Chapter 43 Tristan
TRISTAN
I waited outside Eva’s classroom, watching through the door window.
When the last students filtered out, I slipped inside, eager to share new information on Carter I’d gathered from Rami’s sister.
Eva stood halfway up the stairs of the auditorium-style lecture hall, her tote bag slung over her shoulder, jeans hugging the perfect curves of her ass, the bottom hem of her sweater creeping up as she stood on her toes.
Oh, hell no. A boy stood on the step above her, his head bent down over hers as they peered at his phone. Were they exchanging numbers? Jealousy wound through my veins like fiery poison, instant and hot.
Eva was mine.
I jogged up the stairs and stopped one step below her, wrapping my arm around her waist and dragging her backward into me.
Her soft “oh” as she stumbled then caught her balance by grabbing at my arm was so fucking cute. Too bad it did nothing to cool my irrational rage at the thought of another man looking at my girl.
“Kitten,” I murmured. “Hi.”
Eva tossed her hair to the side and looked up at me over her shoulder, murder in her eyes but an amused smile on her lips. I’d beg for her forgiveness later, on my knees, with my face buried in her pussy.
“Tristan,” she said, interrupting my lascivious thoughts, “I’d like to introduce you to Miles. Miles was asking me if I wanted to join his study group tomorrow evening.”
“She has plans,” I snapped. Miles was looking Eva up and down like a fucking snack. And she was—delicious and beautiful and smart as hell and mine.
Eva elbowed me in the stomach, but instead of getting mad, I just tugged her closer with one arm, sliding her tote off her shoulder with the other. I frowned at the weight of the bag.
“Tristan,” Eva growled, and Miles looked at me like I was killing a fucking puppy.
“Dude, it’s just a study date.”
Not the way he was looking at her, it wouldn’t be.
“At the library,” Eva emphasized.
“We have plans,” I repeated, and took a step backward and down, dragging her with me. If we didn’t, I’d call Alek and Cole and make sure we did. Now that she’d let us back in, I couldn’t get enough of this woman.
Eva took one step down, then another, and then her shoulders drooped. “Sorry, Miles,” she whispered. “I’ve got plans.”
Eva turned so abruptly, she knocked me off-kilter, and I stumbled to follow her out of the classroom.
“Hey hey hey,” I said as I dropped my free arm over her shoulders, the other weighed down by her books.
“Fuck you, Tristan,” she muttered. “This is the only class I don’t have an A in, and all I wanted to do was fucking study so I can maintain my GPA and get a scholarship to med school.”
Before I even knew I was doing it, I’d dropped her books to the ground and shoved her back against the concrete walls of the hallway, caging her in with my arms as I towered over her.
“He didn’t want to study, Eva. He wanted to get into your pants.”
The contempt on Eva’s face hurt more than I expected. “Not everyone’s a manipulative asshole, Tristan.” Guess we weren’t entirely forgiven yet.
I shoved the guilt aside to address the issue at hand. “He couldn’t keep his eyes off your tits.”
“How’s that any different from you?”
Fuck, I was furious with her, but I didn’t want her furious with me. “Eva,” I growled then bent my head down so I could run my nose up the satin column of her throat, inhaling her citrus and vanilla scent. “Fuck, you smell good today. Did you wear perfume so you could seduce that asshole?”
She shoved me backward, her eyes flashing with fury.
“Are you kidding me?” She cut herself off, flushing, and it was so fucking cute, I wanted to take her in my arms and hug her.
“I’m working for the team, trying to keep my grades up so I can get into med school, dealing with a chronic heart problem and also trying to gather evidence to take down one of the most powerful men in the city.
Do you think I have time to add someone else to the mix?
We didn’t even have a fucking relationship, and I broke up with you. I’m not a fucking cheat.”
I nipped at her neck, and she shivered, her fingers clutching at my chest. “You’re ours, Eva. When are you going to figure that out?”
I wrapped my arms around her waist as she rested her cheek on my chest, and I wanted to pump my fist in the air with the victory.
