by Renee Rose
“Wow. Yes. Is that okay with you?”
“I didn’t marry you for your money. I’ve told you that. The question is whether it’s okay with you.”
“Yes. I love that.” She returns the shower of kisses, landing them on my face and tattooed chest. “You’re a good man, Maxim. Thank you for your forgiveness.”
I cradle her face in both hands. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, sugar. Believe that.”
Chapter 23
Sasha
I bask in the euphoria of being in Maxim’s arms for a long time.
Eventually, though, hunger and concern for my mom bring me back to reality.
“Does everyone out there hate me?” I snuggle closer to Maxim for protection against my thoughts. I realize I will be living with these guys. Lucy was kind, listening to my story and finally agreeing to bring me here to try to fix things, but I don’t know about the rest of them.
Maxim shakes his head. “No. They were all still watching out for you. Ravil knew right where you were, and tonight Pavel fished me out of the bar to advocate for you. He told me about your argument with your mother.”
“He did?” That surprises me, considering the indifference he showed at the time.
“If anyone was cruel to you, I’m sorry. It was only because they are protective of me. I’ll make sure it never happens again.”
I shake my head. “They were fine. I understand. I kind of want to hide in here forever, but… if I don’t get back to the hotel, my mom will think you killed me.” I offer a wry smile.
“We can text her.”
“I don’t have a phone.” I manage a lopsided grin as Maxim’s brows come down.
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Sasha. I never wanted you to suffer.”
“Plus, we should get her out of that dive of a hotel. If you don’t mind.” I cringe a little, hearing how I might sound like the spoiled brat again. Like I just came here because I was desperate.
But Maxim swings up off the bed. “My bride has spoken.”
My pulse quickens at his words, that rush of warmth filling my chest again.
“I want to put babies in you,” Maxim announces out of nowhere as he’s pulling on his clothing. “Badly.”
I go still and stare, my face heating. My clit pulses in response.
“Of course, we’ll wait until the timing’s right for you.”
“I want your babies,” I blurt, my flush increasing. “But yes, maybe not quite so soon.”
Maxim’s smile is warmer than the sun. He buttons his shirt, regarding me. “You might want to put some clothes on before we go.”
“Oh.” I realize I’m still standing here naked. I retrieve my clothes from the closet where I’d ditched them and get dressed.
Maxim waits for me at the bedroom door, taking my hand and squeezing it before pushing it open. “Don’t worry,” he murmurs. “I’ll always protect you, Sasha.”
My smile wobbles, remembering that I almost lost him, but he kisses my forehead, and I tip my face up to catch his lips against mine.
“My wife will be staying with us, afterall,” Maxim announces to everyone in the living room.
They take it with the same casual grace they welcomed my first arrival.
Dima gives a lazy fist pump and “woot-woot.” Oleg nods.
Nikolai says, “Welcome back.”
“Good. I was counting on Money Bags paying for more cable channels,” Pavel deadpans, flipping the channels. “I already ordered them.”
Lucy smiles at me from the breakfast bar where she sits eating perogies. Ravil stands close behind her, stroking her swollen belly and pressing his lips to her temple. It’s sweet.
Everyone here is sweet. They’re easy to get along with. Real. They’re my family now, and I love them.
“May I? I’m starving.” I walk over and steal a pierogi from the plate that Lucy pushes my way.
“We’re going to move Galina somewhere—preferably far, far away. Kidding,” Maxim winks at me.
“Oh, yeah. I was thinking about another continent, for sure,” I agree.
Ravil turns. “Not Russia.”
I swallow. I know my mother made her own bed, but I still don’t want to see her killed. “No. Somewhere else.”
“Maxim will fix it,” Ravil assures me. “That’s his job.”
I steal a glance at my handsome husband, hardly knowing how I remain standing with the way he makes me knees wobble. He takes my breath away.
“Come on, sugar.” He tugs me toward the door. “Let’s get this over with. I’ll take you both out for food when we move her.”
“You don’t have to be nice to her,” I tell him as he pulls me into the elevator and pins me against the wall.
“I will be. Because she’s your mama. But if she ever tries to take you from me again, all bets are off.”
I wrap my arms around his waist and lay my head against his chest. “Deal.”
Epilogue
Sasha
Maxim brushes a lock of hair blowing in my face back then rejoins our hands. We stand on the beach at sunset, reciting our vows.
We asked Nikolai to officiate what I’m calling “our re-wedding.” The ceremony isn’t real, of course—our paperwork is already filed. Our union legal. But this spoiled princess didn’t want to be deprived of planning her own wedding, so here we are—on the beach in Ibiza—catching the end of season parties.
