Page 68 of The Beast

And then I’m not thinking at all. I’m just feeling. Hot and wild and deliciously used.

“Gabe.” My voice is rough with need. “I’m close. I’m so close.”

He hooks one of my legs over his shoulder in a stretch that makes me cry out, then drives deeper than I thought possible. I arch up, groaning as pleasure rolls through me, making me forget everything except the feeling of him inside me and the impossible pleasure that’s building to a wild and desperate crescendo.

“Come for me,” he demands.

And I do.

The orgasm rips through me like an earthquake. Like the end of the fucking world. I scream his name—actually scream, loud enough that security might come running—and my body arches off the couch as wave after wave of pleasure crashes through me.

Gabriel follows a heartbeat later, crying my name as if it’s been ripped out of him. I feel him pulsing inside me, feel his body shudder, feel the moment he completely lets go before finally, collapsing, his weight on me like the most real thing I’ve felt in five long years.

Time means nothing as we lie there, tangled together on the couch, both breathing hard, hearts racing in tandem, sweat cooling on our skin.

Eventually, he lifts his head and looks at me, his face awash with love and grief and hope and fear. “I’m sorry.”

“For that?” I tease, though I know that’s not what he means.

He brushes a strand of hair off my face, then presses a finger to my lips. “Let me say this. Let me say I’m sorry, even though that’s not enough. Even though words can’t erase what I did. What I believed. But I am sorry. For all of it. For every moment of pain I caused you.”

“I know you are,” I say.

“Does that mean you forgive me? Can you forgive me?”

I look away, then force myself to meet his eyes again. “I don’t know. You believed the worst about me. You truly thought I could do that to you, and you came back to destroy me. You believed the lie while I spent five years in agony missing you.”

He closes his eyes, then gives a brief nod when he opens them again. “I understand.” The word is barely a whisper.

I draw a deep breath, then let it out slowly as I look him in the eye. “But I want to try,” I say. “I want to find out if whatever this is between us can survive what we’ve been through.”

“Whatever this is,” he repeats. “Once upon a time, you would have called it love.”

“For what it’s worth, I do still love you. Apparently, I’m as foolish as my father’s always telling me. But that’s not enough.”

“No,” he agrees. “But maybe we can call it a start?”

I see the hope that flickers in his eyes, but I stay silent. I have hope, too. But I’m holding it close, shielding it like a candle flame.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” he says. “Whatever you need. However long it takes.

I should tell him to go now. Promise that we can talk more tomorrow. But his body is still warm against mine, and even though I don’t know if I still want him forever, I know that I want him for now.

“Stay,” I whisper. “Just for tonight. Stay here with me.”

It’s not forgiveness. It’s not trust. It’s not anything close to the happily ever after I used to dream about for us.

But it’s a start.

And right now, a start is everything.