“What did you say to me?” Tristan walked toward her, covering the carpet with long strides.
Colleen’s fawn-like eyes widened as she backed away from him and held her hands up in front of her chest with her fingers splayed. “I’m just saying that you shouldn’t drag yourself down with me if there’s no way I can get out of this. If you can make them let you go, you should.”
“I would never leave you behind.” He loomed over her, staring down at the wisp of a woman who had plastered herself to the hotel room wall. He braced himself with one arm above her head and leaned down to get right in her face when he said, “I protect what’s mine.”
Anger set her jaw. “I’m not yours. I’m just a chick you picked up after you got her fired and felt guilty about it.”
Jesus, that wasn’t what he’d meant, probably. “You’re my responsibility,” he growled.
She frowned right back up at him. “Dude, I am no one’s responsibility.”
“Yes, you are, and I don’t back down from my responsibilities. I will protect you, and I will make sure you get home safely with no strings attached.”
Tears glistened on the lower lids of her eyes. “I’m not worth the trouble you’ll get into. I’m nothing to you. I’m nothing to anybody. I’m just an out-of-work sales clerk and college dropout. If I die, no one would give a shit or even notice I was gone.”
Tristan wanted to punch whoever had put that thought into her head. “You’re nothing to me? I’ve been practically tying my hands behind my back and grinding my teeth on a strip of leather every time I’m around you to stop myself from taking you to bed, especially after last night. Every time you move next to me, every time your clothes rustle, I remember the scent of your skin and how you taste on my tongue. You’re kind and beautiful and sexy, but I hadn’t realized how hot you were until you walked into the living room in this dress. But even so, I’ve been plotting how to get you into bed ever since I saw you in that game store. When you walked into my room last night, I was freaking ecstatic.”
Colleen was blinking rapidly as he spoke.
But she nodded.
A scent of baking sugar and flowers emanated from her skin, and he wanted to bury his face in her throat to breathe it in. “My plan for this trip was to dress you like this every night and wine and dine you.” He allowed himself to examine the way the golden silk clung to her voluptuous breasts and dipped into her curvaceous waist and hips that he wanted to dig his fingers into. “I’d planned to take you to movie premieres and exclusive restaurants and charity balls, not rescue you from some damn Russian mobster.”
She nodded again.
He reached for the glimmer of hope in this darkness. “I wanted to show you the world, not threaten your life.”
She was almost panting, her breasts straining at the silk of her dress, and puffs of her delicate breath fluttered over his lips, which were only inches from hers.
His voice dropped to a growl. “If I get us out of this, when I get us out of this, I will dance with you in the palace of the Prince of Monaco and sit beside you as we watch ballets and operas from box seats and rock concerts from backstage. We’ll walk the streets of Paris and ride the gondolas in Venice, and then I’ll take you back to my penthouse at the Waldorf-Astoria or my yacht in Monaco and fuck you senseless.”
Her eyes half-closed, and he knew she must be imagining their bodies connecting and moving as intensely as he was, and the fantasy of his body thrusting into hers propelled him forward to capture her lips with his mouth.
She was petal soft and tangerine sweet under his lips.
His other arm snaked around the plushness of her body and dragged her against him.
Her lips fluttered open, and he tasted the freshness of her tongue on his.
Her body twined against his, and his thighs and chest knew the yielding softness of her.
And Tristan caught fire.
The rushing blood that had been anger that she would think for even a moment that he would leave her, that he would sacrifice her and save his own skin, turned to desire in his flesh. He wanted to grab his dick out of his pants, toss her silk skirt aside or rip it off her, and pin her to that wall like a golden butterfly whilst he fucked her.
He needed to at least touch her, to run his thumb through her folds and press her clit until she was gasping but not over. Her soft mews would suffice until they were somewhere safe and private where he could make her scream for him. So he bent and caught the hem of her skirt and ran his hand up her soft, bare thigh, gripping her just enough to confuse her, until his fingers reached soft, stretchy lace. “What the hell is this?”
