Page 53 of Guarded Rebellion

Lev spun to glare at me. “I said you will not go with her.”

My heart raced as anger spiked. “I don’t care what you say.”

He grabbed my hand, though, pulling me to follow Rurik out of the bathroom without giving me a chance to argue. With his phone to his ear, ordering another man on his crew to be nearby to assist Rurik in taking Kelly to the health clinic on the other side of campus as quickly as possible, I bit my tongue and let my fury fester. The second I was alone with this highhanded control freak, I’d let him know just what I thought of him dictating how my friend’s emergency would play out.

I had to know that she was okay. I wanted the details about what happened to her that made her shivering and weak on the floor like that. I should be there to comfort her, to just be present and let her know that she wasn’t actually as alone as she feared she was in this world.

But Lev had other plans. Because of course, he did.

He directed me right back to his car. Opening the door, he glared at me to be seated.

“You’re—”

He shut the door before I could finish.

Growling and seething as he rounded the car, I tried to breathe through the rise of turbulent emotions that threatened to overtake me.

As soon as he was seated in the driver’s seat, I lashed out. “Stop trying to keep me from her.”

“You don’t need to be with her at the clinic. Not until I know this isn’t a ploy to get to you.”

“You don’t know what I need,” I yelled.

He took the next turn sharper than the one before, and I held on to the armrest as he sped back to the apartment.

The last time he tried to show me what he thought I needed, I ended up half-naked and stuffed with his cock. With hishandprints littering my ass. After his moody distance from me all week, I knew better than to count on that bliss happening again. But I’d be damned if he tried to act like he knew me. Like he, alone, could understand me to be able to determine my fucking needs.

“The hell I don’t.”

The rest of the drive back passed in a blur. All the while he drove, glaring ahead and clenching the steering wheel tightly, I gave him hell. Ranting without pause, I maintained a nonstop litany of complaints about his attitude. How he wasn’t a master of me. How he was wrong to think he knew how to decide what he felt was best for me. And how he had to stop acting like he owned me and I was to do what he saw fit. I was out of breath with the decibel of my voice, and I didn’t slow enough to inhale as I vented all my grievances. In the end, by the time he pulled up and rashly parked in the garage, it had turned into not a spewing string of complaints about him, specifically, but more of a pouring out session of hating on how trapped I’d been my whole life. How I was always so damn controlled.

If there were ever a point of reaching a limit, this was mine. I snapped. And when he took hold of my wrist and forced me to follow him inside the apartment, I felt spent and tired. Weak and defeated.

I couldn’t believe I’d lost my cool like that, shouting at him and berating him for how he’d handled this situation with Kelly. He hadn’t budged or reacted once the whole way here, silent and brooding.

Now, in the aftermath of yelling like that, my spirits sank. I could rail and cry about it all I wanted, but there was no point. Nothing I said would change anything. If things moved accordingly, it would be time for him to go back to being the aloof and distant, pissed-off guard.

When he closed the door after me, he set his hand on the panel and prevented me from stepping forward. Inches parted us. His intense stare zeroed in on me, and I refused to speak first.

It was his turn. It was time for him to reply to any of that rant I unleashed on him.

“I know what you need, Eva.”

I rolled my eyes, slumping back against the door.

“I know what you want. You’re determined to have independence that was never slated to be yours. You’re dead set to embrace experiences that are inferior to what else you are privileged to have. And you are too fucking stubborn to admit that sometimes, it’s not a matter of what you want but what you deserve.”

“Oh. And what’s that?” I sassed, narrowing my eyes. “What do I ‘deserve’?”

“Guidance.” He took a step closer. Nearly flush against me, he surrounded me until I wanted to lean into him. The warmth of his body. The smell ofhim, all male. The stability of his strong, hard body.

Taunted to erase this scant distance between us, I bit my lip and tried not to breathe too heavily.

“You need the guidance to tame your passion,” he said, lowering his voice as he stared at my lips. His hand came up as he lifted his arm. At the first touch of his fingers on my jaw, then further back as he cradled the side of my face, I melted. Slanting toward him, I sighed and tried to remember why this was supposed to be a bad idea.

“Is that what you’re trying to do? Tame me?”

He moved into my space, claiming it as his own. The press of his hips against mine was just enough to urge me to cant toward him. And the shift of his arm as it slid around my back, wedgingbetween me and the closed door, was just enough of a hold that I became desperate to cling to him.

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