Chapter 6 – Tristan
Chapter Six
Tristan
If someone had told me a week ago that I would become a damn stalker, I would have laughed in their face. I wasn’t some lovesick asshole who would follow a woman around, being led by his dick. No fucking way.
And then I scented her.
My mate. Yes, I’m calling her my mate because I know, deep down to my bone marrow, that she is.
There wasn’t a scent more compelling. There wasn’t a voice more appealing. There wasn’t a face more beautiful. And there wasn’t a body more desirable. She was everything I never knew that I wanted.
For six nights I have been watching her, while during the day I’ve had Cyrus take video feeds of her. Being the obsessed asshole that I’ve become, I watched her in both her awake and sleep moments. It’s a good thing that I don’t need to eat or sleep because I can’t seem to take my eyes off her long enough to attempt to do either. Although vampires don’t usually sleep, Alexi taught me to sleep at least four hours a day to give my frozen-in-time skin a few hours a day to rest. It prevents the death-pale pallor that most ancient vampires eventually attain. I usually sleep between dawn and 9 a.m. But since meeting my mate, I have yet to close my eyes.
I can’t lose her. I can’t seem to focus on anything or anyone else unless I know that she is all right. Despite her enhanced abilities, I worry that she is still breathing or that she remains unharmed. I never even noticed when she became such an essential part of me.
I can’t even pretend that my behavior isn’t obsessive, not to mention weird as fuck.
In a week, I’ve watched her work, kicking down doors, taking down bad guys, and skillfully navigating dangerous situations while protecting citizens and her co-workers. I’ve watched her exercise, cook, do mundane chores around the house, eat and sleep. I’ve never hated the limitations of my vampire skin more than I have since meeting her.
When I first became a vampire and Alexi warned me about how deadly sunlight was, it was impossible for me to grasp the concept that something so elemental could bring down someone as powerful as me. So, me and my dumb ass stepped outside one day.
Well, let’s just say that (1) I never did that shit again and (2) I never griped about having a wolf on my ass every moment of my existence. That day, Cyrus wrapped his massive arms around my waist and frog-marched me to safety, because the instant I stepped into sunlight, I was racked with excruciating, mind-numbing pain that completely paralyzed every muscle in my body. I couldn’t save myself. I couldn’t step back to safety. And in the few seconds that I stood in the sunlight, every inch of skin on my body charred and started to turn to ash. It was only my enhanced healing ability that stopped further deterioration as soon as I was taken back to safety, and Xander’s ability to heal had restored my soulless life.
Tonight, I have to be with her while she is fully aware. I am going to visit her without using my ability to trance. I don’t know if I have the strength to leave her alone if she turns me away. And I have done everything in the past week to make her more amenable to the idea.
Despite her unusual powers, she is only mortal. She’s as susceptible to my vampiric ability to trance as any mortal and some immortals. And over the past few nights, I have been using the trance to infiltrate her living space and remain by her side while she does her nightly ritual. And God I wouldn’t have missed that experience for anything.
My mate is a creature of habit. I learned that the first night I observed her.
As soon as she steps into her apartment, she exchanges her work clothes for tights and a tank top. She converted one of the bedrooms in her apartment to a gym. I love watching her pound her fist and deliver high kicks to a massive boxing bag, love her display of lean feminine muscles twisting, stretching, and undulating as she does the most sensual yoga routine I’ve ever seen, and I absolutely love that afterward she whips something up in the kitchen to cook with an upbeat playlist, moving around the kitchen as if she’s a world class chef.
She then takes a shower while whatever she is cooking is left simmering on the fire. I never abuse my ability to invade that part of her privacy, but I can’t wait until she willingly shares that with me too. After she has dinner, though, is my favorite part of her day.
She always grabs her TV remote after brushing her teeth and changing into sleep shorts and a large sleep shirt that seems to morph her small frame before snuggling down in one of the most comfortable sofas I’ve ever sat in.
While tranced, she would remember doing everything that she does when she gets home; however, she would never remember me being there physically unless I interacted with her or came into her line of sight. Her supernatural senses are slightly muted during the trance, so it was relatively easy to stay out of her way.
As soon as she sat down to watch her television program, I would sit beside her and engage her in conversation, because I wanted her to remember this part. I wanted her to remember me and get used to me being there. I wanted her to “know” me and accept that I am her mate.
The same night I met her, after I changed out of my suit, I tracked her by scent back to her police precinct and waited for her to leave hours later. It was the first time that I followed her to her apartment. She was on her bike, and I followed at vampiric speed. I got the impression that she sensed my presence, but I made sure to stay out of her line of sight.
