It’s all fun and games until you’re flat on your back in an emergency room and your wife starts yelling at you in Russian.
Elena towered over him, hands on her hips, and a fierce look on her face. He’d never been so in love in his entire life.
“I cannot believe you,” she shouted. “What are you doing? Were you running? Where are your crutches?”
“I— We always run for grand gesture,” Vlad panted.
Colton winced as he offered a hand to help him up. “Dude, I may not speak Russian, but pissed-off wife is a universal language. I don’t think she appreciated the grand gesture.”
Vlad ignored the sharp pain in his leg as he stood. He didn’t care. If he’d hurt it again, his leg would heal, and even if it didn’t, he’d survive. But he wouldn’t survive another day without Elena. Nearly losing her had put things in perspective rather quickly.
He hobbled toward his wife. His beautiful, smart, generous, brave wife. Elena’s features softened, and her arms shot out just in case he fell again. He limped straight into her embrace, wrapped his arms around her, buried his face in her neck, and sobbed. He clung to her. Breathed her in. Kissed her neck and tasted the life-affirming salt of her sweat and tears.
“I was so scared,” he choked. “I thought I lost you.”
“I thought I lost you too. I’m so sorry, Vlad. I’m so sorry.”
He pulled back and smoothed the hair from her face, rage pushing at his temples at the sight of blood on her skin. “I wasn’t there, Elena.” His voice was a snotty hiccup. “If I hadn’t left, if I’d been there—”
“I’m glad you weren’t, because they might have killed you on the spot.”
He went cold at the factual, impassive tone of her voice. As if she were willing to risk her life to protect him. Vlad wiped his face and glowered. “You say that like any of this is normal.”
“In my life, it kind of has been.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe your father made you think that.”
She curled her lips into a patient smile. “Vlad, I think you should sit down, because I need to say some things.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. I need you to hear me.”
Vlad nodded reluctantly. He sat down, and she stepped between his legs. He had to look up to see her.
“You learn a lot about yourself when someone kidnaps you,” she said.
“That isn’t funny,” he rasped. “How can you joke about any of this?”
She smoothed his sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead. “Because a macabre sense of humor is how journalists like my father and me process the horrific things we see.”
“You are not like your father.”
“But I am. In so many ways I am.” She rested her hands on his shoulders. “He did a lot of things wrong. You were right about that. And I think you were also right that I’ve been desperate to make his absence in my life worth it.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. It was cruel.”
“No, I needed to hear it. I couldn’t see what I was doing to myself and to us. You helped me see that, and I will love you forever for it.”
Her bottom lip trembled, so he gripped her hips and tugged her closer. She pressed a hand to the center of his chest. “But I need you to understand that this is part of who I am and will always be part of who I am. I am a journalist at heart, and I don’t want to deny that part of me. Not when I know that I have a passion and a skill that can do good things in the world. I can’t change who I am, but I can promise that I will be better. Better than him. Better than I have been. Better to us.”
She curled her hands around his cheeks. “I will never put us at risk for the sake of a story. Ever. Because nothing is more important to me than you. I’ve been living with the ghost of my father for so long that it blinded me to everything else. To you. And I nearly lost you. And I’m so, so sorry, Vlad.”
Her expression was a combination of tenderness and ferocity, and he realized with a jolt that it was uniquely her. Two mutually exclusive traits had somehow merged when the universe created this woman, and he’d never appreciated it, never saw it, until now. Until she stood before him with her gentle fingers on his face and her determination sparking like lightning in her eyes. For so long, he’d considered the two sides of her as separate beings at war with each other, and only one could win. But to truly love her, he had to love both sides of her. The nurturing woman who heated his blood and fed his soul with her poetry and passion. And the warrior woman who would likely give him heartburn but make him so damn proud with her crusades for the rest of his life.
Vlad turned into her touch and kissed her palm. Then he slid his own hands up her back and brought her flush against him. “I love you,” he declared. “And if this is what you want to do, then I am behind you. Just promise me, promise me, that you will never shut me out. I want to be part of it all. Every ugly part of it. Don’t hide anything from me, because you are part of me.”
And then he kissed her, and she kissed him back. She kissed him like she knew how close they’d come to never kissing again. She kissed him with unrestrained passion and roaming hands and panted breaths. Like it was their first time and their last chance. She kissed him with his name on her lips, her heart in her eyes, with joy in every breath.
“It’s going to be okay now, Lenochka,” he whispered. “Everything is going to be okay.”
A clearing throat brought them apart. Vlad looked around her body to see Colton peeking his head in through the curtain. “You know, just because none of us speak Russian doesn’t mean we don’t understand sex noises. You’re shocking the staff.”
Elena laughed and dropped her face to Vlad’s shoulder. He hugged her tightly, hand palmed around the curve of her neck to hold her, safe and sound and secure.
“So, is it safe to come in now or what?” Colton asked.
“Go away,” Vlad grumbled.
Elena laughed and turned around in his arms. “You can come in.”
A single-file line walked through the curtain. Colton. Mack. Malcolm. Michelle. Claud. Noah. Cheese Man.
Cheese Man? Vlad glowered at Colton. “What is he doing here?”
“He’s a friend of Elena’s too.”
“I was very worried,” Cheese Man said. He reached for Elena’s hand, probably to kiss it, the bastard. Vlad slid his arms around Elena’s waist and pulled her against his chest in an unabashed possessive pose.
“Thank you for coming,” Elena laughed, covering Vlad’s hands with her own. “That was very kind of you.”
Cheese Man pointed at Vlad. “You are a lucky man, my friend. I hope you recognize it.”
Vlad kissed Elena’s neck. “I do.”
“Keep it PG, kids,” Colton said. “You can’t do the humping in here.”
The aggressive scrape of the curtain rings heralded the arrival of a very annoyed ER doctor. “Folks, we can’t have this many people in here. Just family.”
Elena leaned into Vlad’s chest. “This is our family.”
“Damn straight, it is,” Mack said.
“Well, there are too many of you. You can visit her when she’s admitted to her own room.”
Vlad tightened his hold on her waist. “You’re admitting her?”
“Overnight for observation.”
“Do I have a concussion?” Elena asked.
“Yes, but I cannot go into details with all these people here.”
Colton snapped and pointed. “Point taken. We’re leaving.”
One by one, the guys stopped in front of Elena to kiss her cheek and pat Vlad on the shoulder. Except Cheese Man. He just waved before ducking out. Michelle gave her a long hug, and Claud just smiled. The doctor left, too, and said he’d be back in a few minutes to discuss the results of her CT scan.
Vlad turned Elena around his arms and then stood up on one leg. “You need to be in bed. A concussion is serious. I know these things.”
He held her hand as she crawled onto the mattress. Then he draped the thin white blanket across her lap before sitting down in the small chair next to her bedside. Their hands laced next to her hip.
“I love you,” she said, resting her head on the pillow.
“I love you too.” He leaned forward and kissed her hand. “And I want us to have a real wedding.”
“You do?”
He looked up in time to see a happy tear roll down her cheek. “Here in America, with all our friends and my parents. I want to wait for you as you walk down the aisle, and I want to kiss you in front of everyone, and I want my mother to read a poem.”
“Sounds like you have it all planned out,” she teased, another tear dripping onto the pillow.
“I’ve thought about it a lot.”
Elena smiled. “I just have one request.”
“Anything,” Vlad said, using the pad of his thumb to wipe away her tear.
“Can Cheese Man cater it?”