20. Irina
20
IRINA
E arly the next morning, I set out to work for my father. The last couple of days, I fell down one rabbit hole after another. When I wasn’t researching how to start over with a new identity for myself and Maxim, I was putting some effort into looking into Marcus James and Eric Benson. Both of the up-and-coming politicians were sexy and photogenic, which probably helped them get as far as they had, at least via social media. No one liked an ugly politician, after all.
Missing classes, staying in, and just poring over what I found on my laptop, I kept myself safe. Safe from being exposed and vulnerable to a frisky Ilyin trying to capture me again because my father wanted to play games with them.
I also needed to retreat and stay safe from Viktor, too. After he took me so hard and fast in the library, I wanted it again. I wanted him again, not just for how well he’d fucked me, so filthily and taboo like that, but because he’d given a damn and asked me what I wanted. No one ever had, and that was a dangerous thing to get used to.
I couldn’t get used to him. That was clear. He belonged here at school, teaching and seducing young women like me. Whereas I belonged… working for my father just so he wouldn’t make Maxim suffer. Yesterday, he’d sent me a picture of canceling food deliveries to Maxim. The guard would be fed, but my brother would not. Unless I had something to tell him before tonight, he would cancel the incoming order.
So, I would do as he bade. From my snooping online, I found a few connections that I could start looking into. By checking out who liked what and who had friended whom, a network of acquaintances was clearer to see and follow.
Before I would need to go to Viktor’s class, I left my apartment to follow a student who was a well-known dealer on campus. I’d noticed him talking with Ilyin men who came here now and then, but that affiliation wasn’t anything new. I’d already identified him and reported him to my father as a connection of some kind.
What I wanted to investigate now was why he was commenting about talking to a student worker in the dean’s office. Marcus James had also made a comment elsewhere, and I deduced that the three of them might be planning a meeting or rendezvous point.
Either way, it was a connection I had to follow—if for no other reason than to prove to Igor that I was doing my duty here. I’d be damned if Maxim was starved because of what our father deemed as my slacking off.
I walked into the building where the dean’s office was located. Multiple offices were housed in here, a collective grouping of dean’s officials who carried out many administrative tasks. Pretending to scroll on my phone, I meandered down the hallways until I could locate that student worker. Wherever he was, he’d sure picked a good hiding spot to talk to a dealer and Marcus. I couldn’t find them anywhere, and that was saying something since not many office workers were in this early.
I did find one person, though, and it wasn’t anyone I wanted to see anytime soon. Twice, I’d caught sight of Jessica Nolan near Viktor. She was obviously interested in him, and that was all I knew about her. As she stalked up to me in the hallway, pausing my plan to snoop and find a meeting to listen in on, I got the feeling she was about to show me how vindictive and catty she could be.
“What are you doing here?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
I shrugged. “Looking for someone.”
“The offices aren’t open yet.”
I nodded. “Okay. Sorry.”
Before she would let me walk away, she had to slip in the last word. In this case, a threat.
“I know what you’re doing.”
Oh, shit. She must have been watching me snoop longer than I realized.
“You’re just another slut eager for a good grade. Fucking your professor…” Her lip curled in disdain.
Oh! That was all? She was a sore loser about how I’d gotten Viktor. She wasn’t putting me on the spot for snooping. Whew.
“I’m not,” I argued.
She took one step toward, and I reacted by getting into a defensive stance, just in case she’d make this physical.
“I know what I saw.”
In his office, she did. Or she could guess. We’d been mostly covered up, springing apart when she opened the door. Viktor and I hadn’t had sex there. We had in the library, but no one saw us.
I think.
“I will ruin you, bitch.” She pointed at me, getting in my face. “I will ruin you for taking a man I had my eye on.”
I shook my head, furious that someone else other than my father was trying to make my life even more difficult. Ignoring her, I turned and gave her my back. Engaging in that conversation wouldn’t help anything. She wouldn’t listen to me. And I refused to listen to her.
