Page 147 of Only the Hunter

He breaks the kiss, holding me still. “God, you feel incredible.”

Then he shifts, and I find myself on my back, with him settled between my thighs, braced above me.

“I love you, Evie Thompson."

I don’t say it back—not with words. But I pull him down to me, and I think he understands.

He sets a slow pace at first—deliberate and thorough, so very Gabe. And then something gives. That last layer of restraint, the one I wanted to dismantle, finally comes loose. He moves harder. Deeper. Fast. Powerful.

His hand slides to my hip, steadying me, and I wrap my legs around him and pull him in and feel him groan against the side of my neck.

“Evie.”

“I know,” I breathe. “I know.”

I do know. I know what this is. I’ve been choosing it in increments without letting myself admit it, and now that we’re finally here, the last of my armor gives way.

I come a second time with our gazes locked and his hands holding me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear, and he follows moments later, head fallen, mouth at my throat, shuddering, his breath rough against my skin.

For a long moment, neither of us moves.

Then he presses his lips to my temple. My cheekbone. The corner of my jaw.

Quiet, deliberate punctuation.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Better than okay.”

He pulls back just enough to look at me. No operator mode now. No calculation, no reading the room. Just him. This might be what he looks like when he lets himself be seen.

“We’re okay?”

“Better than okay.”

“Good,” he says.

His arm settles around my shoulders, his fingers tracing an absent pattern along my skin.

“Hey, Gabe?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“I love you too. I probably always have.”

“I feel the same.”

He tugs me against him, holding me down, and I listen to his heartbeat slowly wind down.

“Well,” I say into his chest, “that took embarrassingly long to say out loud.”

I feel his chuckle, and his smile, and the press of his lips against my head.

Eventually, I get up and go to the bathroom and when I return, we bury under the comforter.

The rain against the window has steadied to something constant and low. I’m tucked against his side, his arm around me, his fingers trailing along my shoulder. He stares at the ceiling with the same focused quiet he brings to surveillance—but softer now. The set of his jaw, the line of his shoulders. All of it slightly different than the man who walked through my back door two hours ago.

“What’re you thinking?” I ask.