I flew my college friends—including Kimberly, who I couldn’t leave out—here to help me celebrate. My mom is here on her best behavior, pretending—like me—that this is my first and real wedding.
Ravil and Lucy couldn’t travel because it’s too close to their baby’s due date, but everyone else from the penthouse suite is here—Dima, Nikolai, Oleg, and Pavel, whose lip keeps curling when he looks at my college friends. I guess they’re not his type.
Turns out his type is the kinky kind you one-and-done with, pre-negotiated scenes involving whips and chains. I guess after he heard about the BDSM club where Ravil and Lucy met, he got interested in taking his sadistic tendencies to the bedroom. I noticed Kayla eyeing him with interest when we first arrived, but I quickly put that idea to bed.
Maxim looks as devastatingly handsome as ever in a crisp white button-down, open at the throat, the long sleeves rolled up to reveal his tattooed forearms.
“Even though you’re already married,” Nikolai announces in mock formal tones, “I now pronounce you husband and wife!”
My friends cheer and toss rose petals into the air and all over us. Water laps over our bare feet, carrying the petals out to the sea. I jump onto Maxim, straddling him in my short wedding dress as he spins me around and around, kissing me to the deafening cheers.
“Keep going, I’m taking a video,” Kayla calls.
Maxim gets too far out to see and a wave splashes up his legs. I shriek and giggle, climbing higher in his arms.
“I’ve got you, sugar.”
“I know.” I smile at him. Because he does have me. He always has me, and I love him to pieces for it.
He carries me back up the shore to the dry sand and sets me down.
Nikolai and Dima both pop the corks on bottles of expensive champagne, which they pass around for us each to take a pull from.
“Gorko!” Nikolai shouts, in Russian tradition, and Maxim and I kiss, according to custom.
The guys start counting out loud, timing our kiss, which supposedly proves the longevity of our love, and at the same time, gesture to my friends—unfamiliar with Russian wedding traditions—to chug the rest of the champagne.
My lips stretch into a smile where they are permanently glued against Maxim’s.
“All right, all right, enough!” Pavel grumbles after they reach sixty. “We already know you two can go at it twenty-four seven. We don’t need the public demonstration.”
“Come,” you have to smash the glasses,” my mother says, producing a pair of crystal glasses out of her bag and handing one to each of us. We move the
party up to the paved patio of the enormous beach house Maxim booked.
I pull my elbow back, glancing at Maxim for the go-ahead. He lifts his glass and nods, and we both smash the crystal with as much force as possible for luck.
“Now steal the bride,” my mother urges my friends, making shooing motions with her hands. “Make Maxim pay ransom to get her back.”
Laughing, my friends grab my hands and dash upstairs with me.
“You always did know how to throw a party,” Ashley says when we all scramble onto the king bed together.
“I’m not sure hiding her in my bedroom is really the point,” Maxim calls through the door. “But I’m happy to pay.”
Kayla snaps another photo of me using my cell phone. It dings, signifying a new email came in, now that it’s connected to wifi again.
Seeing the preview of who it’s from on the screen, I gasp and snatch the phone out of her hand.
“What is it?” Kayla asks.
“It’s from the theater director in Chicago. The guy I just auditioned for.” I hold my breath as my fingers fly across my screen to get the thing open. I squeal.
“What? What is it? You got the part?” all my friends ask at once.
“What’s happening?” Maxim asks from the other side of the door.
I rush to the door and throw it open. “I did it!” I shriek, jumping back into his arms. “I’m going to play Anna Karenina!”
A chorus of “Oh my God!” and “That’s great!” and “Congratulations!” showers down over me. Maxim bumps me into the air and catches me again, like I weigh nothing.
As if I needed this day to be even more perfect.
Happy tears spill from my eyes.
My mom and the guys push into the room behind Maxim to find out what all the commotion is about.
“This is the happiest day of my life,” I sob, dropping my lips to the top of Maxim’s head. “I love you all so much. I’m so happy.”
Maxim rotates, still holding me straddled around his waist. It’s a slow dance, with an audience of everyone I care about in the world.
“I love you,” I murmur against his skin. “I love our life.”
“I love our life, too.” He drops kisses on my arms. “I love you so much, sugar.” And then he turns to face our audience. “Now everyone out,” he says firmly.
There’s a chorus of laughter and protests.
“Lame!”
“The party was just getting started!”
“You keep partying. We have some partying of our own to do here,” Maxim says, angling me toward the bed, his eyes dark with promise.
“Yes, please,” I whisper as our friends and family exit the bedroom.
Maxim carefully lays me on my back in the center of the bed. “I definitely need a redo on my wedding night,” he teases, and I cringe, remembering how I’d escaped as quickly as I could to my apartment, wanting nothing to do with him.
