“Come for me, kitten,” I growl against her ear. “Let me feel you.”
Her second orgasm triggers my own, and I bury my face in her neck as I spill myself inside her. For several long moments, we stay locked together, breathing hard and trembling from the aftermath.
When I finally pull away, she curls against my side like she belongs there. The thought sends a bolt of panic through me—not because I don’t want her there, but because I want it too much.
This woman has become essential to me in ways I never expected. The realization should terrify me. It should trigger every instinct I have to run before things get too involved. But lying here with her warm body against mine, all I feel is contentment.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks, breaking the quiet.
“You. Us. How right this feels.”
She tilts her head to look at me with surprise. “Does it scare you? How right it feels?”
“It should,” I admit. “But it doesn’t. That probably scares me more than anything else.”
She laughs softly, and the sound vibrates against my chest. “I know what you mean. I keep waiting for the panic to set in, for all my survival instincts to kick in and tell me to run. But they’re not.”
“Good. Because I’m not letting you run this time.”
We fall asleep tangled together, and for the first time in my adult life, I don’t feel the urge to slip away before morning. When I wake with her still in my arms, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
***
Three days later, I bring her to another family gathering at Aleksei’s estate. This one is smaller—just the brothers and their children—but I want to see how she fits into this part of my life, too.
“Uncle Maksim!” Three small voices shriek in unison as we walk through the front door, and suddenly, I’m surrounded by tiny, nearly identical bodies demanding attention.
“There are my favorite troublemakers,” I say as I crouch down to gather all three kids into a group hug. “Have you been behaving for your parents?”
“We’re always good,” six-year-old Sofia declares, batting her eyelashes.
“That’s not what I heard from your father,” I tease, earning giggles from all three.
The third child, Anya, named after my late sister, tugs on my sleeve with serious eyes. “Uncle Maksim, who’s the pretty lady?”
I glance up to find Alyssa watching us with an adoring smile. “That’s Alyssa. She’s very special to me.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” Lina, the youngest triplet by a minute, asks with the blunt curiosity of a six-year-old.
“Something like that,” I answer diplomatically.
“Can she play with us?” little Anya asks hopefully.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
The three kids immediately swarm Alyssa, chattering questions and demands faster than she can possibly respond. But instead of looking overwhelmed, she laughs and kneels down to their level.
“What should we play?” she asks, and their faces light up like Christmas morning.
What follows is two hours of chaos as Alyssa gets completely absorbed in their games. She builds block towers with Marco, has tea parties with Sofia, and reads storybooks to Anya with different voices for all the characters. The kids adore her instantly, and watching her with them only makes me want her more.
“She’s good with them,” Aleksei observes as he joins me where I’m standing in the doorway watching the scene unfold.
“She’s good with everyone.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I know what he meant. Alyssa looks like she belongs here, surrounded by family and laughter and the kind of domestic joy that most people in our world never get to experience. She looks like she could be the mother of my children someday, and the thought doesn’t bother me the way it should.