“Um, underwear?” she whispered.
He grabbed the soft fabric in his fist and yanked hard, ripping them off her. “I told you no panties.”
“I didn’t think you meant it,” Colleen said, blinking her eyes in astonishment.
He slid one finger up her thigh and straight inside her center, already slippery for him. He pumped it, his thumb rough on her clit, while her eyes closed and she bit her lip. “I want to be able to do this to you any time I feel like it. I want to throw you on a table and lick this every single time the urge takes me. And I want to take you up against a wall or over a table or drag you on top of me in the back seat of a car whenever I want. Do you understand?”
She nodded, the little lines between her eyebrows clenching, and her core tightening around his finger.
So he stopped.
And pulled away.
“Not when you’ve been naughty,” he said.
Colleen flopped forward, bracing herself on her knees while she gasped.
His watch chimed that the time was two minutes before eight. They couldn’t keep the Russian mobsters waiting.
Tristan kissed her anyway, his tongue penetrating her mouth the way he wanted to press into her with his body, and then he broke off the kiss, certain that his lust, practically rage-lust, shone in his eyes as he glared at her. “Tonight. After I take care of these damned Russian criminals and pry us both out of this dilemma, I’ll have you, tonight. Last night, I was gentle because it was our first time. If you think I don’t want you, I’ll make you understand how much I do tonight.”
Colleen’s eyes were glazed like she’d been drinking, and her lips were still parted.
He cleaned up a smear of lipstick from the side of her mouth with his thumb and whispered, “You are important to me. At first, you were just cute, but now I like you. I like the way you make little mewing sounds when you’re about to come, and I like the way you sucked on those strawberries this morning like they were my cock. I want you to sit at my feet and hold onto my leg like I’m your everything because you already are mine. I like everything about you, but it’s time to go. The car is waiting.”
The elevator ride down the hotel was torture with that succulent woman standing so close to him and his dick swollen so hard it ached. He thought about every atrocity he could remember and all the times he’d wanted to punch a guy, trying to divert the blood from his trousers.
Bulky Russians loitered in the lobby, and Tristan caught the eye of one of them as they exited the elevator. They followed Tristan and Colleen toward the car and then veered off at a signal from the driver.
A limousine driven by a different stolid Russian waited for them in front of the hotel.
Jian had offered to come with them as some sort of a bodyguard, but Tristan had shut that idea down fast. Instead, he told Jian to clear out the hotel room after they’d left, take the car, and wait for Tristan’s call that they were safe or otherwise.
He helped Colleen into the Russian’s car. She lifted handfuls of her skirt as she climbed in, exposing her lithe ankles.
That Grecian-goddess dress made him want to kneel at her feet, throw that fluttering gold silk over his head, drag her legs apart, and bury his tongue in her until she was screaming Yes, please, over and over again.
Ever since he’d met Colleen at the GameShack, he’d found her interesting. When she’d hopped out of her friend’s car wearing that white skirt that had fluttered around her thighs, he’d planned to slowly venture the idea of going farther with him than Los Angeles, farther than New York, to let him show her London, Paris, Monaco, and Geneva and see the world through her eyes as if for the first time.
He wanted to tell her she was a good girl after he ravaged her body, and he wanted to see her weepy little face when he paddled her ass pink when she wasn’t, like with those damn panties.
Tristan liked having a little, and he hadn’t had the time to cultivate one for far too long. Building the AI that was going to make him a billionaire had taken his every waking moment for years.
On the ride to the restaurant, both of them were silent.
And his dick finally wilted enough that he could think.
Tristan tried to think of conversation for a few minutes, but he didn’t want to divulge even the slightest piece of information to his adversaries. If the car wasn’t bugged, the driver would report every word they said. When he sneaked a glance at Colleen, she was watching the desert mountains of Los Angeles roll by the windows outside. Her expression gave nothing away.
