"I love you too,solnyshko." I capture her mouth in a deep kiss.
She arches beneath me, taking me deeper, and I have to close my eyes against the intensity of it all. Not just the physical pleasure but the emotional weight of this moment.
I almost lost this. Almost losther.
The thought drives me to move faster, harder, despite the pull of healing muscle and the doctor's warnings about taking it easy. I need her to feel what I'm feeling. I need her to understand that she's mine and I'm hers and nothing will ever change that.
"Nikolai," she gasps, her nails digging into my shoulders. "I'm close… you feel so good…"
"Let go," I rasp.
Her body tightens around me, and then she's coming, and my name is falling from her lips.
The sensation pushes me over the edge and my orgasm hits me everywhere, and I come inside her with a groan that comes from somewhere deep in my soul.
We collapse together, both breathing hard, our bodies still joined. I roll carefully onto my back, bringing her with me so she's draped across my chest, with her head over my heart.
For a long moment, we just breathe together.
"Are you okay?" she asks, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my skin.
I press a kiss to her hair. "Better than okay."
And I am.
Because I’m with her.
My solnyshko.My little sun.
The woman I'm going to spend the rest of my life with.
40
HOLLY
One year later.
Snow falls in soft, lazy spirals outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, blanketing the Alaskan landscape in a fresh layer of white.
Inside the lodge, a fire crackles in the stone fireplace, casting a warm amber glow across the room.
I curl deeper into the plush sofa and tuck my legs beneath me as I admire the towering Christmas tree in the corner. It's even more magnificent than last year's tree, dripping with silver and gold ornaments, and a thousand twinkling lights.
A year ago, I was a prisoner here.
Now, it’s my second home.
I glance down at my left hand, where my wedding ring catches the firelight, the platinum band gleaming beside the enormous diamond engagement ring my husband slid onto my finger when we moved home to New York.
My husband.
The word still sends a thrill through me every time I think it.
Despite me reassuring Nikolai that I didn’t need another wedding ceremony, he said he wanted to do it right this time. Sowe were remarried in a small ceremony at the lodge, this time with Nana and Katya present. I wore a simple ivory gown, and Nikolai wore a dark suit that made his ice-blue eyes smolder. When he said his vows,I will protect you with my life, I knew he meant every word.
Because he'd already proven it.
The scar on his chest, the one I trace with my fingertips every night before we fall asleep, is a permanent reminder of the bullet he took for me.
