Hard Pack (Ridden Hard Book 2) Read online

  “I was thinking—”

  “Sex slave for the night. I win you do whatever I want.” She glanced sideways.

  Did she just get sexier? He didn’t realize that was possible. “I’d do that anyway, but sure. Prepare to make good on what kneeling leads to.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  VICTORIA TOSSED HER controller onto the cushion next to her when she threw her hands in the air. “Owned.” Gaming was one of the few things she’d indulged in when she was younger. Between filming, she’d slip away to play against the other kids on set. She was horrible when she started, but she learned.

  “I think that’s a draw.” Tristan was gentler in setting his controller aside.

  “Nope. Twenty-five to twenty-four. Me.”

  “Really?” Amusement marred the disbelief in his question. “I thought that first match was just practice.”

  She was torn. On the one hand, imagining what kind of things Tristan could order her to do made need pulse between her legs. On the other, “Now who’s a sore loser? You said it was just practice. I didn’t agree to that.”

  “Fine. You win. Though to be fair, this is one bet I don’t mind losing.” He stood. Before she registered what he was doing, he’d bent and scooped her up in his arms. She squealed in surprise, and had to throw her arms around his neck to keep from falling.

  He carried her into his bedroom, then set her on her feet in the middle of the room. He knelt in front of her. “Your wish is my command.”

  Shyness mingled with desire, and she bit her bottom lip. She couldn’t do what she had the other night, and move his hand to places. Not easily. Inspiration struck. “Whatever you can reach from down there.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I like that kind of challenge.” His position put his face at the same level as her stomach. He pushed her shirt out of the way and kissed along the skin.

  He gripped her ass, the slid forward to tease his fingers under the elastic of her shorts. As he glided along the path of her waist, he followed with his mouth.

  She could lose herself in this kind of attention. It wasn’t just that it was focused on her, it was because it was Tristan doing it.

  He tugged her shorts down her legs, kissing over her thighs.

  She started to step out of the bottoms, and he grabbed her ankle lightly.

  “If you move, I might not be able to reach,” he teased.

  She rolled her eyes, but she liked the playfulness, so she stayed planted.

  He trailed up her legs again, to draw his lips over her mound. With her legs together, he didn’t reach that aching button that pulsed for attention.

  When he licked over her skin instead, she clenched everything at the spike of pleasure. He moved his mouth along her pelvis, while he slipped a finger between her legs, to tease her sex.

  He continued the attention, licking and kissing everywhere but the one spot she wanted it most, until she was squirming and wet. Apparently there was a flaw in this plan.

  She could change that. He was her slave for the night. She liked the drawn-out teasing, though. He scraped his teeth over her hip, the sucked on the sensitive skin.

  That was new, and seared over her, drawing her gasp into a moan. The gentle sucking grew more insistent, until there was no doubt he’d leave a mark.

  When he feathered his fingers over her clit, she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. He looked up at her, blue eyes warm and playful. He kissed the fresh hickey. “I figured you don’t want it obvious, but I don’t want you forgetting any time soon.”

  There was no threat of that, but that didn’t mean she wanted to stop him when he switched to the other hip, and repeated the process. He stroked her sex harder at the same time.

  She tangled her fingers in his hair, as much to lock him in place as to keep her legs from giving out beneath her. When she came, she ground against his fingers, until she wobbled on her feet.

  He steadied her as he pulled back to look up at her. “Do you still want me down here?”

  Not unless she was going to join him, with her jelly-like legs. “Dealer’s choice?” she managed.

  “I might have an idea.” Tristan stood and lifted her onto the bed. He tugged off her shirt, and then discard his own clothes. “Lay down,” he whispered, breath hot on her ear.

  He kissed along her breasts while he rolled on a condom. The anticipation was delicious. She’d had good sex before, but none of it was in the same universe as intimacy with Tristan.

  He stretched her out when he slid inside her slowly.

  Anticipation would only her desire for so long. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him in, setting a hard, fast pace. The intensity wrapped her up and chased away the outside world.

  He gripped her thighs, his grunts telling her he was close. When he came, he didn’t slow down.

  “Play with yourself.” His command was gruff.

  She slid her fingers between them, finding her clit. The first touch was almost enough to make her come, and it didn’t take much to bring her to orgasm. She fell into the sensation, swimming in the haze of pleasure.

  She was vaguely aware of him slowing to a stop, and sliding out of her. Her throat was raw. Had she been screaming? It wouldn’t surprise her, but it did terrify her. It was so easy to lose herself when it came to Tristan, and she didn’t think there was any coming back from this.

  TRISTAN PULLED VICTORIA back to him when she tried to climb from the bed the next morning. Sleeping next to her was rapidly becoming one of his favorite things. “It’s still dark outside.”

  “It won’t be for much longer.” She fell back against him, and tugged his arm tighter around her. “Work. You remember work, right?”

  He let out a low groan. Last night was amazing. Falling asleep and waking up next to Victoria was pretty fucking good too. “Fine. But there was discussion of breakfast.”

  “Hmm...” She pressed closer, grinding her ass against him.

