Page 49 of Falling for the Beast

“Wait…you want me to leave?”

He didn’t meet her gaze. “You have a life to live. Things to do. You can’t stay here indefinitely.” He didn’t mean for it to sound so cold, but he couldn’t take it back, either.

“I thought we were…”

What did she think they were? Friends? A couple? What a preposterous thought. There could never be anything between them. “We’re not.”

She set the laptop down on his desk with a clatter, grabbed his shirt with both hands and planted her lips on his. Stunned, he didn’t respond at first. She moved her lips against his and suddenly he forgot why they couldn’t be a couple. Forgot why he had to let her go. All that was left was her, and him. He pressed up against her, hungry for her kiss.

When she broke away for air he kissed along her jaw line to her neck. He wanted to devour her. She moaned and her fingers wound through his hair. “How can you say we’re not?”

He froze. He’d made a mistake. Her kiss had clouded his thinking. He stepped back from her. “I’m sorry. It’s difficult for me to resist you. But it’s time to think about reality. You and I can’t be.”

“Why not?”

How could he explain it to her? She would be miserable stuck in a relationship with him. “I can’t change who I am. And you…you couldn’t be happy with me.”

“But I am happy.”

“Will you be happy tonight? When I leave?”

The question in her eyes turned to understanding and she stiffened. “I know you go heal people at night. That’s what you do.” She swallowed. “I can accept it.”

“And what about tomorrow? When I come home coughing up blood?”

She flinched, and he took advantage of it. “Or when I’m too weak to come home, and I have to find a place to hide and rest before I can get back on my motorcycle? I once spent the day sleeping under a log, healing from a gunshot wound.”

The color drained from her face. He knew if he pushed, she would have to agree with him. “When the old Gas and Go burned down, I spent the night lying in a drainage pipe, third-degree burns covering half my body. And then there was the time—”

“Stop.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I get it.”

“Do you?” Did she finally understand what his life was like? Did she see how their relationship couldn’t be anything more than friends? And even that was stretching it.

“Yes,” she whispered, blinking back tears. “I understand.”

She fled the room. He heard her bedroom door shut, and the soft sounds of her crying. He scrubbed his hand over his stubble. Why did she have to cry? It broke him.

He couldn’t sit here and listen to her anymore. He jogged down the stairs and grabbed his jacket. It wasn’t late yet, but the sun had already set. It was dark enough that he could go do what he needed to do. He slipped his helmet on and left.

Aribelle stood still as she listened to the sound of Thaddeus on his motorcycle. Fresh tears ran down her cheeks. He was right. About all of it. She would never be truly happy to see him coming home each morning with severe injuries. It broke her heart each time she saw him. And it would only get worse.

The fear and worry she felt right now, knowing he was going out, was too much for her. He could come home a bloody mess. Or worse. And he knew she couldn’t handle it.

She grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her face. And she had been going to tell him she loved him tonight. Instead, she was alone in her bedroom, and he was gone. Her chest constricted with the thought of him out there, alone, possibly in too much pain to come home.

Taking a deep and shaky breath, she finally accepted what he’d known all along. There couldn’t be anything between them. That was why he’d pushed her away from the very beginning. Why he didn’t want a young woman to take the position in the first place. Why he’d freaked out when they kissed.

But she had been too blind to see it. She’d foolishly hoped that he would leave his healing behind him. That he’d pretend it wasn’t something he had to do. That they could spend their days going on outings on his motorcycle and their nights filled with private dances and kisses under the moonlight.

A fantasy. That’s all it was. And she needed to let it go…let him go.

He couldn’t change. And she couldn’t live with him the way he was. Which was ironic, because she didn’t care about the beast in him. Didn’t care about the ugly scars.

All she cared about was him.

Chapter 22

By midnight, Thaddeus was backat his house, wrapping his arm in gauze. He’d come across a drunk man on a motorcycle who had skidded on the gravel, giving himself a nasty road burn. He secured the wrap and climbed into bed. Aribelle would be pleased, it would be healed by morning.

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