She smiles and wraps her arms around me, bringing her lips to mine. Her kiss is sweet and gentle. She’s still worrying about hurting me, but when I slide my tongue between her lips, she opens for me and kisses me harder, letting me see exactly how much she needs and wants me.
“Take me home, Dima,” she whispers against my lips.
I smile and carry her out of the building, already thinking about our future together. I’m sure there will be ups and downs, but as long as my wicked girl is by my side, I know everything will be okay.
“Now that you are my fiancée, I will be buying you new car.”
She laughs and says, “We’ll see.”
“You are going to be stubborn wife,” I tease. “Like mule.”
“Oh, baby, you have no idea.”
I set her down by the car and open the passenger door for her, lifting her chin before she gets in.
“Good. I like my wicked girl.” I give her a wink and add, “Plus, has been too long since I spanked you.”
She tries to look angry, but the heat in her eyes is unmistakable.
“Get in car, Belova. Time to go home.”
I get in the driver’s side and send a quick text to Nikolai, letting him know that everything is okay and I’ll fill him in later. Gina smiles and grabs onto my hand as we pull out of the lot. I wish Sergei could be here to share in this, but it’s time to let go of all that pain. It’s time for me to start living my life, and soon, hopefully, we’ll be starting our own family. Just the idea of it has me smiling.
“What are you smiling about?”
“I am just happy.” I bring her hand up and kiss the back of it. “So happy, Gina.”
“Me, too, Dima.”
She gives my hand a squeeze and settles back into her seat. I drive us home, both of us more than ready to embrace our new life together.
Epilogue
Gina
The sight of Dima in his black tux has my heart racing a mile a minute. You’d think I’d be used to him by now, but he never fails to take my breath away. He takes his eyes off the road long enough for me to see the mischievous glint in those piercing blue eyes of his before turning his attention back to driving.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask again for the millionth time.
“Patience, Volkova.”
A warmth spreads through me at the name. Technically it’s Volkov, but Dima switches it to the Russian version like he did for Belova. I never get tired of hearing it, and it’s not just because we were married a few hours ago.
“I’ll try, but you know how impatient I am.”
He laughs and rests his hand on my quickly growing baby bump. “I wonder if our son will be as impatient as his mommy.”
I lay my hand on top of his. I’d had to choose a wedding dress that wasn’t fitted through the waist, because every week I seem to be getting bigger. I still have three months to go, but this little guy is growing quickly. We’ve decided to name him Sergei after Dima’s brother. I know he’s going to be as big and strong as his daddy. We had talked about putting the wedding off until after the birth, but neither of us wanted to. We liked the idea of having him there with us, our small family together as one.
So much has happened in the last six months. It’s a miracle we were even able to plan this wedding at all. My family has warmed up to Dima, even if my dad does still pretend to be a grump about it sometimes. Adam works at the new youth boxing club that we officially opened last month and is still taking private boxing lessons from the guys. Stacy’s even gotten into it and has signed up for a few self-defense classes. Jamie and Aleksei are as strong as ever, and I keep teasing her that it’ll be her wedding that’s next. It looks like Liam and Paddy won’t be seeing the light of day for quite some time, and with Paddy’s health, I doubt he’ll ever be a free man again. Sean has disappeared, and Nikolai heard that Paddy’s granddaughter is going to be moving in and taking over the club, which has him more irritable than I’ve ever seen him, but on the whole, things have been going amazingly well.
When Dima pulls into the driveway of an adorable craftsman style house in a quiet cul-de-sac, I look over at him in confusion. “Where are we?”
He turns so I can see him, and he looks so damn sexy I have to force myself to not get sidetracked.
“We are home,” he says. “If you like it.” He looks quickly to the house and then back at me. “I mean, I really hope you do because I already bought it, but if you do not like it, we can buy better one.”
He’s rambling and his accent is getting thicker with each word, and it’s adorable as fuck. I laugh and look at the house in front of us and then back at my husband.