  “Or we could call in sick.” That was pushing this do things for the hell of it attitude too far. He liked it.

  “You’re serious? Have you ever in your life called in when you weren’t actually sick? Hell, when you were?”

  “Twice.” Now that he had a taste of how replacing bad memories worked, he wanted to try it again. “Mischa convinced me to skip practice once. It was easy the first time. We fucked around the entire afternoon, and got away with it. So we did it again the next week. The second time my coach caught me. For months, all I heard, any time I made a mistake, was that if I wasn’t such a big faker, maybe I’d have gotten things right.”

  She placed her fingers delicately on her lips, and let out a weak cough. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

  “You’d better not risk infecting your coworkers.” He trailed his lips along the back of her neck. “And if you stay here, we can play doctor.”

  “But I have so much work to do...”

  “If I write your people a check, does that make your work go away?”

  “It makes the IRS come knocking on our door. Apparently.” She rolled onto her back, so she could look up at him. “But if you’re not going to work, I’m not going to work.”

  Instinct and years of habit warned this would be the one day things fell apart if he wasn’t there. That was ridiculous. Everyone who worked for him knew how to function on their own, and all of his appointments could wait a day. He’d have his assistant reschedule. He brushed his lips over Victoria’s. “Deal.”

  They both made their excuses, then took their time getting up. They spent more time playing in the shower than getting clean. He had breakfast delivered, and they settled onto the couch for the Hellraiser movies that didn’t happen the night before.

  Tristan’s phone rang, halfway into the first film.

  “You’re sick. You can’t take calls,” Victoria teased.

  He grimaced and wriggled his fingers. “It might not be work.”

  “You should look. Otherwise you’ll get all twitchy.”


  “It’s true.” He grabbed the device as it stopped ringing. The missed call was from Mischa. “I’ll call him back later.” A new voice mail buzzed through. “Or not. Just a sec.” He pulled up the message.

  “Give me a call when you get this. It’s not like an emergency, but it might be important,” Mischa said.

  “What’s up?” Victoria asked when Tristan frowned.

  “He only said it might be important.”

  She frowned. “You should call him back.”

  Tristan was thinking the same thing. If Mischa put any manner of priority on it, he needed to follow up. He untangled himself from Victoria, and stood as he dialed.

  “Where are you?” Mischa said as a greeting.

  “Home sick. What’s up?”

  “You don’t sound sick.”

  He wanted to get back to cuddling on the couch. The thought was unexpected, but he couldn’t deny it. “I took the day off.”

  “Just because? On second thought, you don’t sound like yourself. Maybe you should see a doctor.”

  Tristan gave a dry laugh. “What’s up?” he asked again.

  “Nope. You’re fine. I was thinking after you called yesterday, about things that Wolfram might know that would be enough to initiate an investigation like this. And that got me to thinking, did you know he has a PI check in on Ash sometimes?”

  “That’s disconcerting.”

  “And so creepy. But I doubt she’s done anything that has an impact on this. If she had, he’d go after her directly.”

  Tristan hated the simple truth of the statement. “And?”

  “Right. Anyway, I was thinking about PI’s, and that led me to another tangent. Did you know Victoria had me followed for a few months, last year?”

  Tristan’s stomach dropped into his shoes, and he met her gaze. She was watching him from her spot on the couch, and she raised her eyes in question. “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned that.”

  “Because when I found out, I didn’t want to give you another reason to hate her. She was out of my life, so I let it slide. I’m boring to follow anyway.”

  “Yeah. Good call.” Tristan couldn’t drag his gaze from Victoria. Betrayal grew inside, gnawing and shoving at his thoughts. Who was this woman? “Did she find anything useful?”

  A frown whispered across her face.

  “Don’t know. But I figured if the guy was any good at his job, it might be worth asking her to see if he found anything that could impact this. I don’t want to step on your toes if you’re working on something.”

  “I appreciate that. How’d you find out about it, anyway?” Tristan struggled to keep his thoughts from spiraling out of control.

  “He wasn’t that good at his job. I spotted him a couple times too many for it to be a coincidence. Told him I’d pay him more than he was already making if he’d spill about why he was following me. It’s possible I tossed a little Russian into my request, to imply that was better than the alternative. He didn’t hesitate. Said she hired him, and was looking for blackmail material.”

  Jesus fuck. “When was this?”

  “July. August maybe?”

  Less than a year ago. Just a month or two before she insinuated herself back into their lives. The rational part of Tristan wanted to shrug it off. It was in the past, and it was never a secret she was obsessed with Mischa.

  But the timing. The underhandedness of it. The entire situation. “I’m talking to her soon. I’ll ask her about it,” he said.

  “Cool. Let me know if she’s got anything juicer about me than I do.”

  Tristan hung up and set the phone on the coffee table. He couldn’t look at her. Didn’t have any idea how to start this conversation. What the fuck was he supposed to do?

  Chapter Seventeen

  VICTORIA DIDN’T KNOW what Tristan and Mischa were talking about, but the way Tristan’s expression flashed from confusion to concern to anger, all while looking at her, narrowed the list down a lot. At least, if it had to do with something she actually knew about. The way he said she and her made her grind her teeth in time with the hammer of her pulse in her ears.

