Ravished (The Teplo Trilogy #1) (10 page)

Tony sighed heavily and then nodded his dark head, giving up. "I'll drive you when you're ready to go."

"You'll call us if you need anything, right?" Jen asked.

"First thing," Lillian promised, stifling a sigh of relief that they weren't going to fight her on this. She really didn't want to argue about it, especially not with her friends. They had her best interests at heart, but they were slowly driving her insane with their solicitous questions about her leg, her day, and her mood.

Her leg was fine. Her days were long, and her mood was getting worse every time one of the two refused to let her help herself, instead rushing to get her what she was after. That was as much a reason to leave as anything else. She really didn't want to snap at one of them when they were just trying to help, but she was close to doing exactly that. And it wasn't really either of them she was angry at anyway. It was Tristan
Special Freaking Agent
Riley and Jason
For Your Own Safety
Ames who'd pissed her off.

She disliked both of them, and never mind what she craved from one of the two.

That one, she liked least of all.

As soon as Tristan slipped through the doors of
Teplo
, the scent of marijuana, sweat, and cheap perfumed hit him hard. The repugnant smell turned his stomach just like it always did, which pissed him off. He was sick of spending every night choking on the noxious, desperate scent no one else seemed to notice or care about.

"Fucking hell," he muttered, pushing through the crowd milling right inside the entrance.

A woman laughed.

He made the mistake of looking up, and into the eyes of a blonde.

"Hey, sexy," she slurred, jutting her chest out and smiling. Her bright red lips matched the artificial blush spread across her cheeks. Chipped red polish topped the trembling fingers she placed against his chest. Like so many others already crammed inside, she gave off that same desperate odor. "Wanna dance?"

"No," he answered shortly, removing her hand from his arm.

"Fine," she snapped, her bloodshot eyes narrowing. "Asshole."

Tristan didn't bother responding. She'd forget all about him as soon as he disappeared into the crowd. They always did, their memories short when a club full of other potential partners waited. Sooner or later, one would take her up on her offer to dance, and they'd finish their night behind the building, in an alley, or God knew where.

The sex, just like the high, would be temporary, easily had, and quickly forgotten.

The high sickened Tristan. And the sex? Well, that did too. He didn't want nameless, faceless, easily had, and quickly forgotten. He wanted
her
.

Lillian.

Tristan gritted his teeth – fighting the smell, the noise, and the desire to see Lillian – and waded forward. Toward duty. Toward responsibility. Toward a job he wanted ended so that he, like everyone else inside these four walls, could just forget. Forget warm brown eyes, dazzling smiles and light, floral scents. Forget sterile waiting rooms and teary-eyed nurses, caskets, and headstones, too.

Turns out, he wasn't much different than the nameless, faceless crowd after all.

Teplo
was a never ending well of depravity, catering to the sick, the addicted, and the quickly forgotten. The place promised everything. Wasn't it just Tristan's luck he wouldn't find what he craved here?

He wanted this job finished so goddamned bad he could taste it.

Instead, he prowled through the crowd, balling his hands into fists when a group of girls jabbed needles into their arms on the dance floor. They giggled and squealed when their friends depressed the plungers for them, delivering liquid escape into their eager veins. Heroin, meth….

Who knew what they shot up or where they'd end up as a result?

Bad enough the same happened in clubs everywhere. Worse that it happened here, in front of him, when he couldn't do anything but endure it, tolerate it, and not say a damn thing about it. Anton and Paulo Vetrov were the big fish in this pond, the only target the DEA focused on inside these four walls. Anything beyond that, necessity demanded he ignore. It was a fucking miracle no one had dropped to the floor in convulsions yet.

A little further on, another nameless blonde stood sandwiched between two men who groped her barely clad body as she grinded into them. Her dilated eyes met Tristan's beneath the pulsing lights, her stenciled brow arching in invitation. He shook his head, the sight a stark contrast to how things had been with Lillian.

Jesus. Why the hell couldn't he get the ballerina out of his mind?

He didn't even know her, for fuck's sake!

Except… after having spent the last week reading up on every detail of her career, after having made her come apart for him, he felt like he did know her. Or knew enough to regret ruining his chance to get to know her better, anyway.

"Son of a bitch," he cursed, continuing his slow prowl through
Teplo
. Sometimes, he stopped to listen to the frenetic beat and giggles. Others, he forced a smile, a nod, or a mumbled greeting. Whatever he could do to blend in and disappear. It was an act he'd perfected over the years. One he hated. One as necessary as anything else he'd ever done in the line of duty.

And for once, he might as well not have bothered.

When the storage room came into sight, for the first time in days, there wasn't a Vetrov guard to be found. Tristan stopped yards from the door, not stupid enough to believe in happy coincidence. Divine providence wasn't that freaking divine.

