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Marissa watchedViktor disappear to the second floor.Difficult. Difficult man.
She was giving her man another fifteen minutes before she whipped him back from whatever wall he had bracketed himself behind. She understood him only too well, and he should be so lucky, because Marissa was probably the only female on the planet who would put up with his bullshit. She sniggered inwardly. She was the lucky one, though she wouldn’t admit it to Viktor. Her total submissiveness in bed was enough to stroke his ego. She squirmed at the twitching between her thighs. They had been going at it like rabbits, and there were no signs of their carnal pleasures abating. They did suffer a little setback for a few days three weeks ago.
When they first got back together, Viktor had admitted to a slight tremor on his right hand. This was screwing with his aim, and screwing with his psyche. They’d practiced a couple of times at the firing range, but it would always end up with Viktor snarling in frustration. Dr. Henderson wouldn’t give an opinion, stating it was too soon to consider this permanent damage, and that Viktor should give his hand a little more time to heal. For a man like Viktor, this was not an option.
So Marissa did something drastic, and she would admit, totally nuts. The third day on the firing range, she snatched the Rubik’s Cube from Tim’s station. She walked straight into the firing lane, ignoring Viktor’s bellow of warning, stood in front of the target board about thirty feet out, and placed the cube on her head.
“What the fuck, Marissa?”
“I trust you to hit the target—”
“Are you fucking insane?”
“Maybe. But I trust you—”
Viktor stalked toward her, dragged her off the lane, grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. “But I don’t trust myself.” His voice was ragged with his admission and it broke her heart. To a man like Viktor, his weapons were an extension of who he was. She curled her arms up around him, interlacing her fingers behind his neck, drawing his head down and gave him two firm jerks.
“I trust you. If you don’t want to risk using me as a live target, I’ve given you a visual to work with. This is important, Viktor. There might come a time when you’ve got to shoot someone holding me under duress.”
“I could always shoot your leg, take you out of the equation.”
Marissa punched him in the gut. “I’m serious.”
The improvement wasn’t immediate. But after another week of daily firing range practices, Viktor’s tremor disappeared and he was shooting his targets as deadly accurate as ever. Whether it was her little ploy that helped or his neurotransmitters simply readjusted, Marissa didn’t care, but Viktor had thanked her more than once for helping him get through it.
Just then, Viktor returned from the second floor. When he entered the loft, he had a determined look on his face, and he prowled straight toward her and backed her up against the kitchen counter. The small of her back hit the edge and he leaned in, bending her slightly, he said, “I want us to be permanent.”
“Huh?” Yeah, she was flummoxed. Permanent? What did he mean?
“Um, you have to be more articulate, big guy,” Marissa said. “Not sure what you’re telling me here.”
A look of annoyance crossed his face. He exhaled deeply,opened his mouth and shut it again. He pushed away from her, walked a couple of paces and turned around to face her.
Marissa straightened up. One of her brows was raised and she crossed her arms over her chest. Waiting.
“I want permanence,” Viktor said roughly. “These past months with you, you gave me back my humanity. I don’t want to become a soulless bastard again, and I have a feeling without you in my life, I’m going to revert back to it.”
He walked to her, towering above her, but not touching her. His eyes were smoldering with so much emotion, her heart rate accelerated, her breathing quickened. “I’m listening.”
“You keep me grounded in what matters—people and relationships.” He reached out and cupped her cheek, the pad of his thumb rubbing on her lower lip. “You’re my weakness and my strength. You believed in me, when I’d lost faith in myself. I need you to believe in me now—enough that I could make you happy forever and make this permanent between us.”
Marissa didn’t know whether to bang her head on the kitchen counter, laugh, or break down and cry.Viktor . . . Viktor . . . such a tough guy and yet—
“Are you asking me to marry you, Viktor?”
His brows drew together. “No.”
Mortification suffused her cheeks with color. Her chest imploded like a demolition bomb and she could feel tears burning the back of her eyes. Damn him.
Viktor noticed her distress, and in a gravelly voice, he said, “I’m not asking you to marry me because I’m not giving you a choice, Marissa. You ARE marrying me.”
“You’re such an asshole.” She burst out laughing. Why did she ever expect Viktor do anything conventional? He was the most unconventional man she knew.
“Damn it, Iz. This wasn’t how I imagined this going down.”
“You’re supposed to be asking. A girl wants to be asked,” Marissa retorted, but her heart was singing and her breathing hitched when his hand dipped into his pocket and pulled out an exquisite diamond ring.
“Oh, my God.”