In the dream-state, she was shocked to see me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked the first night in her small living room with her television blaring in the background. She was sitting on her sofa, and I sat nonchalantly in an armchair as if I belonged there. She was so startled on seeing me that she seemed to stop breathing.
“Here in your apartment?” I asked, playing for time and wanting to gauge how deep her subconsciousness was.
She looked around her living room, a ripple of confusion evident by the tiny frown lines on her forehead. “Am I dreaming?”
“How else am I here?” I asked reasonably.
“B-but—” she stammered.
I deliberately interrupted her. “I wondered if you would have dinner with me sometime.”
“Have dinner with you?” she blurted out, sounding as if she was trying to take short, shallow breaths. “Are you sure that you don’t mean, have me for dinner? I didn’t know that your kind ate human food.”
It was my turn to look at her in surprise. “You know what I am?” Part of me wondered if the wolves had warned her off me. But her next words disabused me of that notion.
“I’ve met someone like you before, and he warned me to never trust your kind.”
“My kind?” I grinned wolfishly. “Anything in particular that you’re supposed to beware of?” No matter my smile, an ugly churning of jealousy was invading my stomach. Who the fuck was this vampire she had known before me? Where was he? Was he still in her life? How soon could I destroy the fucker? Okay, I’ll try not to show all of my asshole moves in one night, but I had every intention of making her tell me about this other vampire at a later date.
She raised an eyebrow. “You could snap my neck with barely any effort at all, or you could rip my throat out before I could even think to scream, or you could suck my blood dry from my body.”
“Most gruesome, indeed,” I teased.
“I don’t know your name, and you don’t know mine,” she said softly in a near panic.
“You’re Kalista Black.” I smiled as varying emotions flashed across her face. Shock. Annoyance. And finally fascination. “I like your name, by the way. It means ‘most beautiful,’ and it suits you perfectly.”
She pressed her lips together as if to prevent any response from passing from them.
“My name is Tristan, in case you feel the need to call out to me when my urges become yours.” Teasing her has become my favorite pastime now.
She narrowed her eyes. “What? Why would your urges become mine? Are you threatening to turn me?”
“Well now, that’s a thought.” I grinned.
“I won’t let you.” She glared at me.
“And how will you stop me?” I found that I liked pushing her buttons.
“I won’t let you turn me.”
“So, you think that I can turn you,” I murmured casually with a grin because now my jealousy had started to abate. “That’s interesting.” Clearly, the other vampire hadn’t left such a great impression, given her less-than-flattering expectations, even if what she was saying was true.
She didn’t appreciate my attitude if her continued glare was anything to go by.
“I think I can find a much more pleasurable interaction between us,” I said lazily. It started out as a tease, but it shocked me that, after my lack of desire for sex over the past five years, I was suddenly unable to control my libido. What the hell was she doing to me?
I slid closer to her on the sofa without even making a decision to do so. I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.
She seemed to have difficulty breathing again when I moved closer to her.
I loved that she was so responsive to me. I wanted to touch her silky skin and to hold her lush body in my arms. I leaned toward her, almost touching her.
She sucked in a sharp startled breath and made as if she was about to stand.
I clasped her hand between my larger palms, effectively trapping her where she was. “I can promise you that any pain you may feel will only make the pleasure more intense,” I told her softly.
“I…”
“Pleasure so intense that I will erase any thought or memory of another male from your mind,” I promised, ignoring her weak protest.
She gasped, whether from wanting what I promised or stunned that I would say such things.
“No, thank you,” she finally wheezed out politely.
I bent my head toward her, my nose a mere inch from the warm skin of her neck, making no effort to hide the fact that I was scenting her. I closed my eyes and groaned deep in my throat at her intoxicating scent. “You smell so fucking sweet,” I whispered achingly before opening my eyes again, already missing the sight of her gorgeous face. “It is addictive, angelo mio .” I could do nothing to stop the yearning in my voice.
She looked back at me uncertainly, but her blue gaze was murky with the same desire that I was trying so hard to contain. She was already feeding off my emotions without us even sharing so much as a kiss. When I fuck her, our connection will be explosive.
“Why can’t I move?” she asked softly, and again, the frown lines on her forehead reappeared. “Are you doing something to me?”
“Do you taste as good as you smell I wonder?” I asked instead of answering her questions. My mate was not the kind of woman who would take kindly to me restricting her in any way. The trance that I had placed her in would make her feel sluggish, not completely paralyzed, but I’m pretty sure she would dispute the distinction and would try to brain me if she knew what I was doing to her.
