“I fucking love you, baby.” He kisses my lips long and hard. “I can’t believe you have a tattoo.”
“For you.”
“For me,” he repeats with raging possessiveness.
“Hey, Niko?”
“Hmm?”
“Remember when we met that little girl in the park and you asked me what I whispered back to her?”
“You said it was a secret,” he grumbles.
“I told her I don’t need help because I’m in love with you.”
His lips pull in the most contagious smile. I love being the reason behind his happiness. I love that I’m the only one in the world who has this effect on him.
“Remember when you told me to tell you something in Russian?”
“You said I was cute.”
“No. I said ‘I can’t live without you,’ and we take that quite literally in Russia.”
“Aw, Nikolai.”
“Point is, I love the loving fuck out of you, baby.”
“I love the loving fuck out of you, too.”
He wraps his arms around me and lifts me up with sheer force until my feet leave the floor.
I’m laughing and trying to push him away as he spins me around and kisses my chest, my collarbone, my throat. Everywhere.
I continue laughing even as I look in the mirror.
Because for the first time, I don’t see a lonely boy there. I don’t even see the healing twenty-four-year-old version of me.
For the first time, I don’t see the past or the present.
I see my future with the most infuriating enigma.
The most chaotic person on earth.
And the love of my fucking life.
EPILOGUE 2—NIKOLAI
TWO YEARS LATER
“BABYYYY!”
Everyone, and I mean every single person in the hall, looks back at me.
Some laugh, others stab me with their elite, snobbish expressions, and many shake their heads, including Levi and that fucker Landon.
He’s most definitely in the glaring category. I swear to fuck, if it weren’t for Bran and Mia getting between us, we would’ve ripped each other’s throats out a long time ago.
Anyway, the people here don’t matter. I couldn’t give one single flying fuck about any judgmental, patronizing eyes, because the only person who matters faces me with a grin so wide, I nearly go into cardiac arrest.
Oh fuck.
Fuck me.
He’s suited up in the most flattering, flawless tuxedo that showcases his lithe, fit body. His hair is styled in his gorgeous Prince Charming look and his eyes are so bright, I’m positively drowning in their depths.
Sometimes I look at him and think I’m floating in an alternate reality. Sometimes, he whispers he loves me before he falls asleep in my arms, and I spend the entire night watching his face just to make sure it’s true.
He’s real.
We are real.
In what world did someone like me end up with someone like him?
No fucking clue, but I’ll take it. All day. Any day.
There's no way in fuck I’ll ever let him go. Not after our lives have become so intertwined that I can’t breathe properly unless he’s beside me.
It’s why the past week was fucking torture. I graduated this summer and had to go back to the States for my new role in the Bratva.
As much as I wanted to delay it, Jeremy has been waiting too long for me, and I can’t just leave my bro behind.
But I was rethinking the whole fucking thing the first night I slept without my lotus flower hugging me. The second night, I nearly spiraled into that black hole lurking in my mind and went back to smoking.
So yeah, I quit smoking a year and a half ago since I refuse the very notion of causing my Bran any form of health hazard namely the stupid second-hand smoke. Besides, he helped me all the way through it.
Just kidding. When it got a bit too much and I craved a smoke, he became his pragmatic stern self and announced a ban: either I touch him or a cigarette.
I quit within the week, thank you very fucking much.
My recent trip to the States felt like a redo of that time. No, it was much worse since I couldn’t even see him. We spoke on the phone for hours, despite the time difference, and he didn’t hang up until I actually drifted off to sleep.
I don’t want to ever, and I mean ever, get used to the feeling of sleeping in an empty bed. I prefer the bed where he pulls my head against his chest and strokes my hair until I fall asleep. A bed where I can hug him from behind and kiss his nape as we drift off.
This past week's experience is just not happening anymore.
Bran couldn’t come with me because of this award ceremony he was attending for winning some important art shit. Don’t ask me what it is. It has a stupid complicated title.