Savage Heir by Jagger Cole

16

My muscles burn,and my teeth grit as I shove the bar up from my chest. Sweat trickles down my back as I hiss, pushing for one more. And then another, and then a final one before I know I’ve hit my failure point.

The weight bar settles onto the rack with a clank, and I exhale slowly. I sit up on the bench, glancing around the empty, dark weight room.

A real gym is the one luxury we don’t have at Lordship Manor. But the one attached to the athletics building here is state-of-the-art. It’s always state-of-the-art, actually. Because every three years, like clockwork, someone’s rich father buys Oxford Hills Academy a new gymnasium so they can put their name on it. The current iteration is named after Otto Van Ness, an Austrian hedge fund guy who’s son Klaus was the top scorer for the football team two years ago.

Coming to a gym full of other students to work out would annoy me. But that’s why the back weight room on the third floor of this place is basically accepted with the entire student body to be off-limits to everyone but Lukas, Misha, and I.

If money won’t buy a private gym on this campus, fear will.

I grab my water bottle and suck down a drink before I peel my shirt off. I glance down, my eyes moving over the various tattoos covering my chest and arms. I don’t have anything like the basically full-body piece that Misha wears. But that’s not my style. Even still, all of these tell a story.

I’m about to drop back to the bench for another set, when suddenly the door to the room clanks open behind me. I frown before I hear the catch of a girl’s breath.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

My lips curl.

It’s Tenley.

Slowly, I stand. When I turn to her, the smile on her lips drops, and her face darkens.

“Oh,” she mutters. “It’s you.”

“I’m wounded, Red.”

She glares at me from the doorway. “I have a hard time believing you’re actually hurt by people not wanting to be around you and your charming disposition, Ilya,” she mutters. “Especially with how often that must happen.”

I eye her coolly, bringing a hand up to rake my fingers down the stubble on my jaw.

“Did you rehearse that one?”

Tenley rolls her eyes as she turns to leave. “Get fucked, Ilya.”

“I’m wounded because I never received a thank you card.”

She stops, turning to look at me with a furrowed, confused brow.

“Your feelings for me aside—”

“I don’t have feelings for you, Ilya. None except disdain.”

I smile thinly. “Even still. It’s only proper manners to send a thank you card when you’ve received a gift.”

She frowns. “What—” the color rushes into her cheeks as she snaps her mouth shut. She swallows, but it does nothing to diminish the pink creeping up her face.

“I didn’t take it.”

“But you wanted to.”

She chews on her lip. My eyes slide over her, and I growl when I drink in the running shorts baring most of her smooth legs and the spandex sports tank top clinging to her breasts. Her long red hair is pulled up in a high ponytail.

I want to grip it in my fist. I want to tug it while I take her from behind.

I want to see how true a redhead she really is.

I grit my teeth, clearing my head as she glares at me.

“Why are the lights off in here?”

“Because I don’t need or want them on.”

She frowns. “So, screw anyone else who might need them on?”

I shrug. Her eyes fall to my bare chest, and then trace down my abs before she catches herself. I smirk as she drags her eyes back to my face. She makes sure to plaster her scowl back on.

“No one else uses this part of the gym. It’s ours.”

“What do you mean it’s yours?”

“Misha, Lukas, and I. It’s our section, exclusively.”

She stares at me. “It’s the school’s gym, Ilya.”

“Not this room.”

You don’t get to—”

“Yes, I do.”

My feet start moving before I can stop it from happening. I move towards her like a prowling animal—not because I’m trying to scare her, but because I’m drawn to her. Because I can’t not move towards her once my eyes land on her mouth.

The one I claimed yesterday. The lips I kissed and tasted deeply.

It’s not until I’m almost touching her that Tenley gasps, like she’s just realized how close I am. She shivers and takes a step back from me, eyeing me warily.

“Do I scare you?” I growl.

She shakes her head. “No. It’s just that I don’t like or want you near me,” she hisses.

“Then why do you keep finding me,” I snarl. My hands twitch. My jaw clenches, like I’m barely holding back from taking her mouth once more.

“Run home, Little Red,” I hiss tightly. “It’s late anyway. Shouldn’t you be studying or deciding if you’re going to hyphenate Chambers and North or just go ahead and take his name?”

