18. Isolde
Isolde
The drive back to my flat is completely silent. Luis doesn’t look back once at us. I’m not sure if it’s because he knows I’ve got no bra on or if he’s terrified at Tristan’s sudden arrival.
I’m aware at every moment that Tristan’s semen is inside me, leaking out. All the girls in the smutty books Len makes us read act like it’s no big deal, but the neurodivergent sensory overload is at an all-time high.
It doesn’t help that I have plenty of time on the way home to wonder about Tristan’s sudden arrival. And how he fucked me again.
Tristan is out of the car before we’ve come to a complete stop. He opens my door, and I scoot out of the seat, miserable.
“Thanks, Luis,” I mumble, unable to give up my manners.
Tristan leads us up the six stories, unlocking my door.
“Go take a shower,” he demands, but something is wrong with me because the bossiness swirls something deep in my belly.
It helps that his own demands are punctuated with actions.
He actually strides forward to the bathroom, turning on the shower for me.
I’m carefully stripping off my clothes when he places his hand on my lower back and bends down to help me take off my jeans. I know I’m acting like some decrepit fool, but he doesn’t joke as he strips off my underwear, the material soaked with cum.
He sticks around, making sure I climb into the tub.
I stand under the showerhead, like a wet cat.
“Isolde. Wash yourself.”
I blink at Tristan. He’s changed out of his suit and wears sweatpants. He motions for me to move before placing a large T-shirt next to the sink.
I’ve been standing under the water, my arms crossed over my chest. I force my muscles to relax.
“Are you going to shower too?” I ask when he turns to leave.
“I’ll do it after.”
“You can shower with me if you want,” I offer, lifting my voice so he can hear it over the running water since he’s disappeared again. “Tris?” I call out when he doesn’t respond.
Soap slicks down my arms before I pull them tight, holding myself again. He doesn’t reappear, but I ask anyway. “Do you like fucking me, or do you just feel sad for me?”
There’s a clatter like he dropped something.
His head pops back into the doorframe. “Why would you say that?”
Water splashes in my face.
He steps further into the bathroom. “Why would you say that?”
“B-because. . . I don’t know if you like me or not.” The burning shame scalds hotter than the water.
“Don’t know if—” He bites back whatever statement he was about to make. “You’re joking right.”
No.
“I just fucked you in an alleyway, Isolde.”
“But you’re upset,” I mumble, holding my arms tighter.
This is what I do. Make a tangled mess of thoughts and feelings.
“I should be asking you the same thing,” Tristan says. “If you actually like fucking me.”
I thought it seemed obvious. “Why would you say that?”
“Because when I ask you questions, instead of answering, you beg me to fuck you. You’d rather use me than answer a goddamn question.”
“That’s not. . .” Until it’s pointed out, I never saw it in this light. “I-I didn’t—”
“It’s unprofessional on my part,” Tristan snaps. “And I’m not dumb. I know you’re trying to distract me.”
“It’s not about distracting!”
“It’s fine, Isolde.” He rubs his head. “Moving forward, though, we’ll—”
“I asked you to sleep with me again!” I brush wet hair from my forehead. “The very next day, I asked if you wanted to sleep with me again. I did that because I like sleeping with you, you fucking nonce. And now you’re acting like I’m using my feminine wiles to get out of answering questions.”
I shut the shower off, flinging a towel around myself.
“You made it very clear you didn’t want to sleep with me again.
I don’t know why you’re acting like it’s a bad thing wanting to sleep with one another.
I get it now, how that first night it looked like I was just talking shit to get out of telling you about Cade.
But tonight you stuck your hands down my jeans with very little fucking goading. Don’t burst out at me!”
He takes a steadying breath. “I’m not bursting out at you.”
“You act like we’re mates at times, and we get along. But other times I think I just annoy you, and you’re only around because you’re being forced to.”
“No.”
My toes curl into the bathmat. So much for playing it cool. “Everybody fucking knows I like you.” It occurs to me that maybe not ‘everybody.’ “Did you not know that I liked you?”
Tristan opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. I know he’s too clever, too wise, not to be able to spot a schoolgirl crush, though.
“I know you’re being forced here,” I say, looking down at my toes. “Hadrian’s paying you. So I won’t make you feel uncomfortable anymore. I won’t ask to sleep with you again.”
“Isolde.”
My heart squeezes at how strangled my name sounds.
I let the towel fall to the floor. It’ll go in the wash tomorrow, anyway. I pull the T-shirt over my head.
“Good night, Tristan.”
