Chapter 27 – VALENTINA
Twenty-Seven
VALENTINA
“What happens now?” I ask, still seated on the desk.
Only now I’m fully dressed. Well, mostly. My bra’s stuffed somewhere behind the printer, and I’d say my pride is under the desk, but she’s clapping. Even thirty minutes after he quite literally rearranged my fucking soul, my body still feels wired. Like if he touched me again, I’d short-circuit.
Maksim doesn’t answer right away.
He’s leaning against the opposite wall, shirt half-buttoned. And for a second, my stomach sinks.
He said he had no regrets, but now he looks like a man rethinking everything. I just don’t know if that includes me, or the part where he nearly broke the desk fucking me into it.
Say something. Anything.
The silence is eating through my confidence.
Then his gaze lifts and locks on mine.
“This wasn’t just a fuck,” he says, voice like gravel. “You know that.”
I swallow. “I know.”
“I already told you,” he adds, pushing off the wall. “There’s no going back.”
He steps toward me. His knees brush mine, and his hand cups my jaw with a gentleness that makes my chest squeeze.
“So what happens now?” he repeats. “Now I make damn sure no one touches what’s mine. Starting with that fuck downstairs. If he values his life, he’s already gone.”
“And if he’s not?” I challenge, needing to hear him confirm that I’m his. Because deep down, I’ve been waiting for Maksim to claim me like this.
“He’ll have the worst day of his life, baby.”
Baby.
That one word does it. I’m a puddle. I should probably be concerned that he just threatened my ex-boyfriend’s life at my range, but all I hear is ‘baby’, and my post-orgasm brain is apparently a sucker for pet names from Russian psychopaths.
I shake my head, smiling like an idiot. “I don’t want you committing felonies on my behalf, Maxy. Besides, I can take care of him myself.”
“You’re not always going to have the dogs.”
“Ouch,” I smirk. “You don’t think I know my way around a gun?”
“I know you do.” He presses a kiss to my forehead, and for a second, I melt.
That’s the thing about Maksim. He can be hard as steel one minute and wreck me the next with something as simple as this. The softness buried beneath it all.
“You know, there are no secrets in my family. I know who my father was. Who he still is. All I ask is for you not to treat me like I’m some delicate flower.” I run my nail across his bottom lip. “I’m far from it.”
“Is that right?”
He catches my hand in his and kisses the pad of my finger, smiling with that smug mouth. Then his other hand cups my pussy, and I gasp.
“You ever kill a man?”
“You’re killing the mood, Ruso.”
“Oh, so you’re a killer and a liar?” His thumb slides over my panties, useless now, and soaked through. “Because I can feel how wet your pretty cunt is getting again.”
I bite my lip, hard.
“You’re dripping,” he murmurs against my neck, voice thick with amusement.
“I’m literally sitting on a desk that still smells like sex, Maxy. What do you expect?”
He chuckles. “I expect you to keep that same energy when I bend you over it again in an hour.”
“An hour?” I huff a laugh and swat at his chest. “You need that long to recover?”
“The only reason you’re not full of me right now is because you look like you might pass out if we go again.”
“At least I’d die happy.”
He grins. “And sore.”
I roll my eyes, still breathless, still aching for him. But beneath the teasing, the afterglow, and that soft pulse between my thighs, something a little heavier settles in my chest.
My fingers toy with the buttons of his half-done shirt. “What are we going to tell them?”
“Them?”
“You know…Our families. Yours. Mine.”
He pauses. “You’re not scared of killing your ex, but you’re scared of your father?”
“I’m not scared for me. You two aren’t exactly best friends. If you weren’t, well…you, I’d be worried he might try to sever your limbs.”
“I’m not worried,” Maksim says without hesitation.
I lean in and kiss him.
“I’d never let him hurt you. And neither would Aunt Leni,” I add with a small laugh. “And he’d never hurt me like that either.” I sigh. “Despite everything, he still sees me as this version of his little girl that stopped existing a long time ago.”
“He’s your father. That will never stop.”
“I know. But I’m pretty sure he never expected me to be folded over my desk in his former office by you, of all people.”
He grins. “We could just…not tell him that part.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
We laugh, and he brushes a strand of hair from my face, the humor dimming just enough to let something else through. Something heavier.
“When you’re ready, we’ll tell them. All of them. You set the pace, Ptichka.”
Ptichka. Little bird.
My heart aches and soars at the same time.
“How many nicknames are you going to give me, Maxy?”
He doesn’t answer. His mouth slams into mine.
And for a second, I let myself get lost in it.
In him. When we break apart, his hand lingers on the side of my face.
Gentle. Possessive. I lean into his touch, needing to feel every part of him.
I want him folded into every corner of my life.
The one I built while he was gone, the rush that sets my chest on fire every time I race.
All of it.
“I want to take you somewhere when I’m out of this thing,” I say, my voice softer. He arches a brow, and I suddenly feel strangely vulnerable, but hold his stare. “It’s important to me. Part of who I am. You’ll see.”