Page 58 of Fierce Monarch

Nate froze, his hands clenching at my ass. “I haven’t been with anyone else.”

“I don’t care. You want to fuck me, you use a condom.”

He looked like he was about to punch a hole in the wall. “But we didn’t?—”

We’d stopped using condoms almost immediately after we’d become official. We’d both gotten tested, along with Dominic and Greyson, and since the relationships were closed and I was on birth control, it didn’t seem necessary. But that was when I trusted Nate, when I was honored to have that type of intimate connection. Now, it was too close, and I just couldn’t do it. “If you want to fuck me at all, I suggest you not finish that sentence. Put on a rubber, or get off me.”

The standoff was brief, but I could feel Nate’s agitation in every move he made. Though, I didn’t know if he was pissed at me or himself. Still, the second he put it on, I felt better, and he noticed it. It might’ve been a thin barrier, but it was a distance I needed. He hauled me up into his arms, gentle despite the ticking in his jaw.

“Are you sure about this?”

No, not even remotely. All I could do was hope that I ended the night a little less broken, instead of bleeding out on the floor from yet another Beckstrom. “Fuck me, Nate.”

“I’m not going to fuck you,” he said softly. “I’m going to love you.”

Please don’t.

I kept my eyes on his as he slid inside me, that familiar warmth and weight of him making my pussy clench. He hissed and pulled out, keeping the pace slow and even. There was a moment when I debated telling him to go harder, but one look at his face told me he knew what I wanted and just refused to give it to me.

It wasn’t until he started talking that I realized why he was doing it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” I snapped even as my back arched for him. I could handle the sex and the words if they were separate, but together, it was too much.

Nate ghosted his lips over my cheek. “I made a mistake.”

“Stop.” Stop talking. Stop fighting this. Let me go.

“No. I’m going to fix this.” He drove deeper and harder into my body, hands holding their fill of my ass as he pulled a groan from my chest. “I’m going to fix this. I’m going to make it up to you.”

“No talking.”

“Angel.”

Yanking his hair, I pulled his lips to mine, silencing him with a kiss while I took over rolling my hips. I fucked him hard and fast, letting his arms and the wall do all the work to keep me stable. “Fuck me, Nate. I don’t want to talk.”

“Later.” When I nodded reluctantly, because I wasn’t planning on hashing anything out, he took my mouth and unleashed himself on me. Nate fucked like he had something to prove, and hell, maybe he did, but I wasn’t sure what message I was supposed to be getting.

I love you? I miss you?I’m sorry?

No part of me trusted a word out of his mouth, which made our last time together a specific type of torture because I couldn’t silence the voice inside myself that wanted to believe him.

I wanted his apologies. I wanted it to heal. I wanted Nate.

But I wanted to survive more. The whole thing was bittersweet and painful, like eating the best dessert you’d ever tasted, only to find out you’re allergic after the last bite. My heart pounded, and my chest was tight. I was close to crying at the same time as I was racing toward orgasm, because even though he was a shitty person and a liar of a boyfriend, Nate was very good at giving my body what it wanted. “Come for me, angel. Let me feel you again.”

Then I was coming. That beautiful, bone-deep euphoria swept my body, and I let the tidal wave take me, knowing he’d be right behind. And he was. Nate powered into me, his arms holding me tight, reminding me that I wouldn’t fall. He wouldn’t let me.

Nate panted against my neck as he found his own release, and it felt right having us joined like that one final time.

The sex felt the same as always with Nate, like I was coming for him and coming home. It felt like I’d spent my whole life waiting to be understood and cared for and fucked like that.

But this was an interlude, not reality. Nate and I weren’t real. We were a figment of my imagination, the result of a game played by the brother of a psychopath. There was no future here, and there never would be.

We were enemies, even when I hadn’t realized it.

The second I caught my breath, I tapped Nate’s hands, needing space. Needing distance. Needing away from him.

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