Page 87 of Debt to the Mafia King
“Viktor, what’s happened now?” She asked again, and when I turned, she was almost right behind me. Grimacing with every step.
“It’s nothing.” Shaking my head, I forced myself to smile. It was ok for Ivan to say I needed to tell her howI felt. He wasn’t the one who had to say the words. If I did, they would make me more vulnerable than I had ever been.
And if there was one thing I had never been, it was vulnerable.
“So either one of your illegal businesses or there’s another naked woman in your bed.” Leah bumbled under her breath. “I should have known that.”
I caught her up around the waist, wrapping her legs around mine and pressing her into the door. “Neither of those things, so stop that right now. We went through all of that last night, and this jealousy doesn’t suit you.”
She pouted. Fuck she was adorable.
“But I’m glad you get jealous over me because it means you—” my throat closed up. My lips opened and closed like a fish, but no sound came out.
Her eyebrow arched up. “Care about you?” She finished for me.
“Yes.” I took a deep breath. “It means you care about me, and I want you to know—”
She waited, and I couldn’t get the words out.
Why couldn’t I get the words out. I cared about this woman more than I had ever cared about another living soul. I was head over heels for her. Hell, I had been half in love with her the moment I had seen her. Shit. I was in love with her.
“I want you to know that you caring for me means a lot,” I said capturing her lips.
But not before I had seen her face fall.
I didn’t workin the days between Christmas and the New Year. Were there things that needed my attention? Of course, there always were, but I had Ivan for a reason.
He was good at what he did, and that’s why he was my second in command.
He was more than capable of running things while I spent time withLeah. Right now, she needed me, and if I were honest with myself, I needed her even more.
She grounded me, made me feel like a human being instead of the cold-hearted monster I was raised to be. With her, I could actually be normal.
“Is everything ok?” Her gloved hand tightened around mine. And I squeezed it back. Her feet had healed, but we still had to walk slowly when we took our daily walks.
Leah thought I was just showing her the grounds in case she ever needed to get away from the house, or if we were being attacked, but truthfully, I showed her around because I enjoyed walking the grounds with her.
It was such a mundane thing to do, taking winter walks with my wife.
“Viktor?” Leaning her face against my arm, she sighed through the thick wool scarf I had wrapped around her mouth and chin. Her eyes darted up to me, and a question pinched her eyebrows together.
“Of course,” pulling the thick material from her face, I kissed her lips.
Instantly, the heat was there, heating me from the inside, so I didn’t feel the chill in the air. It was always like that between us now. Well it had always been that way between us from the moment I had first seen her.
I wanted her, every second of every day, and I couldn’t imagine a time when that would be different. I was forty-one years old, so much older than she was, but around her I felt so much younger and so much more inexperienced.
Not sexually, but emotionally. This was the first time I had ever felt this way about anyone, let alone a woman.
“I was just thinking about our future.”
Slowly, because my gloves were bulky, I unbuttoned her coat and slipped my arms inside. Pulling her into my body hard. She tilted her face up to mine, her lips pouty and bruised-lookingfrom all the times I had kissed her. Or more specifically, how hard I kissed her.
“The future?” She cocked her head to the side and studied me. “What about the future?”
“Our future.” I rubbed my nose against the tip of her cold one. “After the baby is born. And before.”
“We have months until we need to think about that.”
