Page 126 of Stolen Seconds

The brute had the audacity to chuckle, the sound rippling across my skin. “The end result would’ve been the same.”

“Bold of you to assume I’d say yes.” I didn’t back down from his stare, even when he’d rounded the bed to my side.

Instead of sitting down as I expected him to, he kneeled on the floor in front of me. He grabbed my hips and turned me toward him until my feet touched the cold floor. “And now you don’t have a choice.”

His snarky replies usually grated on my nerves, but as he looked up at me with such tenderness, all I could thinkabout was how I didn’t want anything more than I wanted Luca Canaveri.

“You saying you don’t want to marry me, Irina?” His question came out in a hoarse whisper, pulling at my heart strings.

I caressed the back of his head, the short strands of his hair pricking my fingertips. “Never.” Leaning down, I pressed my forehead to his. “I’m yours. I’ve only ever been yours.”

His mouth split into a sweet smile, the broadest I’d ever seen before he pulled me into his lap, kissing me senselessly.

“Irina Canaveri,” he chanted between each peck, and I completely melted against him, never wanting the feeling of falling for him to go away.

Epilogue

IRINA

One Year Later.

I’d never get used to this.

It wasn’t because of the blaring sound of the crowd or the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

It was Luca purposefully letting himself get hit to rile up the crowd in his favor. Only this time, he’d taken it too far.

I widened the rope and slipped through the ring, my gaze narrowing on Luca, who smiled at me with bloodied teeth.

“Fiancée!” he called out, coming down from a bloodthirsty high with the way his eyes were glossed over.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

I reached him and grabbed his face, anger rippling off me as I assessed the cuts. “What the hell is wrong with you, Luca Canaveri?”

He circled my waist, pulled me to him and planted hislips on mine before the audience erupted into a deafening volume.

“Nothing that you can’t handle, Irina Canaveri,” he whispered against my mouth.

Oh, he wasgood.

“You never let them hit you more than twice.” I pushed back the sweaty strands of hair from his forehead.

“You should see the other guy,” he mused as he stood up and towered over me. “You’re adorable when you pout, sweetheart.” He nudged under my chin and signaled toward the back.

I irritably followed him but at least there hadn’t been random women waiting for him in his locker room since the last time.

When he’d shut the door behind us, I laid out the supplies I needed to clean his wounds.

Luca knew how to do it himself but if it was up to him, he’d slap a Band-Aid over it and call it a day.

He sat on the bench, wiping the sweat off his torso before throwing the towel aside. “My sister once asked me who takes care of me.”

I paused my movements, turning to glance at him.

“I had always been the one to care for her after my mother died so one night she asked me, ‘and who takes care of you, Luca?’”

My heart clenched tightly at the tenseness of his tone. I knew he had been close to his mother and with her gone, he felt like he had no one.

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