Page 105 of Wicked Serve

When she tugs the dress into place again, I tie the bow for her. She straightens my collar, blushing when my hands slip down to her bottom.

“Go use the bathroom, and when you come back, pour the wine.”

“Yes, Daddy,” she teases.

“Isabelle,” I growl, swatting at her.

She laughs, dancing away from me. When we settle at the table a few minutes later, I sit her on my thigh, holding her in place with my arm around her middle.

She tilts her head back, squirming. “Really?”

“You didn’t think I was letting you off that easy, did you?” I skim my nose over her shoulder. I should give her a bite to match the one on her thigh. I settle in the chair comfortably, watching as she adjusts to the position. The adorable splotches of blush on her cheeks make me want to take her all over again. At this rate, I’m going to be hard as stone by the time we get to dessert. And I’ll bet she’s going to ruin my pants. “You’re sitting here all meal so you can feel that hairbrush. If you’re going to tease, you better be prepared to handle the consequences, solnishko.”

She half turns to kiss me, a wild, bright light in her eyes. “As long as you’re the one giving them.”

Chapter 50

Nikolai

I narrow my eyes as I stare at Tangerine. She stares right back, her eyes unnervingly bright, tail swishing on the notebook I need. When I try to slide it out from underneath her, she stomps her paw down. She must have decided she liked me on Valentine’s Day, because now whenever I’m at Isabelle’s, she refuses to leave me alone. Cooper had a bunch of the guys over earlier this week to watch the Devils-Rangers game, and she plopped herself in my lap the instant I sat down.

“Really? What are you going to do with that?”

She meows at me.

“Are you going to write my paper? What are your thoughts on China in the global economy?”

She licks her paw, blinking slowly. While she doesn’t move, she welcomes a scratch behind the ears. I reach for the notebook again, hoping to snag it while she’s distracted.

“She has a rich inner life,” Cooper says from the doorway. He takes off his Yankees cap and tosses it onto the kitchen island. “I wouldn’t put it past her. Is Izzy still here?”

Tangerine cranes her neck around to look at him. He picks her up—I grab the notebook while I can—and kisses the top of her head before setting her on the floor. She leaps onto the windowsill, lounging on it like it’s a throne. He gives her a faint smile as he sits across from me.

“No,” I reply. “She left a few hours ago.”

“Her car’s in the driveway.”

“I arranged a car for her.” I flip to the right page in my notebook. My notes are a disaster, but I need all the help I can get for this seminar, the last of my major requirements. “She seemed anxious about driving that far.”

“Yeah, I was surprised to hear she was going all the way to Philly again. Thanks.”

I pull up my half-finished essay. I make a face at it, then push the laptop away. Even if the end of college means committing to an office job, it has to be more interesting than finding a way to make bullshit arguments for the sake of grades. “There’s a specific store Bex wanted to shop at for the dress. I think the owner is connected to the Eagles somehow. Is it okay that I’m here? I offered to go, but she said you wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, of course.” He eyes the spread of papers around me. “I don’t envy whatever this is. Although I’m reading Crime and Punishment again. I thought I escaped that when I took a class on Russian literature sophomore year.”

“I’ve never read it.”

“No?”

“What, do you think they hand it out in kindergarten? Here, have some pencils, Prestupléniye i nakazániye, and the complete works of Chekov?”

“Of course not. It’s Marx, isn’t it?”

My lips twitch at the smirk on his face. “And what, you’ve read all of Maya Angelou and Mark Twain?”

He snorts with laughter. “A good chunk of both, actually.”

“This is rough,” I say, holding up an article I annotated a few days ago, when Dad called yet again and I couldn’t fall back asleep afterward. “It’s about China’s bureaucratic structure.”

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