50. Gabriel
Gabriel
I look up at Alexis as her words echo through me on a loop.
She loves me.
This goddess of a woman fucking loves me.
I’m already addicted to those three words she just cried out. I’ll never get tired of hearing them, never get tired of making her feel like the center of my world, my anchor, my haven—because that’s exactly what she is. Now and always.
Still on my knees in front of the window, I press one last kiss to the inside of her thigh, then rise to my feet and take her hands, drawing her up off the windowsill. She stands on unsteady legs and sways into me, and I catch her around the waist and hold her until she’s got her footing.
“Say it again,” I murmur, my lips a millimeter from hers. “I need to hear it, sunshine. Please.”
She smiles, color rising in her cheeks, and slides her hands up my chest until they rest over my heart. “I love you.”
The words light a fire in my veins, and my mouth comes down on hers, hard and hungry. She moans and arches into me, her fingers curling into my shirt to pull us closer.
“God, I missed you,” she breathes when we separate. “You have no idea.”
“I do.” I cradle her face in both hands, my thumbs tracing her jaw, and catch the tear that slips down her cheek before it can fall. “Believe me, I do.”
“I love you, Gabriel Thorne.” Her voice wavers. “So much it hurts.”
“Then let me make it better.”
The words are out before my brain catches up, but I mean every one. My hands find the hem of her top and start drawing it up, baring her stomach, her ribs, inch by inch, my pulse climbing the whole way. I can barely breathe with my heart slamming this hard.
She lifts her arms for me, and I pull the top off over her head and let it fall. I take in the sight of her—flushed, her breasts shifting with every breath under the lace of her bra—and swallow hard.
“I don’t deserve you,” I murmur, reaching around her to unhook the clasp and draw the straps down her shoulders until the bra falls away too. I spread my palm over the swell of her breast.
She really is perfect, every part of her, and after what I did—even knowing I did it to keep her safe—I wouldn’t have blamed her for never speaking to me again.
But she’s here. In our home. Carrying my child. It’s almost more than I can take in.
“Yes, you do,” she whispers, her throat working as she swallows. “We deserve each other.”
She reaches for my shirt, her fingers working deftly to undo each button, no hesitation in her at all.
She pushes the shirt off my shoulders and lets it fall, and as it drops to the floor, she flattens both palms against my bare chest and slides them up.
The look on her face while she does it, like she’s the one starving now, makes my mouth go dry. I’ve missed her so fucking much.
With a low growl, I kiss her again, one hand sliding into her hair, the other splayed flat at the small of her back to keep her molded against me.
She moans into my mouth and winds her arms around my neck.
I find the zipper at the side of her skirt and work it down, then push the skirt and her panties over her hips together, easing them down her legs until they pool at her feet and she steps free.
“Need you,” I grunt like an inarticulate caveman.
But instead of laughing at my horrible grasp of English at the moment, she just nods desperately. “Need you too.”
I hook my hands under her thighs and lift, and she gasps as her feet leave the floor, her arms locking around my shoulders and her legs around my waist. I carry her a few steps to the wall and press her back against it, bracing her with my hips and my hands so she’s pinned there.
Lifted like this, she’s nearly at my eye level, gazing at me through her lashes.
I bend my head and drag my mouth over the curve of each breast, over every bit of skin I can reach.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I say against her collarbone, and a shiver runs through her. I close my lips around one nipple and draw on it, and the sound she makes goes straight to my cock.
“Gabriel…” Her head tips back against the wall as I kiss up the line of her throat to her mouth.
She tightens her legs around me, and I hold her up with one hand and use the other to reach between us, working my pants open and shoving them down along with my boxer briefs.
Before I can wrap a hand around my cock, she beats me to it, slipping a hand down to palm my length.
She strokes me once, then guides me to where she wants me, notching my head against her entrance.
The second I feel how wet she is, how ready, every reason I ever had to hold back goes quiet.
