Page 141 of Snow

“Damn.”

“I was thinking about how much everything has changed.”

Snow’s teasing faded.

Nova glanced around the room again before looking back at him. “Sometimes it feels like that rig happened years ago. Then I’ll wake up from a nightmare, and it feels like yesterday.”

His thumb moved slowly along her side. “You still having them?”

“Not as much.”

He nodded, accepting that without trying to fix it. That was another thing she loved about him.

Loved.

Nova’s breath caught slightly. She hadn’t said the word to him yet. Neither had he. They had danced around it in a hundred different ways, but neither of them had actually crossed that line.

The funny thing was, Nova didn’t need him to say it to know. She saw it every morning when he handed her coffee exactly the way she liked it. She felt it whenever he reached for her hand without thinking. It was there when he showed up at the gym after training just because he knew she had been working late, or when he called her sister to ask what kind of cake Nova liked because apparently asking Nova herself would have ruined the surprise.

She had spent years thinking love was supposed to look complicated.

With Snow, it wasn’t.

The circumstances that had brought them together had been insane, but this part wasn’t. This part was easy.

“I love you.”

The words came out before Nova had decided to say them.

Snow went still.

For half a second, panic fluttered through her stomach.

Then his face changed. The smile that appeared wasn’t his cocky SEAL grin or the one he used when he was about to say something inappropriate. It was softer than either of those, and Nova felt her throat tighten when he reached up and cupped her cheek.

“I was wondering how long you were going to make me wait.”

Nova blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve been in love with you since somewhere around the moment you almost took my head off with a spatula.”

She stared at him. “That was practically the beginning.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Been a rough few months.”

Nova laughed and shoved his chest, but Snow caught her around the waist before she could get away.

“You’re an asshole.”

“An asshole you love.”

“I already regret telling you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No,” she admitted. “I really don’t.”

Snow kissed her.