Guarded Rebellion (The Baranov Legacy)

19. Lev

19

LEV

I couldn’t remember the last time a meal passed by so agonizingly slowly. So awkwardly.

This breakfast with Oleg did the trick.

Instead of leading us to the dining room, he directed us to follow him out to the sunroom. A small table was laden with dishes there. He sat in a plush chair, gesturing plainly for me to be seated with Eva on a loveseat.

She was a slim woman, petite and shorter than me. But next to her on this small piece of furniture that could’ve been more fitting for me alone, as a chair for one, I was super aware of her presence.

Her thigh brushed against mine. Each time she reached for her glass of water, I ironically leaned forward at the same time to fetch something else.

Last night, when she was on my lap, we were coordinated. I couldn’t tell where she ended and I began, we were so tightly united and fitting each other perfectly. Like a dance, we moved as one in unison.

Here, with the Boss eating and sipping his coffee across from us, she was clumsy and unable to hold herself steady.

Every touch of her body against mine jarred her. Each occasion of her glancing my way was a testament to how much she had to be reminiscing about the last time we sat together on a piece of furniture.

And all the little cues she couldn’t hide worked together to convince me of one big fact.

She wanted me again.

She wanted more with me.

It was the very last thing I needed to have on my mind in this tense meal with her uncle. My leader. The Boss.

Ultimately, she gave up in her struggle not to look at me when she knocked over her glass and spilled her water. Without thinking about how it would impact her in other ways, I offered her a napkin to dab at the wetness on her jeans. My fingers hadn’t gone anywhere near her pussy, but she flinched and stammered as she shot to her feet. Any deliberate touch from my part was too much for her to bear.

“I—Just… I’ll… No.” She shook her head as she left the sunroom, and I refused to watch her go.

Oleg didn’t speak up for several minutes. Wiping his mouth and finishing his coffee, he bided his time.

“What’s going on?” he asked calmly, matter-of-fact.

“Hmm?” I glanced up at him, knowing in a heartbeat that he’d noticed her awkwardness while sitting next to me.

“You seem distracted.”

I ducked my head as I raised my brows. “ Me ?” I pointed at myself unnecessarily. She was the distracted one, fumbling about how to act like a normal woman not lusting for me. I hated to admit it was… endearing. Seeing how much of an effect I had on her went straight to my head. The one in my pants, too.

“Yes.”

I swallowed and wiped my mouth with the napkin before setting it down for a final time. Depending on his remarks about what he thought he saw brewing between me and his niece, I might not have a solid appetite to eat more after this conversation.

“Are you able to concentrate on this assignment?” he asked.

“Of course, sir.”

“I’m not surprised that she is resistant to the presence of security,” he added. “Notwithstanding the incidents that occurred last night…”

“She is reluctant to have orders directed at her, but she is taking them in stride.”

He arched one brow, still too pensive and thoughtful for my liking. Or perhaps he was merely entertained and getting a kick out of Eva’s sudden clumsiness. “Is she taking you in stride?”

Hell, he had to word it like that. Taking me? That phrase caught me like a sucker punch to the gut. Oh, she took me well last night.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

When he assigned me to watch over Eva, I’d wanted to request for someone else to handle the task. Now, since I’d grown used to having her near and wanting her with me, even on my lap with her sweet ass marked red from my hand, I couldn’t stand the chance that I’d be ordered off the job.

Hearing the Boss question me and put me on the spot like this irked me. And it worried me. The moment grew tense and awkward, and that was without Eva here to be adorably clumsy.

“I am committed to always serve the family,” I said dutifully and honestly. “No matter the assignment or job.” He’d called me an extraordinary soldier earlier, and I welcomed the compliment. He’d praised me with a remark that I was skilled.

I’d served Eva last night—in the manner of giving her hardcore pleasure she hadn’t known how to ask for other than acting out.

“Of course. Of course,” Oleg responded. He didn’t speak dismissively, as if he were shooing my concerns away, but I never could be sure how loyal he would be to me . As one of his men.

If I hadn’t been taken in as an orphan, if I’d been born into the family in some distant degree, I wouldn’t have felt like an outsider lurking on the edge of the naturally close Baranov group.

A sense of truly belonging was something I dreamed of finding. It didn’t matter what kinds of sacrifices I made or how many, I would always recall the lost identity of being a nobody.

“I trust you will always do right by the family, Lev,” Oleg said as he sat back in his chair. He eyed me closely, but I knew better than to squirm or show a single sign of being uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

One nod was all the acknowledgment he seemed to need from me. Clueless as to how I could appropriately and quickly end this topic, I began to explain my opinions and thoughts about what had happened on the campus. He didn’t impart many details to me, at least not any new ones.

Soon enough, though, he bade me take my leave and I set out to find Eva.

She sat, reading, but looked up at me with such hope burning in her blue eyes that I couldn’t handle the pressure of her seeking me out. Of her wanting me and appearing interested to be near me again.

This can’t go on.

If the Boss was already noticing something simmering between us, it wouldn’t take long before he’d jump to conclusions. About her purity. About my desire for her or her neediness for me. An attraction that sparked and flamed as quickly and heatedly as it did between us would be the end of my hope to belong here. Oleg Baranov would not forgive me for taking something that never should’ve been mine.

Just a job.

She’s just a job.

Last night was a lapse in judgment, one we shared, but it had to be the one and only lapse I’d allow.

If this meeting with Oleg had shown me anything, it was that I had to retreat. I had to ignore this need to have her and keep things strictly professional between us. She was my charge and I was her bodyguard.

If I didn’t keep my eye on the game and just focus on keeping her alive and safe, it would only be a matter of time before I’d be kicked out of the family, the only one I’d ever felt like I had.

“Eva, what happened between us last night?—”

She shushed me as we walked out of the house together, glancing over her shoulder, clearly worried someone could hear me. “We can’t talk about it.”

I nodded, appreciating her candor with a pang of hurt. I hadn’t counted on her to shoo me off. Unless she was only worried about our having a discussion about our intimacy while here , where the Boss resided.

I took her statement to heart.

During the return drive to the college campus, I didn’t talk at all. We reverted to the moody, pregnant silence that we stuck with in the early days of this arrangement.

It frayed my nerves for me to refrain from even glancing her way, to cut off the ties of wanting to give her my attention.

But it was far past time I recalled the hardest truths I’d ever faced.

She’s not yours.

It’s just a job.

Nothing more.

No other falsehoods had ever made my chest hurt like those did, but that would be my private burden to bear.

Alone.