Vikram (Barbarian Bodyguards Book 1) Page 7

  Even now, as he watched Cassie lean toward a delegate and giggle, batting her eyelashes in an over-the-top manner, it made his blood boil.

  He couldn’t trick himself into thinking it was just because she was selling herself short out there. He couldn’t touch her—couldn’t lay a finger on her without risking his job—and they flirted and touched her as though it was nothing. Those old men who thought it was okay to torture people were putting their hands all over her and she was responding and it was driving him insane.

  Every now and then she’d take a quick glance around the room to check he was still in the same place, and offer him a quick smile when their eyes met. It wasn’t anything like the seductive grins she was giving the politicians in the room.

  It was when one tucked a strand of hair behind her ear like he’d been dying to the night before that he felt the beginnings of a rage coming on.

  He had to get out of there.

  He had to stop before he lost control.

  He pushed away from the wall and stalked out of the conference hall, pulling his phone out of his pocket and pretending to take a call so that he couldn’t be accused of being too unprofessional. It took everything in him to force his muscles to comply with the order to leave her in there alone. His instincts were taking over, and if he let himself keep watching her, he’d end up hurting someone. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in a cell for killing a high-ranking politician.

  Outside the press had dispersed, and he could slip through a side door and follow a corridor he knew went outside without being hounded. He might not have been to the morgue before, but he’d been to the IU’s main space station multiple times, and he at least knew his way around the basic HQ.

  Outside the air was stuffy, but he leaned against the cold brick of the building and shut his eyes. The space station had an artificial atmosphere, but with this many people it wasn’t kept cool enough. It was rare when people went outside, anyway. Almost all of the space station was crowded with buildings.

  He longed for the cool, fresh air of Suytov. He hadn’t felt a real breeze in months.

  This was enough to calm him down, though. He had relative quiet and no obnoxious voices in his ear. It was just him, and Ballar’s voice telling him to stop being a fucking idiot and learn some control.

  He’d always thought that keeping him back for extra training had been unfair, that Ballar was being unduly critical of him, but now he realized he wasn’t ready at all. For easy jobs, absolutely. All his jobs up until this part had been easy. Nothing had challenged him.

  Cassie was the first challenge he’d ever received and it was tearing him apart. He was in two minds about everything, and switching from one to the other was probably making her think he was unstable. Maybe he was.

  The door beside him eased open, and he stood straight, trying to school his expression.

  It was Cassie.

  She had wide eyes as she peered around the door, but she relaxed when she saw him. “You left,” she accused.

  “You shouldn’t have followed. You’d have been safe in the ballroom, the lobby’s dangerous.” He couldn’t look at her without seeing their hands on her. “Come on. Let’s go back.”

  She stood in his way, folding her arms. “Why did you leave? I thought… I thought you were going to stay with me the entire time.” There was doubt in her voice. She’d been playing the subservient card to the politicians all night, but this was the first real vulnerability he’d heard in her voice.

  He ran a hand over his face. “I couldn’t watch them treat you like that any longer. I couldn’t watch you let them treat you like that any longer.” And then the dam burst and everything flowed out. His hands made large gestures as he rambled. “You giggle at their jokes as if they’re not treating you like some piece of furniture only there to look pretty. You kept talking about how hard you worked to get here and how you wanted to make your boss proud but you’re letting them touch you like all you want are their dicks.”

  Her eyes widened, but instead of taking a step backward she took one forward. “Calm down,” she murmured, hesitating before wrapping her hands around his forearms. “It’s all an act.”

  “Is it? Is it an act when they feel your ass and you just laugh about it?”

  Her thumbs rubbed circles into his arm and it had the opposite effect of calming him down like she intended. He could feel himself getting riled up again. He wanted to hit something. He desperately wanted to punch the solid brick wall behind him.

  “It’s an act,” she insisted. “They’re never going to take me seriously as a diplomat. I’m a woman barely out of my twenties who has no real experience.”

  “That doesn’t mean you have to do what you’re doing in there. There’s a line.” They were so close his chest almost touched her with how harshly he was breathing. “I hate watching them touch you.”

  She took her hands from his arm and he felt the loss immediately. It only made his rage rise closer to the surface. His skin was beginning to glow, he could feel it. His impulse control was lessening. He had to get away from her. “Go back to the hall,” he insisted. “I’ll come back, I just need a minute. I just need to get myself under control.”

  “Why does it bother you so much?” She took a step closer, taking one of his hands in both of hers and examining his darkening skin.

  He snatched his hand back, clenched it into a fist, and then wrapped it around her waist, dragging her completely against his chest. Her eyes widened but he didn’t care anymore. He couldn’t deny himself. He crushed his lips against hers, fingers digging into her back as his body was set on fire. Her lips were soft, but pliant, and she opened her mouth for him immediately.

  Her eagerness made him groan, and he gave in to it all. He pushed her back against the stone, feeling every inch of her curves against him, hard cock pushing into her stomach without shame.

