Chapter 37
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
Maxim
So Sia’s friend Seth was a fucking idiot.
I smirked and continued to pretend that I found anything he said interesting. He’d been prattling on for the past hour, and I allowed him to.
We were best friends after all.
He believed he was mine, and I sat back, putting up with this guy. He had a tendency to enjoy hearing his own voice, and visions of my blade cutting it off hit me more than a few times since I joined Sia’s study group. I’d convinced them to start meeting at the campus library now. This was more appropriate and not in my fucking house.
Seth grinned. “Am I right, Max?”
I fought my hand from reaching for my blade. Tack on another tally for the annoying things this fucker did. My name wasn’t fucking Max. I grinned through bared teeth. “Right, sport.”
I smirked again at his excitement from the nickname. Leave it to this idiot to think calling him things like sport , scout , and buddy were anything beyond demeaning. I was placing him beneath me, and that was easy to do since he was a right idiot.
In all honesty, I hadn’t been a part of this conversation with him for pretty much the entire hour.
My attention was on Sia.
It often traveled to her during our study sessions, and currently, she scanned some of the shelves in the library.
I watched her from my position across the room, my sight and full awareness on her gorgeous ass. She had a little skirt on today, one that rose each and every time she reached for a book. It exposed her caramel-kissed thighs, and I fought to keep myself from staring too long.
Today, I decided against fighting temptation. It was rather boorish listening to Seth, and when he looked to be on the verge of calling me Max again, I got up.
I spared his life today, heading over to Sia. I quickly came across her on a stool as she reached for a textbook, and fuck if I was letting her do that.
“Eh, let me,” I said right before she could grab it. She could fall and hurt herself.
Her dark eyes landed on me as the book passed in front of her, and I watched her full lips pout when I gave it to her. Her expression screamed annoyance at me. Like I had the audacity to help her.
This seemed consistent with the way she looked at me all the time lately.
“Thanks,” she said, tucking the book to her breasts. She never exposed them, always covered. It wasn’t like the nightgowns she used to wear for me, her body exposed, her neck.
I kept my focus on the book. “No, problem, and that’s one of my favorites.”
I didn’t spend a lot of time reading textbooks in my spare time, but Gray’s Anatomy was one of my favorites.
Sia smirked.
“I’ll bet,” she said, and when my head cocked, her eyes lifted. “Val said you’ve done this school thing quite a few times. She said you have a few degrees.”
My head of security had spoken about me, but I didn’t show my annoyance.
I merely nodded. “Over the years I’ve found I rather like school.”
“Really?”
Again, my nod was curt. “I’ve had a lot of spare time while being in the organization.”
This was completely true, and especially once I proved myself to Natan. I basically got to choose whatever lane I wanted within the Bratva. This included my own hours and how I wanted to spend the majority of my time outside of the business. Something told me the amount of time I had on my hands had nothing to do with Sia’s next response though.
Her full lips parted. “The organization?”
I propped a shoulder against the bookshelves. “The Bratva, malyshka .”
There. I said it, but she already knew. I assumed for a while she knew I was in organized crime.
I just never said it.
Those words were out there now, and Sia’s next response consisted of a lot of blinking. This wasn’t surprising.
“Maxim…” My name left Sia’s lips when I eased close to her, and her sweet smell filled my nose. It was always mouth-watering, and God did I want a fucking taste. Her dark lashes lifted. “What are you doing?”
I was going to fuck her in the middle of a community college’s library. I was going to taste her and was going to do so paces away from her study group and that fucker Seth. I didn’t care. I stopped caring.
She was so close.
All she had to do was give me an inch. I cared about that inch—her submission—for some reason. I wanted to earn the right to have her when I was never a man of patience. I wanted to be patient with this little one.
My fingers barely grazed her flushed cheek before she was sliding clear from the space between me and the bookshelves.
“We have class soon,” she stated to my back, and I stayed put against the bookshelf. If I moved wrong, breathed wrong I would fuck her and something told me a quick fuck wouldn’t let me back into her life. She was making me work for this shit, work for her, and I didn’t do that. I took what I wanted. I obtained, but in that moment, I gave myself several seconds.
They proved to be enough when all I did was follow her back to the study group.
I studied Sia from her usual seat in class later that night. Her idiot friend Seth had wised up the first day I attended classes and permanently relinquished his seat for me. This allowed me to sit right next to Sia, but that proximity certainly didn’t give me any advantage. She continued to ignore me night after night and class after class.
“Sia?” I questioned, wishing for her to just look at me. The plan was to allow her to come to me, to immerse myself completely in her life but allow her to come the rest of the way.
I wasn’t patient tonight though. I needed to hear her voice, her acknowledgment.
