9. Viktor
9
VIKTOR
I told you no.
Jessica hadn’t stopped coming on to me since the day we met. It didn’t matter what the message was. She always had a reason to stop by my office.
Today, it was to confirm that I would pick up another class for a few weeks. Another faculty member had been in a car accident and would be off for a month. Since I was only teaching the one class that Irina was in, I had free time. I didn’t want to get tied up with another course since I wasn’t actually here to work for long, only as long as my cover required it. However, the other class, a poetry one, was short. And Irina was enrolled in it. An additional chance to see her would be productive.
I didn’t need Jessica to personally tell me that picking up this class was confirmed. I’d already spoken with the head of the department. The dean’s office wouldn’t be involved in this kind of an arrangement, so she had no hand in this to come speak to me about it at all. But I wasn’t born yesterday. I was aware of her eagerness to see me, no matter what. Perhaps she was one of those thrill junkies, always going for what she couldn’t have. My rejection could very well be the motivation for her to try harder.
Even going as far as leaning in to kiss me.
Irina had been walking by right then, and the timing of her heels loudly clacking on the floor was kismet. I was so glad that she’d interrupted.
“Don’t try that again,” I warned Jessica as I backed up to pick up my laptop bag. My lecture would begin in a couple of minutes.
“You know you want me.” She grinned, sitting on the edge of my desk.
I grabbed a file that she sat on, and I used enough force that it made her jerk to the side and stand again. Pouting for real, she furrowed her brow at me like she couldn’t believe I’d done that.
“I don’t.” I pointed the file at her as I rounded the desk. “Don’t assume you ever know a single thing about me.”
She hugged herself, still smiling. “I like it, this air of mystery you keep around yourself.”
I was no mystery, just careful about who I dealt with and what they could know about my real life—the version of me that included the Mafia.
“Don’t bother me again.” I left with that warning, not even caring that she remained in my office. Nothing incriminating was in there. I hardly touched anything, and I never wrote down anything that someone could trace back to me. Most of the paperwork had become obsolete, anyway. Documentation was all done via emails and online for courses and the registration of job positions.
Leaving her behind me might have given her the wrong idea, but there wasn’t anything I could do to change her idea that my office was always open to her. There would be no stopping her, not when she used her relationship to the dean as a means of demanding clout.
I hurried to the lecture, anxious and impatient to get there. Seeing Irina was a priority. I had to assess how she was reacting to catching me almost kissing another woman. If I were going to adopt the method of seducing her to get her to open up and talk to me about what Igor Petrov was up to, I couldn’t look “taken” and with another woman.
Irina was seated in the middle of the auditorium seating, and she didn’t react to my entrance. Most students shut up, used to my stern and strict protocol of beginning as soon as I walked into the room. I would often start with another mind-numbing lecture as I approached the podium, but I didn’t today. With the quiet hanging over the room, all eyes on me—except for Irina’s—it was hard not to feel like I had such a grand entrance. Like I was royalty sweeping into court.
“Morning. Let’s begin,” I said firmly as I reached my spot behind the podium. Plugging in my laptop took seconds, and connecting my slides to the overhead screen took even less time than that. Everything went as seamlessly as ever, and I spoke as I got set up.
This lecture was as dry as the rest of them, but I didn’t yawn this time. All the while I talked, I noticed Irina.
She was upset. I didn’t need any more background or any more time to learn her tells. I knew she was upset.
Glum, looking down, seeming entirely uninterested. She had checked out of anything to do with this class.
If she’s only here to be a spy for Igor, then that would make sense. She wouldn’t put much effort forward if she only had to be on campus to get intel for her father.
I would’ve been convinced that theory had to be true if she didn’t have great grades in the class so far. In the poetry class I had just picked up, she had lower scores, but that didn’t indicate anything. Poetry was… lame.
No matter how many times I tried to call on Irina to get her to answer questions, I couldn’t get a rise out of her. This woman was just a shell now, a numbed, vacant-eyed person who was apathetic to the entire first half of the class. I couldn’t get her to react to my stern instructions or difficult questions. If anyone else in the class commented about it, they’d be correct in saying I was singling her out and picking on her.
What the hell?
I was obsessed with getting a reaction out of her. I wanted to see that defensive, sassy spark that I witnessed when we ran into each other at that party off campus. I wanted to see her pupils dilate with interest when I stepped into her personal space. I wished to hear her hitched breath when I cursed and drank like I was just an ordinary, hard man, not a polished professor with manners and polite actions.
As I neared the halfway point of the lecture, when I would switch over to giving a pop quiz, a thought hit me, and I couldn’t shake it off.