  “Anything interesting?” She tried to keep her question casual when he hung up.

  The waver in her voice and the fury on his face made her attempt a failed exercise.

  “That was what Mischa was wondering. If you knew anything interesting about him.”

  Shit. That narrowed the list down to about one. “Lots of things. He’s got a scar—”

  “Don’t.” The single word cut deep. “You had him followed.” It wasn’t a question, and there was no accusation behind it. He stated it as blandly as if it were an item on his to-do list—find out if Victoria is as crazy-stalker-obsessive as suspected.

  “Yes, but...” She didn’t have a way to finish the thought. There was no excuse for what she’d done. She could explain what she was thinking at the time, but that wasn’t likely to help her case.

  He pursed his lips and widened his eyes. “But...?”

  “I don’t know what else to say.” She wasn’t trying to be evasive. She had no clue where to start. “It all seems so ridiculous now.”

  “How about you start with why.”

  She didn’t like this Tristan. Angry? She could deal with that. Unintentionally hurtful? She knew how to shrug it off given time. Seductive, playful, and sexy? Add in just the right amount of sweet and she’d take that any day.

  But when he turned the icy stare on her, she stalled. Every time. “I hit a low point. It happens sometimes, and I wish it didn’t. I just wanted to know what he was up to.”

  “What happens next time you have a day like that?”

  I call you. Except that was obviously far from the right answer. She wanted to argue he wasn’t exactly being supportive, but why would he be? This wasn’t a drunken text. She’d hired someone to collect information on Mischa. I’m better now. But that wasn’t the whole truth. Most of the time she was fine, but she still had down days. “I deal with it.”

  “Sounds promising.” His tone implied it sounded anything but. “Let’s try something else. How does blackmail play into that?”

  “What?” She was going to be sick. “It doesn’t.”

  “Mischa talked to the guy, who said you hired him to dig up dirt for blackmail.”

  This was bad enough without someone else making up shit that wasn’t true. “I don’t know why he said that. I wanted to know what Mischa was doing. It was curiosity. Reckless and obsessive, but I wasn’t going to do anything with it besides know.”

  “It was less than six months ago. You keep insisting you’re over Mischa. You’re better. You’re not the same person you were when the two of you were together. Did you magically flip a switch and all of that went away?” The emotion was creeping back into his voice, but the rage tinged with hurt was worse than the icy gaze he’d turned on her earlier.

  “I don’t have the answers you’re looking for, because there’s nothing that’s going to make you okay with this,” she said.

  “So it’s my fault for being unreasonable?”

  “I didn’t say that. I fucked up. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I called the guy a week after I hired him, and told him to forget it. That I didn’t want to know after all. It was before Ash. Before—” us. But there was no us, especially not now. “I’d like to think I won’t do it again.”

  He scrubbed his face, a sigh escaping through his fingers. “That’s comforting.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice.

  She wanted to scream—at herself, at him, she didn’t know—or cry, or something to relieve the pressure building inside. But that wouldn’t solve anything either. “I’m sorry.”

  “So you said. I think it would be a good idea if you left.”

  “Me too.” She bit the inside of her cheek to keep any emotion from slipping out. He didn’t say anything as she went to the bedroom to fetch her stuff, and when she came back, he was nowhere to be found.

  She headed
toward the driveway, head down and insides a jumbled wreck. So this was a walk of shame. God, it sucked.

  She tossed her overnight bag into the back seat, then reached for the driver’s door, and stopped. “Fuck this.” She turned and stalked back to the front door, then pounded on it with the side of her fist.

  Tristan answered within a few seconds, a mask in place. “What?”

  “You said you didn’t want to do this anymore. The clashing. Neither do I.”

  “I didn’t have the whole picture when I said that.”

  She was tempted to toss the revelation back at him, about the way he’d forced her apart from Mischa. That was its own issue, though. Countering her breach of trust with one of his didn’t change the nature of either one. “And you still don’t. Neither do I. We’re still learning about each other, and there are things in my past I’m not proud of. But I’m trying every fucking day to make sure I don’t make more memories I’m ashamed of.”

  “I don’t know if I want to be a part of those.”

  Wind sliced through the air, and she clenched her jaw to keep from shivering. At least he didn’t outright say go away. “You said you didn’t want to define us beyond fucking, and that’s fine. I’m not asking for that. I’m asking for...” She sighed and grasped for words to put to what she was feeling. “I had a lot of fun last night, and this morning, and at the cabin. At least offer me the same courtesy I gave you, of hearing you out.” Okay, so she’d bring it up a little.

  He stared at her, gaze cutting deeper than the wind. She swore her heart stopped as she waited for him to do something.

  AS TRISTAN WATCHED Victoria, several things occurred to him in the span of a few seconds—she was doing her best not to show how cold she was, but that wasn’t the most important thing. It bothered him more that she targeted Mischa than that she hired a PI. He believed her when she said she was sorry. And he didn’t want to send her away.

  “Do you really think I’d resort to extortion or blackmail?” Her voice was meek.