Gavriil (Stepanov Mafia)

I nodded. It would take a while for me to feel like things were back to normal, but for the moment, I knew that I was safe. I was with Gavril.

“Thanks for finding me,” I whispered.

“Don’t thank me for that,” Gavril said sharply.

“Why not?”

He let out a quick puff of air. “Because taking care of you and our baby is my priority. It’s my job now. I was simply doing my job.”

I smiled. Gavril was making his search for me unemotional. He was trying to make me believe that he had done it out of a sense of obligation. That he had been shot and killed my brother and sent his men to track me down because he felt like he had to. But I knew the truth. I knew Gavril well enough now to know that he didn’t make efforts like that for people he didn’t care about.

I turned my face into his chest and breathed in the scent of him – even masked with sweat and blood, I could still pick out his woodsy smell. “I love you.”

He didn’t need to say it back. He’d shown me how he felt. But Gavril laid his hand flat across my back and pulled me into him, pressing his lips to my ear. “I love you too.”

I didn’t move. I was too surprised. And while I sat there in stunned silence, Gavril slipped his hand between us and cradled my stomach. “I love the baby, too.”

Finally, I smiled, and it stuck. The future was shining too brightly for any darkness to matter right now. We were going to be a family.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Samantha

I pushed back the covers and rolled out of bed. Gavril groaned.

“Go back to sleep,” I whispered, padding across the floor.

“Why are you awake?” he grumbled, his voice thick with sleep.

“I have to pee.”

He laughed. “Of course, you do.”

The morning sickness came and went. The heartburn that set in towards the end of the first trimester even began to fade at the end of the second trimester. But the constant need to use the restroom continued to grow worse as the baby grew. I woke up at least five times every night, and as soon as Gavril and I got in the car to go somewhere, I’d be begging him to pull over at a gas station.

I ignored him and continued into the bathroom to do my business. I expected him to be asleep when I came back out, but he was sitting up, his back against the headboard and his hands folded over his muscular stomach. His hair was a disheveled mess on top of his head, but it was shiny and thick, and I wanted to run my fingers through it. No matter how many times I woke up next to Gavril, I never got used to how attractive he was. Suddenly, he waggled his eyebrows, and I realized I’d been staring at him. Then, I realized he was staring at me.

I was five months pregnant, but my baby bump was small enough that it was only obvious when I wore tight shirts. I was wearing a tight pink tank top, so my bump was on full display, with a pair of matching satin pajama shorts that barely covered more than my underwear. Gavril apparently liked what he saw.

“I told you to go back to sleep,” I said.

He patted the bed next to him suggestively. “I thought that maybe since you woke me up, you’d make it worth my while.”

I bit my lip, trying to hide my smile as I slid back beneath the covers and curled up next to him. “It’s three in the morning.”

Gavril ran his hand down my side, gripping my hip. “Which means we have fifteen minutes before you will have to pee again. Better make it quick.”

I slapped his chest playfully, and he caught my hand, bringing it to his lips. He planted a kiss on my knuckles and then my wrist and then my elbow. Soon, he was moving across my collarbone and nestling himself between my breasts. I wanted to play hard to get, make him work for it, but I was putty in his hands. My body ached for him always. One touch and I was his. He pushed aside the thin material of my tank top to reveal my bare breast, and then sucked it into his mouth, swirling his tongue over me in the most delicious way, making me moan.

“Quiet or your mom will hear,” he teased.

I pushed his head back down, forcing him to continue what he’d been doing. “She has her own wing on the west side. She won’t hear a thing.”

I knew that was true because we’d tested it the day before she moved in. I stood in my mother’s room while Gavril screamed as loud as he could in our bedroom. As long as he didn’t give me the orgasm to end all orgasms, my mother wouldn’t hear a thing.