I wet my lips. “ Malyshka ?”
She emanated a chill from her desk and what I wouldn’t give to redo some time and rewrite past actions. I had duties to the Bratva. I had duties to myself and my daughter. My priority was keeping us safe which was something I’d been doing for nearly twenty years. I didn’t regret leaving Sia, but I did regret what that absence caused. It caused this: her not trusting me and closing herself off from me.
I whispered her name again. She peered over at me, but her focus redirected to that fucker Seth when he raised his voice.
“Professor has ten minutes before we all leave,” he announced, pointing at the clock at the head of the room. He laughed. “It’s like a rule.”
I hadn’t even realized Professor Langston was late, but I didn’t fucking care. I leaned closer to Sia. “ Malyshka , you can’t possibly ignore me forever. You live with me.”
But the girl was damn sure trying. She wet her lips, and my cock jumped that she might tell me off, that she’d say something to me and when had I become this person? I didn’t need anyone. Lettie and I didn’t need anyone...
Tell my soul that, and I almost called for her again but stopped when someone entered the room.
“All right. All right. Settle down. I’m here now,” the man said, and I growled at another interruption.
I decided to check myself in this instance but only because I was trying to respect Sia and the reason she was here, school .
The man who entered the room didn’t look much older than me, and eventually, I faced him and finally listened to him introduce himself. Apparently, Professor Langston was out today, and this guy was the stand in.
He settled a messenger bag on the front podium. “And I’m sorry that I’m late. I’m not used to night classes and was told about this placement about an hour ago.”
The man announced himself as Professor Handler, and that he normally taught this class during the day. Because he did, he could easily keep us on track with Professor Langston’s schedule, but I stopped listening when I noticed Sia.
She’d gone flush.
A deep red tint hit her brown cheeks, but that was only the first phase before the color completely drained from her face. The muscle inside my chest kicked like one of Peters & Burg’s hearses charged into me. I touched her arm. “Sia?”
She didn’t respond when she normally would have. She’d give me her sass or ask me what I was doing touching her in such a public way. I probably shouldn’t be beyond the intimacy of my home, but that didn’t stop me from doing it. I heard from Seth she told their group that she was staying in my house because she worked for me.
Professor Handler opened his laptop. “I want you all to begin by pulling out your textbooks and turning to page?—”
Our substitute professor stopped speaking, and when I really took him in I quickly noticed he was just as red as Sia. His hands were also gripping the podium, his eyes blinking wide in my and Sia’s direction.
I eased my hand off her, and I also noticed he wasn’t looking at me or the fact I touched her. He was just staring at her, and she was staring at him…
Like she knew him.
It was like they knew each other, and rather quickly, the professor was redirecting his attention to the room. He cleared his throat. “I’d like you to turn to page three hundred and ninety-five please.”
Like good students the class went for their books, but my focus stayed on Sia Reynolds. She was the only one who didn’t reach for her book.
She ultimately never did.
We were in the car later that night when I spoke Sia’s name again. And, like in class, she didn’t hear me. It took several times before she even looked at me.
Since she refused to have security with her at all times I took her to and from class personally. This wasn’t negotiable, and though she didn’t like it, she put up with it.
She didn’t have a choice.
She didn’t, just like she didn’t when it came to this conversation. She could ignore me all she wanted during our drives but not tonight.
She knew that guy.
What I didn’t know was how and why she reacted in such a way to his appearance. She’d adverted her eyes from him the entire class, and after his initial notice of her, he kept his focus on anything else and anyone else. It took effort not to notice someone, and I knew that firsthand.
Sia had her arms hugged around her, holding herself even though there was plenty of heat in the car. “What do you want, Maxim?”
A response, good.
My eyes narrowed. “You know our substitute. How?”
I was never one to beat around the bush, and at my directness, her small shoulders locked up again.
Mine did too, my entire body ramrod straight. I knew Sia. I knew her body.
I knew her discomfort.
She was giving it to me in bounds, and I wished for her to deny she knew this guy. It was obvious she did. She shrugged. “I barely know him.”
“Barely?”
Her nostrils flared, and her lip curled in a way where I thought she’d tell me off. Again, her shoulders lifted. “I used to work at his vet clinic.”
“And?”
“And he was a terrible boss. He was a dick but lots of people have terrible bosses.”
She was right. Lots of people did, but her reaction to him (and him to her) wasn’t normal. My jaw moved. “ Malysh ? — ”
“Drop it, Maxim,” she gritted, and if she was trying to fool someone into thinking this guy was simply a bad boss, she was doing a poor job.
Sia stayed quiet the rest of the way home, but I watched her after we got there. I also checked the cabinets.
It was the first time she’d taken jellybeans out of them in weeks.