Epilogue
Lucy paced the beach, giving instructions to her yoga class in a sing-song voice. She’d been in Ibiza for two months, playing in clubs at night, teaching yoga in the mornings on the beach.
At the back of the group of students, her crazy Russian stood on his head with the rest of them. His beautiful, muscled body had bronzed in the sun and he moved with surprising grace and ease. Back in Los Angeles, she couldn’t imagine how he’d fit in. A crazy, violent, tattooed mobster. And it wasn’t like he blended in in Ibiza, either. He didn’t blend in, but he fit. Perfectly.
He’d learned to twist his body into a pretzel in her yoga class and she’d found him equally flexible molding himself into her partner. For all his intensity, he’d been surprisingly laid back. He let her lead outside of their apartment, serving as her bodyguard, manager, promoter or just sexy eye candy— because the girls of Ibiza loved his bad boy tattoos and strong, silent vibe. He’d quit the FBI, but he’d been given some small assignment in Ibiza by some government organization, possibly the CIA—he wouldn’t tell her other than to say that it would never put her in danger or interfere with their time there.
Inside their apartment, he made all the demands, tying her to their bed, pinning her against the wall, spanking her ass until it was rosy red. And true to his promise back in Los Angeles, any time she made him jealous—inadvertently or on purpose—he took her ass to remind her who she belonged to.
At the moment, her anus stretched around a stainless steel plug he’d inserted when he saw what she planned to wear to yoga class. He hadn’t made her change out of the string bikini top and miniscule shorts, but he’d bent her over, spanked her and shoved the plug up her ass with the promise that there’d be more punishment when they got home. Needless to say, she hadn’t done much demonstrating that class.
She talked them through the last few poses, ending with shavasana, or corpse pose. The class ended and Yuri stood up, hanging back, giving her students space to ask her questions or thank her before they left.
“Ready for your ass fucking?” he murmured after he sidled up to her and slid an arm around her waist.
A shiver of excitement ran through her, as it always did when he spoke with dark promise in her ear. “Yes.”
He turned her to face him and trailed a finger along her collarbone, his gaze tracing the low-cut line of her bikini. “You know you’ve been a naughty girl.” He dragged his index finger down her sternum until it met her bikini, which he pulled open to peer inside.
Dear lord, when he started with the naughty girl talk, she turned to a quivering mass of jello. Sometimes she argued and sassed him back, made him capture her wrists and force her to yield, but right now, her belly fluttering, clit swollen and pulsing, she’d be whatever he wanted her to be.
“Excuse me, are you DJ Sunshine?” a beautiful young brunette asked, interrupting their moment.
Lucy turned to face her. “Yes?” She’d taken Yuri’s name for her as her DJ name in Ibiza.
The young woman stuck out her hand. “I’m Chelsea Chase, with Rolling Stone Magazine. I’m doing an article on female DJs in Ibiza, would you be willing to let me interview you?”
Her lust-fogged brain cleared as her excitement at the woman’s words set in. She glanced at Yuri, who nodded encouragingly. “Yes, I’d love to.”
“Do you have time before you play tonight?”
Lucy nodded mutely.
Yuri squeezed her against his side. “Where should she meet you?” he prompted, since her brain had taken a vacay from the shock.
“Club Amnesia, 10 p.m. You’re on at eleven, right?”
“Right.” Lucy found her voice. “Ten sounds good. I’ll meet you there.”
Chelsea handed her a business card. “Here’s my phone number and email if you need to change plans or if we have trouble finding each other.” She flashed a model-esque smile. “I’ll see you tonight.”
After Chelsea walked away, Lucy went limp, leaning against Yuri’s hold.
He touched her nose. “Great news, moye solnishko.”
She beamed up at him, hardly believing her luck. No one had ever taken her interest in DJing seriously. Her parents had considered it a waste of her education and a downright dangerous interest, since it put her in nightclubs every night. Her brother thought it fluffy and foolish, the thing she did before she got serious about her life. Only Yuri—a man who admitted himself he had no interest in music—observed how much it meant to her. He was the only one who thought she had real talent, who wanted her to keep doing what she loved. And hell, having his support was enough. But she couldn’t help thinking that having a mention in Rolling Stone would legitimize her chosen profession to her parents and the rest of the naysayers. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Who cared?
Yuri understood. And that was enough. He’d made her the center of his compass, and in turn, he’d become hers.
She lifted her face to him and he took the hint, capturing the back of her head to hold her in place for a possessive kiss.
“I need you,” he murmured against her lips. “I can’t stand watching all those motherfuckers ogle your hot little yoga body when you’re standing up there. And I get such a hard on, I feel like I’m going to die.”
Her laugh came out husky. “Well, we’d better go take care of that.”
“Yes. I will keep you prisoner all afternoon.” He led her off the beach to the walkway with a hand on her lower back. “All the way until your interview tonight.”
“Did you have anything to do with that interview?” She had to ask. Yuri seemed to be a man capable of almost anything.
“No.” The surprise in his voice seemed genuine. “You did that. All you. Your talent. Your spirit. Your energy.”
She stole a glance at him from under her lashes. “Would you tell me if you had?”
One corner of his lips lifted. “Maybe not. But I never lie to you, Lucya. Trust me on that.”
She stopped walking to lean on her tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “I love you, Yuri.” The words slipped out, easy as pie, yet it was the first time she’d spoken them. She realized, with a start, they were true. They didn’t hold the heaviness of a promise, or the weight of a yoke. They felt light and honest.
Like when she’d asked Yuri to take her to Ibiza, an agonized pleasure washed over his expression. Within seconds, she found herself shoved up against a nearby building, her legs wrapped around Yuri’s waist as he devoured her with his mouth, kissing, biting, sucking her lips, neck and shoulder.
“You love me, you love me,” he chanted. “Is it true, moye solnishko? Do you?”
She nodded happily, like a woman telling her husband she’d discovered she was pregnant. “It’s true.”
He hadn’t told her the same, but she didn’t have to ask. He’d shown her every minute of every day. He watched her with those intelligent, blue eyes, absorbing every detail about her—what she liked, who she didn’t, and orchestrated their days accordingly. Everything he did was to make her happy. And he was damn good at it, too.
“I love you,” she repeated.
A stream of Russian came from his lips. He kissed her again. “I need you,” he groaned for the second time against her mouth.
“So you said. Come on,” she urged gently. “We’re almost at the apartment.”
He pulled her away from the wall, but didn’t lower her feet to the ground, instead hitching her up to sit on his hip, like a koala bear baby on its mother. She laughed as he took off with swift, determined steps toward their apartment.
“Mine,” he growled, as if to himself, and she laughed again. He’d been making that claim in the bedroom since the day they arrived, but now, instead of an assertion, he sounded as if he truly believed it.
“Yes, yours.”
Yuri looked up at her, his handsome face split into a wide grin.
“Yours,” she murmured again, her heart overflowing with love. The rare, unexplainable love that she hadn’t thought existed outside of romance novels and fairy tales. Yuri had given it to her. Her crazy Russian.
The End