Rhapsody (The Teplo Trilogy #2) (4 page)

"I love you."

"
Yes
." His teeth clamped down on her, pulling a mindless sob from somewhere deep in her throat before his tongue glided over the aching, sensitive flesh. And then he moved on, paying the same attention to her other breast before making his way down her body.

His mouth never left her skin as he moved above her.

"Up," he commanded, pressing the word into her stomach.

The vibrations from that one word rocked through her.

He helped lift her hips. Stripped her of her skirt and panties.

She clawed at the table as he continued his wicked descent down her body, worshiping her.

"You're so beautiful," he said before pushing her further up the table and draping her thighs over his shoulders. Pale ivory skin on perfect olive muscle. "Watch me, Lillian," he demanded. "Watch what I do to you."

Her eyes rolled to meet his.

"Tristan!" she screamed as his head disappeared between her legs and his mouth sent her shooting over the edge like a star catapulting through the sky. His tongue was everywhere, flicking at her clit, thrusting into her opening, swirling in lazy-eights as she bucked, and arched, and thrashed against the tabletop.

He held her hips still, his hands warm, gentle vises as he devoured her. Not stopping. Not slowing. Just taking until she came apart for him.

"Say it." He leaned back on his knees between her spread thighs and pushed himself off of the table until he stood over her, his face wet from her juices and his eyes feral. Not Tristan who teased her or Special Agent Tristan Riley who fucked her, but both. Neither. Everything. He wiped his hand across his mouth as he stared down at her and reached for the button on his jeans. "Please say it, sweetheart."

"I love you," she mouthed, her throat too dry to push the words out.

He reached for the gun at his hip and slid it from the holster. The steel glinted in the light as he leaned over her to set it carefully on the counter. The Sig in the ankle holster followed, his eyes never leaving hers as he unstrapped it and placed it beside the Glock.

His zipper inched down, the barely perceptible hiss sounding like a shouted promise. She writhed atop the table, anticipation searing her inside and out. His pants and boxers hit the floor, his cock springing free. Thick. Hard. Jutting proudly from his body.

She clamped her thighs together, trying to create friction.

A whimper rolled from her lips.

Her back arched off the table.

He reached for her as she begged for what she wanted, his big hands seeming to move in slow motion. Desire rolled through her in violent, painful waves.

His fingers curled around her legs as he dragged her down the table toward him.

"Look at me, baby," he commanded as he stepped up to the table and wrapped her legs around his waist. His cock landed against her center, pressing at her opening but no farther. "I need to see you."

She raked her eyes up his body to his face. Another gasp tore from her throat as his eyes met hers. They sucked her in, submerging her as the intense emotions she felt for him reflected back at her in his gaze.

He thrust forward.

They shouted together as his cock filled her.

His head fell back.

Hers thrashed beneath him.

He felt so good like this, buried inside of her.

"I've wanted to take you like this for days, Lillian," he muttered.

She swallowed, trying to find her voice as he held still inside of her.

She was dying for him to move. To unleash the frenzy she knew he held in check, waiting for her to give him permission. She wanted him to love her until she forgot her own name. Until he cried out his release, and the world righted itself. She lived for that moment. The one when he growled low in his throat, his hands clamped down on her, and then roared his released.

"Then take me," she said, no longer content to let him lead as he had for weeks, but to lead with him. To equal him, support him. Blow his mind like he did hers. She circled her hips as best she could and met his gaze. Challenging him, daring him, commanding
him
this time. No holding back. Not tonight. "Now."

A growl ripped from his throat as he heeded her demand and withdrew before slamming himself inside of her. She cried out as he filled her full, catapulting her toward that place between pleasure and pain, the one where both mingled, and nothing else felt as right, as good. Nothing.

She wrapped her legs tighter around his waist and held on as best she could as he began to move in earnest. He was like a storm raging as he moved above her, fast and deep, and then deeper.

She reached out for him, grabbed one of the hands holding her hips steady to his punishing thrusts and laced her fingers through his. He moaned and slid his other hand across her hip to her lower stomach, splaying his fingers wide across her pubic bone.

