“What happened?” I mumbled, realizing that I was fully dressed barring my shoes, and I had been lying in his arms. He released me and I sat up, the covers coming away to reveal his hard chest and abs. He was still wearing his jeans, but his top was off and I had the sudden urge to lie back down with him and go back to sleep. My head on his chest, my arm wrapped around his middle. Our hearts beating in unison. That sounded perfect right about now.
“You passed right the fuck out.” He stretched his arms up before putting them under his head, his muscles stretching beautifully with every movement. He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, yet his dark eyes were still searching my face for what had just happened. His strength was coming back, his body contouring back to what it must have once been like—maybe even better. I’d been so unobservant the past few weeks I’d barely noticed anything. When I wasn’t there I’d been with Lorenzo, and when I wasn’t with Lorenzo, Mateo and Carlos had been paying me surprise visits. Between the monster that Lorenzo had become—his jealousy spurring him on to be more and more brutal with my body—and Mateo and Carlos’s constant threats, I’d been completely distracted and lost within my own head.
But I noticed Beast now, and he lookedbeautiful.
There was just no other word for it.
His body looked like it was carved from marble; each muscle was defined, his stomach a wall of hardness, and his chest a steel plate. Beast stared up at me, his hands behind his head as he lay there, his arms and shoulders defined by layers of muscles as his stormy eyes continued to watch me.
I realized in that moment how much I’d missed him. At the hospital we had talked a lot, and in between his temper tantrums we’d gotten to know each other. I missed those talks. I missed his arms around me. I missed the safety that he promised without having to use words. I missed Beast and all his beautiful, brutal glory.
“You keep lookin’ at me like that and I’m going to have to do something about it, Belle,” he said, his words a low growl.
A threat or a promise…I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t care.
I was as close to death as I had ever been. Threats coming at me from all sides. Men wanting to kill me. Harm me. Torture me. Men pushing me to do things I didn’t want to do. But this, Beast, he was just Beast. The same man that he’d been all along, only maybe softer somehow. Gentler, even if his eyes spoke deadly volumes.
It wasn’t just his body that turned me on; it was that despite everything I felt both safe and terrified around him, a delicious combination of desire pooling in my belly that mixed with the fear in my heart.
Beast was the definition of a man.
He was the dark and brooding man that you were warned about as a girl, so dangerous and deadly you knew one wrong move would get you killed. He was the epitome of masculinity both because of and in spite of his scars. I stared and stared, wishing for something that I couldn’t put words to, my body calling out for him to hold me, to touch me in that dark and delicious way only he could, even as my heart told me to run from him.
Beast was dangerous.
A caged animal waiting to be set free.
He was feral and savage, and completely unrestrained. He did what he wanted and he took no prisoners. He cared deeply but he hated even deeper. And all I wanted was for him to touch me. To want me. To love me.
Beast rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath as he pulled his arms out from behind his head. His heated gaze roved over every inch of me and I might as well have been naked already for how he saw me, because hesawevery inch of me.
“Warnin’ you, Belle,” he said with a throaty growl. “Can’t look at a man like that and not expect him to do somethin’ about it.” His drawl became lazier, his eyes growing darker.
I had to go.
I had to get out of there before it was too late.
Before he found out what I had done and killed me.
But I needed Beast in every possible way. I needed him to touch me, to make me feel safe, and I wanted one last time. I needed him to make me believe that it was all going to be okay. So I didn’t think, I just reacted to my body’s wants. I moved on instinct.
I reached down to the hem of my T-shirt and pulled it up and over my head, and his nostrils flared as my breasts came into view. It was wrong of me to take this from him, given that I was a traitor. It was selfish of me, but I needed him. I needed someone’s touch. I need to feel alive again if I was going to die. I needed Beast one more time. His rough hands on every inch of my naked flesh. His tongue and teeth nipping at me. I needed to feel him deep inside me, taking from me, giving to me, burning my insides to dust.
In that moment, I needed Beast like I needed air. Maybe more so, because I could hold my breath yet I couldn’t go another moment without his touch.
This wasn’t me.
This wasn’t the sort of woman I was; I didn’t jump into bed with men like this, and yet it was the only thing I desired right now.
Beast.
This brutal and perfect man.
The man who was going to be my undoing.
I needed him to make me feel alive one last time before I died.
“I need you,” I said, my words soft but firm, and I meant them to the very edge of my being. I needed him so bad it made me hurt. “Touch me,” I begged him, terrified of his rejection but desperate for his touch. I reached for his hand and placed it on my breast. “Please.”