  He wanted her. He wanted all of her right here and now against the HQ of the IU.

  Her hands were in his hair, pulling hard enough to hurt just a little, and he hooked a hand around her bare knee to hook her leg around his thigh, making her dress ride up and giving him access to her panties. His hips thrust hard against her, and she broke the kiss to lean her head back and moan. It was a throaty sound that send a bolt of heat to his cock. He needed her, now.

  Her face was so unrestrained he couldn’t get enough. Her eyes screwed shut and her mouth parted in a silent scream as he thrust again. He wanted to commit the sight to memory so he could relive it again and again.

  His hand traveled between her legs to her panties, which stuck to her sex. He ran a finger along the outside and she jerked when he rubbed over her clit.

  The jerk had her opening her eyes and going from pulling him closer to pushing him off, though. “Shit,” she swore, jerking backwards but only meeting hard stone. “Shit. Shit. Get off me.” She looked around wildly, staring into every window. “Oh God, someone could have seen that. What are we doing? In the bedroom next time, please. Fuck.”

  Vikram turned his back on her, pressing his hands to his face.

  Next time.

  As if he’d be stupid enough to let this happen again.

  If someone had seen, he would be fired. He’d dedicated his entire life to working for Suytov. His parents had been so proud when he’d fully qualified. He was really risking throwing all that away because his charge happened to be cute?

  He was an idiot.

  “I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened. I don’t know why I did that.”

  She leaned back against the wall, body slumped. “Well, it’s not like I did anything to stop you.” She smoothed down her dress. “I have to get back in there, before someone notices I’m missing.”

  He nodded, determined that this time he was going to get a hold of himself. He was acting like a teenager, and it was ridiculous.

  Her cheeks were still stained red when she tried to flatten her hair, and he just wanted to hoist her over his shoulder and
carry her back to his room, give her an excuse to say fuck the conference, and come to bed with him.

  That he’d had her beside him all of last night and not made a move, and chosen to do it in the middle of IU HQ instead, filled him with a rush of self-loathing. Last night, there would have been no reason to stop if he didn’t want to. He could have pulled her close, stripped her naked, and run his hands over every inch of her soft skin.

  He shook his head, too, and pushed those thoughts away. He was supposed to be a master of control, and he summoned all the lessons Ballar had taught him. He focused on his mentor, on his teachings, and didn’t allow his thoughts to wander.

  “Let’s go,” Cassie said, voice still shaky.

  When she turned around, he landed a hand on her shoulder, completely out of his control. He took the zip on the back of her dress and pulled it up, knuckle dragging against her back. It had come just a little bit undone when he’d been pushing her against the brick just minutes ago.

  “Okay,” he said, voice gruff. “Now let’s go.”

  11.

  CASSIE

  Cassie and Vikram walked back through the lobby and into the ballroom as though nothing was wrong. He took up his post on the back wall with the rest of the bodyguards, and she went back to schmoozing with the politicians.

  She knew nothing looked different about her, but she felt like everyone knew. Like everyone was secretly laughing behind her back.

  She’d just snuck out and almost fucked her bodyguard against the side of the most famous buildings in the world.

  Her heart pounded as she zoned out of whatever the Lasil delegate was saying to her, memory overrun with everything she’d just felt. She should have pushed it away, but she was terrified that if she kept doing that then she’d forget. She wanted this to stay with her forever.

  Because she knew it wasn’t going to happen again. Vikram had lost control and he looked like he was beating himself up about it pretty bad.

  This hadn’t even been her intentionally needling at his boundaries. This had been all him, just watching her.

  It was a thrill and a knock at the same time.

  He was jealous, but he was never going to act on it again.

  She was tempted to let the feel of his gaze on her back stop her acting the same way she had before he’d stormed out, but Archie had taught her well, and she wasn’t going to deviate from what she knew.

  After lunch, she allowed several politicians to dance with her, even though their hands fell a bit too low on her waist and they made insinuations about her coming up to their room for a drink which she declined with ignorance, as though she was too innocent to realize what they were suggesting.

  And then it was over.

  It got to the point where it was polite to leave and she could finally slink away and return to her room.

  Vikram was visibly tense beside her all the way up to their room, and she was irrationally disappointed when she opened the door to find two beds instead of one in the room.

  She collapsed on the one closest to her and groaned as the soft mattress swallowed her up. “Thank God that’s over.” She wasn’t going to make it awkward by bringing up what had happened. She already knew what he thought about it.

  Vikram grunted, walking around the room and doing his usual inspection of everything, taking up his post at the window and watching the lobby below. He bared his teeth at one point, and she wondered which politician had just walked through.

  “Did you want to help?” she asked. “You could transcribe for me.”

  “Isn’t that what your computer, or your phone, is for?”

  “You look like you need the distraction of doing some handwriting. That’s why I keep pen and paper. It’s nice to just focus on the writing sometimes.”

  He hesitated, but sighed. “Fine.”

  She rummaged in her bag and handed him the pen and paper. He took a seat at the table rather than on the bed beside hers.

