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I crack open the door of the nursery and find Yakov standing between the cribs, looking down at our babies sleeping. It’s been his favorite place ever since the twins were finally released from the NICU a week ago.
“You’re supposed to sleep when the babies are sleeping,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around his waist.
He covers my hands with his. “I’m not tired.”
“Impossible. You were up all night with Alina.”
Coming home has been a tough transition for our princess. She needed more care in the NICU than her brother, Nikolai. She’s not used to lying in a crib. The only way she sleeps peacefully is when someone is holding her or, like now, when she’s swaddled close to her brother.
“Not all night,” Yakov says. “She settled down after four this morning. I got a few hours.”
I press my cheek to his muscled back, hugging him close. “Remember when you wanted to hire a team of nurses to take care of the babies? Where did that guy go?”
“I think ‘that guy’ is wrapped around Alina’s finger,” Yakov admits with a grin.
He was insistent for the first couple weeks after the twins were born that we needed an army of nurses and nannies to help us take care of the twins.. But as we spent hour after hour and day after day in the NICU, he started singing another tune. By the end, Yakov didn’t even want to let the NICU nurses care for the twins. He wanted to do everything himself.
So far, he’s kept all the promises that he made to me during labor. He is always there to change a diaper, make a bottle, and rock a screaming baby back to sleep.
“Well, your mother is living here specifically to help with the twins. She keeps asking me to remind you that you can wake her up in the middle of the night. She’d be happy to help.”
He frowns. “Why is she telling you to remind me? She could remind me herself.”
“She could, but she knows that I have a way of getting through to you.”
Yakov bites back a smile. “Oh, you do, do you?”
I hum, slowly spinning him towards me. I hook my hands around his back and rest my chin on his chest. “You may be a bloody brute to the rest of the world, but for me, you’re a great big softie.”
He arches a brow even as his hands slide down my waist to my ass. He hauls me close, grinding our hips together. “There’s nothing soft about me, solnyshka.”
Heat swirls low in my belly. For the six weeks the twins were in the hospital, I didn’t have space to think about anything else. Yakov and I were so busy taking care of them that the thought of taking care of ourselves was nonexistent.
But now… it exists.
I press my hands to his chest and put some space between us. “You and I are taking the night off.”
“Says who?”
“Says me,” I tell him. “We are going to ask your mom to watch the kids and we are going to be off-duty for the first time in seven weeks.”
“You think my mom can handle everything on her own?”
I roll my eyes. “You know she can. She’s better at swaddling Nikolai than I am and she’s the only one who can get Alina to burp.”
I was terrified of what life with Ofeliya would look like. The woman was overbearing before. What was it going to be like now that I also had two premature infants to care for? But since the moment the babies were born—and especially since they came home a week ago—she has been nothing but a fount of helpful advice and patience.
The first night the twins were home, I practically shoved Alina at Ofeliya, begging her to help me. She could have taken over and made me feel like an incapable mother. Instead, she tucked Alina into my arms, squeezed my shoulders, and assured me that I could do it. She sat with me until one in the morning, soothing me while I soothed Alina.
In my book, the woman is a saint.
“Of course she can handle the twins,” Yakov says. “I’m worried about whether she can handle the twins and Mariya.”
I laugh and have to quickly cover my mouth when Alina stirs. “Thankfully, Mariya isn’t here tonight. She’s staying with Nikandr at his place.”
At first, Mariya was staying with Nikandr to make sure he was adjusting okay to life on his own in a wheelchair. Now, she stays with him because she turned eighteen three weeks ago and can get into a lot more clubs without having to use her laughably bad fake ID. Nik’s apartment is in the heart of downtown, which is a lot more exciting than living in “Norman Rockwell’s wet dream.” Those are her words, not mine.
“Then it looks like there’s no reason why we can’t get away for a few hours.” Yakov dips his head, his lips brushing against my earlobe. “Wear something sinful.”
