Tris Is Watching

POV: Chloe

The summons buzzed through my desk intercom. Tristan's clipped, professional voice asked me to bring the quarterly reports to his office. Nothing out of the ordinary for a Tuesday at Blackwood Industries. Except...

Ethan had left the building twenty minutes ago. And Tristan never handled quarterly reports himself. I gathered the folders anyway, smoothing my skirt before standing. Tristan's office door was cracked open.

"Come in, Chloe." He spoke before I even knocked, his voice curling around my name. I pushed the door open and stepped inside. He wasn't at his desk. Instead, he stood near the far wall, the one bordering my office, with his palm pressed flat against the surface.

His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, tie hanging loose. The posture screamed casual, but the tension in his rigid shoulders sucked the oxygen right out of the room.

"The reports," I said, holding up the folders. My voice sounded much steadier than I felt.

"Set them on the desk." I did as told. When I turned back, he hadn't moved an inch. But his eyes tracked me with an intensity that hitched my breath.

"Do you know what this is?" He tapped the wall.

"Drywall?"

A sharp smile ghosted across his lips, nothing like the warm one I remembered from seven years ago.

"Come here."

My feet moved before my brain gave the green light. That was the thing about Tristan; my body always answered him before my mind could hit the brakes. I stopped two feet away.

He reached past me and flipped a hidden switch. A window-sized section of the wall instantly shifted from opaque to transparent. And beyond it...

My office.

My desk.

My chair, still holding the faint impression from ten minutes ago. My coffee mug beside the keyboard. The potted succulent I'd brought from home.

"You've been watching me." The words fell flat. My stomach dropped to the floor.

"Every minute," Tristan said, unapologetic.

"Every time you bite your lip reading those emails. Every time you stretch your neck when you think you're alone. Every time..." He paused, his voice dropping an octave. "Every fucking time my brother walks into your office and touches what belongs to me."

He slammed his palm against the glass, making it vibrate. I flinched.

"Tristan..."

"I saw him kiss you!" The accusation dropped like a bombshell. My hand flew to my lips, instinctively checking if the evidence was still there.

"It wasn't... He just..."

"He pressed his mouth to yours. His hands on your waist. Your fingers in his hair." Tristan turned to face me fully, his composure completely shattered. Beneath the mask lay pure, ravenous hunger. "Do you know what that did to me? Standing here, watching another man put his scent on my..."

He didn't finish. He lunged.

His hands gripped my waist, edging just shy of painful. He backed me hard into the wall beside the one-way glass, and then his mouth crashed down on mine. It wasn't a gentle kiss. It wasn't a question. It was a claim.

Tristan kissed me like a man possessed, trying to scrub away every lingering trace of Ethan's touch. His lips crushed mine. His teeth grazed my bottom lip, and the second I gasped, his tongue swept inside. Hot. Possessive. Devastating.

My hands fisted in his shirt. I knew I should push him away, but I yanked him closer instead. A desperate, involuntary moan slipped into his mouth, vibrating right through his chest. His hips pinned me against the wall, and I felt it. Hard. Pressing into my belly through layers of fabric that suddenly felt like a crime.

A heavy surge of heat pooled low in my core. The ache between my thighs turned into a throbbing pulse. I bucked against him, chasing the friction, begging for more. The sensual movement ripped a guttural growl straight from his throat.

His hands dropped to my thighs, lifting me like I weighed absolutely nothing. My legs wrapped around his waist on instinct. The new angle locked his rock-hard erection right against my clit. Even through our clothes, the pressure made me see stars.

"Yes," I breathed into his mouth. "God, yes."

I was soaked, dripping wet. My panties were a joke of a barrier, clinging uselessly to my folds. I rocked against him shamelessly, chasing the delicious friction of his thick length sliding over my sweet spot.

His mouth broke away to trail down my jaw and throat. His teeth scraped the sensitive skin below my ear. He rolled his hips in answer, grinding back. I whimpered, tilting my pelvis to take that pressure exactly where I needed it most.

"Look at you," he murmured against my skin. "So eager. So ready."

His desk was right there. Three steps away. The surface was completely clear except for those damn reports. I pictured my back on that polished wood, my skirt bunched around my waist, and him plunging...

Tristan froze.

His hands loosened; his hips stilled. Before my brain could even process the loss, he stepped back, letting me slide down his front. The rigid length of him dragged down my stomach, and my inner muscles clenched on empty air. He set me on my feet and took a huge step back. My knees nearly buckled.

"W-What are you doing?" My voice came out wrecked. A desperate plea wearing the skin of a question. "Why did you stop?"

Tristan stood three feet away, chest heaving. His pupils were blown so wide they completely swallowed his amber irises. The massive bulge straining against his zipper was borderline obscene. He was hurting just as bad as I was. Yet, his lips curved into a dark smirk.

"You want it, don't you?" The question was a blatant taunt. He didn't need an answer; my trembling thighs and flushed chest gave me away completely.

"Then break up with Ethan." His voice dropped, gravelly with lust. "You can have all of this. All of me. The second you end things with my brother."

That name hit me like a bucket of ice water. My hands, still reaching out for him, dropped limply to my sides.