“I saved myself for you,” I remind him.
“You did,” he says with so much love in his expression.
So much I feel like my heart will burst. I pull him down to me and mate my mouth with his, my tongue licking between his lips, eager for our consummation. Re-consummation. Whatever.
I work the buttons to Maxim’s shirt open as our lips twist and tangle. He finds the side zipper to my strapless white mini-dress and tugs it down. I lift my ass for him to pull the dress off. He sits back a moment and bites his knuckle, drinking in the sight of me, naked, except for a tiny white G-string.
“Every time I get you naked, I have to remind myself that this is real. You’re my wife. You really belong in my bed this time. I’m not going to get my dick cut off for getting caught with you.”
I hook my own thumbs in the waistband of the G-string and shimmy out of it. “All yours, husband. What are you going to do with me?”
His grin is devilish. He shucks his open shirt and then his pants and boxer briefs. “I have about one hundred ideas. Let’s get started…”
Thank you for reading The Fixer. If you enjoyed it, I would so appreciate your review—they make a huge difference for indie authors.
Be sure to read Pavel and Kayla’s short story in Black Light: Roulette Rematch and get ready for Oleg and Story’s romance in The Enforcer.
Want More?
Read the next book in the Chicago Bratva series, The Enforcer.
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Other Titles by Renee Rose
Chicago Bratva
“Prelude” in Black Light: Roulette War
The Director
The Fixer
Black Light: Roulette Rematch
The Enforcer
Vegas Underground Mafia Romance
King of Diamonds
Mafia Daddy
Jack of Spades
Ace of Hearts
Joker’s Wild
His Queen of Clubs
Dead Man’s Hand
Wild Card
More Mafia Romance
Her Russian Master
The Don’s Daughter
Mob Mistress
The Bossman
Contemporary
Daddy Rules Series
Fire Daddy
Hollywood Daddy
Stepbrother Daddy
Master Me Series
Her Royal Master
Her Russian Master
Her Marine Master
Yes, Doctor
Double Doms Series
Theirs to Punish
Theirs to Protect
Holiday Feel-Good
Scoring with Santa
Saved
Other Contemporary
Black Light: Valentine Roulette
Black Light: Roulette Redux
Black Light: Celebrity Roulette
Black Light: Roulette War
Black Light: Roulette Rematch
Punishing Portia (written as Darling Adams)
The Professor’s Girl
Safe in his Arms
Paranormal
Wolf Ranch Series
Rough
Wild
Feral
Savage
Fierce
Ruthless
Wolf Ridge High Series
Alpha Bully
Alpha Knight
Bad Boy Alphas Series
Alpha’s Temptation
Alpha’s Danger
Alpha’s Prize
Alpha’s Challenge
Alpha’s Obsession
Alpha’s Desire
Alpha’s War
Alpha’s Mission
Alpha’s Bane
Alpha’s Secret
Alpha’s Prey
Alpha’s Sun
Alpha’s Moon
Midnight Doms
Alpha’s Blood
His Captive Mortal
Alpha Doms Series
The Alpha’s Hunger
The Alpha’s Promise
The Alpha’s Punishment
Other Paranormal
The Winter Storm: An Ever After Chronicle
Sci-Fi
Zandian Masters Series
His Human Slave
His Human Prisoner
Training His Human
His Human Rebel
His Human Vessel
His Mate and Master
Zandian Pet
Their Zandian Mate
His Human Possession
Zandian Brides
Night of the Zandians
Bought by the Zandians
Mastered by the Zandians
Zandian Lights
Kept by the Zandian
Claim
ed by the Zandian
Stolen by the Zandian
Other Sci-Fi
The Hand of Vengeance
Her Alien Masters
Regency
The Darlington Incident
Humbled
The Reddington Scandal
The Westerfield Affair
Pleasing the Colonel
Western
His Little Lapis
The Devil of Whiskey Row
The Outlaw’s Bride
Medieval
Mercenary
Medieval Discipline
Lords and Ladies
The Knight’s Prisoner
Betrothed
Held for Ransom
The Knight’s Seduction
The Conquered Brides (5 book box set)
Renaissance
Renaissance Discipline
About Renee Rose
USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR RENEE ROSE loves a dominant, dirty-talking alpha hero! She's sold over a million copies of steamy romance with varying levels of kink. Her books have been featured in USA Today's Happily Ever After and Popsugar. Named Eroticon USA's Next Top Erotic Author in 2013, she has also won Spunky and Sassy's Favorite Sci-Fi and Anthology author, The Romance Reviews Best Historical Romance, and has hit the USA Today list seven times with her Wolf Ranch series and various anthologies.
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