Sometimes I think we talk in circles, he and I. Like we do like each other, but we don’t want to make it too obvious. Like we would sleep with one another, but now it seems too complicated.
“So uncomplicate it,” Sammie’s ghost says. For the first time in a while, her words and the voice in the back of my head are in sync.
I turn around, walking on my toes.
The bathroom lights are still on, and so are the ones in Tristan’s room. He’s faceplanted himself on top of his bed, and the idea of him sleeping on his tummy is cute.
He doesn’t move as I pad into the small room, bending down to sit on my knees on the rug next to his bed.
“Cade sold girls.”
His head moves an inch, confirming he’s listening.
“His dad and uncle didn’t know about it. You know about the Weed and Tweed?”
I figured he’d do his research. He nods.
“Cade added extra for certain clients. Women.”
He treated them like dog shit. Keeping the handful of girls locked in a room, chained by their necks to the wall. He’d roll them out to special clients.
“I’d been hired to make a hit. Didn’t expect the girl to be there,” I explain. “That’s how I found out about his operation.”
I’d snuck into some aristocratic fuck’s million-dollar terrace flat. I expected outdated furniture, a well-stocked bar, and various stuffy knickknacks.
I found all of that, plus the guy assaulting a barely legal kid.
“Needless to say, he and I got into it.” I’ve thought a lot about the actions I took. How I don’t regret any of them. I just wish I’d done it better. Tighter. Cleaner. The Ghost wouldn’t have made a mess out of the operation, like I did.
Tristan rolls his head. I keep my chin down, studying the pattern of the rug and the cords plugged into the wall’s electrical outlet.
“What happened?” he asks, his voice like gravel.
He’s seen the scar on my leg. The nasty, pink thing that crosses over my femoral artery.
I’m a female working class woman with no education. But I’d never felt so stuck in my life as I did when Cade had me trapped in some shitty little room, where he kept all his playthings. I’d never felt so afraid, my heart squeezing, unable to breathe.
Me or you in the body bag, he’d said, sneering down at me while I bled out.
I’d never been so scared in my life. It hit me then, that’s exactly what he wanted. What he expected. Terror to take over my body and reactions so that I couldn’t fight.
“You’ve got nothing to lose,” Sammie’s ghost had whispered from somewhere within the dark room. It’d been the absolute truth.
My mother didn’t speak to me. I had no friends. No lovers or kids. Sure, I’d started to put some money in the bank, but it’s all meaningless when you’re dead.
I could either try to fight for myself or let this arsehole win.
Cade wasn’t expecting my other leg to move. To kick out. He wasn’t expecting me to grab the medical grade knife and stab it in his chest. Too bad I missed his heart by an inch.
I ran through a dark hallway. When the door opened, I got to an equally dark tunnel. But my feet were running along pavement, meaning I’d gotten outside. I ran and ran.
Clearing my throat, I play with the hem of my shirt. “The first contract I’d ever fulfilled was for Hadrian.”
I know Tristan hates it every time I say the guy’s name, but he’s silent for once.
“That was it,” I say, my throat tightening. “Like he paid out, I thought. . .”
We had this funny connection. My sister.
And the fact that we both did what needed to be done to make sure her killer didn’t live.
I thought I’d never see him again, and I’m not saying that in some dramatic, slow-moving, Oscar winning motion picture type of way.
We had nothing other than that one massively strange blip of a moment that we both knew would stick with us forever.
It didn’t mean we’d ever have to talk to one another again, though.
“I was running down the fucking road,” I tell Tristan, my insides burning. “And Cade’s guys are chasing me.”
Cade had roared for his foot soldiers. Fucking animalistic, despite a knife in his chest.
“What happened?” Tristan asks, reaching his arm out.
I grab onto him, my fingers softly tracing his tattoos.
“I’m running down the road, and I’m not even sure how I managed that. I knew there wasn’t shit I could do. Even if I didn’t pass out, they were going to catch me. And then I see it. All brightly lit up.”
“A police station?” Tris jokes.
“A hotel. Owned by the Hallows.”
I knew the Hallows owned a ton, but Sammie had talked about this particular one near Westminster.
“It’s this five star hotel, meant for people who have money and want people to know about it.
I’m bleeding out on the floor in a ripped hoodie.
I’m expecting the guy behind the front desk to call the police any minute, but I know that won’t matter.
Cade’s guys will drag me out of the lobby in a heartbeat, posh pricks be damned.
So I look the hotel employee in the fucking eye and tell him that I’m Isolde Matheson and Hadrian Hallow is expecting me. ”
Tristan stirs on the bed. My hand wraps tighter around his arm, stopping him.