The limo pulled up to the front doors of a restaurant called Tamara, a small, stand-alone venue surrounded by an enormous parking lot packed with sports cars and luxury sedans, and the limo’s doors opened.
Burly Russians stood at the entry to the restaurant and nodded to their escorts as they passed.
Guards. Dammit. There would be no running out the front door if they got a minute to escape.
They were whisked through the restaurant—he got an impression of white tablecloths and crystal wine glasses—to a private room in the back where the Russians were waiting for them.
The Russians were good at putting on a hearty greeting, and Tristan mimicked it all, from the broad grins, to the exuberant handshakes, to the threat of hugs.
The guy who’d called himself Sergey, although that was almost certainly not his name, sat at the center of the long table.
An incredibly beautiful and impossibly young blonde sat by Sergey’s side, tittering at everything he said and leaning against his side to caress his arm. She appeared to be about Colleen’s age, but Tristan suspected the thick black lines drawn around her eyes and scarlet lipstick on her puffy lips were making her look older than she was.
The small room was already warm from the lamps, the flames on the tea lights, and the five Russian men and Sergey’s blonde. Tristan shrugged off his suit jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. He was still wearing the vest of the three-piece suit, and he tugged it more firmly into place.
Colleen sat at Tristan’s side with a fluttering swish of the golden silk of her dress. That perfume she wore, which he could detect again because they were sitting closer than they’d been in the back seat of the car, wafted around him. A flash of her fingers stroking the sweet scent over her throat assailed him. The perfume filling his nose was sweet and floral, almost like rose-scented sugar cookies, and every cell in his body oriented on her fragrant flesh sitting so close to him that her bare arm touched his elbow, now separated from her skin by only the thin silk of his dress shirt.
He talked about nothing with the Russians for half an hour—sports, movies, and so on—because Sergey told them not to peruse the menu. Sergey insisted he would order for them because he knew what they must try at Tamara, one of the most expensive restaurants in California. The tasting menu was what they all needed to have so they could taste all the bounty of Russia, and so they would.
Tristan certainly wouldn’t argue with that. He had much larger arguments he would be making later.
Sergey remembered to tell the waiter that Colleen had a soy allergy and so there should be substitutions for any soy ingredient. Although that allergy was fictional, Colleen looked up from her giggling conversation with the blonde and beamed at Sergey right on cue.
Nice. Tristan returned to his conversation with Sergey, while Colleen continued hers with the blonde, who was making expansive hand gestures, including one with her thumb tucked inside her fist.
Tristan suppressed an urge to teach her how to make a proper fist with her thumb on the outside when she needed to punch someone. Maybe later.
A flurry of waitstaff emerged from the closed door that led to their private room and placed covered dishes in front of Tristan and everybody else. With a flourish, they removed the silver domes, revealing a small appetizer that Tristan guessed was a pate or terrine of some sort, meaning it was a paste smeared on a lower layer that looked like it might be a pastry or phyllo.
Tristan was perfectly comfortable with such high-society fare, though there were times he longed for a nice steak with a baked potato and big dollops of real butter and sour cream on it.
And corn. Always, corn.
“This looks delicious,” he said to Sergey.
“Is only decent Russian restaurant in California. Wait until you taste pirozhki and shashlik. That is why you want tasting menu here, so you get little bits of all of it. You don’t want to miss them.”
The girls continued to giggle and talk like high school girls, which was something he hadn’t thought Colleen would do. They were flapping their hands around like birds in a cage, practically throwing feminine gang signs.
Colleen asked the girl, “Have you tried the new cocktail that’s going around the college bars called an Angel Shot? We should go get one from the bar.”
“Yes, I would like Angel Shot very much,” the girl said back to her.
The tiny terrine was tasty, light with the taste of fresh herbs and sour cream. Tristan said to Sergey, “I couldn’t help but notice the security cameras at the front doors and in the lobby.”
