Blade’s ears perked, and he seemed to salute Maxim.
“Our dog’s content and doing his job. Now, let me do mine.”
I wound my arms more tightly around his neck and brought my lips to crash against his.
“Only if you plan to dick me…real…hard…” I moaned as he strode across the living room.
“Oh, yes, I love this assertiveness,” Maxim groaned. “With pleasure, Fists. Myabsolutepleasure.”
Epilogue
Maxim
“Dmitri, I can’t work with that,” I said, shaking my head. “You can’t high-stick. Automatic penalty, my man.”
“But he was stealing the puck.” My younger son’s lisp was more pronounced as he pouted.
“That’s all part of the game,” I said. Crouching down, I laid my hands on his shoulders.
“But Aleksander is bigger and faster,” Dmitri griped.
“For now,” I said. My little one was growing so fast—much more quickly than I liked. Maybe I’d have to work on putting another baby in Ida Jane’s belly.
“Not a chance,” Ida Jane said in her sweet, Southern drawl. I swear shealwaysknew what I was thinking—after fifteen years of marriage, I couldn’t get away with my own thoughts.
“Stop it, Maxim. You look just like your son,” Ida Jane said. She smiled, and it was as sweet now as it had been when I first met her. She wore my Wildcatters jersey, just as she always did when we were at the ice rink. I loved that she felt such pride in my accomplishments. I brushed back the errant strands of her thick, silky hair that had tumbled into her eyes. Last year, Ida Jane cut off her long hair into a short style. I liked it, though I’d needed time to get used to the change.
I rose to my full height and tugged her against me, running my fingers along her cheeks to her plump lower lip. She had the faintest of laugh lines around her mouth, and I loved that I’d helped put them on her face. My need to mark her as mine had never diminished.
I grunted even as my heart ached. “He is so big now, krasivaya. He’s eight, and he won’t let me cuddle him anymore. He also cheats, which he didnotlearn from me.”
Ida Jane giggled, a sound that always warmed me to my very soul. “He gets that from his Uncle Amos,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth.
“Oh, yeah! Uncle Amos said that if you can’t win fair and square you find a way to even the odds,” Dmitri said.
“I’ll be having some words with Amos,” I said, my tone dry, but my heart was very full.
* * *
Ida Jane
“This is pee wee hockey,”I reminded my husband gently.
“I’m the coach of this under-ten team, and there’s no way I’m having my kids play dirty.” He shot a look at Cormac and Keelie’s youngest. “That includes you.”
Della dropped her gaze to her little skates. “Yes, Coachy.”
She’d been calling Maxim “Coachy” since she could talk—back when he oversaw her older brother’s team, on which our son Aleksander also played. Maxim insisted on coaching both teams now and had quit his lucrative scouting position to stay at home with the boys.
The world never would have guessed that Maxim Dolov would turn into a doting stay-at-home father, but I’d known from the moment Aleksander was born. Maxim had so much love to give to his boys and to me.
I leaned into his side, enjoying the cold nip from the ice on my cheeks and nose. “You’ll get them in line,” I murmured. Maxim turned me in his arms and dropped his chin against my shoulder.
“Aw, man!” Aleksander groaned. “They’re going to get all lovey-dovey. Come on, Little Ds, let’s do some drills. No way we’re going pro and smashing our dads’ records at this rate.”
I kissed my husband, so, so happy that my heart felt like it would burst.
Maxim whispered in my ear, “Alex is already better than I ever was.”
