Savage Heir by Jagger Cole

20

I dreamof green eyes and perfect lips. I dream of savage growls and a firm, possessive touch that leaves me gasping for more. I dream of tattooed skin and snarling demands. And when I wake, gasping and shaking in my bed, there’s no force on earth that could stop me from seeing it through.

My hands push under my sleep shorts. My fingers eagerly rub at my swollen clit as I turn to moan his name over and over into my pillow. I come hard—almost as hard as he made me come on his fingers.

After, I curl into a ball under the covers.

What am I fucking doing? I’m dangerously close to the edge. I’m close to driving this train right off the tracks and derailing the entire Plan. And it’s all his damn fault.

I frown. Except, that’s not true. Not really. No one forced me to go to Ilya’s house last night. I went on my own accord. And I went to—

My face burns.

“I know that’s exactly why you’re here.”

It wasn’t a line. It wasn’t some slick, cool thing he said to make me melt. He literally knew. He could see it in my eyes or read it on my lips. Or maybe he’s just even more inside my head than I even know or give him credit for.

In the darkness with the covers up over my head, I swallow. I feel my body flush with the memory of what happened last night. Of Ilya kissing me, again. Of Ilya pinning me to his front door, pulling my skirt up, pushing my legs apart, and…

I tremble. And touching me. And making me ache for him. And making me come—for the first time, by someone else’s hand.

I stiffen under the covers, heat throbbing in my face and between my legs. There’s the crux of this issue. It’s not just that I’m running off to The Wolf’s lair. It’s not just that I’m going there because I’m tired of being the good girl and was desperately looking for something wild and dangerous. It’s not just that I needed something to shatter the bars that I felt going up around me with all those cameras and talk of marriage with Patrick.

The crux of the issue is that in no sane world is having Ilya fucking Volkov be the first man to touch me like that a good idea.

My pulse thuds. My breathing is shallow and slow. Last night was a mistake. A huge, huge one. And one that could have been so much worse of one if I hadn’t had somehow dragged myself back into reality and realized what the hell I was doing.

Even if what I was doing was mind-blowing, and incredible. Even if it had my heart racing and my skin aching for more.

Even if I want it again.

“Hey!”

The knock on my door and Charlotte’s voice on the other side of it almost gives me a heart attack.

“What?!” I choke.

She laughs. “Wow, you are not a morning person.”

I cringe, still throbbing under my covers.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“Hey how was the party last night?”

That’s what I blurted to Charlotte when I got home last night… red-faced, panting, and feeling like I was going insane after fleeing Ilya’s place again.

“Oh… fine.”

She snorts. “Had a few, hmm?”

“What? No, I—”

“Tenley, you were red in the face, shiny, and talking a mile a minute.” She giggles. “So you had a couple pints! Who cares! Did you have fun at least?”

My lips twist.

Yes. Fuck yes. Having the biggest orgasm of my life at Ilya’s hands, against his front door, was “fun” like I imagine jumping out of an airplane is “neat.”

“I’m making breakfast. Want some?”

My stomach gurgles. I remember that I actually barely ate dinner last night with all the anxiety and chaos of Patrick dropping the bomb on me. The several bombs, actually: that he actually likes me. That we’re getting married, apparently? And children? And I supposed I’m not going to law school, too?

My face shadows. My mouth thins.

“Helllooo. Tenley?”

“Yeah, thank you,” I blurt. “Breakfast sounds great, thanks.”

“Come and get it.”

I hear Char walk back downstairs as I exhale slowly. I tremble, taking a breath as I slowly push the covers off of me. I slip from the bed and plop down at my desk to open my laptop and check my email.

The first one that pops up is from Jill, my dad’s PR chief. The subject line is “ALL STAR.” I frown as I open it.

“Lookin’ GREAT! You two are killing it! Keep it up!!”

It’s followed by a list of URL links to name-brand news outlets. I frown as I click on the first one, for the DC Tribune. The page loads, and my stomach drops as my face goes white.

The huge picture is of Patrick and I at the match yesterday. His arm is around me, and my face is turned into his chest. It looks like I’m unable to stop myself from grinning as he leans down to kiss the top of my head.

My teeth grind.

What the picture really is, is of Patrick trying to kiss me, me twisting to dodge it, and wincing as I get one of his jacket buttons in my eye.

