Chapter 5
Belinda
The Hive on a Tuesday night was surprisingly quiet, mostly because the underclassmen were at mandatory study hall and the upperclassmen were recovering from "Taco Tuesday" at the local dive bar.
I stood outside the heavy oak door of Peter Volkov’s bedroom, clutching my notebook to my chest like a shield. My heart was doing that thing again—the frantic, hummingbird flutter that I was beginning to associate exclusively with the smell of sandalwood and the color grey.
It’s just a lesson, I told myself. It’s professional development. Like a seminar. Or a workshop. A very, very specific workshop on how not to hyperventilate when a man looks at you.
I knocked. Three sharp raps.
"Enter," his voice rumbled from the other side.
I pushed the door open and stepped into the sterile vacuum of Peter’s world.
If my dorm room was an explosion of color, romance novels, and half-finished knitting projects, Peter’s room was a sensory deprivation tank.
The walls were a pale, icy grey. The bed was made with military precision, the charcoal duvet pulled tight enough to bounce a quarter off of.
The desk was black, dominated by three monitors that were currently displaying what looked like stock market trends and... my shot suppression data?
Peter was sitting at the desk, his back to me.
And he was wearing the pants.
The pants.
Grey sweatpants. Low-slung on his hips. Soft cotton that draped in a way that was entirely unfair to the female population. He was shirtless, because apparently, he had an allergy to fabric above the waist when he was in his sanctuary.
His back was a landscape of muscle—the trapezius flowing into the deltoids, the deep groove of his spine flanked by ridges of tension. He stretched his arms over his head as I walked in, the muscles bunching and shifting like tectonic plates.
I stopped breathing. It wasn't a conscious choice; my lungs simply went on strike.
Lesson One: Do not stare at the subject’s latissimus dorsi like it’s a dessert menu.
He swiveled his chair around.
"You’re two minutes late," he said.
He didn't smile. His face was set in that familiar, stoic mask. But his eyes... his eyes did a slow, deliberate sweep of my outfit.
I had tried. I really had. I wasn't wearing my usual oversized hoodie. I was wearing a pair of high-waisted jeans that actually fit and a emerald green wrap top that Sloane had sworn was "classy but accessible."
"I hit traffic," I lied. There was no traffic. I had spent ten minutes in the hallway giving myself a pep talk in the reflection of a framed jersey.
"Traffic in the hallway?" he asked, arching a dark eyebrow.
"Foot traffic. Very congested. lots of... pivots." I closed the door behind me and leaned against it, feeling the cool wood seep through my shirt. "So. Professor. What’s on the syllabus tonight?"
Peter stood up.
The room suddenly felt very small. He walked toward me, not with the predatory stalk of the party, but with a casual, terrifying grace. He stopped three feet away—close enough for me to smell the clean, soapy scent of his skin, but far enough to maintain the illusion of safety.
"Tonight," he said, crossing his arms over his bare chest, "we work on the Signal."
"The signal?"
"Non-verbal communication," he clarified. "I reviewed the data from Friday night. Your interaction with Kevin."
I groaned, covering my face with my hands. "Please. Can we delete that data set? It was an anomaly."
"It was a disaster," Peter corrected mercilessly. "You broadcasted panic. Your body language screamed 'predator alert.' You were physically shrinking away from him while verbally inviting him in. It was confusing."
"I was nervous!"
"Nervousness is fine. Terror is a mood killer." He stepped closer. "If you want to attract a mate—even a temporary one—you need to project invitation. You need to signal that the door is unlocked."
I lowered my hands. "Okay. How do I do that without looking like I’m having a stroke?"
"Eye contact," Peter said. "It starts with the eyes. You have a habit of looking at the floor, or the ceiling, or..." his gaze flicked down to his own chest, where I had definitely been staring, "...other things."
I flushed hot. "I’m observant."
"Be observant of the face," he commanded. "Look at me."
I forced my eyes up to his. It was like looking into a storm. Grey, turbulent, and intense.
"Good," he murmured. "Now hold it. Don't blink. Don't look away."
"For how long?"
"Until I tell you to stop."
We stood there in the silence of his room. The only sound was the hum of his computer tower and the thudding of my own pulse in my ears.
I watched him. I really watched him. I noticed the tiny scar above his left eyebrow—probably a high stick from a game years ago.
I noticed the way his eyelashes were unfairly long for a man who could bench press a Volkswagen.
I noticed the flecks of silver in his irises that caught the light from the monitors.
And I noticed the way he was watching me back.
