Once I filled out, started hitting the gym between college classes and work, I had more women than I could keep track of.

My mom always told me my eyes were the clincher. I had blue-gray eyes and dark hair, and she thought it was a killer combo.

But I was pretty sure it had more to do with my thick dick and my appetite for pussy.

Not that I’d even looked at another woman since I saw her.

My Lupina.

Ellie Maxwell was a fucking goddess.

She had a body I could get lost in. Hell, I fucking dreamed about it night after night.

Thighs I could wrap even my large hands around, breasts perfect for sucking, and an ass that would not quit.

Fuck.

One taste. That was all I’d had, but I was a goddamn addict now. Even putting in stupid long hours couldn’t stop my mind from drifting off at any given point.

The thing about it was I wanted her to come to me. To acknowledge this mutual attraction.

I wanted her to want me.

And yeah, I heard the Cheap Trick song in my head every fucking time I thought about it.

I mean, it went against the whole alpha male nature thing, right?

Like I knew everything in me was telling me to hunt her down and not give her a choice.

To make her my woman any way I could.

But that was too fucking close to how her soon-to-be-dead-if-I get-my-way ex treated her.

And I wouldn’t do that to Ellie.

Not now. Not ever.

But I couldn’t walk away either.

There was just something about her. Something untamed and wild behind her eyes. Something I recognized.

They said like attracts like, and I understood tenacity.

How else did the bastard son of a low level Bratva soldier reinvent himself the way I had?

I mean, come on. Even I had to admit, I had grit.

Yeah, I took my Hispanic stepfather’s name.

Hell yeah.

The man raised me, and I was proud to be a Ramirez. As for my sperm donor, well, that had been weighing heavily on my mind as of late.

I had yet to tell the Volkov brothers about our familial relationship. They didn’t know my birth father was their uncle, their father’s youngest brother whom I wasn’t sure they’d ever even met.

He’d come to America with the crew he was involved with. Knocked up my mother and left her before he got himself killed.

I suppose that was for the best. My mother knew his name, and that was pretty much all she knew about him.