Page 46 of Mafia Christmas Vows

I do my best to settle myself onto the sled, and Alexei’s body traps me in. He leans forward and presses a kiss on my cheek.

Through the burning cold, I feel it, and it makes my chest feel a little warmer.

“Are you ready?”

“I guess,” I lean back into him.

I haven’t been sledding since I was little. So little, in fact, that I don’t remember going sledding at all, really.

I have no way to judge what’s going to come next.

Alexei’s strong legs push, and before I know it…

We’re flying.

“Okay. I have to admit. That was fun, but this is better,” I sigh as I lean into the warmth of the sauna.

Alexei chuckles, the sound very, very close in the dark sauna.

After the sledding, which was admittedly pretty fun, Alexei brought me to one of the lower floors of the manor house. He instructed me to strip, handed me a towel, and then disappeared.

I did all of those things, and when I entered the large space, Alexei had already heated it up for us.

I lean back, inhaling the salt and moisture and the slightly herbal scent of the eucalyptus leaves. Alexei is next to me, and his big body stretches over multiple benches as he reclines.

He has a towel around his waist, but I still have a pretty stellar view, and I don’t even hold back as I eye the sculpted lines of his abs.

“You’re staring, milaya.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, trying to deflect. I’m not going to admit that I am, in fact, staring at his amazing torso, but he doesn’t need to know that.

Alexei cracks an eye, catching me.

I still don’t look away.

“It is an endearment. Sweetheart. Dear. Darling,” he purrs.

My skin prickles with awareness. “You moved to that pretty quickly.”

“Did I?”

“Less than a week ago, you wouldn’t even call me Maggie.”

“Less than a week ago, I did not mean it,” he murmurs.

That catches my attention.

Alexei shifts forward, all of those beautiful muscles flexing at once as he does. He puts his hands on his knees, and I’m mesmerized by the flex of his biceps as he runs his hands through his hair.

He’s so beautiful.

I bet he makes beautiful babies.

The thought hits me like a ton of bricks… and is a great reminder that since I haven’t been sexually active before, I’m not on any form of birth control.

The thought, however, fills me with a kind of bubbly interest that doesn’t feel as terrifying as it has in the past.

I don’t know that babies have ever crossed my mind. I don’t know that I’ve ever really seen it as an option. Now that it is, though….

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