His eyes locked where their bodies met.

Hers stayed on his face, watching the play of emotions as he watched himself moving within her. With each hard shift of his hips into hers, one emotion chased the other across his gorgeous face. They consumed her.
He
consumed her, until nothing except him existed. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples, his chest. God, he was beautiful. Fierce, lethal, flawed, and perfect.

"Beautiful," she groaned, stealing his word for her and giving it back to him.

"Lillian," he said as his eyes fell closed. "I can feel myself inside you." He pressed his hand to her lower stomach to show her what he meant. "Right here."

A bolt of…something shot through her at that, liquefying her inside and out. The pleasure left behind was intense, a burn, a flash. Another star rocketing through the sky.

"You feel so fucking good. Every single time." He groaned as she squeezed his fingers tighter, sensation spreading like fog rolling in, obscuring and dimming everything but the pleasure he gave her. He slammed himself deep inside of her, and then did it again. Faster, harder. "I can't get enough of you, baby."

Every thrust of his hips drove him in deeper.

"Tristan, please," she moaned, a coil of heat stealing reality away from her. "Come with me."

"Shit." He untangled his hand from hers and grasped her hips, tilting her higher as her legs began to slip from their grip around his waist.

She cried out, the coil getting smaller and smaller.

"Say it," he groaned. "Please, tell me again."

"I love you."

A guttural moan broke from his lips as he lost control. He clamped his hands down tighter on her, his thrusts no longer a controlled glide but a frenetic, desperate race. In and out. Over and over.

"Tristan, please!" She needed him to come with her and she was close, so close. She couldn't fight it off. Release bore down on her like a freight train.

"Fuck, baby, now," he growled as his fingers dug into her hips and his cock jerked inside of her as he began to come.

She screamed as the world burst to white around her.

"I'm sorry," he whispered as he tucked her into his massive bed a long time later. His lips brushed across her temple as he wrapped his arm around her waist and dragged her body into his. "I didn't mean to scare you, beautiful."

"I know." She lifted his hand, pressing a kiss to it. She knew he hadn't meant to scare her, but she'd meant every single thing she'd said, too. She could deal with him not telling her every little detail, but she couldn't—wouldn't—deal with him walking away and telling her nothing out of some misguided attempt to protect her. "What happened, Tristan?"

"I couldn't get in tonight," he said and then snorted. "The basement entrance is boarded up like it hasn't been used in years. I bugged the storage room. Jason's pissed."

"How come?" she asked as he rubbed lazy circles across her hip.

"It's illegal. We can't use anything we get from it. And if they find the camera, we're more screwed than we already are."

"Oh. Maybe it'll help you come up with another plan."

"Maybe."

They lay in silence for a protracted moment.

"What happens next?"

"Next?" he sighed, seeming to expel every bit of breath from his lungs. "Next I come up with another plan while you stay here. I have to know you're safe while I sort this shit out." He sighed again. "I'm so fucking over this case."

Lillian rolled toward him, sitting up to examine his face. He seemed so tired and defeated. And she wanted to argue with him. She ached to tell him there was no way in hell she was going to agree to stay here while he faced Anton Vetrov and Pedro Francisco alone, but she couldn't, not when he looked at her with so much fear in his eyes.

"I'll stay if you promise me something," she said instead.

He arched a brow, waiting for her compromise.

"Stay with me."

"I want to," he said, his gaze flickering across her face. Longing burned in the depths of his eyes, as if he wanted to stay with her more than anything, but then he blinked, and regret took its place. "But I can't. I have to be out there. I need to get into that lab before it's too late."

"And you will, but I'm not staying here without you, Tristan. I meant what I said out there. I need to know you're safe, too. And if you're keeping me under guard here, it's not because things are safe or okay or fine. I won't argue with you. I'll stay here while you do whatever it is you have to do. But not unless you come back here to me at the end of the day."

"Dammit," he cursed, squeezing his eyes closed. His body was taut, rigid.

