Page 140 of Hunt Me

The words shatter my last coherent thought. My orgasm rips through me with brutal force, every muscle seizing as pleasure detonates along my nerve endings. I scream his name, the sound raw and broken, echoing off the stone walls.

Alexi follows seconds later with a guttural groan, his hips jerking as he empties himself deep inside me. I feel each pulse of his release, the warmth flooding my core as he grinds against me, making sure every drop stays buried.

“Fuck,” he breathes against my shoulder, still moving in shallow thrusts. “You take it so well. So fucking perfect.”

Before I can catch my breath, he pulls out and lifts me into his arms like I weigh nothing. My legs wrap around his waist instinctively, head falling against his shoulder as aftershocks pulse through me.

He carries me to a small leather chair tucked in the corner of the cellar, sitting down and positioning me carefully across his lap. My hips tilt at an angle that keeps everything inside, his hand splayed possessively across my lower belly.

“Stay just like this,” he murmurs, brushing damp hair from my face. “Let it take root.”

The tenderness in his voice cracks something open in my chest. I turn my face into his neck, breathing him in—sandalwood and expensive wine and something uniquely Alexi.

“You’re my world,detka.” His fingers trace patterns on my skin, reverent now instead of demanding. “My entire fucking universe.”

Tears prick my eyes. I blink them back, but one escapes, trailing down my cheek.

“I love you.” The words come easier now than they did the first time. “More than I thought I could love anything.”

His arms tighten around me, one hand cupping the back of my head. “When I found you, I thought you were just another challenge to solve. Another equation to crack.”

“And now?” My voice barely registers as a whisper.

“Now you’re home.” He tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. The intensity there steals my breath. “You’re family. The only family that matters.”

The ache in my chest expands until I can barely breathe. My parents were ripped away, leaving a void I thought nothing could fill. But Alexi?—

“You gave me something I thought I’d never have again,” I say.

His fingers trace delicate patterns on my skin, like he’s writing code only my body can decrypt. We remain tangled together in the cellar’s dim light, his heartbeat steady against my cheek.

“I never thought I’d find peace in chaos,” I whisper against his skin. “But that’s what you are to me.”

Alexi cups my face, thumbs brushing away tears I didn’t realize had fallen. “My beautiful ghost. You were never meant to be caught, and I was never meant to want to be found.”

In his eyes, I see the same broken pieces that make up my soul, rearranged to fit perfectly with mine. The boy who built digital fortresses to keep the world at bay. The girl who became a phantom to survive.

“We’re both ghosts now,” I say. “Haunting each other’s code.”

He smiles, that rare, genuine smile that transforms his face from dangerous to devastating. “No more running,detka. No more hunting. Just us, building something no one can hack.”

I think of all the fire doors I’ve installed in my life—the fail-safes, the kill switches, the escape routes. Years spent ensuring nothing could trap me, no one could reach me. Yet here I am, willingly caught in arms that once hunted me.

“I spent my life becoming invisible,” I whisper. “You’re the only one who ever truly saw me.”

His lips brush my forehead, impossibly gentle for hands that can destroy worlds with keystrokes. “And you’re the only one who ever made me want to be seen.”

In this moment, surrounded by rare wines preserved in darkness, I understand what we’ve become—something equally precious, equally patient in its creation. Something that, like the finest vintage, required precise conditions: the perfect balance of pressure and release, of darkness and light.

“I love you, Alexi Ivanov,” I say, the words no longer terrifying. “Every broken, brilliant piece of you.”

He kisses me then, a kiss unlike the hungry, desperate ones we usually share. This one tastes of promise, of future, of home.