Page 95 of Claim Me

He brushed his knuckle across my cheek and through the wetness from my tears. “You’ll make a formidable business partner.”

“Is that what you want? No, is that what you’ll allow? For us to become business partners?”

“We already are, Marissa. But your brother wouldn’t want you abandoning a career you worked so hard to achieve.”

“Mmmm… True. Does that mean you won’t fight me on tonight? You will allow me to play for the benefit. Right? This is something I feel I need to do. There will be plenty of people surrounding me. There’s no way anything could happen.”

He groaned and closed his eyes. When he was frustrated or worried and his jaw clenched, he was perhaps the most handsome man on Earth. Maybe I was a little biased. How had I gone from hating him to craving him? Grief. That was the only logical answer.

“I understand just how important your music is to you, but you go there for the solo and leave right after. With me. That’s the only way I’ll agree to this.”

“Agreed,” I told him. I’d already had three calls that morning. I’d finally talked with Teresa. It felt as if months had gone by since I’d been allowed my normal life, not a few days. “I honestly don’t know how you can live this way. Always on edge. Always carrying a weapon or ten. Always keeping men trained as soldiers at least in close proximity. Do you have guards at your house?”

He finally grinned while scratching his four-day beard, which I was beginning to really like. I scratched it for him and his eyes sparked just as they had the night before. The little experience in the lobby had kept me mortified with heat flashes while laughing my ass off for a full hour.

I’d felt like some kid who’d snuck out to meet her boyfriend in a public location.

Something I’d never done.

But it had been sexy and exciting, except for seeing the look on the man’s face. Or maybe that’s why I’d laughed so hard. I wasn’t certain.

“God, no. I need my privacy,” he admitted.

“But you have several on speed dial. Right?”

“As I told you before, Popov and his clan live in the past, their world filled with brutality. That’s not my world or that of my family. We’re just like any other group of siblings. We bicker. We hate each other. We work together. We laugh. We cry. We celebrate.”

“But you just happen to be deadly individuals.”

Every time he grinned, he lit up the entire room.

“When you put it that way…” He stood, pulling me up with him.

“Something else I don’t understand. You’re willing to drag yourself and your family into that world because of me.”

“That’s what we do for each other.”

“They think I’m special to you.”

Kazimir shrugged as if it was no big deal, but I knew otherwise. It floored me. It excited me. The idea was everything a girl dreamt of, even though the reality was terrifying. “You are special to me, Marissa, and my family knows that.”

“Because they thought you’d never feel that way again. Right?”

Now his expression was pinched. “The past is the past and needs to stay there.”

I could tell he wasn’t going to budge.

“You are so hardheaded. You want me to trust you, yet I only know but so much about you. Are you certain you really want to expose your life to the old ways?”

“Are you suggesting you’re not worth it?”

I gave him a look. “Evidently I’m worth about ten million dollars so…”

He growled. “Don’t go down that road or I might need to turn you over my knee.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” I backed away even as he tried to grab me. As horrible and gut-wrenching as everything was, the fact he could make me feel so alive was something I’d never forget.

Long after he was gone.