Disclaimer: Nothing's mine.

A/N: WARNING! THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SOME GRAPHIC M CONTENT. Nothing gross or too explicit I think, yet it's as M as this fic has ever got so far. So yeah, temperatures are about to rise. Now that you've been warned - for the ones who keep on reading - I hope you enjoy :) Leave a word after, maybe? I'm sure to be waiting around moping... lurking... hoping - the word is hoping (rright) - for a review :)

Tristan brushed a thumb along his lip and looked up at the ceiling, as if asking for some divine help.

'Won't you relax? Just trust me, I won't-'

'Stop it. I'm not spilling my guts, Paris.'

'If you're on to rob a bank and need a trusted guy to ride your getaway car, who would it be?'

Tristan arched an eyebrow.

'Baby driver?'

'Me, idiot. It would be me. Because I got your back. Because that's what we do - I got your back and you got mine.'

'I won't be your getaway ride, Paris.'

'True. Because Rory would. But you would be my second choice. Or third. After Mariano. And Helen. Oh, have you met my neighbor with the stinky cat?'

'Paris.'

'Don't you get the gist, Dugray? You can trust me.'

'You can't trust me,' he stressed, frustration and weariness surfacing in his voice.

'Well try me.'

'No. Paris, can't we not get into this conversation over and over?' he asked with a rare note of agitation grazing into his voice. 'It's getting old.'

'Hmm,' Paris tapped her chin in an exaggerated pondering gesture, 'What's that word you have been using lately? No.'

'Stop.' He ran both of his hands through his hair, his fingers intertwining at his nape as he hung his head back.

It was very unusual for Tristan Dugray to look irritated, but Paris seemed to trigger all kinds of unusual feelings in him so what was another one, right? Paris kept pushing his boundaries and Tristan kept trying to keep them intact. It was a strenuous and very discouraging activity, not to mention frustrating him to no end.

'Just...' he let a long breath through his nose, 'Stop.'

'Or what?' Paris stepped forward, jutting her chin up. 'You keep asking me to give up on you and I won't!' she almost yelled at him, angry at how stubborn he was being.

Tristan was good with discipline, she realized. Somehow it was easy to miss when you never looked past the comic relief slash womanizer exterior. Tristan never insisted on being taken seriously, so it was easier to make fun of the ridiculous stunts he pulled on a daily basis. It was easier and people did it. They saw him as what he displayed for show. And that was exactly what he counted on.

Now that Paris had started to see the cracks in Tristan's carefully built shell, she found a whole new specter of facets to his personality. Like how much he actually cared. Even when he tried to conceal it behind his incessant teasing, he cared. About Aiden. About her. About Josh. About Rory. About Jess. About Helen. She even suspected he had cared about Beatrice Shefield in his own guarded way, but she had made some mistakes that had made him stop. Paris saw how he feared. God, how he feared. Anything that had the potential to make him vulnerable was carefully sidestepped in seemingly nonchalant stride. But Paris began to see that Tristan's nonchalance took a lot of discipline. Let it slide was Tristan Dugray's motto for the outside world, but he never really let it slide, did he? No he didn't. He was guarding that fragile, generous, terrified heart of his like he guarded nothing else. He was picturing himself as that simple, outgoing organic guy because that's what he wished for himself. And he was that guy. But he was so much more than that, he was thoughtful and layered and very, very vulnerable, and he never let people close enough to realize just how to trigger that vulnerability in him. All of this took discipline. Discipline he had. Whatever he had endured in his past, followed by the years in Military school, had helped him build an imaginary personality based on the sheer fear of getting hurt. But a person was more than a bunch of their fears. Paris had learned that the hard way.

Tristan had so much love. So much love he was afraid to give to keep from getting hurt again, so much hopes he denied himself of only so that he didn't have to watch them get crushed. He wasn't a loner out of habit. Or out of being lazy, or because of lacking certain deeper human emotions. Tristan was a loner as a means of self-preservation. And it was so clear, so easy to see now that Paris took a closer look. The puzzle would always miss some central pieces, but the bigger picture was so much clearer now. How had she been so blind?

