Page 112 of Monsters in Love

A gust of wind chilled her as he moved into a corner. Turning from her, he lifted a wing, as if he could shield himself from the truth of her feelings with its thin leather. “I can see what you’re thinking,” he rasped, voice thick with emotion. “You must extinguish those thoughts.”

“I don’t want to extinguish anything.” She took a step toward him. “I want—”

“Please, Belle,” he ground out.

This time she knew it was desire that threaded his deep voice. It sparked heat in her core, and left her knees weak with wanting even as she struggled to give that need a voice. It awed her. Thrilled her. She’d abandoned any thoughts of desire when Thomas had been cast into the tunnels. Now it felt as if those feelings were being exhumed from the past, uncovered from beneath the layers of grief.

“I’m not human,” he rumbled. “I’m amonster. You are good and kind and pure. You deserve better.”

Oh, he was not going to make this easy on her.

But damn it all, she’d survived Jaston’s attentions and being hunted by demons in the tunnels. She wasn’t going to wait another moment—no matter how much her cheeks burned.

They’d been given a gift, and she refused to waste it.

More importantly, she refused to wastehim.

Be brave. Be bold.

Fight for what you love.

She straightened her spine and halved the distance between them. Then she stopped. Chasing him around the tower wasn’t working. Not for this. She would find the words—she would do whatever she could and pray it was enough. “I will… I will not take another to my bed,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t waver. “I won’t. Ever.” She lifted her chin and steeled herself. “But I would gladly give myself to the memory of my love that lives on in you.”

Frozen in the rainbow light of the window, the colored beams shimmering along lines of dust motes as if they were bars of a cage, Belle studied the creature concealing himself in the shadowed corner. His ears were flat against his head, shoulders hunched—he was yet to even look at her. Surely, he must also long for what had been stolen, so why hadn’t he said anything?

Her breath caught in her chest, fist pressed into her stomach as she waited for the most important answer of her life. Was he going to reject her? Gods. She feared she’d fall apart if he rejected her.

A leathery wing shifted, and his eyes glinted in the dark.

She caught her breath. Even across the room, the desire in that gaze heated her skin.

He wants me. Just as I want him.

Air rushed out of her in a soft puff of relief. He didn’t want to reject her, he simply thought he had to protect her. She had to convince him she wasn’t some fragile creature in need of saving.

She was a woman in need of her man.

“I don’t care if you’re a monster.” The words somehow released her from the cage of light, and suddenly her feet were moving. Head high, gaze locked on him, she slowly closed the distance between them. Perhaps she would fail. Perhaps she was wrong. But she’d be damned if she’d meekly accept defeat. “This monstrous form saved my sister and I.”

“Belle…” His voice was rough with desperation, yet his eyes didn’t waver from hers.

“Talos.” She stopped just beyond arm’s reach. Her body shuddered in protest at the space. The slice of air between them battered against her will. Yet she stood firm. As much as she longed to surround herself in his strength, she couldn’t force this—he had to welcome her. So instead of reaching for him, she pushed her hands into the folds of her skirt. “If you don’t want me, then I will respect your wishes. But if you still feel for me, then please—”

His massive frame shook with a bitter huff. “My feelings are not the point.”

Belle battled the urge to touch him. “They should be.”

“Why?” His gaze sharpened. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking?”

That I’m asking to be touched? For the man I love to show our bodies we belong together?Oh, she might be fuzzy on the details, but the fire running through her veins said she knew what she wanted.

She licked her lips. “Yes. I know.”

A throaty growl escaped him. “I’m enough of a creature to want you more now than when I lived as a man.” He uncoiled himself from the corner, massive frame straightening until he towered over her, an inhuman mountain of muscle. His wings flexed and his gaze sharpened. “But I am not a man. I’m a creature with fangs and teeth and needs, Belle.”

Oh, Gods. That should probably scare her.

Instead, heat pulsed in her core.

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