Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
My morning at the Monarch is grueling as I deal with enough paperwork to wallpaper the Louvre.
When I finally escape, the sun is high in the sky, and I find Gabriel at his easel, taking advantage of the light filtering through the high windows of his underground apartment.
The canvas in front of him is different from the chaotic fragments he’s been producing—this one has structure. Intent.
I mentally cross my fingers. Progress.
I look closer and see a woman’s silhouette emerging from shadows, reaching toward something I can’t quite make out.
My breath hitches. Me. He’s painting me again.
I lean against the doorframe, watching him work. The tension that’s lived in his shoulders for days is softer this morning. Not gone—I’m not sure it will ever be completely gone—but manageable. Like a tide that’s finally started to recede.
Now, as I watch him paint, I see the difference in every brushstroke. Less frantic. More deliberate. Like he’s finally creating instead of just exorcising demons.
“I know you’re there,” he says without turning around.
“I know you know.” I push off the doorframe and cross the room, stepping over discarded sketches and dried paint rags. When I reach him, I rest my chin on his shoulder and study the canvas. “She’s beautiful.”
“She’s you.”
I press a kiss to the side of his neck. “When did you start this one?”
“This morning. Couldn’t sleep after you left for work.” He sets down his brush and turns, pulling me into the circle of his arms. His eyes search my face, looking for something—damage, maybe, or regret. “Are you okay? After last night?”
“Better than okay.” I trace my fingers along his jaw, feeling his beard rasp against my skin. “Are you?”
He doesn’t answer right away. I’ve learned to wait him out instead of rushing to fill the silence.
“I don’t know what I am,” he finally admits. “Different. Less fractured, maybe.” His arms tighten around me. “You shouldn’t have had to…fuck. You know.”
I smile. “We’re not keeping score.”
“Maybe we should be. The tally’s pretty one-sided at this point.” There’s a darkness in his voice—the familiar self-loathing that rises up whenever he lets himself think too hard about everything he’s done.
I catch his face in my hands, force him to look at me. “Stop. Day by day, remember? No more drowning in the past.”
“Some days the past feels pretty fucking present.”
“I know.” I brush my thumb across his cheekbone and catch the edge of the scar that extends from under his beard. “That’s actually something I want to talk to you about.”
Something shifts in his expression. Wariness creeping in at the edges. “That sounds ominous.”
“It’s not. I promise.” I take a breath, organizing my thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about The Beast. The fight club.”
His whole body goes rigid. “What about it?”
“You go there to burn off the fury. The pain. That’s why you fight—because the violence helps you sleep without nightmares.” I hold his gaze. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
He’s silent for a long moment. Then his shoulders drop, just slightly. “It’s not exactly the picture of the normal man I want to be. But since you already know the answer, then yes.”
“We skipped over normal a long time ago,” I say, then step even closer—close enough that our bodies are almost touching.
“You’ve never actually shown it to me. Not really.
And the bits I have seen are from practice rounds.
At least that’s what Anissa said. “They’re not the real deal.
That’s on a different level altogether.”
“Bella.”
There’s a warning in his voice. I ignore it. “I want to see it. All of it. Including you in the ring.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I press my hand flat against his chest, feel the rapid beat of his heart. “Please.”
“Dammit, you don’t know what you’re asking.” His voice has gone rough. “Watching me fight—it’s not like watching a boxing match on TV. It’s brutal. Bloody. I become something else in that ring.”
“The Beast.”
“Yes.” The word sounds like a confession. “And not like you’ve seen. I don’t want you to see me like that.”
“Why not?”
He starts pacing the room. His back is to me, shoulders taut. “Because you might not look at me the same way after. Because there’s a difference between knowing what I am and actually watching me tear someone apart with my bare hands.”
I follow him, stopping just behind him but not touching. “After everything we’ve been through, do you really think watching you fight is going to be the thing that drives me away?”
“I don’t know.” The rawness in his voice makes my chest ache. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what’s going to be too much. What’s finally going to make you realize that the man you loved is gone and all that’s left is—”
“Don’t.” I close the distance between us, then fist the front of his shirt.
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence. The man I love is standing right in front of me.
Changed, yes. Scarred. But still here. Still fighting to come back to himself.
