Page 78 of The Beast

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what I’m capable of when I’m like this.”

“Then show me.”

He goes very still.

“Use me,” I say quietly. “Instead of the bag. Use me.”

“That’s insane.”

“Is it?” I step closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin. “You need to burn it out? Burn it into me. You need to lose control? Lose it with me.” I reach up, cup his face in my hands, and force him to meet my eyes. “I’m not afraid of your darkness, Gabriel. I’m not afraid of the beast. So stop trying to protect me from it and just let go.”

“I could hurt you.” The words are barely a whisper.

“You won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can. I know you.” I hold his gaze, steady and sure, and in that moment, I realize it’s not an act. Maybe I should be scared, but I’m not. Whatever it is he needs, he can get from me—I’m certain of it. More, I’m certain he can get it without hurting me.

I take his hand. “I trust you. I know you,” I repeat. “I know that even when you hated me, you couldn’t bring yourself to truly destroy me. I know that the man who painted me reaching for light would never snuff that light out. I know that the Beast isn’t separate from you—it’s part of you. And I love all of you.”

I press my forehead to his, my arms sliding around his waist. “So stop fighting it,” I say. “Stop fighting yourself. Just be with me. All of you. Even the parts you’re afraid of.”

For one endless moment, nothing happens. He just breathes, ragged and harsh, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding himself back.

Then something in him breaks, like a dam finally giving way after years of pressure.

His mouth crashes into mine, and there’s nothing gentle about it. It’s teeth and tongue and raw, desperate hunger—not for sex, but for release. For absolution. For someone to hold all the broken pieces of him and not flinch.

I don’t flinch.

I grab his shoulders and pull him closer, meeting his intensity with my own. When his hands tear at my clothes, I help him. When he lifts me and pins me against the wall, I wrap my legs around him and hold on.

“Tell me to stop,” he gasps against my throat, his voice wrecked. “Tell me this is too much.”

“Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

He yanks my knit skirt down, then pushes my panties aside to enter me in one hard thrust. I cry out—not from pain, but from the sheer overwhelming rightness of it. This is what he needs. What we both need. Not careful lovemaking, but this raw, primal claiming.

He moves like a man possessed, driving into me with a force that shoves me up the wall with every thrust. And I take it. Take all of it. Take his rage and his fear and his five years of darkness and meet it with my own.

“Harder,” I gasp against his ear. “Give me all of it.”

He groans—a sound torn from somewhere deep—and obeys. One hand fists in my hair, the other grips my hip hard enough to bruise. The pleasure and the pain blur together into something transcendent.

“Izzy.” My name is like a prayer. “God, Izzy.”

“I’ve got you,” I whisper, even as my body hurtles toward release. “I’ve got you. Let go.”

He does.

I feel the moment he stops holding back. Stops trying to control the beast and just surrenders to it completely, trusting me to survive the storm.

We shatter together.

The orgasm rips through me, and I hear myself scream his name as he roars mine, his whole body shuddering as he pours everything—the rage, the grief, the darkness, all of it—into me.

We stay there for a long time, pinned against the wall, breathing hard. His face is buried in my neck. His shoulders are shaking.