into Teplo every night was driving him insane.
Before she ever gave voice to the thoughts in her mind, he'd heard them. Saw the determination in her eyes. How long until she put herself in harm's way because of him? Until no didn't stop her from taking a risk and approaching the blond? A week? Less?
He couldn't let that happen.
As the clock crept through the pre-dawn hours, his thoughts grew more restless. Despite having her tucked as close as he could get her, she still felt too far away. As if she truly were locked in one of those damn freezers, out of his reach.
He dropped his lips to her forehead and then slipped from the bed, unable to get that image out of his mind. With his iPod and nunchaku in hand, he headed for her spare room, once again driven to work himself to exhaustion by a mind and heart that would not stop battling.
Duty. Responsibility. Lillian.
He wanted nothing more than to be able to juggle it all and know he would not fail her. That she wouldn't take that risk for him. But what if he couldn't? What if… wha
t if being with him got her killed just like he'd gotten his parents killed?
"Please, no," he whispered. "Not her."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Early morning light spilled across Lillian's face. She rolled toward Tristan, hesitant to leave the warmth of the bed, only to find the sheets on his side of the bed cool. Empty.
Lillian opened her eyes reluctantly.
He wasn't there.
She groaned and stretched. "Damn," she cursed as muscles relaxed in sleep protested, plunking her back down into the reality her sleeping mind so often forgot. In dreams, she danced as gracefully as ever, her leg unbroken. Waking up to the truth every morning sucked.
Rolling across the bed, she dragged herself up before she refused to leave the bed at all. Using her dresser for support, she limped across to the closet and grabbed a leotard, once again foregoing the tights, before heading into the en-suite bathroom to clean up and dress. By the time she was done, her leg throbbed, the muscles protesting every little move she made.
Tristan had taken her hard last night, pounding into her as she sprawled over the arm of the couch until she screamed his name, and then he'd carried her to bed and started all over again. With words, his hands, and his mouth, he'd taken her higher than even dancing had. She'd lain awake half the night afterward, guilt pricking at her heart as he tossed and turned, unable to rest as he mumbled her name over and over.
She wasn't sure what had haunted his mind, but she knew she'd put that thought there.
She didn't try to track him down after dressing, heading instead straight for the spare room. It was a cowardly move, but what would she say to him? All she'd wanted to do was help him, but instead she'd made things infinitely worse. A simply I'm sorry wouldn't fix that, especially when she didn't really understand why he'd reacted so strongly to her suggestion. It was more than just not wanting to put her at risk, she knew it. But he wouldn't talk to her about it. As usual, he'd shut her out when she'd tried to broach the subject after returning home from Teplo, instead distracting her with his hands and mouth.
Ravished (The Teplo Trilogy #1) Page 30