Exit Strategy (32 page)

“These are gorgeous,” she says. “I’ve always been fascinated with the Greco-Roman era. I’ve fantasized about being a modern-day Cleopatra.”

Tristan strolls over to her, not satisfied until his body is flush with hers. He hugs her against him, his chin resting on her head. “There might be some costumes from this era in the closet in the Grotto. I’ll retrieve them for us, if you like.”

She turns in the circle of his arms and winds her arms around his waist. “That could be fun.”

“Are you sure you’re up to it? I didn’t expect us to do any scenes tonight. Especially not in the Grotto.”

“I think I’d rather lose myself in being someone else tonight.”

“As you wish, Ms. Beale.”

“Hop to it, then, Mark Antony.”

“Mark Antony?”

“I certainly don’t want you to be crotchety old Caesar. Cleopatra might give him a massive coronary.” She giggles.

Tristan pulls her closer to him so she can feel what sets him apart from crotchety old Caesar. “This is the equipment of a Roman soldier in his prime.”

“If crotchety old Caesar had been working with something similar to this, I doubt he would’ve lost the girl to virile young Mark Antony.”

“You have a vivid imagination, Ms. Beale.”

“I try,” she says, hopping up to wind her legs around Tristan’s waist.

~*~

Tristan’s eyes open, and his vision adjusts to the ambient light without preamble. Keisha is snuggled into the crook of his arm, and he gently arranges her on the pillow to pull himself away without waking her. The trial took more out of her than she was willing to admit. Their brief scene as a Roman soldier and Egyptian queen culminated in her drifting into slumber as if in death. It wasn’t from the sting of an asp, but it might as well have been.

The way she is curled in a semi-fetal position makes him hate what he’s going to have to do to make her safe again, once and for all. It has to be done, or they will all exist in fear that someone, or several someones, may be trying to exact revenge against him for some real or perceived slight they have yet to reveal.

Tristan rolls out of bed and moves as quietly as he can to the closet. He slides on a pair of pajama bottoms, a T-shirt, and flip-flops and makes his way to his office without turning on any lights. Only after closing the door to his office and picking his way to his desk in absolute darkness does he turn on the lamp on the credenza behind his desk. Sinking into his desk chair, he powers up his laptop and drafts an e-mail to his security team. Tomorrow, the plan he and his security chief hatched weeks ago will take effect.

Tristan watches via monitor as the three state-of-the-art vans equipped with weapons-grade surveillance equipment roll out from a nondescript industrial building on the northwest side of Chicago, bearing two-man security teams trained by his security chief, Carlos Velasquez. Masquerading as service trucks, they’re all in place before their targets rise tomorrow morning, joining the two men in cars that are already in place at each location.

The targets, Byron McCaskill, Sara Fielding, and Bryce Paulson, have no idea they’re being monitored, and if this operation goes smoothly, it’ll remain that way, even once the perpetrator or perpetrators are handed over to the FBI. Tristan isn’t taking any chances dealing with the Chicago PD this time. Whoever is leveling threats against him and his will face federal prosecution.

The vans simultaneously feed their video and audio to a command center at Tristan’s downtown office and the makeshift command center he and Carlos hastily constructed in his home. In addition to the feeds coming from the trucks, Tristan also has access to KSR North and South, as well as his father’s and Nate’s homes, Aimee’s condo, and Keisha’s duplex. Together with the alarm system he’d installed in Keisha’s place when the first threat occurred, there’s now video surveillance surrounding her house and a two-man stealth security team shadowing her at all times.

Tristan locks his office door and video conferences with Velasquez is and the person who’ll help him with the first part of his plan. His first submissive after Aimee was a buxom blonde by the name of Leilani Doyle. Standing almost as tall as he in her heels, Lani is Amazonian in stature and so confident in her career it's difficult to see how she could ever enter submissive subspace. However, she's exceptionally good at it and is a true masochist who loves all the punishment implements so much a Dominant could easily hurt her were he not careful to temper the use of them.

Lani and he parted ways amicably. Some time after that, she’d turned up at a fetish club with an incredibly vicious Dom from whom Tristan later ended up saving her one night in that same club. The bastard took sadism to the extreme and on the night Tristan happened upon the scene and recognized Lani, the sick fucker had ripped her backside to shreds. Tristan did what no other male in the club had the balls to do, or were just plain too fascinated by the scene to stop it. He’d knocked the offending Dom out and taken an unconscious Lani to the hospital. Then he’d made sure that Dom was ostracized from every fetish club in the city, and legally unable to approach Lani again for anything.

When Lani appears on the screen, she smiles widely. “Tristan. Long time.”

He grins back. “I’ll say. I hear how great you and your PR firm are doing from time to time.”

“Glad you finally decided to hire me again. Yet I’m sorry it’s for this purpose. I’m game to do whatever you need. Just give me my role, and I’ll play it to the hilt.”

“Carlos has explained the danger, right?”

“Yeah, but he’s got a group of big security men to keep me safe, huh?”

“I’d rather not comment on their size, but yes, there is a security force at your disposal. You may not see them, but they’ll always be there.”

“Good, then let’s do this.”

“Did you throw the paparazzi a bone?”

“Done. They’ll love the spectacle we’re going to create.”

Next, Tristan receives an encrypted call from Carmelo Rojas.

“Hey, Tristan.” Carmelo sounds a bit subdued.

