Page 98 of Gabriel

“You let me in,” he said, voice lower now. “So let me be in. Let me be whatever you need me to be. Just don’t shut me out.”

The honesty in his expression made my heart drum with ache. Not the painful kind, but the kind that recognized something in him that demanded I cave into it.

“I don’t know what to make of this… of us.” I hesitated before I continued. “This whole thing with Jet unsettles me. You, him, all this… It scares me.”

His mouth twitched. “Good.”

I blinked. “What?”

“If it scares you, it means we’re moving in the right direction and you’re paying attention.”

“Paying attention to what?”

“To what this is,” he said. “And what it could cost.”

My throat tightened. “Are you threatening me?”

“No.” His voice softened. “It’s a promise. I’m not here to hurt you, Amara. But I won’t pretend thisthingbetween us doesn’t come with risk for both of us, especially since those Satan twins are playing a game and neither one of us knows the rules.”

“Santos—” He growled and I let out a heavy sigh. “Gabriel, don’t start with that. You’re being unreasonable when it comes to my siblings.”

He pushed himself upright beside me.

“I’m not,” he said. “Though part of me hopes, for your sake, that your trust in them isn’t misplaced. But if it is, and soon you see them for what they are… I hope you’ll let me be there for you. That you’ll choose me.”

And for the first time, I saw the fracture in Gabriel. The longing to be chosen, even if it terrified him.

“I didn’t come here for this,” I whispered, although suspicion and hesitation waved through my emotions of loyalty to my siblings. It started to feel like I was flying blind, and my trust in everything we were doing started to waver.

“I know,” he said, voice like a promise. “But you’re here now.”

And God help me, I was, but I wasn’t ready to dwell on it. So I did the only other thing I knew would completely distract him and me.

I lifted my head, breath catching in my throat, and met his gaze. His eyes—dark blue and bottomless—reminded me of paradise, not the peaceful kind sung about in lullabies, but the wild, aching kind that tempts you to fall and never look back.

He didn’t look away. Didn’t blink. And in that stillness, I felt claimed—like I was already his, body and soul.

I closed the last inch between us. My lips brushed against his, a question shaped in touch rather than words. The taste of him lingered in the air—warm, familiar, intoxicating.

“I-I want to make you feel good,” I whispered against his mouth, the syllables trembling with need, with the weight of everything I wasn’t sure how to say. “I want to taste you.”

His eyes darkened. It wasn’t lust that flickered there—it was something deeper, something that curled around my spine and made my pulse stutter. That look alone had my skin humming, my body alive with anticipation.

He didn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. His silence was louder than words—inviting, daring, pulling me closer into the gravity of him.

And I was already falling.

I began to move down his body, my hands mapping the lines of his torso like I was memorizing him by touch. His eyes followed every movement, heavy with anticipation.

His muscles were strung tight beneath me, as if holding himself back took more effort than he wanted to admit. He didn’t say a word, but his gaze said everything—hungry, reverent, barely contained.

He burned for me. I felt it with every inch I descended.

The quiet inside the cabin pulsed with the sound of our breathing.

Holding his stare, I slipped my fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans and boxers, easing them down over the curve of his hips and along the firm lines of his thighs. The denim rasped softly against his skin, the movement deliberate, unhurried. He shifted on the bed, raising his hips in quiet cooperation, the mattress creaking under his weight as the clothes slid past his knees and down his calves.

My fingers trembled slightly as they found him, wrapping around his smooth, velvet heat. His reaction was immediate as his hips jerked upward, and a sharp inhale broke free from his lips. I glanced up instinctively.