He wasn’t supposed to be your type.

Too cruel, too damaged, too dangerous.

But Rafe Cameron had a way of wrapping destruction in something beautiful. The way he leaned against his truck, cigarette burning low between his fingers, ocean wind tousling his hair like some tragic prince fallen from grace—he didn’t ask to be worshipped. He just expected it.

And you? You gave in too easily.

You liked the way he said your name like it was both a prayer and a warning. The way his voice turned into gravel when he was angry, but softer than silk when it was just the two of you, curled up in the shadows of Tannyhill, hiding from the world and your conscience.

You knew the bruises weren’t just from the fights he picked with strangers. Sometimes they came from trying to love too hard. Sometimes from the nights where the liquor took over and he screamed at the ghosts only he could see.

And sometimes… you weren’t sure if the hurt was accidental.

But God, he loved you. In the way only broken men do—reckless, violent, total. He’d destroy a room if someone looked at you wrong. He’d bleed for you, and make you bleed for him if it meant knowing you were real. That this wasn’t some dream he’d wake up from in the back of a cop car or a hospital bed.

“You’re all I got,” he whispered once, cheek pressed to your bare thigh, mascara-streaked tears on your skin. “You’re the only thing that makes sense.”

And it did make sense, in the ugliest, most intoxicating way. Like getting high off poison because it felt like love.

You knew it couldn’t last. Something like this never did.

But when he kissed you, wild and desperate like he was afraid the world would take you away—

You kissed him back.

Because love like this?

It doesn’t fade.

It explodes.