Is she… jealous? I couldn’t help but wonder if she was acting so moody and glum like this because she saw another woman with me.
The second I tried to dismiss that, I had to fight to keep a smile from breaking over my face.
Jealous.
If she could envy Jessica leaning in for a kiss, that was proof that she wanted me herself. If she could stoop to being jealous, that was evidence of her caring. Of her wanting me.
And I liked it.
The pop quizzes didn’t take long, all administered online since everyone had a tablet or laptop with them. Grades came in immediately, scored with the program I used because I sure as hell wasn’t grading shit manually.
Before I could log in to see how Irina scored, I could guess that she’d blown it. She’d answered too quickly, barely seeming to take enough time to read through the questions.
“Ms. Petrov,” I called out as she gathered her bag and coat to leave. A small thread of excitement lit up inside me at calling her by her name.
“Then what should I call you?”
I’d asked her that when she insisted I not use her name at the party. Her claim that it wasn’t a formal situation that would require a formal name didn’t fly with me. When she said that, though, I got hung up on the thought of being in an even more informal setting with her. An indecent one, too.
She stiffened at my calling out her name. Slowly, she faced me, glaring with such a haughty yet defensive glower that I was turned on instantly.
Facing off with a fierce woman was always a pleasure. Because I would always tame them. The ride to getting them to submit was one of my favorite experiences.
She arched one brow, waiting. The fact that she wouldn’t speak but rely on nonverbal communication went to show how aloof she could be.
Be a challenge, sweetheart. See what happens. I dare you.
“Please wait after class to speak with me,” I said. While I made sure to come off as polite, I left no room for her to interpret that as anything but an order.
She dipped her chin slightly, almost in a nod, and that was all the response she’d give me.
The wait for the rest of the students to file out of the room felt like an eternity of anticipation. Every moment that passed felt longer than the ones before. By the time that it took for everyone to leave, I was damn near bursting with desire and adrenaline. The whole while, Irina sat in the front row, one leg crossed over the other, her foot bobbing almost as a fidget of tapping it on the floor. Her arms remained crossed, which only pushed the swells of her breasts up higher, emphasizing them even though she wore a turtleneck sweater and no flesh was bared. Her long, brown hair tumbled over her shoulders as she waited for me to address her. But it was the cool expression of waiting on her face that showed her ire with me.
Her guards remained in the hall. I knew it for a fact because I’d seen them pass by then duck their heads in throughout the class. They could wait.
I doubted I’d have long to speak with her without the Petrov guards getting suspicious, but they didn’t know me. Because I wasn’t often in the field, they wouldn’t know me as Viktor Baranov but as Professor Remi, who would have every right to speak to one of his students after class.
The doors closed after the last person exited, and sure enough, one of the Petrov thugs peered through the glass, seeing Irina seated in the front row and me at the podium. Once the man passed by, shrugging, I approached her.
It was just me and her. At last. We’d shared a private moment of just talking at that party, but it was far too brief of an interaction. This time, I could control what happened.
“It’s obvious that you’re going to need some help.”
She huffed, giving me a look of contempt. “Oh.”
That attitude. Oh, I was really liking the idea of spanking it right out of her. Fucking it out of her.
“If you’re not aware yet, I’ll be taking over the poetry course Mr. Gannon was teaching.”
She lifted one shoulder and let it fall in a half-ass shrug as she stood. “I am aware. The email came through during your lecture—as scintillating yet bone-dry as ever.”
I smiled, amped up with the thrill of her trying to goad me or taunt me.
Bring it on, sweetheart. Try me.
“And you’re also blowing through the quizzes in this course.”
Letting her coat hang over her bag, she dropped her arm as she shrugged again.
Her indifference was confusing, and it intrigued me. She was clearly smart. I saw the evidence of that fact in the scores from the things she actually applied herself to. It seemed she harbored some kind of a laziness, though, not caring at times but then willing to do her work at others.
“College is a waste of my time,” she admitted.
Because you’re only here to spy for your father? To act as an agent for him?
“Fine. But I warn you not to waste my time.” I leaned over the desk at the front, staring at her intensely. “Or else.”
She blinked once, showing that I’d cracked her. It was the barest and slightest reaction, but I saw it.
“ Or else ?” she parroted, disbelief in her breathy tone.
Desire swirled in the depths of her blue eyes, and I had to remind myself not to growl. To lunge for her. To act on this attraction that simmered between us like a live wire.
“Yeah.” I tipped my chin up higher, relishing the idea of being able to carry out that promise of or else . She could benefit from discipline, but she’d absolutely soar from pleasure if I treated her to my idea of discipline.
“Or. Else,” I repeated.