Severin never talks much about his family but based on what I’ve seen and know so far, I could guess they weren’t the good kind of rich.
I lock the front door behind him and lean against it, studying the man on the cloud couch.
He’s dark and dangerous but there’s more.
I know it. I feel it. I’ve seen cruel and Severin wasn’t it.
“Mommy, this bathtub is like a whole pool!” Emett shouts from down the hall where he’s been exploring the apartment for the past ten minutes.
Stella dropped him off about an hour ago, and the second he saw Sava lying on the couch, he ran at him and wouldn’t leave his side for the majority of that hour—as I predicted.
I tried to get Emett off Severin but I swear the man growled at me. He. Freaking. Growled.
I might’ve made some kind of remark about it if my heart wasn’t in a dripping puddle over watching him cuddle with myson and entertain his every question about the injury and the game and a million other things with a smile on his face when he should’ve been relaxing. And I just sat there, on the other side of that monstrous couch, watching them with awe.
This…this kind of love is all I’ve ever wanted for my son and never dared to dream it be possible. I’m still terrified to fully accept that our life could be this good. That it could be this fairy tale all of a sudden, where a hot, famous hockey player falls in love with a single mom from a small town.
Things like that don’t happen in real life, yet every time Severin merely looks at me, I feel the world tip on its axis. And when his fingers glide along my skin…they set that world on fire. Like right now, he’s watching me with so much warmth the gray colors of his apartment feel blazing hot.
What do you have to say about that, doctor? Am I just as crazy?
“Emett, please don’t touch anything!” I shout back, sighing, as I stroll up to Sava. “If he breaks something, it’s on you. Your house is not childproofed.” It’s really not. It’s more like a museum.
It’s monotone, cold, and practical but in the most expansive way. I’m afraid to know how much a single fork in the kitchen cost, let alone the tub Emett is referring to. The only things out of place are the honest-to-god crackling fireplace and twenty or so drawings he made with Emett that day at Blade’s, proudly pinned to possibly the most expensive kitchen cabinets I’ve seen. Pinned! And right smack in the middle of them is the drawing Emett gave him that first day after Sava saved me.
When I asked why he pinned them, he simply said, “I couldn’t find any tape.” As if pinning them to the ebony wood was the next logical choice. As if he couldn’t simply store the paintings. No, he treated those doodles as his most precious possessions.
I swear, I gaped at the man for a solid minute.
Severin chuckles. “We’ll fix that tomorrow, but he can break whatever he wants. I don’t mind.”
“Jesus.” I press my palm over his forehead. “How many painkillers did they give you? You sound delusional.”
I go to pull my hand away, but Sava catches it before I can, and with a sinfully wicked smile on his handsome face, he yanks me down. I fall over his broad chest with a small yelp and hiss. “What are you doing? Emett can come back any second and see us.” I try to get up, but he’s not having it, hugging me tighter.
Wasn’t he injured just hours ago? Where is all this excitement and strength coming from? I’m still a nervous mess over his concussion. My eyes never leaving him for too long in case I miss some sign of pain or discomfort.
“All he’ll see is how much I love his mom. I think it’s quite good for kids to see their parents having a healthy relationship, right?”
I physically feel my mouth go slack. Like full-on gaping over here. Did he just say…
“Parents? Oh my God, you’re high, aren’t you?” I squeak, but Severin just chuckles, and I feel his laugh rumbling low in his stomach and ricocheting into mine.
Definitely his laugh and not a hoard of butterflies he stirred with those words.
Taking advantage of my stupefaction, he kisses the tip of my nose. “On love maybe.”
“Okayyy, who are you and what have you done with my grumpy vampire-stalker?”
“Is that my official nickname?”
“The jury’s still out on that one.”
With another laugh and a yank, he brings me back down into his embrace. Sava burrows his nose in my hair and takes a deep breath. “No, malysh, I’m not high. I’m just happy for the first time in a long while.”
I feel his words, that simple statement, settle deep in my bones and like a piece of a puzzle it snaps into place. I melt into him, my fingers uncurling from the fists they were in as I lay them over his calm, steady heartbeat.
“Me too, Sava,” I whisper, dragging a lungful of him as he did of me. His strong hand gliding through my blonde tangled strands with a gentle touch.
