"Leonid—"
"I love you." He thrusts harder. "I love you. Come for me.Now."
I break.
The orgasm tears through me, so intense it borders on pain. I'm screaming his name, clenching around him, and then he's coming too—burying himself deep and flooding me with warmth while he groans "I love you" against my throat.
We stay like that, tangled together on the kitchen table, both of us shaking.
"We broke a glass," I say finally.
"I'll buy a new one."
I laugh—wet and overwhelmed—and pull him closer.
Later, much later, we're in bed. He's curled around me from behind, one arm under my head, the other draped over my waist. His hand rests on my stomach, the way it always does now.
"The girl in the tutu," he murmurs against my hair.
"Mm?"
"The photo you saved. The one with the frosting on her face."
I smile. "What about her?"
"I'm going to give you that." His hand presses harder against my stomach. "All of it. The baby. The family dinners. Everything you've been saving pictures of."
"You can't promise—"
"I can." He kisses the back of my neck. "I will. I'm going to fill you with my baby and marry you and give you the life you've been dreaming of. That's not a promise, Lily. That's a fact."
I'm crying again. Happy tears. He doesn't try to wipe them away this time—just holds me tighter.
"I love you," he says.
"I love you too."
I fall asleep in his arms, full of him, full of hope.
Full of a future I never dared to dream about.
6
Leonid
The call comes at six in the morning.
Lily is still asleep, curled against my chest, her breath warm and even against my skin. I extract myself carefully, grab my phone from the nightstand, and slip into the hallway.
"What."
"We have a problem." Dimitri's voice is calm, but I've known him long enough to hear the edge beneath it. "Walsh's people are asking questions."
Walsh. The senator I put a bullet in four weeks ago. I'd almost forgotten about him—too consumed with Lily, with building this new life, with the softness I'm still learning how to accept.
"What kind of questions?"
"The kind that involve his last known location. The kind that involveyourbuilding."
