Chapter 14 Coincidences
LISA
Was fate playing some sort of tricks on me because what's this?
Like, why do things like this keep happening?
We've been attending this school for three years and fine, Axel doesn't know about my existence and I was the only one that knows but despite that, I could count the number of times I've run into him on one hand. Granted, he was the most popular face in school but I could avoid seeing him as long as I avoided going to places where he always frequented, the popular joints in school.
But now, Axel suddenly gets to know of my existence and we keep running into each other every minute. We coincidentally attended the same class, ran into each other at parties, ran into each other at libraries and cafeterias, and now, he was here again in the last place I expected to see him.
I bit down on my lower lip, annoyance thrumming in my guts. I didn't want to deal with Axel any more than it was impossible. I didn't want to keep seeing him because being in his presence was not only suffocating but also stifling and also because I didn't want to spend more time with him and risk the stupid tiny attraction I was starting to feel growing into something else.
But Axel was here again. He was here in this program and he was already... He was dressed in that overall that suggested that she was a volunteer just like me and I couldn't be more bothered. Maybe I should just take the coward's way out and leave before the former process starts.
"Miss Ivanov, good timing," Nancy, one of the coordinator's voice interrupted my thought and I whirled around with a smile on my face, "the bus just got here and we were just starting to file in, do join
them."
"Yeah, sure." I flicked my head towards the bus to see that volunteers and coordinators were starting to file in and I briefly glanced at where Axel was standing. Sure enough, he was looking at me, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
My lips thinned as my annoyance surged and I knew this was going to be one hell of a volunteering job.
"Do you think the animals know just how lethal the hands that are caring for them are?"
I muttered profanities under my breath and I ignored him. We'd spent the whole day at the animal shelter without running into each other and I'd been banking on the luck that we'd end the day without talking to each other but now, it was late evening, the job was almost over and I was one of the last volunteers that was still washing the kittens while others were done and lounging around.
And Axel has chosen that time to creep up behind me.
"Or do you think they'd be happy to know the kind of hands that's giving them a bath?"
"Will you get lost, Ivanov?" I snapped at him, "I have a freaking job to do."
"And I'm here to provide helping hands," he shrugged casually and tilted his head to the few volunteers that were still washing and I saw that other volunteers had come to join them to assist them."
"I'm doing just fine," I snapped at him, "I don't like your help so get lost."
"That won't look so good of me if I should walk away, don't you think? It won't make me look like that much of a gentleman."
"Except you're not that much of a gentleman, are you? What's with volunteering at an animal shelter though? Are you trying to atone for the blood you spill every day or is this part of the excessive cover you Ivanov's stamp on to conceal your real identities?"
He hissed in annoyance and even though I could only see his face through the corner of his eyes, I could see the shimmering hatred and fury in them. He stepped a bit closer to me and I gulped, my hand stilling on the foam washing the kitten for a while at the sudden close proximity.
"Funny how you like to talk so much about Ivanovs being cowards under masks to live fake lives and you're doing even worse, why are you caring for a kitten when your hands are trained to take lives, or is it because you don't want people to find out what you really are beneath this disguise of baggies and glasses, you don't want them to find out that your hands have taken more lives than you can
Never count."
"Jesus!" I looked around to see if anyone heard that and hissed and turned swiftly to glare at him, to tell him to fuck off but I couldn't because the movement turned out to be a fucking mistake. The movement made my body press against him, completely, to completely annihilate the distance between us and my throat dried up at the proximity. I kept my eyes trained on his chest with my
hand pressed to his lower rib and I could feel the muscles flexing beneath my palm.
My blood started surging faster and faster and faster and I dared a glance at him.
God! The vividness and the intensity of raw unadulterated lust in his eyes made me blanch, made me cower back.
I hate him.
I hate him.
I completely and thoroughly hated his guts and this attraction was treacherous on all levels. I've gone the whole of three years not even feeling the tiny winy spark of attraction towards anybody from
the opposite gender but all of a sudden, my body was reacting to Axel Ivanov.
Axel Ivanov of all the males in the city.
Just to mess with my brain and slip past my defenses.
And I'd be damned if I let him do that.
"Get lost, Axel, and try not to show your face in front of me again."
His reply was a humored chuckle before he stepped even closer, with his eyes trained on me and he tilted his head and bend till his face was hovering around mine, till I could feel his warm breath on my face and my throat dried up even more, every single organ coming alive in my body.
He dipped his head till his lips were just hovering around mine and then he flickered his eyes upward to look me straight in the eyes at the same time a hand touched mine in the bowl and he took the
kitten from me.
He straightened up.
"She's clean enough, I'll just dry her up."
Bastard! My insides screeched.
I ended up sitting directly opposite Axel and I was acutely aware of his presence, of every single movement he was making with his, of the way he throws his head back and laughs at jokes, the way
he shakes his martini glass slightly before taking a sip, how his tongue briefly darts out to swipe over his lower lip.
And I was feeling all hot and bothered and not too fine over and over again.
I briefly remembered what happened at the shelter house, how he had flicked his head down, made his lips hover over mine, and flicked his eyes up so he could stare at me, so he could look into my
eyes and see what his proximity was doing to my nerves.
He knows.
He knew I was feeling a bout of attraction and he was acting on it, trying to drive me over the edge, trying to make me crazy, to see exactly what he was doing to me.
But Axel Ivanov really doesn't know who he was fucking with. I've never been the one to be ruled by body desires and if I could have survived three years without any physical intimacy, then I wasn't
going to start going crazy for any man, least of all Axel. He should know this better than anyone, if he was up to some sick games, then I was going to meet him halfway.
Damn the Ivanovs and their stupid sense of entitlement to unfair and cowardly games. I just wished he'd be upfront about anything he's up to really.
"Why don't we play a game?" one of the girls purred after we've been drinking for a while after they've been drinking for a while because I'd barely even touched my drink.
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, I need to twitch up things a little."
"Yeah," the girl replied, "so true or dare?" she asked, glancing around and the table agreed unanimously. Well, except me.
"Can you guys leave me out? I'll just..."