"May I borrow it?"
"What for?"
"I need to leave," Morana clenched her hands to keep the panic at bay. "I have to get out."
The other woman blinked in understanding. "I can't let you go, Morana. Especially not with the situation as it is right now. It could turn into a blood bath. And Tristan would never forgive me."
That snagged her attention. Morana looked at the woman sharply. "You know why he hates me, don't you?"
Amara nodded. "Yes, but it isn't my story to tell."
"What can you tell me?" she asked bluntly.
Amara tilted her head to the side. "How much do you know about the time the Alliance ended?"
Frowning, Morana tried to recall. "Not much."
"Look it up. That's all I can tell you."
Morana sighed, knowing the woman wouldn't divulge any secrets. She even admired that.
Keeping her eyes on the scene below, Morana saw the cars turn back and return to the building, and straightened her spine, picking up her phone.
Me: I need my car.
Tristan Caine: For?
Morana raised her eyebrows but replied quickly.
Me: Leaving.
Tristan Caine: Where exactly do you plan on going?
She had no idea, but she sure as hell wasn't telling him that.
Me: I'm leaving the city. I have a friend I've spoken to.
Tristan Caine: Unspeak to your friend. If I'm not leaving this city, you sure as hell aren't.
Morana grit her teeth, her anger burning in her gut again.
Me: You don’t get to decide that, Mr. Caine.
Morana walked towards the couch, dropping her body onto it, glaring at the elevator as her phone buzzed again.
Tristan Caine: We have unfinished business, Ms. Vitalio.
'Apparently, you're not out of my system, Ms. Vitalio.'
His words rattled her mind. Last night. It had just been last night. It seemed like a lifetime. Deliberately misunderstanding his words, Morana typed a response.
Me: I’m done with the codes.
He obviously wasn’t because if he was framed, his neck was on the line.
The elevator doors opened just as her phone vibrated. Morana looked up to see him enter the room, his lithe, muscular body fitting right into the sunlit apartment, his blue eyes finding hers, the energy in them burning her. Blue locked with hers, the color beautiful in the bright sunlight, shining and focused, right on her.
Morana took a deep breath and broke their gaze, looking down at the text he'd sent.
Tristan Caine: I wasn't talking about the codes.
Tristan Caine: I meant our business.
Her heart thumped. She didn't look up, aware that he stood just feet away in the room, talking to Amara. She didn't need this. Not right now. Not on top of everything else.
Me: We are done. Is my father is gone?
Tristan Caine: With more bruises on his face than yours.
Morana's eyes flew up, locking with his.
He'd hit her father? Was he insane?
And seriously what was she doing? Predators scented injured animals and attacked. He'd attacked her father.
And yet, there she was, in the den of the deadliest predator, one who had told her in no clear terms that she was his prey and his prey alone. There she was injured, bleeding, and vulnerable in so many ways. Yet, she'd never felt safer.
Panic hit.
Morana Vitalio was not a woman easily scared.
She'd been brought up in a house full of snakes. She'd seen and observed those slimy beings since before she had learned to walk. And she'd never feared them. Not when she'd seen their guns. Not when she'd seen the mayhem they were capable of with her own young eyes. Not when she'd seen the bright color of blood splattered on the pristine white walls, only to be covered up within the day.
She hadn't been scared when her own life had been on the line with the codes, nor when her father had let her fall down the stairs with the possibility of her breaking her neck.
No. Morana Vitalio was not scared of death.
But she was scared of Tristan Caine, even though she didn't want to admit it.
She watched him move about the kitchen with the natural grace of a predator - lithe, sure and completely certain of its victory- the jacket of his suit hanging on a chair while his white shirt stretched taut across his back, the sleeves rolled up over his muscular forearms as he moved the frying pan with one hand and added the seasonings with the other. She sat on the same stool she'd been sitting in the last time she'd spent the night in the penthouse mere days ago. Lord, it felt like a lifetime.
Back then, she'd seen his body in motion and harbored a minuscule root of feminine appreciation for such beauty. Now, she marveled. Because she knew, intimately, how that body moved inside her. She knew how he felt inside her, knew how he pulsed inside her.
And that's all she knew. Because that was all she'd allowed herself to know. And for some reason, it had only fuelled her hunger.
She watched the muscles in his back flex and wondered what they'd feel like if he was above her. She watched his hands moving the pan skilfully and wondered what they'd feel like playing with her body, caressing her skin. She watched that taut, taut ass of his and wondered what it'd be like under her teeth.
Heat pooled in her belly at her erotic thoughts. Squirming uncomfortably on the stool, her blood heated and her body bruised, Morana moved her eyes away from him to the two other people sitting in the room, far away from each other. Amara scrolled through her phone a few stools beside Morana, and Dante watched the spectacular setting sun from the floor to ceiling windows, sitting on the other side of the room while Tristan Caine cooked silently.
The tension in the room, between each and every one, was choking her. It was fucking unnerving. And she was not used to it. This awkward silence – because she knew they had to talk but couldn't in her presence because there was some weird stuff going on between Amara and Dante and the other two people in the room knew it. Also because there was some weird stuff going on between herself and his majesty, and the other two knew about it too. Everything was just weird. Yet, weirdly comfortable in a way it shouldn't have been.
"What should I tell father?"
Dante's quiet voice broke through the silence like a whip, his dark eyes trained on Tristan Caine's back.
Tristan Caine turned off the stove, the smell of something hot and spicy permeating the air, making her mouth drool while she closely observed him for even a minute reaction. She got none.
He continued transferring the food into a big serving bowl, his hands that had held a knife to her throat and a gun to her head once carrying on the domestic task with such ease she envied it. Amara stood up to pick up glasses from the cabinet and in silence, they set the table in a way they'd done a hundred times.
Her envy notched up. She tamped it down.
And all this time, while she knew he'd been aware of every single move of hers, he hadn't looked at her once. Not once. Not since coming in after punching her father hours ago.