Ravished (The Teplo Trilogy #1) Read Online Free Page B

football team."
    "Yeah, I know. What are you doing today, kiddo?"
    "I'm not sure." She frowned. Now that she was unpacked and settled, she had nothing to occupy her day. In truth, unless she met Tristan at the club as he'd requested, her entire week was completely, mind-numbingly empty.
    Tristan.
    Her gaze shifted toward the business card he'd slipped into her hand the night before. The one she hadn't been able to convince herself to toss in the trashcan when she'd stumbled home. His name was etched across the matte card in an elegant, bold script. It suited him. Dominant, confident, beautiful… just like the man with his olive skin, messy dark hair, unshaven jaw, and those bright blue eyes.
    Could she meet him again?
    She eyed his card, considering, and then shook her head.
    No. She couldn't go. Not even if she did really like the way he-
    No. Don't you dare finish that thought! she snapped to herself.
    "You should get out of the house, catch up with your friends."
    Lillian cringed, her dad's voice snapping her back into reality. The one where she didn't hook up with strangers in seedy dance clubs, or want to do so again. She wasn't that woman. She was Lillian Maddox, prima ballerina with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company.
    Except she wasn't that woman anymore either, was she? Her career was over… ended the minute her leg had snapped.
    No amount of praying or pretending would bring it back.
    "Maybe I'll go see Jennie and Tony," she mumbled, delving her fingers into her blankets and clinging hard as the truth knocked the breath out of her just like it always did. She'd never perform again. That reality still seemed more like some horrible nightmare to her.
    "That's good, kiddo. Real good. You'll call me tomorrow?"
    "You know I will."
    "Be good," he advised before hanging up.
    Her gaze darted back to Tristan's card.
    Images of him twirled through her mind, causing her nipples to harden and the butterflies in her stomach to flutter. She'd never felt anything quite like the intense rush of freedom she'd found with him last night. She'd gotten completely lost in him, and it had been amazing. Something about him made her want to let him make her forget what her life had become in the last year.
    If she went back… would he rouse that same overwhelming sense of peace?
    Would she be able to breathe again?
    "It doesn't matter," she reminded herself, pushing the thought away before the flutter of excitement in her chest could grow. Lifting his card from the table, she tore it into little pieces before her resolve wavered. As the pieces of the card fell into the trashcan beside her, she brushed off the tinges of regret threatening to swell and rose from the bed to begin the series of brutal stretches that had once come so naturally to her. Like so much else, they no longer did, but they were a part of her life now.
    Smoldering blue eyes and wicked commands were not.
    End of story.
     

     
    "Lily!"
    Lillian glanced up from the menu in front of her to find Jennifer Rainey waving from across the vibrant downtown restaurant, a broad smile stretched across her face. She wore her hair back in a bun, which somehow made her light eyes seem wider. The white sweater she'd thrown on over dark tights made her look like a blonde, green-eyed angel with legs a mile long.
    Jen all but danced across the room toward Lillian, turning heads as she moved.
    "Hey!" Lillian struggled to her feet to hug her best friend.
    "Welcome home!" Jen threw her arms around Lillian, squeezing so hard she thought she felt her ribs crack. "I've missed you."
    "I missed you too," she responded when Jen released her, allowing her to breathe.
    Her best friend's eyes narrowed as they swept up and down her body, taking her in. Lillian stood with her head held high, though her cheeks burned. She'd endured the same intense scrutiny a thousand times before her accident. Things were different now, her body softer and less disciplined, but she'd learned long ago to keep her