Paris Geller felt angry. She felt furious with herself for not seeing those signs earlier. She was especially angry with herself for letting herself develop some monstrously deep feelings for the victim of some unknown childhood PTSD. But as everything with her, Paris' anger didn't dwell in one place. She was angry with Tristan too. For fighting her as if he were fighting some unknown, dangerous enemy, as if they were fighting on different sides of that war. She had let him in. She had fucking let him in. And he was doing anything in his power to keep her out.

'What are you so afraid of?' she shoved a hand at his chest. He didn't budge. 'I'm not on a mission to break your heart, you stupid idiot. I'm in love-'

'Don't,' his face contorted in a pained expression. He looked at her with such hurt, as if she'd just betrayed him. 'Don't say it,' he ground out.

'What difference does it make if I say it or not when it's the obvious truth, you dumbface? What use when I know you're not my safest getaway ride choice and I'll choose you anyway?'

He stepped back, as if her words had slapped him across the cheek.

Had they signed a don't ever fall in love with me contract she had missed? Jeez, Dugray.

'I'm not-'

She cut him before he could finish,

'If you tell me you're bad for me one more time, I swear I'll grab your head and I will smash it against that kitchen counter. My small stature is entirely misleading, Dugray. I don't care if you're a MMA master, I'm very sinewy and extremely wicked, I can take you down with an unexpected-'

She was cut by his palms taking hold of her face and drawing her into a kiss. She had never been kissed like that. If they had been on the gym mat, that would have been a knockout. He was all over her, one hand tangled into her hair, the other roaming, feeling, keeping her in place so that he could change angle and come at her again, his tongue making its way deep into her mouth and fighting hers, taking advantage of every second of hesitation on her part. If they had been fighting on the ring, she would have no chance to react with the way he moved onto her. It felt so much more intense than before. If before he had been giving, touching her with expertise and attention, coaxing her into feeling at ease with him as their bodies got to know one another, now he was taking. He was invading and claiming, taking in stride. Anything that came his way. Anything that caught his attention - it was his. She was his.

Something within him had snapped and instead of running from her he had suddenly changed direction and ran straight into her, their tongues colliding and dueling to create a mind-numbing rhythm where she had no chance to set the pace. The pace was frantic and the game was totally new to her. And as his hands molded her against him, shaping her as he pleased, Paris thought if maybe it was new to him too. He was moving, his movements desperate and searching. He was breathing through her, the unexpected honesty of his demeanor making her simmering anger give way to abandon, to an overwhelming joy at (finally, FINALLY) his openness. She had never been wanted like that before. Tristan Dugray was a midsummer thunderstorm and right now he was pouring down on her.

'I'm stuck with wanting you,' he muttered, moving down her neck as his hands worked on the buttons of her blouse and opened it, sliding it down her shoulders. He moved on to her bra, getting it out of the way, his palms spanning against her bare back, pressing her against his tall, toned body. The cotton of his tee was soft and warm, and smelled like him - like a sea storm. His torso was warm and solid, his skin warming hers through the cotton of his tee.

Paris heard a throaty groan, strangely resembling a purr. That must have been her own voice but she couldn't tell for sure. She couldn't tell her own name right now. Tristan didn't stop, didn't hesitate. Working the zipper of her dress pants and sliding them off her along with her undergarments, he mumbled something incoherent, the words 'moth' and 'flame' making it through the haze in Paris' head. She couldn't concentrate on words though, her body singing under his touch.

Paris whimpered as she felt the cold surface of a wall meet her back. She had no memory of how he had moved them from the kitchen of his apartment to the bare wall of his living room but now he was taking his tee off and then he was kneeling before her, one palm pushing her hip against the wall while the other took hold of her calf, positioning her bare foot over his shoulder.

She cried out at the feeling of his mouth against her, the feeling so electric and unexpected it blanked her mind. She heard a muffled thump and the dull pain at the back of her head told her she had thrown her head back against the wall, one of her hands forming a fist to smash against the wall too as he found the exact place where she needed him.

'Tell me to stop,' Tristan's hoarse voice came as he pulled back to look up at her.

'If you stop I will kill you,' Paris said in a breathless whisper, her fingers burying into his hair, pulling on the short spiky tresses. She had to be pretty fargone if she was being this uncensored but when he got back to what he'd been doing, her hands fisted his hair and at some point she had to lift a hand to bite the back of her fist so she didn't start screaming or sobbing. Because right now - right now both were valid options. It was too much, her senses on overload, her body a high wire ready to short-circuit any second.

