Page 43 of Monsters Wear Crowns (Crowned Monsters Duet #1)

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, the man who had clawed his way through blood and fire, and the monster everyone feared.

He looked wrecked by 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.

My heart thundered. “I love you.”

The sound that ripped from his chest was almost animal.

He gripped my hips, surely bruising my skin.

He kissed me again–slower this time. Not softer, but deeper .

Like he was trying to learn every corner of me, every inch of the woman who had just given him the one thing he never believed he deserved.

And then he whispered into my skin. “Don’t leave me.”

The words were so quiet, I almost didn’t hear them. But they devastated me anyway. I pulled him tighter, my voice thick with tears. “I won’t.”

All the walls we’d built, all the armor we wore.

.. crumbled beneath the weight of his mouth on mine.

Rafe groaned into the kiss like he’d held himself back for far too long and couldn’t anymore.

His mouth never left my skin, leaving a trail of heat across my throat, my collarbone, and the swell of my breasts.

“God, Adela,” he groaned, thrusting harder, deeper. “You feel like fucking heaven.”

I moaned, clenching around him, my hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop. ”

He didn’t.

Every grinding thrust drove us closer to the edge, bodies slick with sweat, the room echoing with our need. My cries, his growls, the slap of skin against skin.

We were chaos. We were wild.

His hand found mine and pinned it above my head, fingers lacing through mine, grounding me as I shuddered around him. My climax hit like a tidal wave, my back nearly bowing off the bed, his name torn from my throat. I trembled beneath him, breathless and raw.

Rafe followed with a broken curse, his body slamming into mine one last time before he stilled, spilling into me with a moan that sounded like salvation and surrender all at once.

He collapsed on top of me, chest heaving, his face buried in the crook of my neck. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him close, not ready to let him go–not now, not ever.

His voice was hoarse, almost too soft to hear. “You’re everything.”

I turned my face toward his, pressing a kiss to his temple. “So are you,” I whispered. “Even when you don’t believe it.”

** *

RAFE

I didn’t remember stripping her. I just remembered the feel of her skin under my hands–the warmth, the softness, the way she opened for me.

And I’d never fucking wanted anything more.

Her body welcomed me like she was made for me, and when I sank into her, I felt something tear open inside me. Not pain. Not fear. Something worse. Something better.

She gasped my name like a fucking prayer, her nails digging into my back, and I couldn’t stop moving. Couldn’t stop needing . Every sound she made destroyed me. Every breath she took while wrapped around me broke another part of the wall I’d built to survive this world.

She looked at me like I wasn’t a monster. And that was what ruined me. Because I was . I was darkness and violence and blood. I was everything a woman like her shouldn’t be able to tame. But Adela…

She saw me.

And somehow, impossibly, she still touched me like I was worthy of this. Of her. I buried my face in her neck, breathing her in, tasting her skin between kisses. She whimpered when I rocked deeper, and my heart cracked wide open.

This wasn’t just lust. This wasn’t just need . This was surrender. I wanted to keep her. Wreck her. Worship her. Give her everything I had, even if it wasn’t enough.

Her arms wrapped tighter around me, her mouth meeting mine with a desperation that matched my own, and that was when it hit me–fully, finally.

I was in love with her.

And fuck, I was done for. I pulled back just enough to see her face–flushed and beautiful, her beautiful blue eyes heavy with everything we weren’t saying. “I don’t deserve you,” I whispered against her lips, voice breaking.

Her fingers tangled in my hair, dragging my mouth back to hers. But the way she kissed me… it said I know. I love you anyway . And I would spend the rest of my goddamn life trying to be worth that.

Her body clung to mine, hot and slick and trembling. Her perfect pussy gripped me so tight, so greedily, it felt like she was trying to pull me deeper, take all of me, keep me. She was everything I could have ever wanted. Everything I never thought I deserved.

And when she moved beneath me, when she gasped my name in that broken, breathy voice–I nearly came undone. Goddammit .

Each moan carved into my skin. Each arch of her hips shattered my control.

I was holding on by a fucking thread, and she was tearing through it with nothing but her need. Her sounds. Her body. I was lost in her. Drowning in the heat, the hunger, the fucking love I wasn’t ready to admit out loud. And I didn’t want to come up for air.

My thrusts turned rougher, deeper. I needed her to feel what I couldn’t say. What I didn’t know how to give voice to.

Because fuck , I loved her.

I couldn’t say it. The words stuck like glass in my throat, jagged and destructive. But the feeling was there...unrelenting, terrifying, real .

And when I came–buried inside her, shuddering so hard it felt like my soul cracked open–I collapsed into her body, forehead pressed to hers, breath torn from my lungs. I still couldn’t say it. Couldn’t force the words past the fear lodged in my chest. What was wrong with me?

But as I held her close, as our bodies cooled and our hearts thundered in sync, I knew she felt it anyway. She had to.