  “Bullet point one. The Lasils intend to make their argument purely about the need to bring justice, and that it should be brought by any means necessary. Including torture. They are going to use the Maat crisis as an example. Bullet point two. The Carifs are going to rely completely on a non-interventionist argument. They’re not even going to touch the torture issue. It’s all going to be about the limits the IU should have on their power.”

  Vikram turned in his chair to frown at her. “How did you find all this out? People don’t go telling the opposition their arguments.”

  “They do when they think you’re a pathetic young girl trying to fit into the big boys’ world. You bat your eyelashes and tell them you’re just so worried about your opening speech and they give you a little hint about what they’re going to say so you can build off that. You hang onto someone’s arm while they’re talking to someone on their own side, and for a moment they forget you’re even there. You say that you really respect Archie as a person, but sometimes you wondered if he was a bit too hard line, and they try and sway you round, and of course they use the same arguments they’re intending to use in the conference.”

  “It should make me feel better about having spent hours watching you be leered at by old men, but it really doesn’t.”

  Her lip quirked. “It’s just an act,” she said, repeating the same sentiment as earlier. “And now it’s over. The conference is starting, so I’m not going to trick anyone anymore, now I have to be Archie. Be a good debater.”

  “You’re going to be great.”

  “Thank you.”

  He turned back to the sheet. “Okay. Go on.”

  They spent a while talking about the information she’d found as he wrote it down, him at the table and her curled in her bed.

  It was a sight she could get used to, Vikram in her living quarters. Going about their business as if they’d lived together for years.

  When her eyes began to droop and her answers to his questions got shorter and shorter, he put the pen down. “You should get some rest. It’ll be a long day tomorrow.”

  She nodded, tucking herself up to the chin with the comforter and laying so she was facing his bed. “You’re right. Today has been… draining.”

  His lip quirked, and he opened her mouth then closed it again twice before saying anything. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

  “I know you’re not going to do it again, but I don’t want you to be sorry.”

  “I’d understand if you want to hire someone else.”

  “I don’t.”

  He looked like he struggled to believe it, but nodded. “Okay.”

  It was on her lips to tell him that she was upset it hadn’t gone further, that she wanted him to climb into bed with her now and carry on where they’d left off. She didn’t want him to be beating himself up even more, though, so she held back.

  The conference was only a week.

  Maybe at the end of that, when they were no longer in a professional relationship, they could explore each other’s bodies like she planned to do in her dreams tonight.

  12.

  CASSIE

  The first day of the conference was a drag. Cassie didn’t get much of a look in when it came to the debating, and Miranda was struggling to do the job she needed to, which didn’t leave her feeling confident enough to stand up and engage in the discussion. She didn’t trust that Miranda would have the information required to win a debate.

  That night was spent in increasingly awkward silence with Vikram. The tension between them hadn’t dissipated at all, and Cassie second-guessed herself every time she opened her mouth to say something to him. She just wanted something to change. For it to go back or go forward. She wished she could forget the attraction she felt to him, to purge her memory of the feel of his hands on her, of his hot mouth against hers setting her body on fire, but at the same time she wanted to cling to it forever, couldn’t stop it taking over her thoughts even when she was supposed to be concentrating on her speech for Archie’s funeral service.


  The next morning the conference was paused for the funeral. She slipped into a black pantsuit, copies of her speech crumpled in her hands from holding them for so long.

  Everyone was going to be there, and she could already feel her anger at the situation.

  What right did Prince Qugrom have to be at Archie’s funeral? He was everything Archie had ever stood against. Archie had hated him. Having false camaraderie with Qugrom because it was politically advantageous didn’t mean the reptile should be allowed at his funeral.

  Vikram stood at the window in silence, not commenting even when Cassie huffed and grumbled excessively about anything and everything as she pulled her boots on.

  She just wanted her bodyguard to say something.

  “Miranda said she was going to go with some of the other aides attending the funeral,” Cassie said. “I feel bad, that she doesn’t feel like she can talk to me. We’re supposed to be a team. Maybe I was too harsh on her during the conference yesterday, but she needs to be better if we’re going to get a look in on the debate at all. I can’t do it all by myself.”

  “I’m sure she just thinks this is an emotional time for you. She probably wants to let you have some time to yourself.”

  “I don’t know. I suppose so. I should say something to her today. Let her know I’m there if she wants to talk.”

  Vikram gave a small nod, as if he’d barely been paying attention.

  She wanted to throw her arms up and demand he act normal with her, but this was his normal. If he’d been working with anyone other than her, this would have been his normal. She was the one being unreasonable, not him.

  “Do you have a ship here?” she asked. “I don’t want to drive today. I need to concentrate on the speech. And prep for the conference. You could drive Archie’s… but—” She just didn’t like the idea of sitting behind and watching anyone other than Archie driving that ship. It felt wrong even to imagine it.

  “I have a ship. We can use it.”

  “Thanks.”

  He checked his watch. “We should go. Are you ready? Got everything?”