“Val, calm down. I’m sure he’s fine.”
I freeze, my mouth slack before my teeth grind in irritation. “Did you just tell me tocalm down?After everything I’ve been through tonight?” I end the call before she can answer and drag in a breath.
The last thing I want is to be pissed at Remi. But she doesn’t understand what this feels like, what I feel for him.
But how I also want tokillhim for scaring me like this. Losing Ivy is a gut-punch, but it’s metal. I can buy twenty more. Maksim, though…that stubborn bastard is mine.
Hermes suddenly rises, Apollo a second later, both zeroing in on the door. Hope swells in my chest.
The buzzer goes off, and I don’t bother checking the screen. I don’t need to. I feel him. Relief rises with every step until I’m tearing the thick metal open and throwing myself into his arms.
“I hate you.” My voice shakes as I bury my face in his neck, one hand fisting into his hair.
He chuckles, pulling me tighter, carrying me inside.
“If this is you hating me, baby…hate me harder.”
“Maksim,” I shake my head, still breathless. “I called you. Left messages. Were you purposely trying to piss me off?”
He drops onto the couch, dragging me with him so I end up straddling his lap.
“I’m sorry. I was taking care of something for you.”
He cups my face, and I close my eyes, covering them with mine. That’s when I feel it, the sting of broken skin beneath my fingers.
“Tell me,” I murmur, tugging at his hands to study the slashes and cuts across his knuckles.
Our eyes lock, and for a second, indecision flickers in his before he finally nods.
“You know you’re mine now. And I promised I’d never let anything or anyone hurt you. Doesn’t matter who.”
My gaze drops to the damage etched into his hands, the proof behind his words. “I know.”
“I need you to hear me.” His grip shifts, pulling me close, one hand pressing at the nape of my neck, thumb stroking slowly over my scalp. “It took everything in me to stand there and let you get your licks in. I wanted to tear his head off the second he laid eyes on you.”
He hesitates, jaw tight, like whatever he’s about to admit is too much even for him.
“Say it,” I whisper, kissing his ruined knuckles.
Our eyes meet again, and I let a small smile soften my lips, telling him he doesn’t need to hide from me. What we are isn’tnormal. Normal people don’t shrug off blood and bodies. But neither of us were raised in that world. We know the darkness, the price of survival, and the cost of weakness. And truth is, I’m not afraid to kill. I did in college. He was a guy who didn’t know the meaning of the word no. So I taught him. The hard way.
And I’d do it again. For Maksim, Remi, and for every last person I call mine. Just as they would for me. Maybe that makes us all broken. Beautifully, brutally broken. But I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
“Is that what you did, Maxy? Took his head…for me?”
“Something like that,” he says, eyes flicking over my face, searching for fear, for the faintest crack that says I might run.
But it’s the opposite. The thought of him breaking a man open in my name lights me up inside, and has me clenching around nothing, pussy throbbing, begging to be filled by him.
I’m not afraid of his darkness. I’m afraid of how much I crave it.
“So…” My smile stretches. “You do like me?”
He laughs and leans back against the couch, pulling me with him. His thumb brushes my shoulder, then hooks beneath the strap of my tank.
“More than that,” he murmurs, dropping soft kisses along my skin. “You’ve done something to me, Valentina. Made me feel things I don’t even have a name for.”
I close my eyes and breathe him in, reveling in his words, his touch, in the way he steals the air from my lungs. One word circles in my mind.
