Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 79211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I look over my shoulder, and it's a calculated move that I shouldn't have taken. That quick look over my shoulder cost me precious seconds, and Aleksandr is closing in on me.
I squeal when I feel his fingers brush the back of my hair. I leap over a fallen log and quickly slide between a narrow opening in a gate he can’t make it through. I laugh to myself when he curses and slams against it. Not that I want to hurt him, but I'm not ready to stop running yet.
When I run, he always gives chase. There's something beautifully primal and erotic about the way he chases me, and I love it.
I run into the clearing, picking up my pace, just as he grabs the fence and swings both legs over. It's so gorgeous, seeing such unbridled masculine strength, that I almost slow down just so he'll catch me. Instead, I turn on my heel and sprint even faster.
My foot catches on something in the field. I go tumbling, and thankfully fall into a bed of flowers. Now that I’ve fallen, he'll catch me in seconds. Game over.
"There you are, you little brat,” he says in that growly voice that makes me hot.
He's heaving with the effort of breathing, his hands on his hips as if trying to catch his breath. He falls down beside me, captures my wrists in his big, strong hands, and pins them by my sides. "You know the rule.”
“Maybe I do,” I whisper, anticipation weaving its way through my limbs, in my arms, in my nerves.
“Strip.”
If I provoke him, the rule is I get to run. If he catches me, the rule is he gets to fuck me.
“Right here in the middle of the field?" I say, just a little scandalized.
He slaps my ass. "Now, before I tear them off you and bring you back home naked."
"What kind of an example would that set for your daughter?"
"She wouldn't see you. I’d wrap you in my coat." He would, though my protruding belly might be visible.
I strip, keeping his eyes on me the entire time. He's already hard as fuck, and I'm wet. In seconds, we're rolling in the grass, my hands grasping for purchase around his shoulders, his around my waist. We lose ourselves in each other until we’re sated, panting in the bed of flowers.
He lies beside me. “Remember that first day that I caught you?"
"It’s a core memory, etched into my brain for eternity. How could I forget?”
“I remember wondering how you were so damn fast. Now I know. You’re a fucking prodigy.”
“Why thank you.”
We lie there in the flowers until the sun begins to set and a chill comes over us. I think I even fall asleep a little. These carefree days after the death of my enemy and my family’s disappearance have been nothing but peaceful.
I went shopping with Marialena, and then we took a trip to Boston to meet the rest of her family. Well, actually, my family too now, I guess. I'm thankfully not nauseous at all, and my prenatal visits have gone perfectly. The whole family is so excited. Ekaterina has already had me picking up purchases, though she says it's against Russian tradition to buy anything for the baby ahead of time, because it could be bad luck. This is a little bit of a problem because Italians play very differently, but that's alright.
"We should go home,” he finally says, leaning up on his elbow. With his hair tousled and his eyes twinkling, he almost looks boyish. Yet there’s still an edge about Aleksandr Romanov that will always be there, something that tells me his innocence is long since passed, though there's a playfulness that marriage and having children have brought back.
"I'd like that.”
"What do you think about taking a trip to Tuscany in the fall? You still have months before you have the baby. We can visit the Rossi’s vineyard…”
“Oooh. Perfect.”
As we walk back home hand in hand, I marvel to myself that I tried to run away from the only man that ever loved me.
I couldn’t be happier that he finally, finally captured me.
EPILOGUE
Harper
“There. Lift your chin up.”
Aria lifts her chin up and stares at me, speaking through lips that barely move. “I cannot believe you do this every single day.”
I smile. “I definitely do not do this every day, but on a day like today, we need to.”
Aria’s mentioned wanting me to do her make-up for a while, and since today is a family photo shoot, it’s fitting. She’s not a fan of the full make-up routine and really, who can blame her.
“Then how do you look so flawless?” She asks with a sigh. “That perfect skin. Those gorgeous beach waves. Not a single eyebrow out of place and yet if I so much as misplace my tweezers for like one day, and believe me that happens, I practically have a unibrow.”