The hem of Eva’s sweater teased at me, and I stopped resisting, slipping my fingers up to her waist to trace along the top of her jeans.
“You don’t want him,” I murmured. “He’s boring, and he sure as fuck wouldn’t treat you the way I do.”
“You mean he wouldn’t blackmail me for sex?” Eva sassed back, and I fell a little bit more in love with her in that moment.
“Why’d you wear the perfume?” I asked her. She wouldn’t look at me, and hope beat so hard in my chest, it might explode. “For me, kitten? For us?”
Eva lifted her chin. “For me.”
Beautiful liar. She wanted us to want her. I splayed my hands over her ribs, reveling in her softness, so different from Cole and myself, hard for different reasons, inside and out.
When my hand slipped over her stomach, she flinched away from me, so I gripped her hip and pressed my hand into her flesh, the feel of my fingers pressing into her side so fucking hot.
“What’s wrong?”
She flushed, and I loved the power I held to make this tightly controlled woman lose her composure even a little bit.
When Eva didn’t answer, I took one hand to cup her cheek and force her to look up at me. “Eva?”
“That’s not my favorite part of my body,” she said firmly, meeting my eye, not an ounce of emotion in her voice.
Oh. Oh.
Fury slid through me at anyone who’d ever made my girl feel anything less than. I slid my hand around to cup her ass, digging my fingers into her left cheek while I tightened my grip on her face. “Every part of your body belongs to me, Eva.”
Her muscles clenched under me, and suddenly, my earlier jealousy faded away compared to my need to reassure her she was the sexiest fucking thing I’d ever seen.
“Do you know why I don’t want you talking to other men?”
Her eyes flashed with anger again, and I reached up to smooth the furrow in her brow with my thumb.
“You’re gorgeous. You’re smart. You’re determined.
You’re so loyal, it hurts my heart. You’re going to be an incredible doctor, and any team in the country will be lucky to have you.
You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I can’t imagine any man seeing you and not wanting you.
I can’t fucking think when I’m around you, and neither can any other man in your vicinity. ”
She blinked rapidly, and her breath sped up, but she didn’t say a word.
I slid a hand between her legs, squeezing her pussy from behind. “I’m not Cole or Alek—but Eva, I swear to god, I want to rip out the eyes of anyone who looks at you the way I do. I want to tear their hearts out for thinking they deserve you.”
“And you think you deserve me?” She tried to scoff, but her voice came out breathy.
“I don’t pretend to deserve you. Doesn’t make you less mine.”
Eva stared up at me, her green eyes shining with emotion, her anger making way for an emotion more complex—confusion, insecurity, and a flash of desire.
“Spread your legs,” I told her.
“We’re in the hallway! Miles could walk out of that classroom at any moment!”
“What’s your safeword?” I asked her. A thousand emotions crossed her face before she set her jaw and looked away from me, refusing to answer.
I dipped my head to lick across her lips, my fingers still wrapped around her jaw to hold her in place. When she parted them with a sigh, my heart beat triumphantly. She tasted so fucking good, her fruity lip gloss as addicting as the taste of her tongue against mine.
“Good girl,” I murmured, sliding my hand back around to lift her thigh and wrap it around my waist. Eva was up on her toes, still too short to get the pressure she needed, so I released her face and lifted her by the ass, shoving her back against the wall.
She squeaked with surprise at the movement.
“Wrap your legs around my waist, kitten,” I said.
“I’m too—”
“Don’t,” I cut her off. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” I shifted her higher, making sure she felt every inch of my cock pressed against her. “You’re not too fucking anything, except too fucking perfect, and I’m going to prove it to you, right here, right now,” I snarled. “Jump, kitten.”
Eva’s eyes widened, and then she wrapped her arms around my neck and leapt into my arms. I squeezed her ass tight, loving the way she flowed around my fingers, even in jeans.
And then, she fucking moaned, her pussy sliding against my cock.
