Garrett
Jenna pulled back from my grip on her arm as we reached the stairs. “Let go of me,” she snapped. “I can walk on my own, thank you.”
I raised my eyebrows. She was a feisty one. It just made me want her more. I wasn’t sure if she was old lady material, but she was definitely worth a go.
“Alright,” I said, letting go of her arm and stepping aside. “Ladies first.” I held my arm out, indicating I expected her to take the stairs in front of me.
She walked in front of me meekly, hurrying to get past me. I smiled to myself. I figured she probably thought I was going to try to hurt her after what she saw in the interrogation room with Dima. As long as she played by the rules, she didn’t have anything to worry about, short of teasing me too much by swaying that pretty little ass of hers as she climbed the stairs in front of me.
Once we were back in the shop, I led her into the office so we could go upstairs to the clubhouse. We renovated the second floor of the building, taking out all of the offices and opening it up from one end to the other, creating what was essentially one large lounge. We had pool tables, dart boards, weight benches, a large flat screen TV mounted to the brick wall with a few couches in front of it, and a fully functional kitchen with a stocked bar. Sure enough, when we walked through the door to the clubhouse, we found where everyone was hiding out.
“How big is your operation?” Jenna asked when we walked in.
“You don’t need to know all that,” I told her. “You just need to know what you’re here to do. The less you know, the less you learn, the easier it’s going to be for you to return to your quiet academic life when all of this is over.”
I led her to one of the round tables at the bar and pulled a chair out for her. “I’ll be right back. Is beer okay?”
“Wine?”
I looked her up and down again. I pictured her as a red wine kind of girl. It was probably her guilty pleasure, like the things she did to herself at night when no one else was around. “Wine it is,” I told her, turning to the bar to grab our drinks.
I handed her a glass of red wine and sat down with a pint of Guinness.
“So, what did you learn?” I asked.
She took a sip of her wine and closed her eyes. I knew that look. That glass of wine was exactly what she needed after talking to Dima. “He’s not going to talk with you in the room,” she answered. “I don’t know if he’s intimidated or what, but he insists on talking without you. He’s convinced you’re going to kill him.”
“I am if he doesn’t start talking,” I teased her, but she didn’t seem to find it funny. She tensed up on me. “I’m kidding. He has too much information I need. If I could get it another way, he wouldn’t even be here.” What I failed to tell her is that we would have killed him instead of bringing him in. It seemed important to her for this just to be a simple procedure and not part of something bigger and uglier than I was letting on.
“And what is this about staying until I get something out of him?” she snapped after another sip of wine.
“You agreed. You came along.” I took a long drink from my beer.
She shook her head. “I didn’t realize I was getting into this at the time,” she said.
“Well, once you get him to talk, you can go back to your quiet, boring life a little wealthier and forget any of this even happened.”
“I don’t know about being able to forget,” she said as an afterthought.
“It’s easy to do. You just push it back and out of your mind, until one day, something comes up to remind you, and you realize you’d forgotten all about it.” I gave her my best warm smile.
She just shook her head. “Well, I guess if I’m going to be working on him for a while, I need to go ahead and meet with him alone. I might be able to get something out of him if I approach him alone.”
“Just don’t get any ideas,” I warned her.
“What do you mean?”
I looked at her over my glass as I took another long drink, finishing off the dark beer and relishing the deep flavor of it. “Just, before you go in there alone, you have to agree to tell me everything he says to you. I don’t think you understand what all is at stake here. In fact, for your sake, I hope you don’t.”
She set her glass down on the table and sat back in her chair, uncrossing her legs slowly—or maybe that was my imagination slowing time down to let me stare at her delicious skin in an attempt to see what was hidden up her skirt—and re-crossing them, switching which knee was on top. “I’m starting to get an idea of what’s going on here, and I don’t like it.” She leveled her eyes on me, forcing me to look up from her legs.
“Well, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but all you need to know is that I need you to get information from Dima. I need to know where his boss, Igor, is and what his next move is. You don’t need to know why. You just need to get that information for me if you want to go home,” I told her plainly.
“Oh, so now you’re going to hold me against my will? Just like you’re doing to poor Dima down there?” She tapped her fingers impatiently on the table.
“No one is being held against their will,” I told her. “I’m just not letting anyone leave.”
“How the hell is that any different? And besides, I saw the straps and ropes on Dima’s arms and legs holding him to that chair downstairs. You’re holding him here, and now you’re not just telling me to stay, you’re telling me you’re not going to let me leave.”
