Page 183 of Wicked Proposal
But then, reality comes crashing down on me. “I have a son,” I rasp. “I can’t put that on you. I can’t ask you to be Eli’s father.”
“You won’t have to.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’re my family—bothof you.” He cups my face with his free hand. “You’re the family I never thought I’d find again. And I don’t want to lose you.”
Something keeps needling at me about the way he’s talking. Like we’re one step away from being whisked into nothingness, Eli and I. Like he’s speaking out of fear.
But then I remember his family. What happened to them, and how. The horrors he’s had to live with all his life.
Is it really such a wonder that this is how a man like Yulian loves? Strongly, fiercely, afraid to ever lose you?
Just like that, I stop hesitating.
Just like that, I know exactly what I want.
And for the first time in my life, I reach out and just take it.
“Say it again,” I whisper. “What you said before.”
“Marry me.”
“The other thing.”
Realization dawns in his eyes. “I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
His dimple flashes. “I fucking love you, Mia Winters.”
“Fuck.” I can’t take it anymore—it’s too much. Too many feelings bottled up inside me, begging for release. “Then show me.”
He doesn’t make me say it twice.
We crash into the elevator like teenagers, groping and kissing all the way up. It’s like breathing again after drowning—each kiss brings me back to life, lighting wildfires under my skin.
“Blyat’,” he curses between kisses. “You still haven’t given me an answer.”
“You still haven’t shown me you mean it.”
His eyes go dark and hooded. “Oh, I will.”
Suddenly, the floor disappears from under my feet. Yulian’s palms dig into my thighs, hoisting me up against the elevator wall, and then he’s on me again, kissing me like his life depends on it.
Like mine might, too.
His lips slide down my neck, teeth scraping against my pulse. I gasp for breath, clawing at his shoulders, his hair, his everything.
I’m distantly aware of my nails digging crescents into his scalp, but Yulian doesn’t seem put off by it. If anything, his kisses only grow wilder.
“Fucking hell,kotyonok.”
He starts sucking bruises into my neck, biting into the curve of it. I can’t see straight—I can’tthink.Heat is pooling low between my legs, robbing me of all reason.