“Please don’t,” she whispered. Despite her plea, she didn’t look at all as if she was afraid of me. It was more a plea of reprieve.
“What are you asking me not to do?” I asked her softly as I reclined on the sofa, taking her with me by arranging her against me. She tried to resist, but her efforts were feeble at best. I placed her gently between my legs with her back against my chest and wrapped an arm around her waist to anchor her to me. I settled my palm over her flat stomach, loving this position because it gave me complete access to her lush curves.
“Don’t,” she whimpered, but her struggle was useless because the trance would make her arms seem too heavy for her to lift.
“What, piccola tigre ? Don’t touch you?” I tightened my arms around her and pressed my face in her soft hair. Dio mio , I would never tire of her scent.
She hissed but couldn’t seem to utter a word. Yes, now she could scent me too. My vampire allure coupled with the cosmic pheromones between us as mates would be impossible for her to withstand. She would have the same difficulty resisting me as I was having trying to resist her.
“Don’t kiss you?” I trailed my lips along the soft skin of her cheek, and then to the warm column of her neck. My fangs ached in my gums. The desire to sink my fangs into her succulent skin had me trembling like a virgin boy with his first woman.
She tilted her head to give me more access.
“I thought you were worried that I might bite you?”
“I am worried,” she admitted softly.
“And yet you gave me your neck?” I was truly puzzled by her eager acquiescence. That was not something my trance would control.
“Can’t help it,” she whimpered. “It’s as if I need your fangs in me. I don’t know why I know that, but I do.” She grimaced as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying.
“It’s because you’re my mate.” I tried to soothe her. The last thing I wanted was for her to be afraid of me, all teasing aside.
“I don’t want this,” she whimpered as tears of resistance leaked from the sides of her eyes.
I tenderly kissed her tears away, savoring the salty taste on my tongue. Every part of her was beautiful and tasted right, even her damn tears. “Don’t worry, angelo mio ,” I murmured soothingly. “I promise that I would never bite you unless you wanted me to and were ready for my claiming.” I kissed her exposed neck, delivering soft kisses along the warm column. “And I won’t claim you fully until you’re absolutely certain that you want to be an immortal, that you want to be my mate and irrevocably mine.”
She nodded and, to my surprise, tilted her head back over my shoulder at an impossible angle to give me even better access to her neck.
I took full advantage and couldn’t resist sucking a bit of her skin between my lips. “So fucking sweet,” I breathed with a bit of a lisp, my fangs pressing against my lips insistently.
She moaned and stretched, reached up to try kiss my lips, but the kiss landed on my cheek instead. I turned my head to give her the access she seemed to be begging for. She settled her lips over mine, kissing me hesitantly as if she hadn’t done this often.
I allowed her to explore and kiss me as she liked. It had been a long time since I’d ever engaged in such pedestrian caresses, much less been the least bit excited by them, but damn if her innocent little kisses didn’t make me hot as fuck.
I deepened the kiss, finally tasting her as I had been so desperate to do from the first moment I met her. Dio , she tasted amazing, like my birthday, Christmas, and New Year’s rolled into one. The fireworks she ignited erupted and dispersed through me, making my dead heart accelerate and my cold body tremble with uncompromising need.
Exploring her warm depths, I curled my tongue around hers and couldn’t stop the guttural groan of lust from escaping my throat as her taste had white-hot desire swirling fiercely through me. Every time I thought that my lust couldn’t spike any higher, something about her only stoked it more.
I trailed my hands up the silky planes of her flat stomach before palming her surprisingly lush breasts. I didn’t expect to find such a generous bounty on such a small frame. She obviously wore some seriously restrictive bras, because, even with my keen sight, I hadn’t detected this. Yes, I noticed her curvy ass right away, but her breasts were a delicious discovery. They overflowed in my palms, and the plump tips were taut with desire.
She moaned softly, arching and pressing her breasts into my palm while simultaneously rolling her curvaceous bottom sensually on my growing length.
Without releasing her lips, because I refused to give up her taste now that I had her, I kept one palm over her left breast and roamed my other hand down her body, exploring her soft skin through the silky material of her sleep pajamas before reaching between her legs. I ensured that I never touched her naked skin. If I did, I would not be able to restrain myself.
On an impatient whimper, she widened her thighs and pushed her needy little sex more firmly into my palm.
My cock pulsed harder and lengthened at the feel of her heat through her honey-drenched shorts. Caressing her breasts, alternating my attention between them, worrying the beaded tips and testing their creamy fullness, I angled my head to suck on her tongue as I petted her pussy.
She keened and moved against me with stunning sensuality, which drove my lust to the point of pain and threatened to undermine my intentions to keep this encounter as PG as I could fucking manage.
