Guarded Rebellion (The Baranov Legacy)

22. Eva

22

EVA

“ K elly?” I called out as I stayed behind Lev. He entered with his gun trained ahead of him as he strode down the first hallway of the communal bathrooms.

My voice echoed against the tile walls, but no one replied.

“Laura?” I tried instead.

“Yeah. Over here. Ava?” she called out from an aisle from the left.

“Eva,” I corrected, not even really caring. All I worried about was finding Kelly and making sure she would be okay.

Rurik remained behind me, but I heard the ruffle of his coat as he quickly reached for his gun. Lev tensed in front of me, too.

Laura popped into view, stepping out from a stall, and screamed.

Walking into a tall man scowling and holding a gun up likely wasn’t what she counted on. Now that I saw her face to face, I remembered her from one of my classes.

“It’s all right,” I said, shoving around Lev to approach.

“You called security?” she demanded, frowning at Lev and Rurik as they lowered their guns. She pressed a hand to her chest. “I don’t think Kelly will want the dorm supervisor to know about this. They complicate everything and act like you’re a criminal if you so much as drink one beer.”

“They are with me,” I said, not stopping until I found Kelly lying on the floor of a shower stall. She blinked blearily, proving that she was alive, but I snatched another towel to cover her up. She was shivering, her hair damp and her skin soaked. Another girl was nearby, frowning and stressed about what to do.

“We came in and saw her like this, on the ground.”

“Kelly?” I kneeled down, pissed that Lev tried to take charge. Rurik did too, crowding into the stall. I felt helpless, watching as they controlled the situation. Rurik wrapped the towels around her tighter, seeming to check for injuries around her head and neck. Lev pressed his fingers under her jaw to monitor her pulse.

“Eva. I… I was just so sick and I…” She grimaced, seeming to curl to her side as though her stomach ached severely.

“Okay. Okay. I’m here.”

“Did she fall?” Rurik asked Laura and the other girl.

They both shrugged. “I don’t know,” Laura said.

“We just saw her curled up on the floor,” the other one replied.

“I’m taking her to the health clinic,” I stated.

“No. You are not,” Lev argued.

I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t handle his trying to order me around right now. Not like this. Kelly needed assistance. She needed medical help. This wasn’t about me , at all, and my fury flamed hotter that he’d try to stop me from supporting her.

“I will,” Rurik said, picking her up in his arms. Water sluiced down, dripping down in thin streams from her wet body. Kelly moaned, reacting to being moved, but Rurik didn’t go out of his way to jostle her. His face was lined with concern as he stood fully.

“Go on,” Lev told him, matter-of-fact. He nodded once and gestured for him to exit.

Wait! What? “No. I should be with her and?—”

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 his handprints 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 of him , 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, wedging between me and the closed door, was just enough of a hold that I became desperate to cling to him.

“No.” He dipped his head lower, seeming to have calmed down since he listened to me ranting. “I don’t want to tame you. I only wish I could have the right to lead you on how to control this passion.”

I swallowed hard, turning to press my lips against his. At the last second, though, he denied me, kissing lower where my cheek met my jaw. “I give you that right,” I whispered breathily. “I want you to?—”

“To what?” he teased gruffly. Keeping his hand on my head, he directed how he intended for me to give him access to my neck. Those firm but soft lips of his didn’t stop. Brushing them back and forth, then caressing my skin with slow, sensual drags of his tongue, he traveled down my neck while he held me flush to him. “You want me to control you?”

No? Yes. I forced another swallow, damning how dry my mouth was as adrenaline kicked in to match the pace of my desire. “I want you to…” To show me that you care. That I matter to you. That you’re just as impossibly desperate for me as I am for you.

“You shouldn’t,” he replied as moved his hands to push my coat off. Keeping his mouth on me, he sucked and kissed, then nipped and licked. He left a warm, wet path down my neck, and under the sensations of lust, I closed my eyes and relaxed against the door.

“You shouldn’t, Eva,” he repeated, arguing with my unfinished statement. He didn’t know what I wanted to say, but he would argue regardless, clued in to realize that I wanted him to some capacity.

