Page 117 of The Beast

The big man taps out. Goes limp.

Gabriel releases him, steps back, and looks up at me.

His face is bloody. His eyes are wild. The beast is fully awake, fully present, and it’s staring at me with an intensity that should terrify me.

It doesn’t.

I stare back. Hold his gaze. Let him see that I’m still here. Still watching. Still not running.

Something in his expression shifts. Softens, just slightly.

Then he turns and disappears through a door at the edge of the pit.

I’m on my feet before I realize I’ve moved.

“Back corridor,” Anissa calls. “Third door on the left.”

I push through the crowd, relieved when I reach the relative quiet of the corridor. I follow the sound of running water until I find an open door—third on the left, just like she said.

Gabriel is inside, washing blood from his hands in a sink. His back is to me, muscles still taut with unspent adrenaline. Water runs pink down the drain.

I shut the door behind me and lock it.

“You should have stayed in the box,” he says without turning around.

“Since when do I do what I should?”

A sound escapes him—not quite a laugh. He braces his hands on the edge of the sink, head bowed, water still running.

“Now you know,” he says quietly. “What I am. What I have to do to stay human. To keep the demons at bay.”

I cross the room. Press myself against his back, wrap my arms around his waist. Feel the tremors running through him—aftershocks of violence, the beast slowly retreating into its cage.

“Now I know,” I repeat, then press a kiss to his shoulder blade. “And I’m still here.”

He stills for a moment, then turns in my arms. His face is a wreck—bloody lip, bruise forming along his jaw, that wild light still flickering in his eyes. He looks feral. Dangerous. Beautiful.

“I don’t deserve you,” he says.

“Yes, but who would, really?”

As I’d hoped, he laughs, and I take advantage of the moment to pull his head down and kiss him hard.

His control snaps.

One second I’m standing in front of him, the next I’m pressed against the wall, his body pinning mine, his mouth devouring me with a hunger that borders on violence. But it’s not the beast—not entirely. There’s desperation in it. Need. The raw, ragged edge of a man who—I hope—finally realizes that he’s not alone.

“Bella.” My name is a growl against his throat. “Tell me to stop.”

“No.”

“Tell me you don’t want this.”

“I want this.” I arch into him, feel his cock pressing against me. “I want you. All of you. Man. Beast. Everything.”

There’s a cot in the room, and he throws me down onto it. I gasp, reaching for him, wanting him right there with me.

And then he is, his mouth on mine as his hands make quick work of my top and my slacks until I’m naked beneath him, and his shorts have disappeared as well.