Page 104 of Monsters Wear Crowns
Not against each other.
Not against the truth.
The room was heavy with silence, broken only by the staggered rhythm of our breathing. The air was full of everything we couldn’t say out loud. Rafe’s body was a solid, burning weight above mine, his skin slick with sweat, his chest rising and falling like he’d just outrun something impossible. And maybe he had.
But no matter how close he got, no matter how tightly he held me, it still wasn’t close enough.
It never was.
His hands gripped my hips like they were the only anchor he had left, and his mouth found my throat–hungry, frantic, as if he was trying to memorize me with his teeth. I arched into him, my fingers clawing at his back, and still... I felt it. That emptiness inside him. That wall.
That distance he never let me breach.
And it hurt.
I dragged my nails down his spine, trying to tear it down. “Rafe,” I whispered.
He didn’t answer. He just kissed me harder, like he could bury the question in my mouth before it formed. But I wouldn’t let him drown it. Not this time.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked, my voice barely audible beneath the thunder of my pulse.
He froze. Just for a second. A hesitation so slight I almost missed it. But I felt how his breath stopped, how his grip on my hips tightened.
“I’ve never loved anyone before,” he said, voice hoarse and splintered. “I don’t think I’m capable of it.”
My chest twisted. “Why?” I breathed, not knowing what answer would hurt less.
He went quiet. His jaw clenched like he was holding in. For a moment, I thought he’d shut down again. But then, in a voice I almost didn’t recognize, he said, “I don’t know.”
Three words.But they landed like a wrecking ball, shattering whatever fragile barrier I had left between reason and ruin. He must have seen it because his shoulders relaxed. His fingers reached up, brushing against my cheek so gently I wanted to cry.
“The other night,” he murmured, “when we fought... you said you’d never love a man who only sees you as an object. Or a weapon.”
My eyes widened slightly. I remembered. I remembered how those words had come out like knives, fueled by fear, anger, and the ache of wanting something I thought I’d never get. But here he was. Breaking. Bleeding.Trying for once.And I didn’t feel like a weapon now. Not with the way he looked at me, like I was the only thing tethering him to this world.
His eyes searched mine. “Do you love me, Adela?”
The question was a blade pressed to both our throats. But in his eyes, I saw the boy who had been abandoned and beaten, theman who had clawed his way through blood and fire, and the monster everyone feared.
He lookedwreckedby the asking.
And maybe he would be devastated by the answer.
But I couldn’t lie. My fingers tangled in his hair. “Yes,” I whispered, my voice cracking under the weight of it. “I love you.”
He made a sound that wasn't relief. It was something closer to devastation. Then his lips landed on mine. His kiss tasted like agony and salvation. His hands tangled in my hair like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting me go. His hands slid down my sides, urgent and shaking, tugging at the fabric between us like it was the only thing keeping him from breathing. We stripped each other in frantic, fevered movements–clothes lost to the floor, to time, to everything that didn’t matter anymore.
And then it was just skin.
He pushed my thighs apart with trembling hands like he needed to feel all of me. I arched into him, gasping as his body pressed down against mine. “Look at me,” he rasped, snatching my chin.
I did.
And he made me hold that gaze when he surged forward, burying himself inside me in one deep, desperate thrust. I cried out, clinging to him as my body welcomed him like he’d always belonged there. And maybe he had. Maybe we’d been circling this moment since the beginning, fated to burn like this together.
Beneath the fire was something deeper. The tremor in his fingers. The tremble in his breath. He was unraveling, piece by piece.
“Say it again,” he growled against my lips, his voice a broken plea.
