And that was the scariest thing of all.
Chapter 6: Desire
Tristan
A click of the bathroom door only feet from where he slept roused Tristan from his light sleep. His eyes fluttered open, blinked at the brightness and closed again. He felt unprepared to face the day after a restless night in which Natalie's face haunted his waking and sleeping moments.
He heard the door again but didn't move. It wasn't like he was pretending to be asleep, not exactly, but honestly, he wasn't prepared to face Cade either.
His housemate was an enigma. He clearly didn't like to talk about himself, which Tristan initially attributed to his line of work. But after yesterday's baseball conversation, he suspected the other man's reluctance to share went deeper than protecting his job-related secrets.
Cade was fascinating and complicated, and Tristan was hooked on dissecting him. He wanted to get to know him, to find out why he stopped playing baseball, to hear why his parents didn't care that he dropped out of school, to learn how he became an assassin at seventeen.
Maybe it was the reporter in him or his naturally inquisitive nature that drove him to understand the other man.
Or maybe it was the man himself that he desperately wanted to know — in more ways than one.
The cracks and thumps coming from outside sparked Tristan's curiosity enough for him to get out of bed. Straightening his twisted shirt and boxers and stepping over the bedding that hadfallen to the floor, he moved toward the window to see what was happening. He found Cade chopping wood, which surprised him since large piles were already stacked near the fireplace and outside.
But he was not about to complain. Not one bit. Because Cade was mesmerizing like this, powerful and dangerous and deadly.
Tristan couldn't tear his eyes away.
He held his breath as he watched the shirtless man bring down the ax, again and again, his back glistening with sweat, his muscles flexing and rippling with each swing. The large chest tattoo wrapped around to cover his shoulder blade, and the ink shifted and shimmered in the sunlight, making the whole image intense and sexy as hell.
Desire pooled in Tristan's gut, and blood rushed to his dick when he imagined Cade's body pressed to his, how solid it would feel, how strong the embrace would be.
His breath came quicker as his thoughts delved too far into the fantasy. He leaned against the window frame, one arm above his head, his eyes glued to Cade's form as he imagined running his hands over those hard ridges of muscle, tracing the lines of ink with his fingertip, being pressed against a wall with a knee between his legs and kissed until there was no more breath in his lungs.
When Cade turned to wipe his face with his discarded shirt, they locked eyes, and Tristan straightened, stunned and embarrassed.
He'd been caught but couldn't bear to look away.
He had no idea how long they stared at each other, but those few seconds felt like a lifetime, and in that stretch, he admitted he wanted this man more desperately than he had ever wanted anyone.
Cade broke eye contact first, and when he went back to chopping, Tristan let out a whooshing breath and stepped away fromthe window. Shaking his head to clear his addled brain, he headed toward the sofa.
Sure, it had been a while since he'd been with anyone, and Cade was the poster boy for temptation, but when his eyes landed on the laptop, all those sexy thoughts dissipated.
He had to find his sister.
He would search more today, though his ideas were drying up. He wished Annabeth would give him something productive to do, but if a hacker running programs on the dark web couldn't find clues, what could he do with a laptop and a search engine?
Pushing away those defeatist thoughts and vowing to do everything he could, Tristan opened the laptop. He didn't know what he'd search for, but he'd figure it out. His baby sister was counting on him.
He started with research papers about sex trafficking, hoping that something would spark an idea or give him a new angle to pursue. Wading through articles in Google Scholar was intense and ultimately not very helpful, but he kept looking, trying different search terms to see if anything stood out about how these rings or their victims were found. His attention was laser-focused on the screen until Cade came back into the cabin.
Tristan turned to greet him but wished he hadn't.
Cade was still shirtless.
Gulping, Tristan quickly swiveled back to the screen and silently chanted,I'm fine, it's fine, everything is fine.
After a shower, Cade came out in a blue t-shirt that strained to circle his biceps and stuck to his skin like paint. When Tristan's eyes trailed down to the gray sweatpants he wore, he stopped breathing. The outline of Cade's dick featured prominently through the thin fabric, which was either the universe's greatest gift or hell's worst curse.
It was anyone's guess.
Oh, god,Tristan thought, tearing his eyes from the bulge. They swung back to the computer screen, but he momentarily forgot how to read or type.
