Chapter 19 Kisses And...
LISA
No fucking way!
No fucking way!
I couldn't possibly get paired with Axel for a six weeks assignment.
I hated him, thoroughly, I also completely disliked his guts and I was also madly attracted to him.
So spending the next six weeks with him, working with him privately, was bound to be a disaster so immediately after the class was over, I ran to meet the rep and the lecturer and ask if I could get a change of partner but it was a no-no.
A dead end.
So I trailed back to the class with defeat written all over me.
Nineteen: Kisses And...
I marched up to him.
"So what now? Has the almighty Lisa Volkov kicked me out of her group?"
I rolled my eyes to the back of my skull.
"Don't be a child, Axel," I said as I stopped in front of him, "it's unbecoming."
"I'm the one acting like a child but you're the one who runs up to the lecturer to change her partner, how ironic?"
I rolled my eyes again.
"We both know we'd rather eat shit than work with each other?"
"Speak for yourself, who knows if I'm genuinely interested in working with you?"
I scoffed. Loudly.
"Anyway, it turned out that we can't have a change of partners, and to save ourselves from creating an opportunity to murder each other, I'd do the work alone and you don't have to worry, I'll give you all the credits you deserve."
"No," he replied stiffly and stubbornly. "we're partners and we'll do it together."
"Come on, Axel, we both know we can't work with each other without one person wanting to kill the other person, I'm just choosing the easy way out."
"No," he replied, his tone even more stiff and sharp and his eyes boring into mine, "you're choosing the coward's way out."
I refuse to back away from the stare-down.
"Easy way out? Coward's way out? I don't give a damn. All I care about is that I'm not doing this with you and there's no damn thing you can do about it."
I stomped away, giving no room for a retort but still, I half expected Axel to yank me back and stuff his words into my head but nothing came, and to say I was surprised would be an understatement.
I turned slightly to see if he was following me but he wasn't and I frowned before it dawned on me that he probably got tired and that he probably saw sense in what I was saying.
Doing the project together was going to be a totally stupid move on our part. It was going to take a lot of our time and spending those time together, reading research papers and going through all those analyses, something was bound to happen between us.
And that thing wasn't about us wanting to slit each other's throats.
I walked further away from the class areas to one of the most deserted parts of campus. It was initially called lovers arena with open fields for picnics, a mini alleyway for you know, romping and well, it was one of the ways to the female hostel.
I was still skeptical about the fact that Axel had let me go just like that. He wasn't the one to do that and it made me think that he might be following me, that he wanted me to be alone somewhere this deserted before striking.
But he wasn't following me.
There was no way he'd have followed me all the way from the lecture hall to this place and I wouldn't have felt it. Even if he had walked in the other direction, I still would have felt it.
But he was Axel Ivanov and everybody in the underworld knows that he moves like the air.
I stopped then, to look around but there was nothing out of place, no sound except air and animals.
No one was following me.
Axel finally decided to have some sense.
I turned back and stepped into a very dark alleyway.
A crazy force slammed me with so much intensity against the wall that the bracing I was able to do within less than a second could only prevent me from feeling so much pain from the force.
I groaned and looked up to the dark and lethal eyes of Axel Ivanov.
He had me caged to the wall with his hands braced on either side of my head and I could feel a malice so strong coming out of his body.
I wasn't even in the mood to entertain you.
"Get off me, Axel, I'm in no mood to entertain you."
"I didn't come here to get entertained by you, Blondy."
I cringed at his stupid nickname for me and I pressed my two palms against his chest to push him off but he wouldn't budge. My attempts, despite being my best ones, felt feeble against this mass of man. I dropped my hands, knowing fully well that if he doesn't get off me soon, I'm going to have to knee him where it hurts the most.
He moved impossibly close to me and even though I was annoyed and he seemed too annoyed with me too, I couldn't deny how hot our new position was, how the heat from his body was warming me up, igniting a fire in my lower abdomen. I was aware of the pressure digging into my hip and I was using a great deal of effort to keep my breathing under control, to keep my heart from bursting out of its ribcage.
And I was also using all of my willpower and restraint not to give in to the urge to touch him.
I was doomed because in this fucked up position that we were in, I was soaked completely.
Axel had managed to get me so turned on without even touching me and if he should brush the tip of his finger over my skin.
I was going to combust.
"Get lost," I managed to grit out with a fucking false bravado that I was sure he could see through.
"Really?" he grinned, "your body isn't quite telling me you want me to do that."
I raised my knee on impulse but I couldn't even get it up before he clamped his thighs around my legs, locking them in place and rendering me immobile. I could squirm and writhe all I want but I wasn't a match for his strength and besides, squirming and writhing would make me rub my body against his and that'd...
It'd be all shades of bad, and terrible.
I couldn't afford to get more turned on than I already was.
"What do you want?" I asked tiredly, making sure to inject a very bored tone into my voice.
"For a skilled assassin like you," he started, his words ghosting over my lips, "you've got such a shitty skill to figure out someone was tailing you."
"I don't assume you followed me all the way here to talk about my skills," I replied in a tired and dismissive tone but Axel wasn't taking the bait.
"I wonder how people allow themselves to get killed by you, you don't even..."
I saw red!
Pure and absolute red.
If there was one thing I couldn't take, it was people belittling my skills and telling me trash about them, least of all Axel fucking Ivanov, some of the motherfucking enemy.
I pushed wildly at his chest but the mass didn't even budge so I started trashing wildly.
"That's one thing I won't take from you, okay? We can exchange words and trade insults and all but I'd never sit back and listen to you belittle my skills. You don't know shit about how hard I've had to train, the kind of pain I've had to withstand just to be the best I am so if you don't have anything..."
Rough hard lips crushed me and I became rooted to the spot in shock and disbelief.
Axel Ivanov was kissing me.