“You’ll be promised to another,” he said quietly as he unbuttoned my shirt. “The Boss will find you a husband. A man worthy?—”

I barked a laugh as he lifted his hands to cup my breasts. “Worthy? Being worthy won’t matter. I’ll be half of a political maneuver, part of a business transaction.”

He sighed, gazing at me with a deep intensity as he tugged the cups of my bra down. “But you won’t be mine.”

I licked my lips, hating the sound of the truth he spoke. I reached for his head to pull him down for a kiss, but he didn’t let me take the lead. He didn’t obey my urge. Lowering further, he fastened his mouth over my bare breast. His lips closed over my areola and the tip of his tongue clicked at the hard peak of my nipple.

“Oh, fuck. Yes.” Now he let me hold his head, pushing him to my chest. In the same move, he lifted me. His hands urged me to follow his wordless command as he picked me up. Digging his fingers into my ass, then my thigh, he hoisted me up high so he could hold me against the door at a level that he could feast on my breasts. Torturing me with his wicked tongue, he encouraged me to lose all the anger I’d shouted at him until I was panting and shaking with need, wet for him.

“You shouldn’t want me,” he reminded me as he picked me up to move me again. He carried me further this time, bypassing the living room space and taking me clear to his room. How he didn’t drop me or bump into anything was beyond my imagination. His face was back at my chest, his mouth teasing my nipples until I cried out sharply.

“I’m not supposed to be the one to teach you how to listen.” He dropped me to the bed and reached for my pants. “How to behave.” His fingers made quick work of my clothes, rendering me naked and flushed on his comforter. “How to be a good little slut.” Pairing that last line with the slide of his finger into my aching pussy, he leaned down far enough to work on getting his clothes off.

“Please,” I begged. “Please.”

“Please what?” He pushed my shoulders down until I lay back. Once he lowered, though, kneeling on the floor and draping my legs over his shoulders, I sat up to watch what was becoming a familiar sight. My favorite sight. Of him between my thighs with a ravenous hunger burning in his brown eyes.

“Please make you understand that you can’t let yourself get too close to danger?” He slid his finger in and out of my cunt as he kissed along my inner thigh. “Because that’s what I saw when we went to get Kelly to help. If someone drugged her, your only friend, it could be a connection to the rivals we’ve seen on campus.” He moved his face to kiss me, right on my clit before he swirled the tip of his tongue around it. “ You are my priority, Eva.”

I nodded, my breath hitching.

“Please help you see that you can’t have the freedom you think is so amazing?” He added another finger, stretching me and watching me ride his hand. “Because it’s not. Losing the protection of the Baranov Family is a weakness, not a gift.” He lowered to suck at my clit, maintaining eye contact as he pushed me closer to coming in a wild rush.

“I—”

“Please what, Eva?” he asked in that wry, gravelly tone. “Please make you see how powerful you are to reduce me to this? Needy for your taste and desperate for your submission?” Returning his lips to my flesh, he lapped at me and hummed when more of my juices leaked for him.

“You want to beg me like a good little slut, saying please , like that will make this all better?”

I cried out in protest when he reared back, removing his fingers from my body, taking his mouth away from my flesh.

“Lev!” I reached out for him, only for him to swat my hands away. He sat on the edge of the bed, using one arm to tug me up and place me on his lap.

“Please!” I cried out, needing to come so badly I couldn’t slow my heart or catch my breath. Desire ran through my veins with an intensity I couldn’t stem.

“What, Eva? What are you begging me for when you insist that I don’t know what you need?” He laid his hand on my ass, spanking me.

“I need you,” I sobbed, hating that he’d gotten my secret to spill from my lips. “I need you, Lev. Show me. Control me. Take me. Please.” I couldn’t stand it if he tried to withhold an orgasm from me. Not now. Not ever again.

He wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t be his. He was just a lowly soldier my uncle favored. But until that time came, I wanted to be greedy and indulge in every second I could steal with my bodyguard.