"Why are you doing this?" My voice cracked. "Tris, why are you punishing me like this?"

His jaw ticked. For a split second, an old, festering wound flickered in his eyes.

"You're the one punishing me," he countered quietly. "You've been punishing me for... For..."

A sob tore from my throat. I couldn't even say the words out loud.

"You've become a complete stranger. This..." I gestured wildly at the glass wall, at him, at the toxic air suffocating us. "This isn't the Tristan I knew. He was warm. Kind. He would never..."

"Don't." The command sliced through the room like a blade. Tristan's face went dead pale. His hands balled into fists, and his voice dropped to a lethal whisper. "He died, Chloe. That bright, sunny wolf you loved died that night. And do you know exactly who killed him?"

My lungs seized. He didn't have to say the name out loud. The unspoken answer hung between us, heavy and suffocating. The silence stretched until it snapped.

Then, impossibly, Tristan closed the distance again. Not with that earlier predatory edge, but with a slow, crushing gravity.

I turned away, unable to bear the look in his eyes. But his arms instantly banded around me from behind, his solid chest pressing flush against my spine. He buried his face in the crook of my neck. His warm, shaky breaths hit my skin in uneven gusts. When he finally spoke, his voice was totally wrecked.

"I don't want to be this monster, Chloe." His hold tightened. His large frame trembled against mine, and a hot tear splashed onto my shoulder. Then another.

"I live in hell every single day without you. Power and hatred are the only things keeping me breathing. But they've turned me into..." His voice cracked. "I know I terrify you. I know. I just need you to..."

I twisted in his arms, pure muscle memory. It was exactly how I used to turn to him back when we were teenagers, when his smiles came easy and his laughter was a given. My hands found his face, cupping his strong jaw, swiping the dampness from his cheeks.

"Tris—"

He cut me off, locking me in a bone-crushing embrace that swallowed me whole. He inhaled deeply, dragging his nose through my hair, across my temple, right down to my pulse point.

That's when the scent hit me. It wasn't his designer cologne; it was something wilder. Earthy. It clung to my skin, seeping into my pores, and reality hit me like a freight train. He was scent-marking me. Claiming his territory. Scrubbing away every last molecule of Ethan.

Tristan pulled back just enough to meet my gaze. His eyes were red-rimmed, lashes spiked with fresh tears. Beautiful, but utterly broken.

"I'll change," he swore. "I'll try my damnedest to be the old Tristan again... if you stay. If you choose me." His thumbs traced slow, mesmerizing circles on my hips. "But as long as Ethan is your boyfriend... As long as he gets to touch you, kiss you, and parade you around in public while I'm forced to watch from the sidelines..."

His grip turned bruising, his features darkening into something feral.

"The beast wins, Chloe. I lose my goddamn mind knowing he has any part of you." He rested his forehead against mine. "Break up with him. Save me from what I'll become if you don't. Please."

That single word hung in the air, soft and devastating. I couldn't answer. My heart was a total warzone. Tristan searched my eyes for a long, agonizing minute.

Then, he dropped his hands.

"Get out," he rasped, taking another huge step back. "Because I swear to God, I won't be able to stop a second time."

It sounded like a dark warning. Like a man clinging to a frayed leash, holding back a starving, bloodthirsty beast.

I stumbled to the door on jelly legs. As my trembling hand grasped the knob, I glanced back. He stood dead-center in the office, fists locked, eyes burning, his entire body trembling with restraint.

"Mine," he growled. It was barely a whisper, but it echoed in my bones.

I turned on my heel and ran.

POV: Tristan

It was agonizing.

But I had to keep the beast on a leash. She wanted it, I saw the absolute surrender in her eyes, felt her hips grinding eagerly against my cock. She was practically begging for it.

And I walked away.

I fucking stopped.

A guttural, animalistic growl ripped from my chest. I let her flee my office. Turning to the security monitors, I watched her practically sprint down the corridor without a single backward glance. I tapped a key, pulling up the exterior cameras just in time to see her car tear out of the parking lot.

I killed the screens and stalked into my private en-suite. I cranked the shower knob to freezing cold and stepped in fully clothed. The icy water hit my broad shoulders like a thousand tiny needles. Pressing both hands flat against the slick tiles, I let the biting chill claw into my skin. My dick still ached, hick, heavy, and absolutely furious at me for backing down.

But the cold did absolutely nothing to drown out the memory of her. Squeezing my eyes shut, I let the reel play behind my eyelids. The scalding memory of her wet heat, her sweet, desperate moans, the greedy way her tongue danced with mine, it all played on a relentless, torturous loop.

"Mine," I roared into the empty shower stall, the sound bouncing off the wet tile.

This wasn't working. I twisted the faucet off, snatched a towel, and scrubbed my hair with rough, violent swipes. Marching back to my desk, I collapsed into my leather chair and flicked the monitors back on, rewinding the footage to the exact moment she reached her car.

"Mine," I rasped to the empty room.

On the frozen screen, right before opening her door, her head whipped back toward the building, as if she could still sense my alpha aura, still feel my heavy gaze tracking her from the shadows.