“Right. And the restraints on Dima are for his own good. I don’t want him roaming around in that room down there. It’s dark. It would be a shame if anything happened to him,” I responded.
She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m involved in something like this.”
“I know it’s got to be quite different from what you’re used to. You’re used to the quiet academic lifestyle, aren’t you?” I tried to sound reassuring. I figured I’d try to distract her by getting her to talk about herself, and that way I’d learn a little bit about who she was as well.
She narrowed her eyes at me, suspicion all over her beautiful face.
“What made you so interested in Russia to begin with?” I asked her, not backing down. I was determined to break through her walls.
“I think we need to focus on the matter at hand,” she said, dodging my question.
“Help me out, then. Tell me a little about who you are.” I looked at my empty pint glass and thought about getting Ricardo to pour me another.
“I think the less you know, the easier it will be for you to let me go back to my quiet academic life when all of this is over,” she fired back, using my words against me.
“Ouch. You know, I didn’t have you pegged for being a smart-ass,” I told her.
“Oh? Did you think I was this sheltered little nerd because I have obviously devoted my life to scholarly pursuits?”
I had her. “Well, yeah,” I admitted. “I expected a quiet, naïve woman I could easily trick into doing whatever I wanted, but that’s obviously not you.”
“No, it’s not. And thank you for noticing,” she said.
I fought back the grin trying to spread across my face. It would have given me away. “I couldn’t help but notice. You made it very clear you’re not completely clueless like so many other professors and researchers.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time out in the field,” she said. “You gain a lot of worldly experience that way. It gets you out of your head and out of your books.”
I’d obviously struck a chord with her. She wasn’t above flattery, and I was going to use that fact to get what I needed from her.
She finished her wine and stood up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked, trying to sound like I was teasing. My deep, husky voice had a tendency to always sound menacing. I wanted her to realize when I was being playful. It didn’t help that I was a little suspicious that she was going to try to leave again.
“I figure I need to go ahead and sit back down with Dima for you,” she said, stretching. “The sooner I get some answers from him, the sooner I get to leave, right?”
“Sure.” I didn’t want her to leave. I wanted to keep her around so I could figure out what made her tick. Plus, I didn’t trust how willing she was to help me. Something didn’t seem right, like she was playing along just to find a way out. “Let me walk you back down there,” I told her.
“No, I’m fine,” she insisted, starting to walk away from me.
I got up from the table and followed her, cornering her at the top of the stairs. I grabbed her by her hips and pushed her against the wall, positioning myself between her and the staircase. I could feel the curve of her hips under my hands. I stood close, almost touching her.
I could feel her anxiety growing like vibrations emanating from her body. I heard her breath quicken. She was scared and nervous, and her fear was delicious. I leaned in to whisper in her ear, and she pulled her hands up to block me from getting too close.
I smiled at her feeble gesture. “I’ve got the key,” I reminded her. “You’re not getting in that room without me.”
She laughed nervously. “Right. I forgot.”
I couldn’t explain the hold she had on me, but every time we were close to each other, I felt my desire for her growing. She didn’t fit the description of the hellraising women I normally went after—the free-spirited women who wore their sexuality on their sleeve, usually inked up with dark eyeliner, in blue jeans and leather. Jenna wasn’t any of that. She was a good girl, but there was something under the surface that my primal senses picked up, something that wanted to be set free.
Normally, pushing someone against the wall and holding them there was simply an effective way to intimidate someone. Instead, I was just torturing myself by putting this prim and proper college professor in a compromising position, giving myself the perfect opportunity to take advantage of her.
“You weren’t thinking of trying to get away, were you?” I asked.
She winced at my words and pushed against me with her petite hands. I grabbed her thin wrists and pinned them against the wall, fighting myself back, resisting the urge to plant myself against her and let her feel the desire growing between my legs for her.
“You’re not leaving until I say so,” I said forcefully. “Get used to that idea.” I let go of her, backing away, not because I was finished with her but because if I’d stayed like that, I would have taken advantage of her.
I watched her hurry away from me, heading downstairs. The ache in my crotch convinced me I had to have her, but I was going to do it right. I wasn’t going to just take it; she wasn’t the kind of woman who seemed receptive to that sort of aggression. If I wanted her, I was going to have to seduce her and make her want me.
I followed her downstairs.