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“I can’t believe it’s finally happening,” I say, pressing my face against the window. The city is dizzyingly far below, and the lights are blinding tonight.

Anton comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. “You did it.”

He feels warm and solid behind me, and the press of his body against mine sends my thoughts spinning in a decidedly less businesslike direction. The months since the kidnapping have felt like a dream. Moving in, merging our lives together, and spending every minute I can with him while chasing the high of a good deal? I’m living my fantasy.

“We did it,” I remind him, knowing we’ve been in this together every step of the way. There’s no chance I could have done it without him, and I also know he couldn't have done it without me. We’re a team.

“God, you guys,” Anya chimes in from her spot on our couch, “get a room. You’re gross.”

Anton doesn’t bother turning. “This is our room. You don’t like the view, you’re welcome to get out. In fact, that sounds like a great idea.”

He moves my hair aside and starts to kiss his way down my neck. Suddenly, I’m on board with kicking Anya out of the room. But, she’s pretty much become my best friend, so I listen to the angel on my shoulder and duck out of his grip, trying not to die a little at the loss.

“Sorry,” I say with a sheepish smile. “Just so excited about the construction finally happening!”

The spot we picked out is officially under construction, with the new casino and hotel combination expected to be finished in about a year. This marks the expansion of the Milovs’ influence into a new part of the world, which is why our new alliance with the Shevchenkos is so important. The bigger we get, the more we push, and the more enemies we will attract. We need all the friends we can get.

We. That’s how I think of myself now, as one of the Milovs. I never imagined it happening, but with Anton on one side and Anya on the other, I’m beginning to feel like a part of the family

“And with the Shevchenkos at our back? We’re basically untouchable,” Anya says with more than a hint of pride. She’s been stepping into her own in the family business, despite Anton trying to hold her back, and it’s obvious she’s going to be formidable in her own right soon enough.

“Don’t get cocky,” Anton warns, earning an eye roll from Anya and an elbow in the side from me.

“Come on,” Anya groans. “Give us this one night where you’re not a total party pooper. One night!”

“Tonight is all about celebrating,” I remind him. We’ve just gotten back from a dinner out and the champagne is still buzzing through my body.

“Speaking of,” Anton says, drawing me close again. Out, please, Anya.”

“Ugh, fine.” She grabs her purse and tugs it over her shoulder. “See you tomorrow for brunch, right, Ella?”

“Right,” I murmur, already lost in the way Anton’s hands are moving down my back.

When the door closes, he kisses me but stops before I can deepen it the way I want. My lips part, pouting.

“Marry me,” he says, cupping my chin.

The world spins beneath my feet. Did he really just say that? Then he kneels and says it again.

***

Three days later, we’re supposed to head to a business meeting in Paris, but instead we’re playing hooky in Champagne-Ardenne on our honeymoon. Honeymoon. The ink on the marriage license is still drying, yet we took a private jet, turned off our phones, and ensconced ourselves in a chalet.

Not a single regret. I can’t stop staring at the ring, the physical reminder that I’m officially Ella Milov, and Anton is my husband. Mine. Forever.

I turn when the door opens. He steps out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel slung low on his hips, and my stomach flips because that man can take the breath right out of my lungs. I drink in the sight of him and crave more.

“Ella,” he warns, stalking across the room to me. “You can’t look at me like that.”

“Why not?” I say, hooking my finger in the waistband of the towel. His skin is warm and damp, and a drop of water runs down the channels of his abs, disappearing beneath the fabric. I want to follow it with my tongue.

“Because it does this to me,” he says, grabbing my hand and placing it over his hard cock.

He tilts my head and kisses me, and my body goes molten. His fingers make quick work of the string on my nightgown, a gauzy, barely there thing. “Maybe,” I gasp out around kisses, and he drops his head to my shoulder to kiss his way along my collarbone to the hollow of my neck. “Maybe that’s what I wanted.”

“Filthy girl,” he says, stubble tickling my sensitive skin. “Filthy wife.”

I tug his towel off and wrap my hand around his cock, stroking my thumb over the sensitive head. “Just what you wanted.”

“Fuck yes,” he groans, bucking into my grip. I could do this all day, just to watch the way he melts for me. He throws his head back when I rub up and down the length of him, excruciatingly slow. The slower the buildup, the harder he’ll cum, and I want to make him see stars.