The headline doesn’t mention being kissed without asking, or buttons in the eyes. Instead, it screams North Campaign Heats Up Before The Race Begins!

It goes on to gush about Senator North’s son and Secretary of State Chambers’ daughter being the new “it” couple of DC.

I don’t read the rest, or any of the other links Jill sent. I slam the laptop shut, shaking as I sit back in the silence of my room.

The picture and that headline are patently not true. But that’s not the only reason they sting. Because even if they’re not true, and even if Patrick and I are not a thing, at all. For some reason, they’re making me feel something I shouldn’t:

Guilt.

I feel dirty, looking at them. I feel like some sneaky cheating housewife, stepping out on her charming, cleft-chin Senator husband to take a walk on the wild side with the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

I scowl.

Patrick doesn’t own me. We are not a couple, or a thing at all. Who I choose to spend my time with is my own business and no one else’s.

But, still… my business or not, I should definitely make it my business to stay the hell away from Ilya. Not because of Patrick. Not because of some trashy headline trying to make me feel guilty for not wanting this fake thing with Patrick to be real.

But because being around Ilya is only going to end one way: with him detonating my entire life in front of my eyes, one way or another.

I stand and take a breath before I head into my closet to get dressed for the day.

It’s my business who I spend my time with. And right now, it’s also my business who I choose to not spend it with. Ever, again.

I feelhis presence before he says a word. It’s not like he wears especially loud shoes. It’s not like he wears strong cologne. But it doesn’t matter. I know he’s behind me in the back study corner of the library before he utters a single word.

Maybe that’s why I don’t jump out of my skin when he growls right behind me.

“I thought I was clear what would happen if you missed another of our tutoring sessions.”

It’s Sunday evening. After breakfast with Charlotte, we caught up on some much needed The Good Wife binging. Then I went for a long, long run. After that, I told Lain when he inevitably found me that no, I couldn’t do lunch with Patrick and the snob mob.

Instead, I found a nice quiet corner of one of Oxford Hills’s several incredible gardens and read a book. And I read it, purposefully, straight through my tutoring time slot with Ilya.

For very, very obvious reasons.

Next up on my day of checking out from life, I once again informed Lain to tell dear Patrick that I just wasn’t in a very social mood. Instead, I decided to come to this study area I found on the second floor of the school’s incredible library to get a step up on the week ahead.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect him. I wanted to not expect him. But I knew he was out there, lurking. Seeking. Waiting to find me. Like a shark sniffing down the scent of blood. Like a wolf, doing the same.

But even with that very wolf right behind me, burning a hole in my back with his piercing green eyes, I don’t turn around.

“Were you?”

His footsteps are bold and quick as he storms up beside me. He stops right next to me, a low growl in his throat as he glowers down at me.

I take a steady, slow, hidden breath. Then I take my time slowly turning to look up at him. My plan is to be smug and cavalier. My plan is to casually shrug him off, as if last night was just “a thing” of no importance or weight.

That plan shreds to pieces and burns away the second I look up into his eyes. Because when I do, all I can think of is last night, and those eyes boring into me, watching me come for his fingers.

I blush heavily and quickly look away.

“What can I do for you, Ilya?”

“Take your fucking shirt off.”

I shiver, my eyes bulging as my heart jumps into my throat. I whip my head around to stare up at him.

“Excuse me?” I choke.

“You heard me. And you know damn well what the rules were that I set out about you being late for or missing our sessions.”

I stare at him. “What?”

“Our tutoring session was supposed to be an hour. That’s six ten-minute increments.”

“Ilya—”

“Per the rules—”

“Your rules,” I snap.

“Yes, my rules,” Ilya grunts right back without missing a beat. “You lose one piece of clothing for every ten minutes.”

“Ilya, listen—”

“You’re wearing two shoes, one pair of socks, and I’m guessing you’re going to try and sell me on that fucking hair tie being a piece of your wardrobe,” he grunts with a hint of warning in his voice, letting those piercing green eyes burn right into me.

“I’m just skipping the bullshit of you taking your shoes, socks, and hair tie out, and going right for the sixth piece of clothing, which I promise you, is your shirt.”

I stare at him with wide, incredulous eyes and a teasing heat on my cheeks. “You don’t seriously—”

“Now.”

God help me, I almost do. It’s all of it—the knife-like stare of those gorgeous eyes. The way his jaw ticks like his patience is just about done. The commanding, dark, dusky tone of his faintly accented voice.

