Iwake up to the first rays of a pale, late-autumn sun just beginning to slant through the gap between the heavy curtains. It’s the first day in a week I’ve seen sunlight—it’s been a depressingly rainy fall.
For a moment, I wonder why I’m still in bed. Usually, I’m up well before the sun. I get my answer a moment later when Leah shifts against my back, sighing softly before falling back into a deeper sleep.
Gently, I turn, because the only thing I want to do is see her. She’s curled on her side, her hand cradling her growing belly even in sleep.
To Clarissa, pregnancy was more or less a temporary annoyance and not something to be fawned over. She couldn’t wait for it to be over, so she could lose weight and get back into her designer clothes, passing our son off to a nanny, so she could attend hours of sessions with her personal trainer.
Leah is different.
Leah’s hand is always hovering over her stomach, consciously or unconsciously. She talks to the child within her, even when she doesn’t know I’m watching. She and Eliza share sweet moments when they imagine what the baby will be like—the girl is already excited to be an older sister.
I’m not a romantic, and many think it odd given who and what I am, but I look forward to raising this child. I’d never truly gotten the chance with Peter.
I hope I’ll be in this child’s life in a way that truly matters.
In the weeks since Leah and Eliza moved into my home, my life has changed for the better. This place, which was filled only with silence and men in dark suits with guns, suddenly has life. Now, I listen when I’m home for the sounds of Eliza and Leah, or their lively conversations that range from what happened at school to the types of food unicorns eat. I hear laughter when I’m in my study, and I’ve started trying to join them for dinner whenever I can. The three of us and Iliya eat together, and Eliza and Leah do most of the talking, but they bring life to my otherwise dark world.
It is a revelation, something I didn’t know I needed so terribly in my life. In fact, I shouldn’t want this. This is the opposite of what I should want. Happiness isn’t something to strive for. Relationships mean you have something to lose. Whether your enemies come after you or your ex-wife decides to hurt you in the way she knows will cut the deepest, the possibilities are dark and endless.
I shouldn’t enjoy this; I shouldn’t let them sink into my life like they are, get under my skin—these two who bring life, laughter, and joy with them.
But I do.
Leah, so beautiful, who fits against me like she belongs there, whose curves I long to trace no matter the time of day or what I’m doing, whose beautiful face I could watch forever.
Warm hazel eyes blink open and take a moment to focus on me before a sleepy smile spreads on her face. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,solnyshko,” I murmur, leaning forward to kiss her forehead.
I don’t remember the exact night Leah first slept in my bed. All I care about is that she’s come here almost every night since, like she belongs.
I’ve come to realize she does. I want her here beside me from now on. I want to go to sleep with her every night and wake up to that smile every morning.
I never felt this way about anyone before. Clarissa and I weren’t so much in love as we were using one another. But what I feel for the woman lying beside me can only be that emotion of which I wasn’t sure I was capable.
Love isn’t an emotion required to bepakhanof a Bratva. It can hobble you in too many ways. My father beat the idea of it out of me, warned me away from it, told me only how dangerous it was to feel anything for anyone. There is only the brotherhood, my ambition, my strength, and my resolve. Lust is fine, even encouraged; love is not.
But what I feel for the woman in front of me who stretches, her pajama top lifting to uncover her rounding stomach, must be something akin to love.
I don’tjustwant to protect Leah, I don’tjustwant her for the child inside, my heir, but I want her for who she is, for her softness and strength, for her beauty inside and out. When I’m not with her, I long to be with her—to talk with her, to hear her laughter. When I come home at night after a long day, I seek out her warmth and find relief.
If that isn’t love, I don’t know what it is. And it terrifies me as much as I crave it.
As much as I craveher.
When my hand slips under the quilt and slides down her side, her skin soft, smooth, and warm against my palm, Leah shivers. When I run my hand in circles around the curls between her silky thighs, she sighs and arches toward me. And when I slip a finger in, then another, her soft, breathy moan drives my desire to new heights.
I watch Leah’s face as the passion, desire, and pleasure flicker and spark across her face, the way she shuts her eyes, bites and rolls her lips, the way she pants. It’s intoxicating, as I stroke and curl my fingers against the warmth of her walls, making her squirm and sigh deliciously, to knowIam the reason for those reactions. To knowIam the one who can hold her, drive her to new heights of pleasure, and no one else.
Leah is getting close, clenching around my fingers, her pants, moans, and breaths coming faster, her hips rolling to match my strokes. I pick up my pace, the depth of the movement, and Leah cries out, clutching at me, at the bedsheets, anything.
“Come for me,solnyshko,” I murmur against her forehead, holding her close, kissing her damp hair.
When I stroke her clit with my thumb, she comes entirely undone, crying out my name as her nails dig into my bicep.
I cradle her as she floats down, panting, and I kiss her forehead again, nuzzling the blonde strands that smell of sleep, sweat, and her shampoo.
And me.