"I love you," she reminded him, running her hand through his hair.

He was quiet for a long time. Lillian let him have it, not pushing, not trying to convince him, just…waiting for him to decide if he was willing to give her this. And she was terrified he'd say no, that he'd push her away, because that's what he always did. But she needed more than that this time. She required a compromise.

"Okay," he said finally, his body relaxing. "I'll stay."

Lillian took a deep breath and sent up a silent prayer of thanks.

"Come here," he mumbled, pulling her back into his arms.

She went willingly, snuggling into him, feeling his strong heartbeat beneath her ear. They lay in silence for long moments, both lost in their own thoughts, in all that had happened, and everything still coming their way.

"I'm so sorry about what happened," she said.

"Me too." He pulled her closer, tucking her body more fully into his. A shudder wound through him. "They– Christ, she was a kid."

Lillian squeezed him. She wanted to ask if Vetrov's latest victim was the girl they'd so briefly met, but she didn't have the heart to do it. For now, she wanted to pretend they hadn't gotten her killed, that things were fine.

Except she couldn't do that.

Whatever Tristan had seen tonight had wounded him. His eyes had been haunted when he walked in the door, desolate. Even now, he held her a little too tightly, as if she was the only thing keeping him from cracking apart.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, her voice soft.

"No," he said. "Not tonight."

Her heart ached at the underlying current in his voice. Whatever he'd learned tonight—whatever the Vetrov family had done to that poor girl—wasn't good. Things were going to get bad; Lillian had no illusions about that.

Please, God, keep him safe
, she prayed.

Chapter Four

"I take it you changed your mind about leaving her at the penthouse alone?" Jason asked Tristan early the following morning. "How did she take it?"

Tristan's hand tightened around the phone before he forced himself to relax. He did not want to have this conversation with Jason. Not when Jason had helped drag Lillian into this mess in the first place. Not when she–

Christ, she loved him.

He reached up and rubbed absently at his chest and the strange sensation there, like something twisting into place. Something he hadn't felt in a long time. Too long.

"She took it fine," he said, not sure if Jason meant his decision to move her to the penthouse, or what had happened to Emma…a conversation he and Lillian still had to have.

"She loves you," Jason said, his voice quiet, serious.

"I know." He blew out a breath. "She wants me to stay here with her."

Jason didn't say anything.

"I don't know what to do," Tristan admitted, his gaze wandering from the table where he'd taken Lillian to the massive windows where he'd fantasized of taking her. The city below appeared between drifts of heavy fog, a building looming into view and just as suddenly disappearing into the haze. Sound didn't register this high up. People hustled through the fog, hurrying off on one errand or another, but nothing came through, lending the city an eerie, haunting quality.

How many of the people below would ever come face to face with the demons he currently wrestled? Did they know what lurked in the shadows, wreaking havoc for their own greed and entertainment? Would they see the fucked up events unfolding like a nightmare around them? Did they have a clue that Seattle hovered on the edge of a drug war that would destroy their safe little lives in a hail of blood and bullets?

Christ, he hoped it didn't come down to that.

He was no longer sure they'd be able to stop it though.

"What do you want to do?" Jason asked.

A momentary flicker of surprise wound through Tristan. Jason rarely deferred to anyone. He always had a plan. His quick mind and sharp intelligence kept him on top when few his age ever made it that far. It also kept his guys alive, bringing them home time after time. That he'd seemingly run out of ideas frustrated Tristan.

How the hell had someone like Vetrov outsmarted them? They'd been so caught up in getting into the lab, they hadn't even realized the asshole was shuffling them into a corner. While they looked left, the wolves moved in, and they hadn't had a clue.
He
hadn't had a clue.

Sure, he'd suspected Vetrov was up to something, but he hadn't
really
believed the son of a bitch knew who he was. But he had. He'd dangled that fucking storage room inside
Teplo
in front of him like the Holy Grail. And Tristan had gone straight to it, refusing to face the possibility that he was wrong about their lab. He'd taken a gamble and lost.

