Chapter 16 #2
The simple honesty of it shatters the last of my professional distance. I reach out, my thumb catching her chin and forcing her to look at me. "Careful, Flower. If I stop watching and start participating, you might find I’m much harder to handle than the other two."
"So make it up to me." Her hand slides higher on my thigh, and my pulse kicks up several notches. "Now."
"Bella," I say, and I am proud of how steady my voice is, considering what her hand is doing. "We are on a fence. Ten feet in the air. This is not exactly the ideal location for—"
"Are you telling me no?" She leans closer, her mouth near my ear. "Because that does not sound like you, Gabe."
Fuck, she is good at this. Good at pushing buttons, good at finding weaknesses, good at making me forget every logical reason why this is a terrible idea.
"I am telling you I will wait my turn," I manage. "Dante and Luca got you first. It is only fair that when I have you, I have you properly. In a bed. Where I can take my time and do things right."
"So noble," she murmurs, but her hand is still on my thigh, still making it very difficult to maintain this noble position I have taken.
"I try."
"Such a good boy." Her other hand comes up to thread through my hair at the base of my skull, and she tugs slightly—not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to make my breath catch.
The words—good boy—combined with the hair pulling does something catastrophic to my self-control.
"Careful," I warn, my voice dropping lower. "You are playing with fire, Bella."
"Maybe I like fire." She tugs my hair again, harder this time, and I can feel my control starting to fracture. "Maybe I want to see how far I can push you before you stop being so noble."
I turn my head to look at her, and whatever she sees in my expression makes her smile—slow and wicked and absolutely devastating.
"You are trouble," I tell her.
"And you love it."
She is not wrong.
Before I can talk myself out of it—before logic and safety and the fact that we are ten feet in the air can reassert themselves—I shift closer, and Rosalina immediately spreads her legs, making space for me to settle between them.
The position is precarious at best, dangerous at worst, but I manage to wedge myself between her thighs while she wraps her legs around my waist for balance, her arms looping around my neck.
"Hi," she says, grinning.
"Hi." I rest my hands on her hips, holding her steady. "This is a terrible idea."
"Probably." Her fingers play with the hair at the nape of my neck. "Are you going to stop?"
"No."
"Good."
I kiss her because not kissing her suddenly seems impossible. Her mouth is soft and warm and tastes faintly like the coffee she was drinking earlier, and when she sighs against my lips I swallow the sound and want more.
We kiss for what feels like hours but is probably only minutes, the sky darkening around us, the first cool breeze of evening making her shiver slightly in my arms.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, she looks at me with those hazel eyes that see entirely too much.
"I am serious," she says. "I am upset you missed it. The other night."
"I know." I press a kiss to her jaw, then her neck, feeling her pulse jump under my lips. "I will make it up to you."
"When?"
"When you least expect it." I kiss lower, finding the sensitive spot where her neck meets her shoulder. "When you are in the middle of something completely mundane and I will just—" I bite down gently, and she gasps, "—remind you exactly what you are missing."
"Promises, promises," she breathes, but her grip on my hair tightens.
"I always keep my promises, Bella." I kiss my way back up her neck, taking my time, savoring the small sounds she makes. "Always."
"Prove it." It is a challenge, clear and direct.
I pull back to look at her, and in the fading light she is absolutely stunning—flushed and wanting and trusting me not to let her fall even though we are balanced precariously on a fence in the growing dark.
"Not here," I tell her. "Not like this. When I have you, Rosalina, I want to be able to spread you out and take my time. I want to be able to make you scream without worrying about you falling off a goddamn fence."
She shivers at my words, and I feel it everywhere we are touching.
"So romantic," she says, but there is heat in her voice.
"I have my moments." I kiss her forehead, then her nose, then her mouth—soft and quick. "But right now, we should probably get down before Dante actually does call the National Guard."
"Spoilsport."
"Safety-conscious."
"Same thing."
I help her shift so she can climb down first, keeping my hands on her waist to steady her while she finds the footholds. Once she is safely on the ground, I follow, dropping down beside her with significantly less grace.
She immediately loops her arm through mine, leaning into my side with easy affection that makes my chest warm.
"Thank you," she says quietly as we start walking back toward the house.
"For what?"
"For coming to find me. For sitting with me. For listening." She squeezes my arm. "For not making me feel crazy for wanting this."
"You are not crazy, Bella." I press a kiss to the top of her head. "You are brave and honest and exactly what we need."
"We?"
"All three of us." I pull her closer. "Dante needs someone who will stand up to him. Luca needs someone who will match his chaos. And I need—"
I stop, not sure how to finish that sentence.
"What do you need?" she prompts.
"Someone who sees me," I say finally. "Not just the soldier or the enforcer or Dante's right hand. Someone who sees all of it and stays anyway."
She stops walking, turning to face me fully in the growing darkness. Her hand comes up to cup my cheek, and the gesture is so tender it makes my throat tight.
"I see you, Gabriel," she says softly. "All of you. And I am not going anywhere."
I kiss her again because I cannot help it, because she said exactly what I needed to hear without me having to ask for it.
"Found her," I announce.
Dante's head snaps up, and the relief that floods his expression is almost comical. "Where the hell were you?"
"Watching the sunset," Rosalina says breezily, like she was not sitting on a ten-foot fence having an existential crisis and making out with me. "It was beautiful. You should try it sometime."
"I was about to—" Dante starts, then stops, shaking his head. "You are going to give me a heart attack."
"Probably." She walks up to him and rises on her toes to kiss his cheek. "But you love me anyway."
The words—casual, almost throwaway—make Dante go very still. She said love. Maybe as a joke, maybe as a deflection, but she said it.
"Yeah," Dante says quietly, his hand coming up to cup her face. "I do."
The moment stretches between them, weighted and significant, and I catch Luca's eye where he is leaning against the staircase watching this entire exchange.
He grins at me, and I know exactly what he is thinking.
She is ours.
Completely, totally, irrevocably ours.
And we are never letting her go.