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“Come get me, fiancé,” she says while crooking her finger at me.

“Insatiable,” I growl before joining her. I kiss her hard and deep. Valerie stands on her toes and wraps her arms around my neck. I kiss her with passion, our tongues slipping and sliding. Not as hot as the water, but so damn perfect. I draw back and cup her breast. “Is this what you pictured when you were making me chase you?”

“I didn’tmakeyou do anything. You chased me even when all I was offering was a tease,” she murmurs, spreading soap over my chest. “I’m glad you hunted me down and showed me you were more than talk.”

I press my forehead to hers. “I’m glad I did too. I’m a better man because of you.”

Valerie draws back and cocks her head to the side. “No, you aren’t.”

“Valerie-”

“Youchoseto put the work in to get better, Hunter. That was you. You could have kept with the cheap come-ons. You could have stayed exactly as you were and you would have someone else, but youchoseto work on yourself, to be vulnerable, to change. That was all you,” she pats my chest, right over my heart. “Look at how far you’ve come. From horn dog to man I can’t get enough of.”

My heart beats double time. I don’t know where she pulls those words from, but ... fuck, I don’t stand a chance against her when she talks to me like that. Valerie cups my face in her hand and smiles.

“I’m so proud of you, Hunter,” she says. “And I’m so proud to call you mine.”

“I love you so damn much, dorogaya,” I whisper. “No one else has ever made me feel like this.”

“You better not be talking about sex,” she huffs.

I chuckle and pull her against me, our soapy bodies rubbing together. “No. No one ever made me feel like I was capable of more than partying and sex. No one made me feel like I could be more–be different–from my father.”

“There’s no contest. You’re better and different from him. Stronger, sexier, more vibrant. Mine,” she says.

“Being yours might be the best thing on that list,” I say in a husky voice. “I want to be yours forever. The most terrifyingly accomplished, sure, understanding, and wicked woman in the world ... I don’t think I could live without you.”

Her eyes water. “I’m not scary.”

“You terrify plenty of people and I love it. You’ll survive in our world and in the normal world, refuse to let anyone talk down to you, and own every room you walk into. Never hide from the power you have, sweetheart,” I order her.

Her breath catches, and her eyes dip to my lips. “If you don’t kiss me right now, I’ll scream.”

I grin and kiss her, drawing out each curl of my tongue, sucking her bottom lip, making sure she feels exactly how much I love her in each drawn-out kiss. In a world full of guns, knives, sharp people, and terrible intentions, Valerie is the best thing in the world to come home to.

She’s the best woman I could ever have–better than my fantasies, imagination, and dreams.

Nothing in the world could convince me she was not worth fighting for. I’d give up my legacy, my reputation, and everything else, just to be hers.

TWO

Valerie

After another round of sex–muchsofter than our first–Hunter and I head downstairs. He joins his brother and, after a brief conversation, Hunter swats the back of Chase’s head. “You’re the boss! Did you forget that?”

“We’rethe boss and you’re never there!” Chase argues.

I sigh as I watch them. Brothers will be brothers, but I don’t like them arguing, especially about business. Maybe I need to go back to the mansion and talk with the other wives. After all, I should tell them I’m going to join their ranks and maybe I can get an idea on how to bring their father to heel.

Vanya–their returned mother–clearly isn’t doing the job. I learned from my first poker game with the wives of some of the other mafia members that women have plenty of power ... once we know how to use it.

Right now, I only know how to be a distraction and to create the room for my men to speak. Considering when I say too much, it causes problems and could make their father doubt them; I have to toe the line, find the right way to get things moving.

“I’m there all the time, but it either causes a fight, or–if I support you–it just makes our father hate your plans more,” Hunter argues.

“He’s displeased about every move I make, thinks I’m not being proactive enough. He even said he put the wrong son in charge today,” Chase says.

Oh, hell no. “He’s fucking wrong.”

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