The first time Rafe Cameron told you he loved you, he was high. His pupils were blown wide, hands shaking as they cupped your face, and he slurred the words like a confession. Like a sin.

You didn’t believe him.

Because love wasn’t supposed to taste like whiskey and cocaine. It wasn’t supposed to feel like bruises on your wrists from where he grabbed you too hard, like heartbeats racing for all the wrong reasons.

But Rafe had never been taught how to love gently.

He showed his devotion in destruction. He got into fights when someone so much as looked at you wrong. He spent his father’s money recklessly, buying you things you never asked for, just to prove he could. He kissed you like he was trying to swallow you whole, like keeping you close would keep him from shattering.

And then there were the nights like this.

It was well past midnight when Rafe showed up at your door, knuckles bruised, pupils blown wide, and the faintest tremor in his hands. You knew better than to ask what happened. The answer was always the same—bad choices, worse company, and another piece of him slipping away.

“Just let me in,” he murmured, voice rough like he had been screaming at the world before coming here.

You hesitated. You always hesitated. Because every time you let him in, you knew he’d never really leave.

But you stepped aside. And just like that, Rafe Cameron, reckless and self-destructive, folded into you like you were the only thing holding him together.

“I’d die for you, you know that?” His voice was barely above a breath, a confession too raw to be said any louder.

And that was the problem. Because Rafe Cameron had never known how to live for you. Only how to fall, how to break, how to burn the world down if it meant keeping you close.