It was a set-up. And he wasn't stupid enough to fall for it.

He walked away with his jaw clenched, repressed fury boiling in him. Anton Vetrov knew he was being watched. Or suspected he was. Either way, despite Lillian's innocence, Tristan's job had just become that much more damned difficult.

Duty. Responsibility. Some days, he hated that either mattered so much to him.

He stalked through the club, making circuits as he scanned the room… looking for the trap Anton had set. He located the camera installed on the wall twenty feet away, pointed at the door. If anyone walked into that room, they wouldn't make it out alive.

Tristan didn't make a third circuit of the club, instead heading toward the doors and the promise of fresh air beyond, his heart hammering. Did they already know he was DEA, or were they just paranoid?

By the time he broke through the crowd milling into the rain outside, he ached to hit something.

He glanced at Lillian's house, regretting that he couldn't bury himself inside her until the clamoring roar in his mind fell away. He needed release and the quiet it afforded him, and both had been lacking since he'd fucked up with the beautiful ballerina. God only knew if he'd ever get the chance to apologize to her.

"Fuck," he muttered and spun away. He'd taken two steps toward the back of the club and his car before he realized a light shone brightly in the window of Lillian's house.

Before Tristan knew it, whatever promises he'd made to Jason to stay the hell away from Lillian were moot. He strode across the street in the drizzling rain, telling himself the entire time to turn around and let Jason handle the ballerina. He didn't stop walking though, his feet moving toward the light glowing in her window as if in a total disconnect from his mind.

When he stepped up onto her porch, his hand disobeyed too, reaching out to knock… and then knocking again.

She flung the door open on his fourth knock, muttering to herself. And then she blinked as if surprised to see him standing on her front porch. The furrow between her brows deepened. Wariness and anger mingled in her bright eyes.

She looked beautiful, dressed in nothing more than a little blue tank top and pajama pants. Her silky, chestnut hair cascaded in loose waves down her back. She crossed her arms over her breasts, and a little sliver of skin peeked from between the hem of her tank and the top of her pants.

Heat crackled between them as he stared at her, licking along his skin as if a physical touch upon his arm, his face, and the nape of his neck. It tightened the muscles in his stomach, hardened his cock, and eased the tension that had pricked at him nonstop since he last saw her.

Silence settled over him.

Amazing that seeing her gave him such peace when she was the one who'd made it so elusive in the first place. Infuriating how that inflamed and soothed him at the same time. There was no rhyme or reason to how quickly she unraveled years of self-taught discipline, but she did. And she did it without even trying.

"You," she hissed, scowling at him.

"Hello, Lillian," he said, preparing for the inevitable argument, and hoping she got it out of her system so they could move on to more important things. Like how much he wanted to run his mouth across the little strip of skin visible beneath the hem of her shirt.

She stared at him, not speaking.

He could almost count down the number of breaths it took for her to remember why she hated him.

Three… she still reeled from his presence on her porch, trying to adjust.

Two… her eyes flashed like bolts of lightning dancing through storm clouds.

One… he needed to get her inside before she exploded.

She could yell, scream, and rage at him as she had every right to do, but not here. Not where someone might overhear, remember, and then paint a target over her head if things went to hell in a hand basket across the street. Too many targets had already been drawn because of him. Better they have it out inside than out here where anyone could overhear whatever vitriol flew from her lovely lips.

"May I come in?" He didn't wait for an answer, instead stepping into the doorway, so close to her the current between them scorched him where he stood.

Her eyes fell halfway closed as if she felt it too. She swayed a little closer to him before jerking herself upright. The scowl on her face grew as she backed away. He stalked her movements – closer, closer, closer – until he'd made it inside the house and it was too late for her to slam the door on him.

That didn't stop her from reacting.

She'd had eight days to stew over what he'd said to her. Eight days to build walls to keep him out.

He owed it to her to shut up and listen to whatever she needed to say.

"You need to leave now," she said, her voice trembling with anger.

He hoped it shook from desire too.

He pushed the door closed and moved closer, one slow step at a time.

"Now, Tristan," she demanded, moving away as if unaffected by the flame of desire dancing between them. "I don't ever want to see you again."

"You shouldn't be here. It's not safe for you," he said, looking at the new security panel on the wall next to the door, both grateful that she'd gotten it and frustrated that she felt as if she needed it at all. That was his fault, and he hated it.

"Not safe for me?" Lillian blinked at him and then laughed, the sound brittle, bitter. "As if you care."

"It's my job to care, Lillian." The words sounded callous even to him, but he spoke nothing but the truth. The line between duty and desire blurred where Lillian was concerned, but he couldn't cross it again now. If he did, things wouldn't end well for either of them.