Page 66 of The Beast

“I still loved you.” The confession tears out of him like it costs him everything he has left. “Even when I hated you, I loved you. Even when I was planning your destruction, I loved you. And now, knowing the truth, knowing what I almost did.” His voice breaks completely. “I don’t know how to stop loving you.”

I stare at him. This broken, beautiful, infuriating man who put me through hell. I should walk away. Should protect myself from any more pain. Should make him grovel and beg and prove himself worthy before I give him anything.

But I’ve never been able to protect myself from Gabriel Grimm.

“I hate you,” I say again. And then—before I can talk myself out of it—I close the distance between us and kiss him.

It’s not a gentle kiss. It’s brutal. Punishing. Years of fury and grief channeled into something that feels like war.

Gabriel makes a sound against my mouth—something between a groan and a sob—and then his hands are in my hair, fisting tight, pulling me closer with a desperation that steals the breath from my lungs. He kisses me like he’s drowning and I’m air. His tongue warring with mine, his lips claiming, his hands holding me close as if they’ll never let me go.

Heat blooms through me, immediate and devastating. My body remembers him—remembers this—even after all this time. Remembers the way his mouth moves against mine, the way his tongue slides past my lips, the way his hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise.

I should stop. Should slow down. Should make him work for this instead of giving him everything he wants.

But I don’t want to stop. I want to burn. I want to consume and be consumed. I want to destroy us both so completely that there’s nothing left but ash—and then rise from the ruins as something new.

“Izzy—” he gasps against my lips.

“No,” I snap. “Bella.”

“Bella,” he murmurs, then kisses me harder, deeper, in a way that makes my knees go weak. His hands slide down my back, then curve over my ass to pull me against him. I feel the hard length of his cock, and a bolt of pure need races straight to my core.

I tear at his shirt, fumbling with buttons, fingers clumsy with desperation. When they won’t cooperate fast enough, I grip the fabric and pull. Buttons scatter across the gallery floor like tiny casualties of war. Gabriel breaks the kiss long enough to yank what’s left of the shirt off, and I freeze, shocked into immobility by the sight in front of me.

His chest is a roadmap of suffering. Burns and cuts and three puckered bullet wounds that tell me just how close I came to losing him for real.

Scars that weren’t there five years ago, written on his skin in brutal, permanent ink. Evidence of everything he survived while I was mourning him. Everything he endured while I was crying into my pillow, wishing I could hold him one more time.

“Gabriel.” His name comes out broken, barely a whisper.

He tenses. Something guarded flickers across his face, and he starts to turn away, but I catch his arms and hold him in place with a grip that surprises us both.

“Don’t.” I press my palm flat against his chest, right over his heart, and feel it hammering under my hand. “Don’t hide from me.”

He swallows. “I’m not the man you remember.”

“I’m not the same woman.” I hold his gaze, letting him see the truth in my eyes. “I’m not the girl who fell in love with you all those years ago. She died when you did. What’s left is...someone else. Someone harder.”

“Someone stronger,” he says quietly.

“Maybe.” I trace my fingers along a scar that curves across his ribs, and he shivers under my touch. “Or maybe just broken in different places.”

His hand comes up to cover mine, pressing it harder against his chest. “Bella.” His voice is wrecked, raw as an open wound. “Every single day. I told myself I hated you, but I never stopped missing you. Never stopped wanting you.”

I kiss him again, hard and demanding. I don’t want words right now. Words are horrible misunderstandings and lies and wasted years.

Bodies don’t lie. And right now, I want to speak in the only language that’s ever been completely honest between us.

I push him backward onto the couch and then we’re a tangle of limbs on the cushions, his body hard and hot beneath mine.

He reaches for my shirt, his fingers trembling as he tugs it over my head. I’m not wearing a bra, and when he tosses my shirt away, he stares at me like he’s seeing something holy. Like I’m a miracle he never expected to witness.

“Christ, Bella.” His voice is reverent. Worshipful. “You’re so beautiful. I used to dream about this. Even when I was trying to hate you, I dreamed about touching you. Tasting you. I’d wake up reaching for you, and you were never there, and I thought it was because you’d betrayed me. But it was because I was too fucking stubborn to question the lies I’d been fed.” He pulls me down and kisses me softly. “I’m so goddamn sorry.”

“I know.” I frame his face with my hands. “I know you are. Now stop apologizing and really touch me.”

Something sparks in his eyes—that familiar heat I remember from a thousand nights in his bed. His hands find my breasts, cupping, kneading, thumbs brushing across my nipples until they peak and strain against the fabric.