I slump to the floor, a forlorn howl ripping past my lips to echo into the night before I curl into a ball.

The ache I feel leaves me breathless, but underneath it, I sense a pulse, a throbbing reminder of my connection to my mate.

With it, I can find her anywhere, and I need to explain myself—for both our sakes—but what I will say, I have no idea. The last time I spoke from the heart, I fucking imprinted on her.

But I have to try.

For better or worse, Zhuliya is my mate.

CHAPTER ONE

Zhuliya

The arctic air does nothing to relieve the heat scorching across my cheeks and through my body as I run into the frigid darkness of the Siberian night.

Even the whipping wind can’t rip me from my thoughts, although it tries its best to tumble me down the snow and ice-encrusted sidewalk.

I came from a tattoo—I had a tat-gasm.

Is that even a thing?!

Apparently, for me, it is.

Elohim Adirim, how embarrassing. I’ll never be able to show my face in front of Ilian Yaniqu again, not that I’ll likely ever see him—a small consolation when I consider that I creamed all over his leather seat.

Hopefully, there’s nothing to clean…

Another wave of humiliation washes over me as I try to figure out my reaction to both the ink and the man.

Tall, pierced, and muscled, Ilian is a bone daddy but an absolute sweetheart. There’s something about terrifying monsters who are actually gentle giants that melts my insides.

Then again, Ilian was nothing but professional. The few times we spoke really didn’t allude to his true nature.

Maybe he’s really a brute…and why does that excite me even more?

It’s official—I need to get laid. I would say I need a boyfriend, but that level of commitment is a testimony of my current mental state and how unstable it is.

Boyfriends equal misery.

Love equals misery.

Any form of attachment equals misery.

Logically, I acknowledge this isn’t true, I’m just a product of my past, refusing to move on to a different future.

I lost my mother when I was young, and over a decade ago, my father—ata—died, too. As an adult, everyone expects us to handle things better than children.

But not me—I crumbled faster than a cookie baked with too much butter.

Without my ata, I had no one. Both my parents left their families to explore new opportunities with each other.

My ata’s tribe, even if I knew where to find them, wouldn’t welcome me. He had turned his back on the old ways, marrying my mother when he was promised to another.

Their love story alone is enough to ward me away from romance. The prejudices my ima—mother—faced forced her to flee her homeland.

She found no refuge in Europe and eventually made her way to the Americas. It would be years before my ata could join her.

The first time I met him, I was already three, but never have I loved a man as much as my ata.

Both my parents went above and beyond to make me feel accepted in a world that seemingly had shunned them.

And now they are gone, and I’m back in the country I promised never to visit, but no one turns away a free tattoo from Ilian Yaniqu, along with transportation and lodging.

Besides, a small part of me wanted to see the wild and unforgiving land my ata called home, even if Berdsk isn’t where he lived.

And now I can check it off my bucket list, along with a tat-gasm, although that was never on it to begin with.

Happy thirtieth birthday to me.

Somehow, I manage to stumble back to the Corona Hotel and Spa where I’m staying. The warm glow of twinkling lights and multiple fireplaces instantly thaw my numb limbs.

I put on my oversized snowsuit before I left Ilian’s studio, but Siberian winters are nothing to mess with.

Even wrapped in the protective layers of fabric, I nearly froze on my way back to the hotel. As heat seeps back into me, it reminds me of the dampness between my legs.

What the hell happened?

I admit I’ve been fantasizing about Ilian Yaniqu for a while. Not only is his art to die for, but he’s gorgeous—my roommate, Sakura, even agreed, and she never checks out guys with me.

When I entered Inked’s contest, I didn’t think I was going to win. Drawing is just an outlet for me, and I love tattoos.

Sakura thinks I missed my calling in life as a tattoo artist, but the work she and I do together is far more important.

We help immigrants coming to America reunite with their families. Even in today’s world with all its technology, so many people become separated.

Children without parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, aunts or uncles. It tears at my heart because I know what it’s like to wait for someone.

But in my free time, I love to travel the States and visit tattoo parlors. Only the best of the best have left their ink on me.

When I first heard about Ilian, I knew I wanted his art on me, too. It wasn’t until I saw him that I started having very inappropriate thoughts about his cock.

Long story short, there’s nothing on the internet that shows or tells what it looks like, meaning my imagination was left to fill in the gaps—a rather dangerous pastime.

None of it mattered until Inked reached out to me to announce I was the first prize winner.

I was so excited at first—I never win anything—but then I freaked out because I had spent the last however many months masturbating to this man.