The Predator (Dark Verse #1)

by RuNyx

Tristan 'The Predator' Caine. They called him the predator. His reputation preceded him. He rarely went on the hunt but when he did, it was over. When he did, he went straight for the jugular. No distractions. No playing around. For all his unruffled attitude, the man was more lethal than the knife cutting into her thigh. He was also the reason she had come to the party. She was going to kill Tristan Caine.

Although she hated herself for noticing, she couldn't deny the man was very, very attractive. Too bad he was a bastard to match.

After all, how many genius mob daughters lay their lives out in print for mass public consumption? It could even be a bestseller if she actually lived long enough to write it.

She did that often — change her hair color. With so much in her life she couldn’t seem to control, she liked calling the shots when it came to her appearance.

"Death isn't the main course, sweetheart. It's the dessert."

Damn it, the man was a book of blank pages written in invisible ink that she had no idea how to discover. So much information, so many answers in the book, and all she got was frustrated.

"Why don't you just get it over with?" she challenged, calling his bluff, her gaze right on him. "There is a wall right there. There is even a car. Pin me down and 'invade my territory'. Or if you hate me as you say, hurt me. Kill me. Why don't you?"

If voices could be drinks, his was a centuries-old vintage whiskey, rolling off the tongue, down the throat, leaving a trail of fire inside, making every cell in the body aware that it had been consumed.

"One day, I'm going to carve your heart out and keep it as a souvenir. I promise."

He chuckled. Seriously? "You assume I have a heart, wildcat."

"No one else gets to kill you, Ms. Vitalio," he spoke quietly. "The last face you see before you die will be mine. When it comes to death, you're mine."

"We've been honest so far, Ms. Vitalio," he murmured. "I'll be honest now. I despise you but I want you. Fuck it, I do. And I want you out of my system."

She saw the text, and her stomach dropped, her heart pounding. Tristan Caine: Apparently, you're not out of my system, Ms. Vitalio.

"I told you," Morana insisted, prodding him. "I was having wild sex with him in the bathroom with you right outside." Her father sighed. "No, you weren't. You're not that kind of a girl. I raised you better." Morana scoffed a laugh at that. "You didn't raise me at all."

"Don't you know not to run away from predators, sweetheart? We like the hunt."

"Unless you want me to lay you out right on that bloody car of yours and fuck you, stop moving."

"Doesn't matter. I get my mouth on you, and you'll never be the same."

Tristan Caine terrified her, but it wasn't because of the death he was bringing her slowly, the death he would bring her one day, the death he raised in her. No. It was the life.

Tristan Caine, in motion, was beautiful. But Tristan Caine, in utter stillness, could not be described.

“Next time, I’m going to see how loud you can scream, Ms. Vitalio. I’m going to make you so sore you won’t know if it’s from the screaming or the fucking.”

This man needed a leash for that dirty, explicit mouth.

She couldn’t decide if she was really, really brave or really, really stupid. Maybe an odd combination of both.

She wasn’t used to such crowds, and her experiences with such a large number of people had not always been the best. No. She preferred her computer and her solitude, maybe a few people.

The room had gone dead silent — so silent that she could have heard a breath catch. It told her what she’d been suspecting was correct — no one pulled the gun on Tristan Caine. Yeah, well, no one dry humped him against the wall of their father’s house either.

“I don’t know whether to snap your neck or fuck the life out of you,”

“This body belongs to me, Ms. Vitalio,” he murmured in a low voice, the whiskey and sin combining to make her head tip back over his broad shoulder as her stomach clenched. “This body is mine,” she retorted, unable to recognize her own voice dripping in sex. He continued, like she hadn’t spoken, cupping her ass. “I’m a territorial man. And this has been mine since the moment you locked that bathroom door.”

“You do something like that again, I’ll fucking shoot you in the heart.” His guttural voice made her shiver even as her walls clenched around him. “I decide when you die.” Morana huffed a laugh that got strangled in her throat. “You’re crazy.”