Now he was stuck.

He couldn't go back inside, and they couldn't afford for him to be shut out, either. They didn't have time to pull someone else in and hope they found something he had missed. In a matter of days, Francisco and Vetrov would begin shipping their drug out of the country. When that happened, there would be no stopping it.

At least he'd been able to get Lillian out. With any luck, Vetrov would believe she was another junkie after her arrest last night and would write her off as unimportant. She wouldn't suffer for Tristan's sins, not if he had a say in the matter.

"We can't keep waiting," he said reluctantly.

"I agree," Jason said when it became evident Tristan had no further answer for him. "Come to John and Katherine's for dinner tonight. It's your uncle's birthday. Jordan and Rachel will be there, and would love to see you. So would John and Katherine, and Zoë. We'll sit down and figure out a game plan afterward."

"Yeah, I'll be there," Tristan sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. He desperately needed a day away from this case and all the bullshit. When was the last time he'd taken a beat? Visited his aunt and uncle? Seen Jason's brother and sister-in-law? He couldn't even remember.

"Bring Lillian," Jason suggested.

As if he'd go without her. She belonged with him. As wrong as keeping her with him was, he couldn't let her go. He'd tried last night, but hadn't been able to do it. The compulsion to see her, to hold her in his arms, overwhelmed him until he had to come here. He had to be near her.

He never intended to fall in love with her, but somewhere over the course of the last few weeks, he had fallen. She was vital to him now, something he couldn't live without. The feisty little ballerina owned him, heart and soul. She had from the very beginning. She kept him calm, and made him ache for something more than he'd always had.

Trying to find his footing was so hard when he constantly warred with himself, caught between the desire to keep her by his side and the overwhelming urge to protect her from the grim realities of his life. But he'd kept enough from her, hurting her over and over. And despite it all, she still fell in love with him. So he was done trying to protect her from the truth. He wasn't good enough for her. Never had been, never would be. But she loved him, and when this was all over and she was safe, when Vetrov and his people were behind bars, he wanted to come home to her. Wanted to fall asleep to her every night and wake up to her every morning. Wanted it so badly he ached.

As if thinking about her had summoned her, she made her way into the kitchen, wearing nothing but one of his button-downs and a sleepy smile on her face. Her hair was a mess, and her lips were still swollen from his kisses the night before. Her face was flushed. Faint red marks dotted her skin where he'd marked her.

"Hey," he whispered, leaning back against the counter.

She didn't hesitate before walking straight to him.

His right arm went around her, gathering her close as that same strange twisting sensation hit him right in the heart. She rested her head on his chest, humming her contentment. She felt so good in his arms, warm and soft. He pressed his lips to her forehead, breathing her in. She smelled like sin, like him and her and lilacs.

"How'd you sleep, beautiful?" he asked.

"Good. I always sleep so well with you."

"Good." A pleased rumble started in his chest. He pressed his lips to her forehead, and then her temple. "I like having you in my bed."

"Me too."

Jason cleared his throat, reminding Tristan he was still on the line. "I'll let you go, man. See you tonight?"

"Yeah, later." Tristan set his phone on the counter and tilted Lillian's face up to his, kissing her deeply. She tasted so sweet, like mint and sugar. When they were both breathing heavily, he broke the kiss and led her to the table before settling her into a chair.

Her blush deepened as her eyes flickered to the table and then back to him, no doubt remembering what they'd done there a few short hours ago.

He couldn't help the smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he remembered too. The feel of her gripping him, and the way she cried out for him, gasping that she loved him. The look in her eyes when she'd demanded he take her…. His cock hardened at the memory of her commanding him to give her what she wanted.

Christ, he'd never get enough of her.

"You hungry?" he asked, backing away before he lifted her up onto the tabletop and had her for breakfast.

"Starving," she whispered, desire turning her eyes to hazel flames. She bit her lip, her gaze roving shamelessly up and down his body.

"Behave," he growled, swiping his thumb across her bottom lip, "or I'll bend you over the table and make you scream my name again."