“You sound as if you’ve lost your best friend.”

“Just waiting for my hangover remedy to kick in.”

“What you got?”

“I’m in. Byron took the bait. I drank his ass under the table a couple hours ago, but not before I got a spot in his band.”

“I knew the fucker would be celebrating, so that was as good a time as any to infiltrate his camp.”

“We’re going to be in the studio from around noon until whenever. I’ll stick to his ass like glue until he trusts me enough to do his shit.”

“Keep me posted.”

“And you know it. Check you later, bruh.”

Tristan sits back in his chair and scans the video feeds spread out in his office space. Tomorrow after Keisha leaves, they’ll be manned by Velasquez’s personnel.

Tomorrow night, he and Lani will perform their Oscar-worthy debut, which should put Chicago and the world on notice that he and Keisha are no longer an item. Tristan’s goal is to throw whoever's making the threats off Keisha’s trail, if it isn’t McCaskill. If it is him, it could lull McCaskill into a false sense of security, and he might go after her.

Carmelo had already set everything in motion by going to McCaskill feigning anger with Keisha about a song they’d written together. He'll talk just enough shit to McCaskill to make him believe he’s done with KSR and pissed off enough with Keisha to turn a blind eye to any threats McCaskill might spew around him.

With all the players and hardware in place, all he has to do now is execute some flawless acting and then wait, hoping the true perpetrator rears his or her ugly head.

~*~

Tristan makes his way back to bed and a still-sleeping Keisha. When he slides in next to her, the dip from his body weight rolls her back effortlessly into his arms. His throat becomes oddly tight when he thinks about what he has to do to draw out those who wish to hurt her, his father, his brother, or Aimee. Including everyone else in his irrational melancholy emotions makes his feelings for Keisha somehow more palatable.

Is he, in fact, in love with his submissive for the first time? This is something he will need to hash out with Dr. Trammell when he goes in again, but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. He certainly can’t get Keisha off his mind or out of his system. That has been evident since she safeworded and left him. Now
he’s
leaving
her,
in a manner of speaking, and in order for his plan to work he’ll have to do it in a particularly cruel fashion so the world will thinks he’s done with her.

Tristan lies in bed, keyed up and unable to sleep for the rest of the wee hours of morning, until Keisha stretches like a feline and opens her eyes.

“Hey,” she says. “What time is it?”

“About seven forty-five.”

She bolts upright, and he gets a view of those twin brown areolas saying
hello
and inviting his mouth to possess them.

“Why’d you let me sleep so long?”

“You needed it,” he says, urging her to lie back down.

“I need to go to KSR South today, so if I’m going to catch a ride with you and Moses, I should’ve been ready an hour and a half ago.”

“But, I’m still here, so you’re good.”

He wants her again so badly it’s embarrassing, but he needs to slake his thirst now, because there’s no timeframe for the simultaneous sting operations he’s about to put into place, and once the ball begins to roll, he won’t be able to stop it. Not even for her.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

KEISHA

“The world will just have to wait for us today,” Tristan says as his blond head dips to my chest, devouring one breast whole. My eyes roll back, and I moan, partly in frustration because I’m such a sucker for him, and partly because his tongue has gone to town on my nipple so fiercely I feel it between my legs. Adrenaline spikes cause my heart to thunder in my chest so hard I’m sure he can hear it.

He lets my nipple go abruptly, and the cool air assaults where his warm mouth had been. “Hands up,” he says.

Even outside his Grotto, it is about control with Tristan, and being with him this way has made me eager to give it to him. My compliance yields rewards beyond comprehension, and that’s all I need to know as I do as he bids me.

Tristan straddles me on the bed, careful to bear the brunt of his weight on his knees. He holds my arms in place with one hand, cups my breast with the other, and then lowers his mouth to linger over mine. The sadist in him can’t resist this when we do vanilla—he teases me with a kiss he won’t reward me with until he’s good and ready.

Even though my lips have just recovered from our activities of the night before, I want his mouth on mine. He has made me into this insatiable creature, and he knows just how to appease me. His hand leaves my breast and caresses a path down my side to my hip and back up over my chest. He pinches my nipple, sending a shot of pain before he returns to a delicate, sensual caress that exacerbates the rush of pleasure. These opposing sensations make me breathless with an aching need for him. I squeeze my eyes shut at the incongruity of it.

“Open your eyes,” he commands. “I want to own all your pleasure here in my bed this morning.”

Just two and months shy of a year knowing and being known by Tristan White, I am very much at ease with him when I’m not afraid my anxiety attacks will crop up. He makes me feel more alive and comfortable in my own skin than any man ever has. That fear of him in the beginning was likely the knowledge that he would take me places sexually and emotionally that no one else ever had. Ten months as his submissive and on some levels, much more than that, makes me feel prepared to go even further with him.

He continues to tweak my nipples, pinching and tugging with a deftness that flaunts the pain and pleasure continuum in a way that makes my sex clench deliciously. I arch up toward his hips, against the thickness of his erection straining through his pajama bottoms. When did he put those on? I could’ve sworn we fell into bed nude after our Antony and Cleopatra scene. But that’s neither here nor there. I can barely stand how he’s teasing me, the aching throb between my legs is about to come to a resounding crescendo. However, seconds before I come, he slides his hand up my arm to join the other hand holding my arms down.