Sergey scraped up the last bit of sauce with the side of his fork and sucked it off. “Yes, but we not have to worry about that much longer, thanks to your useful computer program. When is that ready for delivery?”
Tristan flicked his hand near his ear, a careless gesture like he was batting the problem away and behind them. “It’s compiling right now. I have to set up a proper satellite link so it won’t be detected by the hotel or anyone else. I’m sure you’ll want this transfer to be entirely dark web. I feel like I need to tell you, though, that I’m not the computer genius you seem to think I am. I farmed this out. It’s a little toy I have that I’m glad to share with you, but I didn’t write it,” he lied.
Sergey laughed and shook his fork at him. “Your school friends think you’re some kind of computer genius. They think you completely capable of writing such a useful piece of software.”
“And who can I thank for introducing us?”
“Does not matter, not anyone in particular. You went to school with many friends who are now higher up in our brotherhood. It was not so much one of them as several remembered you and were impressed by how you were not recognized at royal wedding. When it was discovered you were in need of financing for some venture, it seemed win-win to us. So we offer you money. Clean money.”
Beside his right elbow, Colleen scooted back her chair and wiggled to get out of the space.
Across the table, Sergey’s giggling blonde did the same.
Colleen bent, her curvaceous form folding in the gold silk gown, and she said, “We’ll be right back. Ladies room.”
Sergey frowned at his woman walking away, even as she flirted with him over her shoulder and waved at him with a flourish of her red-manicured nails.
As they reached the doorway, the girls linked their slender arms, bending their heads toward each other with their shoulders shaking with girlish laughter.
It was frickin’ adorable, and images assailed Tristan again of flying with Colleen to Monaco and Berlin and watching her giggle like that as he showed her the world.
God, he loved having a little.
Nevertheless, he turned back to Sergey. “That particular algorithm is certainly useful. I understand why you’d like to work with the author of such an interesting piece of software, but I’m sorry to tell you that it isn’t me. It’s relatively simple to commission software like that if you know who to talk to.”
“It appears person to talk to is you.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve got to say, I certainly appreciate doing this deal with you—”
“With clean money. I cannot emphasize enough that we give you clean money.”
And it was getting to the point where his repeated assurances were suspicious in themselves. “But I don’t think any future deals with me would be beneficial for you. I have my one little trick, but I am a one-trick pony. I’m not interesting in the slightest.”
Sergey chuckled. “I think you are very interesting indeed. I think you could ‘commission’ other new software for us, given proper incentive. I think we will have long and fruitful relationship.”
Sergey hadn’t mentioned Tristan’s Superman software that was trolling the finance markets and arbitraging pennies as they spoke. He must not know about it. If he did know about it, he would be angling for that, too.
Tristan said, “I don’t want to take your money on false pretenses. I mean, especially your clean money. I think we should keep this on a case-by-case basis for any future endeavors, just because I don’t think I have anything else that you would want.”
They continued their seemingly lighthearted but deadly serious discussion about the future of Tristan in Sergey’s organization for what seemed like twenty minutes or longer, to the point where Tristan began to watch the door of the private room for Colleen and the blonde to return.
Their absence was beginning to become worrying.
Sergey was absolutely the type to kidnap someone important to an adversary and hold them hostage to leverage a business deal like this one.
Keeping every nuance of his concern off his face was difficult, as was trying not to laugh too much and swing the other direction.
The next course came—a few blini pancakes with caviar and sour cream—but the girls hadn’t returned yet.
The crepes were like chewing plastic wrap in his mouth as every bit of his attention rooted on that door behind him, and he willed it to open and for Colleen to walk through.
He was just about to stand up and excuse himself to go find her when Sergey glanced at the door, and his eyebrows contracted so hard toward the middle of his nose that his scowl must’ve given him a headache. “Where did girls go?”
Whatever was going on was not Sergey’s doing.
Indeed, Sergey lifted a finger, said something in Russian to a man farther down the table, and pointed toward the door.
Tristan tensed to leap up and block the guy from going after Colleen.