Her eyes widened and then she nodded, folding her hands politely in her lap, a look of exaggerated innocence on her face. Tristan smirked, leaning down to take her mouth in a quick kiss before strolling toward the fridge to feed her.

Half an hour later, he stared at her across the table, trying to summon the nerve to begin the conversation he'd put on hold last night, while she sipped her coffee and nibbled on her French toast. He didn't want to tell her that the teenaged girl they'd briefly spoken with in the club had been brutally beaten and stabbed to death. He didn't have a choice though. Lillian deserved to know what they faced going forward. What
she
faced going forward.

Jason said this job was Tristan's way of punishing himself for the way his parents died so long ago, and he couldn't deny it. He'd been a stupid kid, blackmailing his cocaine addicted uncle into giving him pot, never considering how bad things might go or how deep in his uncle really was. Thanks to his selfish ignorance, his parents died without a clue why, gunned down by his uncle's dealer at a fucking stoplight.

Tristan had never forgiven himself for it.

Working for the DEA was his own personal hell, his punishment for what he'd allowed to happen, and his chance to make it right, one addict and one case at a time. He didn't want her to feel the same guilt he'd carried for so long. He didn't want her to know what it felt like to live with those demons day after day. Emma Buford hadn't known a damn thing about him or Lillian, but she'd died anyway because she'd recognized Lillian and spoke to her. Emma had been an example, a warning that Pedro Francisco and Anton Vetrov did not take kindly to the DEA mucking around in their business.

"Are you okay?" Lillian asked him, her soft voice recalling his attention.

He glanced up to find her staring at him, her bottom lip between her teeth. She was beautiful with her dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail. The marks he'd left on her neck were still visible, making his cock ache. So did the way her hazel eyes melted as she stared at him, her creamy skin turning a lovely pink.

"Emma Buford was beaten and stabbed to death," he blurted.

Well, hell. That's not how he intended to tell her the truth.

Too late to take it back now.

She blinked, staring at him as her face paled. And then she sucked in a deep breath and nodded, her shoulders going back. "Okay," she said, her voice quiet. "What do we do now?" There were no tears, and no panic. No running, screaming into the night, either.

He saw the watery mist in her eyes though, heard the little catch in her breath. Instead of answering her question, he circled the table before sinking into the chair beside her. He pulled her close, tucking her head into his shoulder.

He wanted to snatch her up, put her in the Rover, and drive until they left this mess far behind.

He didn't for a minute believe she'd go for that though. However they proceeded, whatever they opted to do, the final decision was hers because he was done trying to convince himself that she was better off without him. Whatever she wanted from him, all she had to do was ask and he'd give it to her. Every part of him if she wanted it.

"If you don't–"

She placed her hand over his mouth and shook her head, her expression fierce. "I'm not going anywhere, Tristan. Not today, or tomorrow, or the day after that. I'm exactly where I want to be, okay?"

"That wasn't what I was going to say."

"Oh." She gave him a sheepish look. "Continue then."

Christ, he loved her. So fucking much, it hurt. Funny that he could admit it to himself, but couldn't say the words out loud. They caught in his throat, choking him every single time he tried. Because, God help him, he'd disappointed and destroyed everyone he'd ever loved. Voicing those words aloud was tempting fate, begging for destiny or God or the Universe to take her away from him. But she deserved to hear them from him. He just had to find the courage to say them.

He kissed her fingers in silent worship before twining her hand in his. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take you somewhere."

"Okay."

"It's my uncle's birthday, and I want you there with me."

"Okay," she agreed, blowing out a breath.

"Promise me something?"

"What?"

"Promise me you'll forget about all of this for the day. Pretend you've never heard of Anton Vetrov or
Teplo
. Leave it all behind for today and just be with me." Jason was right; he required a break. For one day, he needed to surround himself with reminders that he hadn't destroyed
everything
. He still had his aunt and uncle, Zoë and Jason, Jordan and Rachel. Even Michael Kincaid. And now he had Lillian, too.