It wasn't clinical. Not entirely. His pupils were dilating. The black expanding to swallow the grey. His gaze dropped to my mouth, hovered there, and then dragged back up to my eyes with visible effort.
"Your heart rate is elevated," he noted softly.
"How can you tell?"
"I can see the pulse in your neck. It’s fluttering."
"Is that... bad data?"
"It’s honest data," he said. He took another step. He was now well inside my personal space. "Now. The mouth."
"What about it?" My voice came out as a whisper.
"You bite your lip when you're anxious. It reads as insecurity. If you want to signal desire, you need to soften it."
"Soften it?"
"Relax the jaw," he instructed. He reached out.
I flinched, just a micro-movement, but he caught it. He paused, his hand hovering near my face.
"Lesson One," he reminded me, his voice a low rumble. "Don't pull away."
I forced myself to freeze. "I’m not pulling away."
"Good girl."
The praise hit me straight in the center of my chest. It melted my knees.
He touched my jaw. His fingers were rough, calloused from years of gripping a goalie stick, but his touch was agonizingly gentle. He traced the line of my jawbone with his thumb, applying just enough pressure to make me open my mouth slightly.
"There," he whispered. "Better. Now breath through it."
I inhaled shakily. The scent of him filled my lungs—soap, skin, and pure male heat.
"This feels... fake," I whispered. "I feel like I’m acting."
"Seduction is acting, Bee," he said, his thumb brushing over my lower lip. The sensation sent a jolt of electricity down my spine that made my toes curl in my boots. "It’s a performance. You’re selling a fantasy. You’re telling the other person, 'I am safe, I am willing, I am here.'"
"I don't know if I can sell that," I admitted, my eyes locked on his. "I feel... clumsy. I feel like the girl who trips over the ottoman, not the girl who gets the Earl."
Peter’s eyes darkened. His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck, his fingers threading into the hair at the base of my skull. The weight of his hand was heavy, grounding. possessive.
"You are not clumsy," he said fiercely. "You are chaotic. There is a difference."
"Is there?"
"Chaos is energy," he murmured, stepping in until his hips brushed against mine. "Chaos is potential. You just need to channel it."
The air in the room changed. It shifted from a classroom to something else entirely. The "lesson" pretext was thinning, dissolving under the heat radiating between us.
"Show me," I breathed. It was a dare. A plea.
Peter went still. "Show you what?"
"Show me the difference. Show me the signal. You keep talking about mechanics, Volkov. But I haven't seen any proof that you know what you're doing."
It was a dangerous thing to say. I knew it the moment the words left my mouth. I was poking the bear.
Peter’s eyes narrowed. A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips—the first real smile I had seen him wear. It wasn't friendly. It was hungry.
"You want a demonstration?" he asked softly.
"I need empirical evidence."
"Careful, Analyst," he warned, his grip on my neck tightening slightly, pulling me onto my tiptoes. "You might not like the results."
"I can handle the data."
"Fuck the data," he growled.
And then he moved.
He didn't just kiss me. He claimed me.
He swept his other arm around my waist, lifting me off the floor as if I weighed nothing, and slammed me gently back against the door.
My gasp was swallowed by his mouth.
His lips were firm, hot, and demanding. There was no hesitation, no awkward testing of the waters. He kissed me with the same intensity he played the game—focused, dominant, and utterly overwhelming.
He tasted like coffee and mint and trouble.
My brain short-circuited. All the romance novels, all the descriptions of throbbing desires and quivering limbs... they were trash. They were inadequate.
Reality was so much better.
Reality was the feeling of Peter’s bare chest pressing against my thin blouse, the heat searing through the fabric. Reality was the scuff of his stubble against my chin. Reality was the way his tongue swept into my mouth, taking ownership, tangling with mine in a rhythm that was filthy and perfect.
I made a sound—a desperate, high-pitched keen that vibrated in my throat.
Peter groaned into my mouth. The sound vibrated through his chest and into mine.
He broke the kiss, but didn't pull away. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his breath hot and ragged against my skin.
"Lesson Two," he rasped, biting lightly at the sensitive cord of my neck. "The physical escalation."
"I... I think I’m failing this class," I stuttered, my hands clutching his shoulders, my fingers digging into the hard muscle.
"You’re getting an A," he muttered against my skin.
He spun us around, marching me backward until the backs of my legs hit his desk. He lifted me effortlessly, sitting me on the edge of the sleek black surface. He stepped between my knees, forcing my legs apart to accommodate his width.
The position was intimate. obscene. I was eye-level with him now.