Fire sparks in her eyes. Her lips curl into an angry sneer.

“And shouldn’t you with Julianna McCreed?” she snaps.

I arch a brow curiously “What?”

“You two are together, right?” she says icily. “Or, the kind of ‘together’ that you’re capable of?” Her mouth thins. “I mean I don’t care, Ilya. I have a boyfriend, you know.”

“Of course you do,” I grunt, smiling thinly. “But what are you taking about?”

“You and Julianna McCreed.”

“There is no ‘me and Julianna McCreed.’”

She rolls her eyes. “Ainsley Hendershire was telling the whole table at dinner that she saw you and Julianna…” Her face darkens. “Together, earlier today.”

I roll my eyes. “Julianna is not my girlfriend.”

“Just a girl you call friend?” she snaps.

I fix my eyes on her, the corners of my mouth curling.

“Feeling jealous, Red?”

She laughs coldly. “Hardly. More like pity. For her.”

She sneers at me. “anyway, bye.”

She turns to leave again. But this time, I’m not letting her walk away. My hand shoots out, and she gasps when I grip her wrist. I tug her back, and she whirls with fury on her face.

“Get your fucking hand off—”

“Why did you put it on, Red,” I growl.

Her lips thin. “Put what on?”

“Your present.”

She blushes deeply. “I—” She bites her lip. “Let go of me.”

“See I have a theory, if you’re curious.”

“I’m not. Let go—”

“I think you wanted to put it on, because you wanted to feel dangerous.”

She swallows. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I think you liked feeling bad, putting something like that on.”

“You’re not getting in my head, Ilya,” she hisses.

“No?” My lips curl dangerously. “Tell me, then. How did it feel, looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing a version of you that you’ve never allowed yourself to see or feel? How did it feel to stop being so fucking good?”

Her face burns. And I can see her chest rising with her breathing.

“I felt like I had to,” she snaps. “Just to get out of there.”

I laugh coldly. “I smell bullshit.” I shake my head, pulling her closer to me as she gasps. “I think you liked wearing it, Tenley. You liked feeling dirty, and you liked feeling dirty for me.”

Her breath catches as her eyes widen and then narrow at me.

“You’re disgusting.”

“No,” I shake my head. “I’m just the bad guy. But you like that I’m bad.”

“I don’t—”

“Just like you liked kissing me.”

She laughs coldly, but it’s fragile. “Ilya, I can’t even remember kissing—”

“Then let me to remind you.”

I don’t think, I just do. I pull her into me. My hand slips to the back of her hair, tangling it in my fist as I lower my mouth to crush our lips together.

Last time, I kissed her to make a point.

This time, it’s because she’s mine.

Her soft whimper melts into my mouth. Her lips sear to mine, and I feel her hands fall to my bare chest. They don’t shove this time, though. They curl, her fingertips dragging over my skin like she’s trying to pull me closer.

I grip her hair tighter. My other hand comes up to hold her jaw as my tongue seeks hers. I groan into her lips, feeling the lust surge like a storm inside of me.

But with a gasp, Tenley suddenly pulls back from me. Her face is pale, eyes wide as she stares up at me. I can see her trying to tell herself to turn and flee. And she should. Except we both know too many lines have been crossed.

The lingerie was one line. Having her put it on for me was another, and so was pinning her to the door and plucking her clothes off button-by-button.

I’d say kissing her was the final straw. But that was until it happened a second time. And the problem with kissing her again is that it’s shown me something I wasn’t supposed to see: That for all her sneering looks, defiant pushbacks, and refusal to do a thing but defy me…

I’m not the only one wanting what they shouldn’t.

“You should have kept away,” I hiss thickly. My hand tightens in her hair again.

“Ilya…” She whimpers haltingly.

“You really, really should have kept away.”

I pull her into me, hard. The door behind her slams shut, and my mouth slams to hers. I groan into her lips, devouring her. I’m lost in her. So lost, that when she pulls back and slaps me, it takes me a second to even process it.

When I do, my jaw sets. I glare at her as she pulls from me, backing away until her back hits the door to the weight room. Her hand raises, and she blushes as her fingertips trace over her swollen lips.

“Don’t ever kiss me again,” she whispers hoarsely. I say nothing as she turns, yanks the door open, and runs away.

Again.