Page 125 of Crave

As she goes to take a step back, I take one forward and wrap my arms around her, hugging her so tight.

“You were holding me together without even realizing it. You already spent your life protecting me, emotions aren’t your thing, Alexei.”

Resting my chin on the top of her head, I let out a deep sigh.

She’s right, for the most part. I’ve had to learn to read emotions.

“Other peoples aren’t. Yours, Lara, are more important to me than anything. Actually, yours are the only ones I care about, well, and Shelia’s I suppose.”

She nuzzles her face against my shirt.

“I could have done more, pchelka.” The irritation in my tone is purely at myself. I mean, she never once, in all these years, touched a single sweet in the jar she keeps for me.

Everyone loves candy. It’s addictive. Why didn’t I spot it sooner?

“Alexei, stop. It’s going to be okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

I might be able to read her, but it’s as if she reads my mind.

I am the one that has to go and it’s killing me, but I can’t delay it any more.

Pulling back, I frame her face with my hands, staring into her tear filled eyes.

“I love you enough to know that I have to go first. I’m not living a single second on this earth without you. So yes, it will be okay, there is no other option. We will get you through this, together. Whatever it takes.”

She nods but her bottom lip starts to quiver, so I lean down and press my nose to hers.

“You are Lara fucking Volkov. The beauty, the brains and the heart of the family. I have loved you for a long time and I will love you for eternity. I’d love you if you became a flamingo, I’ll love you when you’re gray and wrinkly. I love you even now when you wake up and breathe on my face with your hair piled up on the top of your head. You can’t see you’re perfect, I probably will never truly understand why, but I will spend the rest of my life showing you just how magnificent you are to me. That I promise you.”

Our love has never been about her appearance, it’s built on the fact I simply cannot survive a day without her in it.

Before she can respond, I softly brush my lips over hers.

I’ve learned that a kiss can speak a thousand words.

One single kiss changed our entire future.

And I will give her as many as she needs to make her feel safe, loved and in control.

Because my Lara deserves the world and I will be the man she needs to bring it to her.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,moya liubov’.” Lara whispers against my lips.

Ugh, just hearing her speak in Russian has my dick twitching. There is something about the way she speaks in our home tongue that gets to me.

“You’ll never have to find that out.”

“Ya budu liubit tebyai i vse tvoi sumashestviya, vechno.”I will love you and all your crazy, for eternity.

My smile is so big it almost hurts my cheeks. I am home, right here, with this woman and my Shelia. I never need anything else.

“Vechnosti ne dostatochno.”Eternity is not enough.

She pulls back and laughs.

“Well, that's the most infinite way to describe time, so it will have to do.”

“Fine,” I gruff, stealing one more sweet kiss.

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