'Need-' she uttered, pausing to dry-swallow a sharp breath. 'You. Inside.'

She pulled on his head, prompting him to look up.

'Tristan. Please.'

Unhooking her leg from his shoulder, he stood up and wrapped her leg around his hip, pressing her flush into the wall, his length aligning with her through the denim of his jeans as his breath feathered her face. She let out a whimper and reached for his face, searching his mouth. As soon as her lips closed on his, she engaged him in a searing open-mouthed kiss. She reached down between them and hastily undid his belt, pushing his jeans and boxer briefs down as he undid the foil wrapper of the condom he had slipped out of his back pocket. As soon as he sheathed himself, she reached between them and with one quick move guided him inside her. Both of them let out a sharp hiss and stilled at the intensity of the sensation. They stood with their foreheads touching, breaths colliding. Her palms moved up to take hold of his face, drawing him closer, catching his mouth in a deep, sensual kiss as he took hold of her hips and started moving, creating a tortuously slow rhythm. He seemed to support her weight effortlessly and her palms cupped the sides of his neck, her fingertips spread over his nape, her thumbs moving along his jaw. She pulled his face in, peppering small kisses at the corners of his mouth, over the tip of his nose, against his shut eyelids, giving him tenderness he had never asked for.

He had squeezed his eyes shut, seemingly concentrated on keeping himself in check, moving much slower than either of them needed. As if he'd been having second and third thoughts about letting himself go, the previous urgency suddenly giving way to caution. Like running towards the edge of a cliff and stopping right at the precipice, shaking on his heels as he eyed the gorge, Tristan was stopping himself from taking what was already his. Had been his for a while now.

'Tristan look at me,' she whispered. 'Please.'

Slowly, as if it pained him, he opened his eyes and looked at her.

'It's me,' she smiled, brushing a thumb over his cheekbone. 'We squeeze mozzarella together.'

The corners of his mouth shot up into the beginning of a smile when his breath hitched and his face contorted into an expression of utter surprise and pleasure as his orgasm hit him unexpectedly. He started moving, the pace again frantic and intense, reaching a hand between them to ensure her own release.

As they rode their high together, they stood still. He was supporting her against the wall, both of them panting as their foreheads rested against one another. His jeans were still around his ankles and their breaths were coming in ragged huffs of air, hot against each other's faces.

'Remind me to piss you off more often,' Paris breathed, a sloppy smile forming on her lips.

Tristan's voice carried too, low and hoarse.

'Christ. That was... something.'

She could feel his erratic heartbeat against her chest, the feeling of his racing heart, his ragged breath against her face, exquisite. Because for a short moment, she felt like she had all of Tristan Dugray all to herself, as if they had gained a step on his demons, and for a short moment his fears were left a step behind. And it was a feeling worth every second of turmoil, a feeling worth every single risk she had taken so far. Because getting here, with him, like that, was something. It was something amazing worth fighting for.

'So you didn't lie,' he smirked then, moving to nuzzle her neck. His voice was still gravelly - not so much from physical exhaustion, but from arousal. She could feel his smile as his stubble grazed the skin of her cheek.

'You do love to be manhandled,' he smirked.

Paris closed her eyes, letting a content smile spill over her lips. Every now and then, his control slipped when he was around her. It thrilled her and alarmed him to no end. She loved driving him crazy, it made her feel alive, each cell of her body welcoming the newfound elation. And as alarmed and disconcerted losing control made Tristan feel, being driven to the edge made him feel alive too. Much more alive than he had ever let himself be. Against her thigh, she could feel him hardening again.

'If you ever take this to court, I'll deny.'

He smirked a wolfish grin and his voice dropped an octave,

'How about we take this to my bed first' he asked, leaning into her, moving to kiss her jaw and her neck while stepping out of his jeans. 'We can discuss your alibi while the neighbors get acquainted with the sound of your voice.'

'My voice?'

'Yeah, as I make you scream how much you need me inside you again,' he explained as he carried her towards his room.

She swatted his shoulder.

'What,' Tristan chuckled, 'I'm ensuring the witnesses. You're an extremely wicked woman after all,' he said as he rolled them onto his bed and her laughter rolled off her lips as he found a particularly ticklish place on her neck.

TBC