Gabriel withdraws his hand from mine, and I immediately want it back. It feels like torture to be away from him, but I deserve worse.
“Come with me.” He walks into the bedroom, and I follow him over to a safe sitting on the desk. He opens it and reaches in for a small piece of paper lying on the bottom.
I’m confused by this as he pulls the cardstock out and flips the white paper around to face me.
“Before I went to the diner, I stopped by work to talk to Michaels,” he says.
I step forward, unsure of what he’s saying. Slowly, I wrap my fingers around the hand that’s holding the cardstock up in front of me. I study it for a long moment before my eyes flick over to meet his.
“Is this Whitaker’s fingerprint?” I ask, not sure I can even trust the words coming out of my mouth because they sound so unbelievable.
“I assumed you didn’t have time to grab one,” he says, his expression steady, his eyes searching mine.
My fingers gradually slide off his and onto the card as I realize what this means.
Gabriel stole a fingerprint from a dead man… from one of my kills to add to my collection.
“Why?” I whisper.
He stares at the back side of the paper until I lower it to set it on the desk.
“I want to say something here… something about doing it for you or doing it so you don’t get caught doing it or… some other bullshit… but honestly? I have no fucking idea. My mind has been consumed by you since you left. It’s all I could think about. It’s all I cared about. I was going fucking crazy. And when I saw where he was… when I knew he was in there… I wanted it for you… so there it is.”
I lean into him, careful of his side while I capture his lips, needing to feel his touch—this man who drives me crazy, who can push me to the brink and draw me back again, and the only one who makes me feel like this.
His lips press against mine, parting, asking for more. He backs up, pulling me after him as he lies down on the bed,drawing me down on top of him while I kiss him deeper before hesitating.
“Your side.”
“It’s fine,” he promises me, but I shake my head.
“I love you, I love every inch of you,” I murmur as I kiss a line to his neck. “I can never ask you to forgive me for what I’ve done. For putting you in danger, for leaving you when you needed me most.”
His fingers trail over my hair before they tangle in it and tug. It doesn’t hurt, but if he yanked, it might. “You’re never going to leave me again, are you?”
“Never,” I whisper, pulling against his grip so I can kiss him again. So my lips can travel down his neck to his collarbone. So I can kiss away the bruises on his beautiful skin left behind by the ice and the explosion.
I push his shirt up and he releases my hair, allowing me to gently unbutton his shirt and slide it off his shoulders.
“I’ll never fuck up again,” I tell him.
“It’s only human to fuck up.”
“Which is why I’ll never fuck up again.”
Gabriel grins. “Ah, back to not being human, I see.”
I smirk up at him before kissing a line down his chest, careful to avoid going anywhere too close to his wound. “Does it still hurt?”
“Not unless I do something really stupid like twist hard. It’s significantly better, I promise.”
My fingers skim around the area as irritation eats through me. “I want to kill him again.”
Gabriel’s lips quirk. “I don’t think you really get do-overs.”
“I want to make him suffer a bit more.”
“I think you’re good just killing him.”