” I rise up on my toes, brush my lips against his.
“I need to see all of you. We need this. Both of us.”
He’s quiet for so long, I think he’s going to refuse. Then his forehead drops to mine, and he exhales, long and shaky.
“I’m terrified,” he whispers.
Two words. That’s all. But coming from a man who’s spent five years armoring himself against any hint of vulnerability, they feel like a revelation.
“I know,” I say. “That’s okay. We’ll be terrified together.”
His laugh is more breath than sound. “That’s not exactly comforting.”
“It’s the best I’ve got.” I pull back so I can see his eyes. “Soon? Will you take me back there soon?”
He studies my face for a long moment, searching for something—doubt, maybe, or the first cracks of fear. Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t seem to find it.
“Okay,” he finally agrees. “But not today.”
“No?”
“No.” He pulls me closer, his hands settling on my hips. The tension in his body shifts, transforming into something warmer. “Today I just want you.”
The heat in his voice sends a shiver down my spine. But I make myself hold back, make myself ask the question that’s been circling in my mind all morning.
“I want that, too. But could you…just right now, I mean…can you be gentle with me?”
He goes still.
I watch emotions flicker across his face—surprise, uncertainty, something that looks almost like fear. “What?”
“Last night was intense. Necessary, sure. But pretty damn awesome, too.” I trace patterns on his chest, feeling the raised ridges of scars through his thin t-shirt. “But I don’t want intense right now. I just want...you. Simple. Tender.” I look up at him. “Is that something you can give me?”
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything he’s not saying.
“I don’t know,” he finally admits. His voice is barely above a whisper. “You know how I’ve been living for years. I’m not sure I remember how to be gentle.”
The confession breaks my heart a little. This man who used to paint me like I was made of starlight, who used to trace every inch of my skin like he was memorizing a sacred text—and now he’s not sure he remembers tenderness.
They did this to him. Those bastards in Aspen. They tried to burn his heart out of him.
But I refuse to believe it’s gone completely.
“Then let’s find out together,” I say. “And for the record, raw and wild and deliciously kinky are definitely on the menu. But right now, I want slow and sweet. And I think we can do that.”
I don’t give him a chance to protest. I take his hand and lead him toward the bedroom. When we reach the bed, I turn to face him. Slowly, I pull my shirt over my head. He watches, his eyes, dark and hungry, but he doesn’t reach for me.
“Bella—”
“Shh.” I step closer, work the hem of his t-shirt free from his sweatpants. “No thinking. Just feeling.”
I push the shirt up and over his head, revealing the map of scars that covers his torso. In the light from the high windows, they look almost silver—burn marks and cuts and that puckered bullet wound just below his ribs. Evidence of everything he survived.
I lean in and press my lips to the scar nearest his heart.
He shudders.
“That’s it,” I murmur against his skin. “Just feel.”
I kiss my way across his chest, tracing the topography of his suffering with my lips. Every mark, every ridge, every place where they tried to destroy him. And with each kiss, I feel something in him start to unravel.
“Bella.” My name comes out broken, barely a breath.
“I’m here.” I look up at him, hold his gaze as I ease his sweatpants down over his hips. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He’s hard already, straining toward me, and I want nothing more than to touch him, taste him, make him lose control.
But that’s not what this is about.
I strip, then ease back onto the bed and pull him down with me. He hovers over me, weight braced on his arms, and I can see the war playing out behind his eyes. The beast wanting to take, to claim, to dominate. And the man—the man I fell in love with all those years ago—fighting to stay present.
“Kiss me,” I beg.
He lowers his head. His lips brush against mine, tentative and questioning. Like he’s forgotten how this works. Like he’s learning the shape of my mouth all over again.
I thread my fingers through his hair and pull him closer, deepening the kiss but keeping it soft. No desperation. Just the slow, sweet slide of mouths learning each other again.
When he finally pulls back, his eyes are glassy. Overwhelmed.
“I want to be inside you,” he whispers. “But I don’t know if I can do this without—”
“Without the beast taking over?”
He nods, jaw tight.
“Then we’ll go slow. And if you need to stop, we stop.” I cup his face in my hands. “No matter what, I’ll still be right here.”
Something in his expression cracks open. “Day by day,” he whispers. “And minute by minute.”