She didn’t pursue me as I walked away, but I felt the burn of her stare on my back.
“Fuck you,” I mumbled as I headed to Viktor’s lecture. “You can just fuck off and leave me alone.”
Jessica Nolan would have to take a number and get in line if she wanted to join the forces against me.
I took a seat toward the front of Viktor’s class, letting all my other worries fall to the back of my mind as I watched him enter. Just like every other lecture he gave, he spoke dryly, almost as if he was bored about the material too.
In a sharp suit, his signature bold-red tie, and a no-nonsense expression of wanting to get this business done, he droned on. I hardly listened, too mesmerized by the sight of him. With amazement and wonder filling my head, I tried to believe that this sexy man had really fucked me like I wanted him to. That he’d used a tie just like the one he was wearing to gag me and keep me quiet while he rammed his big dick into my virgin body.
Just thinking back to that night had me aroused all over again. It seemed that avoiding him for two days hadn’t done a damn thing toward reducing the impact he had on me.
I wasn’t only staring at him with sex on my mind, though. With his grumpy, gruff voice and furrowed brow, he looked mad. Or annoyed.
Is he irritated, seeing me after I avoided him?
Does he regret having sex with me?
After class, it seemed I would have an answer. He approached me, heading directly toward me as students filed out.
“Come to my office and see me about your grade.” It wasn’t an invitation. It was an order.
I licked my lower lip and nodded. “Sure.”
I guess that means he doesn’t want to be done with me yet…
I gathered my things and went to his office. He wasn’t there yet, wrapping up his things from the lecture. When he showed up, striding confidently down the hall, I had to hold my breath and not let a needy noise slip free. He couldn’t know how damn fine he was, how sexy he was, tall, strong, and so sure of himself.
Looking me directly in the eye but not saying a word, he unlocked his door and gestured for me to enter.
As soon as I walked in and he joined me there, he shut the door behind me and pushed me up against it.
His hard mouth slanted down over mine, and I didn’t need baby steps into this kiss. Pushing up against him as I wrapped my arms around his neck, I gasped and tried to keep up with the desire burning between us, both of us always so attuned to needing the other with a fierce impatience.
I moaned into his mouth, twirling my tongue around his then sucking on it. A deep growl rumbled from his chest as he snaked his arms around me, still forcing me back to the door.
Making out with him thrilled me. Already, I was getting wet for him, eager to feel his dick deep inside me again, his fingers on my breasts. All of him. I wanted to rip off my clothes and beg him to show me himself, too.
But he wasn’t on the same page. Backing up without actually releasing me, he panted and shook his head.
I lowered my hand to cup the bulge of his erection in his pants.
“No,” he rasped. “Not here. Not now.”
“But—”
He kissed me hard, brutal and demanding in that hot touch. “No. Not like this.” Stepping back completely, he ran his hand through his blond hair and gave me such a smoldering once-over that I wondered how my clothes hadn’t fallen off yet. “I can’t trust that Jessica wouldn’t barge in here again.”
I rolled my eyes, not ready to be told no. “You can lock the door.”
“And she could unlock it. I caught her snooping in here yesterday. And I always keep that door locked when I’m not here.”
I pouted, sagging against the door. I’d been interested in talking to him, though, to figure out why he seemed so mad during the lecture, so I supposed I could ignore this raging need for him for a little while.
“I’ll pick you up at eight,” he said matter-of-factly as he adjusted his erection beneath his pants. “Fuck, it’ll kill me to wait that long.”
I laughed lightly, almost incredulously. It was almost surreal to think that he and I were doing this, whatever I could technically call this sleeping-with-your-hot-professor thing.
“You will, huh?”
He grinned, looking at me like he wanted to fuck me now. “Yes. Be ready for me at eight.”
If he kept staring at me like he wanted to ruin me for any other man on this planet, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready for him.
But there was no chance in hell I was backing out and missing this opportunity to be with him, no matter where it would take me. “Eight,” I confirmed, already excited.