“My priorities of getting you naked intensified.”
Now that I think about, I do recognize the sweater. It’s the one she wrecked the day after she killed Harrington.
Fuck, that’s hot.
Her glower could convince a mermaid to drown themselves. “I meant with Ilya and Niko!”
“Can I see them?” I request, licking my lips.
“See what?”
“My boxers on you?”
I want nothing more than to strip her of her clothes with myteeth.
She gapes at me, then a soft snicker bursts from her. “So, the way to your heart isn’t through sexy lingerie, but by stealing your clothes?”
“You already have my heart,kotik. Didn’t you figure that out yet?”
Her gaze softens, as does her amusement. A dusting of color brushes along her cheeks. But she never drops eye contact.
“I felt like it’s been one-sided for a long time,” she confesses, voice husky. “I-I didn’t see that changing much.”
I step closer to her so I can cup her cheek. She tilts her head back, letting me carry the weight as I press my lips to the corner of her mouth before crossing to her ear, where I whisper, “It hasn’t been one-sided. It just wasn’t politically correct.”
She snorts. “Since when do you care about that?”
“With you, I did. After what happened when I was a kid, I’d never prey on a child?—”
“Were you… abused?”
“No. But people close to me were.” I watch her throat quiver rather than look at her expression. “I’d never hurt a child like that. And you were a child. For the longest time. At first, you were an ideal. Something to claim,” I admit, then Nikolai’s earlier words come back to haunt me. “Then you were something to protect. You became someone soon after. I recognized that fire in you, Victoria. I recognized it because it burns in me.
“Someone who isn’t happy with accepting the status quo just because that’s how it’s done. Someone who’ll fight for more, risk everything for more—that’s you.
“You said something the other day to your sisters and it resonated with me?—”
“Not enough for you to stop sulking at me!”
I click my tongue. “We’re alike, you and I. We may not know everything about each other, but we’re cut from the same cloth.” My fingers smooth over her neck. “Do you know the last person I said ‘I love you’ to was my grandmother?”
She releases the quietest, “Oh.”
“Da. Emotions… they’re to be locked down. Misha told me that first night you came to the brownstone you were a liability. And he was right.” When she protests, I tut. “He was. Everyone tells me that. Nikolai included. But they don’t know that you’re also my greatest strength.
“Seeing you host tonight, it reminded me of your past. Of your upbringing. I know of no other woman who would have handled that scene as well as you just did. You made me proud to be your husband,kotik. Very proud.”
She ducks her chin. “I didn’t want to let you down.”
“And you didn’t. Ilya is a pest. He pisses off everyone for fun. Even theKrestniy Otetsonly puts up with him because he’s his nephew. You handled him with aplomb.” I stroke my thumb over her jaw. “As for Nikolai, I didn’t need his approval, but I know I got it anyway. I knew when he called you ‘meita.’”
“What does it mean?”
“Daughter. In Latgalian.”
With a shaky sigh, she pushes her forehead into my chest. “Maxim?”
“Yes, Victoria?”
