14. Irina
14
IRINA
T he tall redhead narrowed her eyes at me, no doubt recognizing me from when I saw her here, in this same office, attempting to kiss Viktor.
My position on his desk and the way he stood between my legs was awfully damning evidence that she’d caught us doing a lot more than kissing. It wasn’t proper. It shouldn’t have happened. But weak and carried away by the foreign excitement of a man paying attention to me in such a way that felt so good, I caved.
“My bad.” She smirked, parroting my words that I’d spoken when I caught her with Viktor. “I didn’t realize this was a private moment.”
“It doesn’t matter what kind of a moment this is,” he stated sternly, quickly twisting to face her fully at the same time he flipped my skirt all the way down over my thighs. I clamped them together, feeling so naughty when I missed the presence of my panties between them. He’d ripped them, yanked them right off me!
“You are trespassing, again, Ms. Nolan.”
I frowned, piecing together who this woman might be. Nolan? I’d just learned of that name. My father mentioned it. Owen Nolan, the dean. Panic started to hit me that someone high up could’ve walked in on an inappropriate activity between a student and a professor.
“I like it when you call me Jessica,” she complained.
“Ms. Nolan,” he repeated, ignoring her wishes, “I don’t care who your uncle is?—”
“The dean,” she reminded him curtly, crossing her arms. “He’s the dean .”
“Dean or not,” Viktor replied, “you have no right to try to insert yourself into my life.”
“But one of your students can?” She lifted one arm from over the other to flick her finger at me in a scornful point.
“Get out,” he ordered.
Even though he was facing her and clearly telling her to leave, I took his instruction to heart. Shame filled me. Humiliated and anxious to be caught in such a compromising situation, I damned this blush that heated my cheeks as I jumped off the desk. Feeling air between my legs in the absence of my panties, I was reminded with my every movement of how naughty I’d been with him. The slickness of my arousal and his saliva only drove that memory in deeper.
I was getting out of here before I’d erupt in a blush or stammer something I shouldn’t say. I had no clue what to say or do. But running felt smart. It seemed like a natural instinct. In the name of fight or flight, I could either face off with the dean’s niece or get the hell out of here.
I chose option two. Without looking at either of them, I grabbed my coat and bag from the chair and edged past Jessica. She didn’t budge as I fled, looking down her nose at me as I scrambled. Only once I was out in the hallway then turning the corner to run down another did I let myself fully suck in a breath.
Shock chased me all the way back to my apartment. I couldn’t believe that had happened. That we’d both been rebels and gone for something taboo and forbidden. Acknowledging how wrong it was to act on our mutual attraction for each other made it all the more wicked. He’d dismissed how bad it was to touch me, to kiss me, to nearly fuck me, and I had been right there alongside him, wanting it all.
But I refused to regret it. I couldn’t. It was the first time a man kissed me. The first time I’d been touched. My first orgasm that I hadn’t given myself. As I hurried home, my thighs rubbing against each other as a repeated reminder that he’d taken my panties off so roughly so he’d have access to me, I couldn’t think it was bad.
If I had a chance to do it all over again, without a doubt, without hesitation, I would have.
Viktor had ruined me, making me want so much more with him. Surrendering to my desire for him meant I’d now feel this residual throb and ache between my legs. I’d relish the whisker burn of his stubble-covered jaw where he’d pushed his face at my pussy.
Because now that I felt how good it could be, how deliciously fulfilling it was to be wicked and sinful with him—my professor, a man so much older than me, and someone my father didn’t know about—I wanted him again.
Even the shame of Jessica Nolan interrupting us and catching us nearly in the act couldn’t make my desire for Viktor fade.
But the sight at the door to my apartment doused any trace of my arousal.
One guard stood there, as usual. His back to my closed door, he faced off with two men. I recognized them on sight. I knew Andre, but while I never learned the other Ilyin man’s name, I knew what family he was affiliated with.
“What’s going on?” I demanded as I strode forward.
I was sick of seeing these Ilyins. I was tired of my father’s men in my presence too. All of them were examples of the life I wanted to escape.
“Just talking,” my father’s guard, Peter, said.