I press my hips forward and sink in, feeling her stretch around me. She gasps as I go deeper, her nails biting into my shoulders, her heels digging into my ass to urge me on until I’m buried to the root.
“You’re mine,” I rasp, my forehead dropping to hers.
“And you’re mine.” The possessive note in her voice nearly fucking kills me, and I groan hoarsely.
With my head still resting against hers, I start to move, and I don’t drag it out the way I might have at another time.
I’ve already eaten her out, wringing two orgasms out of her and reacquainting myself with her incredible taste, and now neither of us has the patience left to go slow.
I pull back and drive into her, and she lets out a ragged cry, her hips shifting to meet mine.
This is the image, the feeling, that I want burned into my head for good: my wife needy and flushed, pinned to the wall of the home I built for her, her eyes full of love as we cling to each other.
“We fit so fucking well together,” I breathe against her jaw. “God, you were made for me.”
She finds my rhythm and matches it, meeting every thrust, her body moving with mine as her gasps and breathless whimpers ghost against my lips. Our faces are too close for me to see her eyes clearly, but I hold her gaze anyway, needing that extra connection with her.
“I’ve never felt anything like this,” I admit, letting the words spill out as I pepper kisses to her cheeks and jaw.
Everything that used to hover unspoken between us is finally out in the open. For so long, we were both afraid to say what we felt, never sure how long this would last. How long it could last.
Not anymore. Nothing comes between us now. Not our families, not anyone from before, not the business. Nothing.
“You’re going to be such an amazing mother.” I slow my pace a little as I speak. I’m too close already, and I want to make this last. “I can’t wait to build a life with you. All of it.”
“Gabriel…” Her voice cracks on my name, and I kiss away the tear that slips down her cheek.
I follow its path down to her mouth, and she kisses me back with a hunger that makes me want to stay buried inside her forever. I tighten my grip on her hips, my cock swelling at the broken sound she makes against my lips.
“I love you,” I groan into her mouth. “Every part of you.”
“I love you too.” Her hand fists in my hair, tugging hard enough to sting. “So much.”
We keep kissing, messy and wild, teeth and lips and tongues all seeking more. Her noises grow louder, bouncing off the bare walls, and I can tell she won’t be able to hold out much longer. Hell, neither will I.
When we break apart to suck in lungfuls of air, her lips are swollen and her cheeks are flushed, and the look in her eyes makes my balls go tight.
The gorgeous blue of her irises is shadowed by the dark circles of her pupils, and there’s so much need and emotion in their depths that I can barely take it.
I work a hand down between us and find her clit with my thumb, circling it in time with each drive of my cock, and she almost screams, her pussy clamping down tight around my cock.
“I’m close,” she gasps, holding on so tightly that I wonder if her nails will leave marks in my skin. Fuck, I hope so.
My pulse thunders in my ears as I lean my weight into her, pinning her flush to the wall so she’s got nowhere to go, my thumb still working her clit as I fuck her hard and deep. She starts to shake against me, her thighs trembling at my sides, her breath stuttering.
“I’m right there too,” I rasp against her mouth. “Come with me, sunshine. Please.”
Maybe it’s because I begged her to, or maybe she just couldn’t wait another second, but I feel her inner walls flutter as she falls apart. Her back arches off the wall, her head tipping back as the orgasm roars through her.
I pound into her a few more times, as deep as I can get, then still inside her as the pressure at the base of my spine explodes into a searing climax. It feels like it comes from someplace so deep inside me that it’s beyond physical, like I’m giving her a part of my soul along with my cum.
Even as it starts to subside for both of us, I keep rocking into her, my forehead against hers again, savoring this moment of quiet.
“I’m never letting you go again,” I murmur after several long moments.
She laughs and trails her fingers along the back of my neck. “Good,” she whispers, and I can hear the smile in it.
I hold her as close as I can, her cheek resting over my pounding heart. For the first time in a long time—far too fucking long—everything in my life is exactly how it’s supposed to be.