Chapter 352: You Were So Drunk That Night

"I remember," Eve whispered.

Dimitri turned her around to face him, his hands still on her waist, his eyes dark and intense. "You were so drunk that night. So broken. And I wanted you so badly I could barely stand it."

"You saved me," Eve said.

"I took advantage of you," Dimitri corrected, but there was no guilt in his voice, just acknowledgment of what had been true in that moment.

"No," Eve said, reaching up to touch his face. "You gave me a reason to stop thinking about Simon. You made me feel wanted. You made me feel like I mattered to someone."

Dimitri kissed her then, deep and thorough, and it tasted like memory and ownership and something that had evolved into genuine love over the months between then and now.

"I do want you," he said against her mouth. "Every single day. Every moment I’m not with you, I’m thinking about getting back to you."

They moved to the leather couch in the corner of the lounge, and Dimitri pulled her onto his lap. Eve straddled him, her dress riding up slightly, her hands finding the fabric of his shirt.

"This lounge," she said, "this is where everything started for us. Where you first claimed me."

"And I’ve been claiming you ever since," Dimitri said, his hands moving up her thighs under the dress. "Every single day, piccola. Every moment."

Eve kissed him again, and this time it was slower, deeper, filled with the understanding of exactly how far they’d come from that first desperate night. The fear had transformed into trust. The desperation had become genuine connection.

His hands moved between her legs, and she gasped into his mouth. He touched her with absolute certainty, knowing exactly what she wanted, exactly how to make her feel like the only woman in the world.

"I want you," Eve whispered. "Right here. Right now."

Dimitri shifted her position slightly, and she helped him free himself from his pants. He entered her slowly, deliberately, and they both groaned at the sensation, the intimacy of it, the connection of it, the rightness of being here, in this place where everything had started.

Eve rode him slowly, their foreheads touching, their breathing synchronized. Below them, the club continued its chaos...music and movement and the underworld conducting its business. But up here, in his private space, it was just them.

"I love you," Eve said, meaning it completely, meaning it with every part of herself that had healed and grown and learned to trust again.

"I know," Dimitri replied, and kissed her like that was the most important thing he’d ever heard.

They took their time, moving together in a rhythm that spoke of intimacy and possession mixed in equal measure. There was no urgency, no desperation like there had been that first night. This was ownership that had evolved into partnership. This was a man and woman who’d survived violence together and come out the other side.

By the time they were done, hours had passed. The club below was reaching its peak....packed with people, the music loud enough to feel like a physical force.

Dimitri held Eve against his chest, his hand stroking her hair, his breathing slowly returning to normal.

"Thank you for coming here tonight," he said quietly.

"Thank you for bringing me," Eve replied. "For showing me where you come from. For letting me be part of this world."

"You were always meant to be part of this world," Dimitri said. "From the moment I saw you. You were always meant to be mine."

Eve pulled back slightly to look at him. "And I’m okay with that now. I understand what that means. I understand what I’m choosing when I choose you."

Dimitri’s expression shifted....something vulnerable crossing his features for just a moment before he controlled it. "Are you sure?"

"I’ve never been more sure of anything," Eve said. "You’re dangerous and possessive and brutal. And I love you completely. All of it. Every part."

They stayed in the lounge as the night deepened, watching the club below, occasionally moving to look at the dance floor or the bar, but mostly just holding each other, reconnecting with the place where everything had changed.

Around midnight, Dimitri’s phone buzzed. Then again. And again.

He checked it, and something shifted in his expression. His jaw tightened. His eyes went cold.

"What is it?" Eve asked.

"Work," he said, but there was something else in his voice...concern, maybe, or calculation. "Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow."

But Eve could tell by the way he was already mentally shifting, already moving into business mode, that something significant had happened. Something that would require his attention soon.

He took her hand and guided her down through the club, past his men, toward the car. As they drove back toward the penthouse, Eve didn’t ask what the calls were about. She’d learned that he would tell her what she needed to know when the time was right.

Instead, she watched the city lights slide past the window and thought about the duality of her life now. By day, she was an executive running a talent agency, wearing power suits and negotiating contracts. By night, she was the woman of a mafia lord, navigating a world that operated on completely different rules.

It should have felt impossible. Instead, it felt like she was finally becoming whole.

When they reached the penthouse, Nonna was waiting with dinner again, because apparently that was her mission in life now, feeding them...and Eve found herself laughing at the sheer normalcy of it. The mafia lord and his woman, coming home to his grandmother’s cooking.

"You two are late," Nonna said, but she was already pulling out chairs and setting plates. "I made risotto. Sit. Eat. Both of you look like you need food."

***

Later, lying in bed next to Dimitri while he worked on his laptop, handling whatever crisis had emerged at the club, Eve thought about everything she’d survived and everything she’d learned about herself in the process.

She was stronger than she’d known. More capable of navigating darkness than she’d imagined. And somehow, impossibly, she’d found love in the last place she expected to find it...not in the light, but in the shadows, with a man who lived in those shadows completely. ℴℴ𝘮

And she wouldn’t change a single moment of it.