The Darkest Temptation

His gaze narrowed. “You pull a trigger on me, and I can’t even leave you out in the cold for fifteen fucking minutes. So you tell me, Mila, who cares more here?”

A shiver wracked her, and the pressure in my throat expanded, compelling me to skim a kiss across her cold thigh and roughly say, “Izvini.” I’m sorry.

I pulled back to say, “I’ll get Yulia to find some candles.”

I’m twenty, by the way, not nineteen.”

He looked amused by the admission, like I was a child announcing I was now eight while proudly displaying a hand and three fingers.

“Are you?”

I swallowed. “My birthday was a few days ago.”

“I’m thirty-two, kotyonok.”

Oh.

Ronan appeared beside me. “I don’t think that’s quite your style, Mila.”

“It’s not. It’s for you.”

“I figured that. But you need to pick something for yourself, or I will.”

I gave him a brilliant smile. “I have a better idea than a ring.”

A stare-off ensued for at least thirty seconds before Ronan gave in, bought the ring I picked out, and followed me down the street.

I stopped in front of a tattoo parlor’s window.

“Nyet.” It was a hard “no.”

I frowned. “You don’t even know what I want yet.”

His eyes narrowed. “You want a tattoo, and it’s not happening.”

“You have a million, and I can’t have one?”

“Yes.”

With a sigh, I grabbed his hand and ran my finger over the inked raven. “I want this. On my ring finger.”

I thought he liked the idea, but I didn’t stick around to find out. I opened the door and waltzed in. Ronan took over from there. I didn’t have to say a word as he spoke with the tattoo artist and showed him what I wanted

“I don’t want a ring,” I said.

“You’re wearing a ring,” he returned. “It doesn’t have to be a diamond. It could be another stone

“No stone is one hundred percent conflict free.”

“Why are you such a hippie?”

“Why are you such a mobster?”

Of course Ronan spoke French.

But what I wanted more was to give him what he needed.

“Okay.”

His eyes lit with satisfaction, then he kissed me on the lips

How he knew I had a love for the animals didn’t surprise me.