Or the way all of those things make me think of last night and what he did to me. And thinking of that has me very, very wet.

I blush, squirming under his fierce gaze. But I hold back. I find strength. Somehow.

I swallow the thickness in my throat and glare back at him.

“I have a boyfriend, Ilya,” I snap quietly.

He smiles. He fucking smiles.

“So I’ve seen on the front page of about twelve publications today.” He doesn’t blink or miss a beat.

“Take your goddamn shirt off. Now.”

I tremble, biting my lip.

“No.”

His eyes narrow. His jaw grits. What the fuck, is he actually mad that I’m not gleefully ripping my shirt off for him, in the library, when I do have a… well, pretend boyfriend, at least?

“I’m counting to three—”

“I have a boyfriend, Ilya,” I snap. Interrupting Ilya feels like wrapping your hand in bacon and waving it around in front of a wild animal. But he says nothing. All he does is glare right fucking through me.

“I have a boyfriend,” I repeat. “And a future—”

“I supposed I could always blackmail you.”

I blink, caught off guard by his threat. “What?”

Ilya smiles thinly. “I could tell dear Patrick about the ways you came on my fingers last night.”

I stare at him. “Unless I take my shirt off,” I seethe.

He shakes his head. “No, unless you do it again.”

The room feels extra quiet. There’s a thin ringing in my ears as my face burns hotly. I’m looking for a chink in the armor—anything to let me know he’s just making a really dark joke. But there’s nothing. Because this isn’t a joke.

Ilya’s completely serious.

I chew on my lip as I stare back up into his smug face. “Little twisted even for you, don’t you think?” I say quietly.

“You have no idea how twisted I am.”

I swallow, trembling.

“That how you want me, Ilya?” I croak “Indebted to you?”

His eyes narrow as the corners of his mouth curl. “Maybe it is.”

I pale, shaking my head. “That’s not you—”

“You do not know me, Tenley,” he snarls. He rests his knuckles on the table and leans down over me, making me bite back a gasp.

“You do not know me.”

The seconds tick by. His eyes burn hotly into me like twin green flames. The ringing in my ear gets louder and louder. But then, so does the thumping of my heart. So does the tingling feeling in my skin as my body remembers the ways he made me gasp last night.

Finally, after what’s either thirty seconds or four days, I blink.

“Fine,” I mumble out, blushing as I look away.

But I’m not blushing in shame, or anger that he’s blackmailing me. I’m blushing because the idea of… giving in, I supposed, of doing what Ilya wants is as thrilling and filthy hot as it is demeaning and enraging.

“Then do what you will, Ilya.”

I try to keep the excitement out of my voice. It’s unclear how well I do with that.

I’m still looking at my hands twisting on the library table in front of me when I hear him sigh slowly. My eyes snap up to see a hint of a triumphant grin in the corners of his perfect mouth.

“Oh, Red,” he growls with a low tone and a thin smile. “It won’t be now.”

I look back up at him sharply.

“But when I do want?” His eyes drag over me, making me tremble. “You’ll do as I say. And spare us both the bullshit of you asking ‘or what’ now, okay?”

I can’t even respond. All I can do is swallow the thickness in my throat, ignore the tingle teasing over my skin, and pretend the wet heat pooling between my thighs is from something else.

“Oh, and you left this the other day.”

Right there in the library, Ilya drops two things on the table in front of me—two black, lacy, incredibly sexy things: the matching Aleksandra Josef bra and panties.

My face scorches with heat as I gasp and quickly shove them towards him.

“Ilya!” I hiss. I shake as I pull my hands away. “I don’t want—”

“They were a gift.”

I gasp as he suddenly leans down to let his lips brush my ear.

“Keep them,” he hisses, right into my fucking soul. “And be wearing them the next time we meet.”

My eyes close. My body clenches and churns deep inside as I replay last night once again.

“And next time, Red,” he growls, pulling back and standing. “You will do as I say, when I say it, or else.”

He turns to walk away.

“Why the hell would I do—”

I gasp as I feel him storm up behind me, and I almost moan when his lips brush against my ear.

“Because you like when I tell you what to do.”

My eyes close. My thighs squeeze together as feel my head swim. Slowly, I turn, my eyes opening.

“Ilya—”

But he’s gone, leaving me twisted up, trembling, and unsure if I want to chase after him or run very, very far away.