“It’d been over a year since I’d seen Hadrian, but the guy behind the desk goes, ‘Of course, Ms. Matheson, we’ve been expecting you.’ Just like that.” I remember his little nod. “I suddenly wasn’t trash bleeding out on their lobby floor.”
I’m not sure that Hadrian had expected to ever see me again either. But he’d made sure that all of his businesses in the UK knew who I was. That if I ever showed up, asking for him, I’d be treated as a special guest.
“He got me to a room. Called a doctor immediately.”
That’s who really saved my life.
“Hadrian shows up hours later. He’d been in Edinburgh.” He took one of the Hallow’s private jets to get there faster. “But it wasn’t just him. His brother showed up, and so did his dad.”
Tristan lets out a deep breath.
“I know you probably don’t like William Hallow.” Many don’t. “But they’ve all been good to me.”
They all know who I am. Dare I say they’ve treated me like family. Morgan has no idea of the fucked up kindness her family has shown me.
“They got me to America,” I say. “I knew I hadn’t left Cade behind. But there wasn’t a point in telling anyone or making a fuss. Not when I was trying to start over.”
No one wants to hire a triggerman who’s pissed off someone.
“He’s coming for you, Isolde.” Tristan cups my cheek, lifting my gaze to his.
I nod, covering his hand with my palm. Soaking in his touch.
I think deep down I’ve always wanted to talk to Tristan.
Since the very first night I ever saw him.
I was attracted to the Ghost, the silent man tracking down his enemies.
I wanted to get to know him, and that hasn’t changed in the past few weeks.
If anything, it’s only grown as I get closer and closer to him.
“I like when you call me baby,” I whisper. “And when you call me Iz.”
“But not Izzy,” he whispers back.
“It just sounds funny,” I explain. I squeeze his hand before untangling from him and standing. “Good night, Tristan.”
The duvet and sheets glide against my skin, my flesh prickling when the A/C hits me at full blast. It’s nothing compared to the cold liquid that lands on my ass.
My eyes fly open, and I reach for the gun under the pillow next to me. My hand grabs onto nothing.
Tristan tsks under his breath. “Sixteen guns, Iz baby, really?”
I try to roll over, but his large hand splays on my lower back.
I kick my feet. He merely swats them down, his hand pressing down on my back in warning.
“What are you doing?” I croak, my throat dry. I thought I’d toss and turn like normal. Instead, after talking to Tris, the moment my head hit the pillow, I was out.
He opens the drawer of my bedside table and pulls out a butt plug. Oh, holy hell.
Examining the sex toy, he says, “We can’t have a repeat of last night.” He smirks when my mouth tumbles open. “I meant the part where you got wound up and decided killing men would be a good stress reliever.”
A noise slips past my lips when his fingers toy with my clit. I fist my hands in my pillow, anticipation building. His fingers skim my pussy, dragging back to the tight ring around my ass.
“Tristan.” I bite down on my lip.
He pours more lube out, another item in my side drawer that he helped himself to.
“Looks like I’ll have to find other ways to entertain you.”
“Tristan,” I warn. Or is it a plea?
“Let me in,” he coaxes, his finger working my muscles.
I can’t help tensing.
“Let me in.” His voice washes over me, and I relax at the command. “Just like that. Good job, baby.”
“Tristan,” I moan. My hips rock back.
He presses his hand against my back again, forcing me to still. His finger thrusts in and out of me. He adds another one, the haze a dizzying blur.
He pours lube onto the plug, making sure more lands on my ass. I’m not even that bothered by the fact that I’ll have to change my bedsheets. All I care about is what he’s doing to my body.
The plug slides in. He twists it, eliciting a whimper.
Then his fingers find my clit again. It’s easy work. I’m full from the plug, high from the adrenaline, and I’m ready—always so ready—anytime Tristan plays with me.
My fingers curl into my pillow, hiding my scream.
Tristan chuckles, the edge of the mattress dipping with his weight. He kisses my shoulder, petting my hair back. “Look at me.”
I shyly peek up.
“I’m going to take your ass tonight.” He brushes my hair again, his fingers skimming my ear. “If you’re a good girl today, I’ll even let you come.”
My sensitive pussy throbs, and I stuff my mouth against the pillow when a whimper escapes.
He grabs the nape of my neck, lifting me so he can gain access to my lips.
But he stops right before he can press a kiss to my lips. “Is it obvious yet how much I fucking like you, Matheson?”