Page 101 of Monsters Wear Crowns
“Let me go!” I shoved at him, but it was useless. He was too strong.
“You want toleaveme?” His voice broke on the words. “After everything?”
“Aftereverything?” I hissed back. “You’rethe one pushing me away! I’m fighting for you, Rafe, and you won’t even let me in!”
For one terrible second, I thought he might let me go.
But then his face hardened.
And he hauled me over his shoulder.
“Rafe!” I pounded my fists against his back, my hair whipping around my face as he stalked back into the house. “Put me down!”
He didn’t say a word. Just carried me up the stairs like I weighed nothing, his breathing ragged, his grip like iron. He was unraveling.
The bedroom door slammed behind us.
And then he threw me on the bed.
I landed with a gasp, my hair spilling around me as I scrambled up onto my elbows. But he was already there. His hands braced on either side of my head, his face inches from mine.
“You think you can just leave?” he rasped. “You think I’llletyou go?”
“I think you never gave me a reason to stay,” I shot back, my voice shaking. “You keep me in the dark, Rafe. You shut me out every time I get close. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
His chest rose and fell like he couldn’t catch his breath. “You stay,” he whispered. “Even when it hurts. Even when it’s ugly.”
“Why?” My throat tightened. “Because I love you?” The words fell into the space between us. And his eyes went wild. He didn’t kiss me, not at first. He just stared at me like I’d broken him. Like I was the only thing in the world keeping him from falling apart.
Chapter 20
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, his voice barely a breath. “Please, Adela.”
And then his mouth crashed against mine. It was brutal, demanding and unforgiving, and I met him with every ounce of fire in me. The room spun as he pressed me down, his weight pinning me to the bed, his hands rough on my skin–not gentle, not careful. This wasn’t tenderness at all. This was something else entirely.
Possession.
But that fear still coiled in my stomach like a viper, even as my body responded to him. “Do you think you can just keep me like this?” I whispered against his lips, my voice shaking but defiant. “That you can lock me away, and I’ll stay? I didn’t build my empire by being weak. I built it by being ruthless. And I’mnotabout to let you forget that.”
Rafe’s eyes flashed, and the grip on my wrists tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to warn. Enough to remind me of exactly who he was. “Power isn’t given. It’s taken. And once it’s mine, it’s never surrendered,” he said softly. “Including you.”
A shiver ran through me. “You don’t own me.”
His mouth curved in a slow, dangerous smile. “Don’t I?” He released my wrists only to drag his hand down my throat, his thumb brushing against the fluttering pulse there.
Moreau’s words echoed in my mind.
He’ll destroy you, just like your mother.
That cold whisper wound through the heat between us, and suddenly, it was too much. The weight of it. The danger. The terrifying pull of this man who never gave me enough–never gave me what I needed, only what he wanted.
“Stop,” I said, my voice shaking. “Seriously.”
He froze instantly, his breathing ragged, his grip still firm. But his eyes–God, his eyes. That darkness in them burned so hot I could feel it on my skin. “Why?” His voice was low and rough.
“Because I don’t know what this is,” I said, my throat tightening. “I don’t know if I can trust you. Every time I go to confront you, you turn it into sex.”
That did it. The heat vanished in an instant, replaced by a frigid cold. Rafe pulled back, his face unusually gaunt. “You think I’d hurt you?”