“Talking here ?” I asked, making sure my tone was all business and demanding, not cutesy or inquisitive. I expected answers. I didn’t need to look inviting or bubbly, forcing myself to be a popular extrovert to get them to warm up to me and gossip like I had to act around the students and staff on campus. These men knew damn well who I was. There was no point beating around the bush or keeping up pretenses.
Andre nodded, stroking his hand down his beard as he leered at me. His stare made me feel filthy, like I was a meal to engorge on then shove aside. When Viktor checked me out, he feasted his eyes on me like I was the answer to a famished man desperate for me and me alone. A prize. A reward. Something and someone to savor.
And he had. Just a half hour ago, on his desk, he had.
“Just talking. And checking in,” Andre replied as he continued to stare at me.
Slightly nervous that he could smell a hint of sex on me or that he could somehow know that I’d done something sexy and naughty with another man, I kept my legs closer together and straightened. “Checking in with the guard of your rival?” I retorted.
“Rival?” Andre chuckled, still stroking his gangly beard. “I’m not sure that’ll be true for long.”
You wish. Igor Petrov would never form an alliance with the Ilyin Family. He could lie and cheat and con them into thinking they could be friends. It was why he’d helped the Ilyins capture Lev in some fake show of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” My father was the one who’d set Yusef Ilyin’s death into action, a kill Lev had completed. That hit was what made the Ilyins go after the Baranovs, and it was all in some part a duplicitous scheme orchestrated by my father.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded. Glancing at Peter, I caught him smirking and rolling his eyes.
“I’m talking about how I figured I could stop by and check in on my future bride.” Andre grinned, reaching out to caress my arm.
I swatted his hand away, stunned by his words but careful not to reveal how shocked I felt. “That’s nonsense.”
“No, it’s not,” Andre argued.
“Stop making up stupid shit like that,” I warned with all the bravado I could manage. He tried again to feel my arm, and I shoved his hand away.
“I’m not.” He smiled wider, as if my putting up a fight excited him. “According to what I heard, Igor Petrov promised that his one and only daughter would marry an Ilyin. May as well be me .”
No. No fucking way. I refused to let those words sink into my conscious mind.
Absolutely fucking not.
My plan was to get the hell out of this life before I could be promised to someone. I had to kill my father then run with Maxim so we could finally have a life at all.
Andre didn’t say anything else, chuckling at my shocked reaction of gaping at what he’d said. I couldn’t help it. There was no way I could keep up a mask and hide my reactions to this news.
“See you soon, Wife,” he said over his shoulder in farewell.
I stared after him, rooted in place with dread weighing down my stomach. The moment he was gone, I turned toward Peter. “What the fuck is that about? Promised to marry an Ilyin?”
He shrugged and shook his head, feigning ignorance. “First I heard about it.”
“And you didn’t think to tell him he had to be wrong?” They were our rivals! Or they were my father’s rivals.
“I don’t know if he is wrong,” Peter argued. “No one can ever be one step ahead of the Boss or know what he’s planning. Maybe this is how he’ll get rid of you once and for all.”
As a sacrifice to a rival? I shook my head, scared and angry at the possibility of it. Over my dead body. “Then let’s go. Right now.”
He scowled at me, not moving.
“Let’s go to my father and ask him what the hell this is about.”
“No. Not now.” He checked his phone. “George told me that you need to go to a party off campus. Marcus Jameson might be there, and the Boss expects you to get some intel about him.”
“Fuck this party.” I pushed to get past him and enter my apartment.
“No, Irina,” Peter ordered as he followed me inside. “You are to follow orders. The Boss told me to make sure you get to this party and find out what you can.”
I growled, so frustrated and fed up with this that I flung my coat to the nearest chair, not caring whether it landed or fell to the floor.
“Then we can go talk to the Boss and you can ask him about any engagement he might’ve planned for you. You can tell him what you learn about at this party, too.”
Lifting my head to stare at the ceiling, I fumed and counted to ten. That little trick hardly ever worked, but I tried my best to cram all my anxiety and disappointments back into a tidy little compartment and do as I was told.
Again.