However, with the scent of her arousal saturating the air and the feel of her softness under my fingertips, all I wanted to do was taste her honey. I wanted to lay her on this sofa, rip her shorts from the treasure beneath, spread her thighs, and bury my face in her heat.
Instead, I explored her mouth and sucked on her tongue as I wanted to explore her dewy center and suck on her clit. I was ravenous with need, and my carnal forage was only whetting my appetite for more of her.
I wanted her to come to me in full awareness before I took things that far.
For now, I kissed her like a man dying of thirst, plucked at her taut nipples, and rubbed her engorged clit through her soaked shorts until she splintered in helpless ecstasy.
She slumped against me, spent and sated. Still in a dream-state, she fell into a deeper sleep.
I stood with my sweet burden in my arms and carried her to her bedroom. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I held her throughout the night as she slept. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, stunned that I had finally found my mate.
I’d found the one woman who was predestined solely for me. I could so easily have missed finding her. If I hadn’t come to Vegas. If I hadn’t left the Camorra club when I did and been traveling through that particular side street. If I hadn’t looked out the car window when I did. Hell, if I hadn’t gotten out the car and followed her. Dio! There were so many variables that could have caused me to miss finding her. It made the miracle of finding her that much more incredible.
I didn’t dare let her out of my sight now. How could I? I left her bed before she woke the next morning—and before the sun rose.
The inconvenience of being a vampire and in the heat of Las Vegas, where trench coats and hoods were not a thing, really hampered my stalking ability. And when I asked Cyrus to guard her, the bastard had the nerve to look to Aidan for guidance. I almost went for his damn throat.
Fortunately, he did the live feeds, which sustained me until I saw her later at night.
Like I said, my mate is a creature of habit, and we replayed our first night again the following night and the four nights after. I took great pleasure in crossing wits with her and exploring our passion for each other. And I especially loved it when she fell apart in my arms.
However, I didn’t get to enjoy my time with Kalista without resistance from both Cyrus and Aidan. The only reason that I didn’t kick their asses was because I was still trying to convince myself to walk away from her.
And for sure they tried to convince me of it as well.
“Think of what a life with you would mean for her,” Aidan demanded coldly.
“Why the concern for this particular mortal, Aidan?” I narrowed my eyes at him, letting him know that he had better not have an interest in her. “You still haven’t told me what she is. I know that she is mortal, but we all know that she is more than that.”
“I’ve told you already that she is a valued friend, and my brothers and I would appreciate your leaving her alone. That is all you need to know.”
Cyrus nodded at Aidan’s declaration. “She is important to all of us,” he chimed in, making it clear that the other elite wolves would side with the Alpha and his brothers.
“So, if I pursued her, I would have to contend with all of you?”
“Not only would she become the main target for your enemies, but you would be essentially taking her life in more ways than one,” Aidan bit out instead of answering my question.
“And no association with me could possibly make her life better? Is that what you’re saying?” I asked sardonically.
“You know damn well that that’s not what I’m saying. You’re one of the wealthiest men on the planet, but as we all know, money isn’t everything.”
“So now, all I have to offer is money?” I drawled.
“Don’t be fucking obtuse,” Aidan said tersely. “Not only would she have to give up a career that we all can see she loves, but she would have to give up her friends and any family she may have. Why the hell do you think we allow her to live outside of the Pack?”
“Perhaps because she’s not a fucking wolf!” He was really starting to piss me off. “And I do know what she would have to give up to become my mate. Why the fuck do you think I haven’t claimed her yet?”
“She is not your fucking mate!” Aidan snarled. “She cannot be! We wouldn’t allow it.”
“ This is not up to you, Aidan! Or any of the fucking wolves for that matter. Elite or not.” I wanted to burn his ass to a crisp. “She is not a fucking wolf! Get that through your thick skull before I stamp it in there.”
“Don’t you get it?” Aidan persisted. “You would be taking her humanity!”
“This is not up to any of you. And I don’t give a fuck if you all approve or not. She is my mate! If I decide to claim her, there is nothing any of you can do about it other than try kill me. And I say try , because, despite how powerful you fuckers think you are, I am plenty powerful too.” I teleported out of there before we came to trading blows.
Only to have a similar argument with them again the next day.
Knowing all of that, the objections from the wolves and my own misgivings, I could no longer resist wanting more of her. I convinced myself, as I tried to convince Aidan and Cyrus, that I hadn’t made up my mind to claim her and that I only wanted to know her better and spend time with her in her conscious state.
There was always mafioso business to conduct, however.