Page 26 of Savage Surrender

By the time he would speak to me this evening in his office about my makeup work, I would be prepared, confident, and put-together again.

13

VIKTOR

Irina was stubborn. I could count on her to have an attitude about having to report to my office, but I couldn’t tell whether she would obey me. Yesterday, she’d seemed turned on about my claim that I’d punish her for wasting my time. The thought of her craving my dominance made her even more irresistible. But I couldn’t guess if she’d show up this evening like I asked her to.

The internal debate ofwill she, won’t she?plagued me all day. I couldn’t stop thinking about her and wondering if she would show up. I anticipated it, getting ahead of myself in imagining how much more I could push her and how much further I could test her limits.

She came, though, a couple of minutes earlier than when my official office hours would start.

“I told you not to waste my time, Irina.”

She paused mid-step in entering my office, eyeing me carefully. “I heard you.”

I got up from my desk and approached her. Brushing against her side, I gave her a heated look as I reached out to close the door. She dipped her chin, watching my hand on the doorknob. When I moved my finger over to flick the lock, she drew in a deep breath. I refrained, though. Just teasing her about locking her in here with me was enough for now.

“Then why were you late this morning?” Still standing so close to her, I tortured myself with the scent of her sweet vanilla fragrance. It added to the forbidden nature of my attraction to her. She was so young, yet with an old soul. She was so pure and probably inexperienced, yet unafraid to show it. Tension ratcheted higher as we stayed within each other’s space, not moving away from the closed door.

“I fail to see how the reason for my tardiness could be any of your business,” she replied.

Aha. There she is.I wouldn’t be seeing the glum and depressed version of this sexy woman. She was giving me the sass. The attitude. The defiance, and fuck if I wasn’t all for it.

“It’s always my business when my students decide to waste my time and treat my class as if it doesn’t matter.” Advancing toward her, I set her into a retreat. She backed up across the room as I walked toward her. Stalked her. She was my target. She would be my prey.

“To disrespect my class rules is to disrespect me.”

She tipped her chin up, giving me a level glare. “That still doesn’t mean you can demand to know why I was late.”

“Why were you?” I asked again, glad when she backed up to my desk. Her legs bumped into the piece of furniture, and sheglanced down at the impact. “Tell me what was more important than coming to my class.”

She licked her lips, taunting me with a hungry need to taste her there. No answer came from her lips as she stared at me.

“Who were you seeing?” I asked as I took another step toward her.

Nothing.

“What were you doing?”

Silence. It felt so heavy, but not awkward, as though this simmering attraction and tension was something we’d already embraced as a consistent variable in our lives.

“Too busy partying late all night?” I taunted, relishing the pressure of her body nearly flush to mine. With my desk behind her, she had nowhere to go. Nowhere to turn or hide. Yet, with her sullen silence and refusal to answer me, she remained as elusive and closed-lipped as ever.

“You won’t win at this game, Irina.”

She raised her brows. “What game?”

“You won’t beat me at this. I will have my answers.”

Tilting her head to the side, she narrowed her eyes. “Why does it matter? Why do you need to know a single thing about what I do outside of the time I’m in your classes?”

“I don’t need to know,” I said, almost contradicting myself with my curiosity about what she had been up to. My mission here was to find out all I could from her. But it seemed that seducing her was the only way to really reach her. I had to get her backto that looser stance she’d had when I was flirting with her yesterday.

She opened her lips to speak again, but I set my hand on my desk, slanting over her as I cupped her face. My moves robbed her of speech. She sucked in a breath as I stared into her bright blue eyes. Stroking my thumb over the smooth satin of her cheek, I hesitated for just a moment to torment her.

“But I want to know,” I growled.

Too weak to resist her, too impatient to taste her, I closed the distance between us. Pulling her chin up as I ducked my head toward her, I demanded she meet me in the middle for a kiss. The second my lips brushed over hers, I knew I was done for. Electric heat swamped me. From the contact of her warm, wet lips beneath mine all the way down to my dick, I felt the potency of this kiss in every cell. With every fiber of my being, through every rapid beat of my heart, I felt this kiss in a way I never had before.

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