Maelstrom

Chapter 31: Schoolgirl Passes a Test

Wednesday night

"Hey, Lex. Ivan wants to see you."

I hadn't even gotten my coat off when Stefano popped his head into the break room.

"What ... now?"

"Yeah, now."

I hung my coat up and slipped off my backpack. "Do you know what it's about?" I prayed that Ivan's interest in me wasn't going to become common knowledge amongst the Asylum staff.

"No clue, but I'd show a little hustle. I don't think he's the kind of guy that likes to be kept waiting."

I swore softly under my breath. I guessed it had been too much to hope that Ivan wouldn't be here tonight, or that he'd be content to return to lurking up in his balcony, shooting searing looks in my direction from time to time. Not that I really wanted to go back to the way things were, I just ... didn't know what I wanted, and I hadn't figured out anything to tell him about the way I'd left him yesterday. The best excuse I'd come up with was that I'd been late for my annual gynecologist's appointment but had been too embarrassed to give him specifics.

I sighed and headed to Ivan's office.

"Come in," he answered immediately when I knocked. I opened the door a crack and stuck my head in.

"You wanted to see me?"

Ivan looked up from his computer and looked quizzically at my disembodied head sticking through his doorway. "Yes," he responded, "That's why I sent for you and said 'come in' when you knocked. So please, come in and shut the door."

I did, but stood awkwardly just a few feet inside the office, right where, I realized, a bloodstain from Morales's head would be if Ivan hadn't put the unfortunate cushion under his unconscious head before firing that gun.

Ivan stood and walked around to lean against the front of his desk. He was dressed in a white button-down shirt, open at the throat, and a charcoal gray suit vest and trousers. I had been around men in suits my entire life and never found the look particularly attractive, but somehow on him ... well, after seeing him in casual clothes yesterday, I had to conclude that he just made everything look positively yummy.

He crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a hard look. "You didn't have any plans last night. You went straight home from the Met and stayed there all night."

My eyes widened in shock. "You're still having me followed?" I demanded, incredulous.

"No, I was just guessing. Correctly, it would seem."

I felt my cheeks getting hot, saw Ivan smile at my blush, and got even warmer. He pushed off the desk and walked to me, standing very, very close.

"You have to stop running from me," he rumbled, "or I might start to think you don't like me."

I couldn't breathe with him this close. I wrenched my eyes away from his and stared at the hollow of his throat, at the smooth line of his clavicle where it curved under the edge of his shirt. I fought the urge to trace that graceful ridge with my fingers, sliding under that starched cotton and ... Damn it! There really was no safe place on him to look.

He moved back a fraction of a step to get a better look at me and, with a wicked smile, began walking around me for a full 360° view.

"You know," he purred softly. "I never really understood the appeal of the whole 'naughty schoolgirl' thing, but seeing you like this, I think I'm beginning to get it."

He moved around my right shoulder, taking it all in, from the black patent-leather, high-heeled Mary Janes and white lace-edged short socks, all the way up my bare, toned, model-length legs to the pleated plaid miniskirt, past my bared midriff to the unbuttoned white shirt tied between my breasts, and all the way to the beribboned pigtails on my head.

He laid a single finger on my bare waist, just above my skirt. I twitched in surprise and excitement as I felt the rest of my body react. Slowly, he traced the line of my skin along the waistband as he circled around behind me. I could feel his smile even if I couldn't see it, then gasped as he slipped his finger under the waistband and continued to circumnavigate me, the touch somehow even more intimate for being just inside my clothes. I found myself bending my left arm at the elbow so he could continue his path around my side to my taut belly, and felt my nipples harden as he dipped his finger a bit deeper, the tip just brushing the top edge of my panties.

He stood in front of me again and recaptured my eyes just before he pulled me against him, using just that finger.

"Don't run from me, Lex."

His eyes, just inches from my own, were so intense I felt pinned. But as much as I wanted to promise him, to assure him that I would never, could never, really run from him, I said nothing.

He noted my silence and his lips twitched in what might have been the start of a smile. He turned from me and went back to his favorite perch on the edge of the desk.

"Yesterday at the gym, before you ran from me the first time," he reminded me, "I had said that I wanted to talk. As it happened, we never actually got around to what I wanted to talk to you about."

True, I realized. It had sounded so ominous when he'd said it, standing outside the locker room with a half a dozen people watching us – I'd felt so threatened that I'd tried to ditch him by taking the back door – but after climbing onto the bike with him, I hadn't given it a second thought. In retrospect, it was obvious that he hadn't set out to discuss the name of my first stuffed animal or the worst grade I'd ever received in college.

Ivan gestured for me to have a seat, but I shook my head. Being on the same level with him made me feel stronger, an illusion I definitely needed right now. He shrugged, unbothered by my tiny defiance.

"I had you followed, as I mentioned, because I didn't know if I could trust you," he began. "It was, after all, a pretty big secret, the kind of secret that would almost demand to be revealed to, say, the police, or perhaps a trusted friend or family member, at the very least."

But he obviously knew I hadn't done that. After all, I was still breathing. Which meant ... "You bugged my apartment, too?"

He demurred. "Not me personally, of course. I have people who do these sort of things, and they assured me that you didn't breath a word of it to anyone." He reached around and picked up a small device on his desk and handed it to me. "This will let you find them. I'm sure you'd tear the apartment down to the studs looking for the bugs without it. But I'm going to need it back."

I took the sweeper coolly. "So you've had me followed, watched my every move and listened to my every word without my knowledge, and now you know for sure that I'm not a snitch," I said succinctly. "Hurray for me. I guess I get to keep my head attached to my neck. Anything else you wanted to talk to me about or can I go prep my station?"

Ivan smiled infuriatingly. "Don't get prickly," he admonished me. "I'm telling you that I know you can be trusted, and I need someone that I can trust."

"Besides Mateo and Marsh?" I guessed.

He nodded.

"And you think that person is me?" I asked.

"Could be," he admitted. "At least, I'm willing to find out."