Something about watching this powerful man crumble for me gives me a high like others. I take my time, pushing his hand away each time he reaches for me. Finally, he ducks down and catches my lips again in a gentle kiss. His tongue twists around mine, and I taste the mint of his toothpaste and the other, sweeter taste that’s all Anton. I’m so familiar with it now, but I’ll never get enough.

Sucking on my bottom lip, he strokes a hand over the curve of my hip, and I’m too deep into the kiss to stop him now. His fingers move as slowly, lazily as my own around his cock, tracing lines of heat wherever they go.

Just like that, the balance of power shifts and I’m the one aching for more, pressing into his touch. I palm him faster, stroking from root to tip and back again, and catch his gasp with my kiss. It’s a race now, and he wants to win.

He traces his fingers on either side of my pussy, barely grazing the most sensitive parts of me. I twist, desperate for more contact, and he draws his touch away.

“Tease,” I moan, stabbing my hands through his hair and bringing him lower toward me so I can kiss along his neck, his shoulder, his hard chest.

He teases my slit, coating his finger before sinking one, then another inside of me until I’m stretched and full. “You’re so wet for me, Ella.”

“So take me.”

“Not yet.”

Anton smirks, and if I wasn’t already soaked, I would be now. I love that cocky smile, especially when I know what’s coming next. He kneels between my legs, sliding his fingers in and out, hooking them to hit me just right, hitting that spot that turns my brain off and makes my knees wobble.

I wrap my legs around his ears as he starts to tongue my clit, circling it in smaller and smaller circles until finally he’s there, lapping at it like he’ll never get enough. Neither will I. His fingers keep working, moving inside me, making a push and pull of pressure between them and his tongue that has me gripping the bed.

Another long stroke of his tongue and I cry out, thighs squeezing around his head as my orgasm hits.

He looks up with a smirk. “Now I’ll take you.”

Grabbing my ass, he lifts me up and carries me to the bed, and the loss of his fingers makes me ache with need.

“Flip over,” he says, in that bossy way that drives me absolutely crazy everywhere but the bedroom.

Here, it just makes me melt. I do as he says, and he grabs my hips, tugging my ass into the air.

“Please,” I say, fisting my hands in the sheets because if he makes me wait a second longer, I’m going to lose my mind.

Before I can beg again, I feel the tip of his tongue slide up my pussy from one end to the other, and all that comes out of me is a moan. He laps hungrily at my entrance before focusing his attention on my clit, swirling the tip of his tongue in a circle around it, his hands gripping either side of my ass.

I’m grinding back against him, stifling my noises with the pillow, and every stroke of his tongue is sending shivers of pleasure through my body. One more lick and I come undone, his grip the only thing holding me up off that bed.

Before I come down, he presses his cock against me. He takes me inch by inch in one long, slow thrust, letting me adjust to that delicious stretch before he starts moving in earnest. That pressure is everything.

He starts a deep, slow rhythm that has me pressing back to meet his thrusts, craving all of him.

“I love this view,” he says, grabbing my hips hard.

“More,” I say, shameless because I’m close again, and all I need is that brutal pace, the one he knows I love. “Harder. Deeper.”

“Fuck, Ella,” he groans, and his grips tighten before he gives me everything I ask for. The bed creaks with the force of his next thrust, and soon the headboard is pounding into the wall with every snap of his hips.

He drives me down into the bed and it’s all I can do to take him. All reasonable thought flees my brain, boiling down to the feeling where our bodies meet and that sweet, desperate ache.

The next buck of his hips hits that sweet, deep spot inside of me, and I cry out, pleasure spinning out as I shatter. In two more thrusts, he follows, groaning low and slamming his hips against me. I feel the pulse of his orgasm inside me as the aftershocks of my own fade.

He lies down beside me and tugs me into the spoon of his body. I nestle my head against his chest and catch his hand, lacing my fingers with his. Our sex is mind-blowing, but the moments after are what I live for. These moments, with his heartbeat in my ears and all the tension drained from his body. I flip so we’re face to face and kiss him softly.

“My perfect girl,” he says, stroking his thumb along my jaw. “My obsession.”

Mafia boss. Brutal killer. Businessman. Anton wears so many faces. I’m not afraid of any of them now, because I know the real one. It’s the one looking at me right now.

*****

THE END