“Oh, that’s my good fucking girl,” I breathed.
She clutched at my neck, holding on for dear life, like she was afraid I’d drop her.
Never.
“Kitten, relax,” I exhorted her.
She shook her head, her legs wrapped around my waist the best they could as I pumped my hips into her, sliding my pelvis up and down her core.
“You’ll drop me,” she whispered. “It’s happened bef—” She cut herself off, hiding her face against my neck.
“Kitten? I swear to you, I’m not going to drop you.” I flexed my fingers, buried in the cheeks of her ass. “I’ve got you. I promise.”
I pushed her back against the wall and adjusted her position so I could continue to rub her core against my aching cock.
Eva’s breaths came out in short pants against my ear as I ratcheted up her pleasure.
“That’s it, sweet girl,” I whispered, my face pressed into her curls. “Feel how hard I am? Feel what you do to me?”
I rocked against her harder.
“You’re mine, and I take care of my girl, don’t I?” My voice dropped to a growl. “I make you come so hard, you forget any other man who’s ever touched you, don’t I?”
“I’m not yours,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she meant it.
I rocked my hips against her again, and her death grip around my neck loosened a hair.
“I’m going to make you come right here,” I promised. “In the hallway, so there’s no question of who you belong to.”
“Please don’t,” she whispered, but her fingers had turned into claws, digging into my neck instead of clutching at me with terror. Each time my cock slid against her, she whimpered. “No,” she begged. “Not like this. I don’t want them to—”
I turned my face until I could capture her lips with mine.
“Kitten, you don’t want them to what?” I whispered against her mouth.
“You don’t want them to see how fucking hot you are as you rub yourself all over my cock, with your cheeks rosy and your nipples hard as glass underneath your sweater?
You don’t want them to see me losing my fucking mind over you? ”
Eva’s eyes flew to mine, and she blinked, as if she couldn’t decide whether to give in to me or shove me away. Too bad my grip was too strong.
“You don’t want them to see you needy and flushed and so fucking stunning, I might come in my pants?”
Eva buried her face in my hair, her hips moving in time with mine. She was pressed so tightly against the wall, I could have let her go, but when I loosened one hand, she grabbed at me.
“You have a safeword, kitten.” She gripped me tighter, her fingers digging into my neck, but she didn’t say anything. “I’ve got you,” I growled. “I swear it.” Forever.
Her fingers tangled in my curls as she rode me. “Please,” she moaned. “I need—I need—oh! Tristan!”
I wanted to mark her, wanted everyone who walked by to know she was mine, wanted to leave bruises on her hips and marks on her throat, wanted that asshole to walk out of the classroom and see exactly who this stunning, determined women had claimed as hers.
Her fingers tightened against my skull as she seized, her entire body tightening, curling into me as she came. “Tristan!” she cried out, and fuck, it was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.
I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Eva,” I whispered into her neck as I came, a burst of pleasure exploding out from the base of my spine as I ejaculated in my fucking pants like I was twelve years old.
Her legs dropped from around my waist, and I let her slide down the wall.
Eva trembled like a leaf in the wind, her hands catching on my shirt. I wrapped my arms around her and drew her to me, one hand on her back, the other cradling the back of her head, pressing her cheek into my chest as we both gasped and panted for air.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured, pressing my lips to the top of her head. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Eva didn’t say anything, but her arms dropped from where they were trapped between us to wrap around my waist.
“Also, I haven’t come in my pants in a long fucking time,” I muttered into her hair.
She giggled, and my heart eased. Eva fought so hard to hold on to her control, but with me? She was willing to let go, even in a quasi-public place, like the hallway of the engineering building.
“You’re mine, Eva.”
She hummed but didn’t respond, which was basically agreement, as far as I was concerned.
“And if you ever give your number to another man, I’ll break his fingers, then I’ll fuck you in front of him, so he knows what he’s missing.”
“You sound like Cole,” she giggled.
“He’s got the right idea when it comes to you.”