I stared at the top of his golden head, my heart once again cracking for the little boy forced to grow thorns around his heart. Why did Grayson always make it so hard for me to hate him?
“My mom didn’t have a funeral,” I said weakly. “I couldn’t afford it.”
He slowly lifted his eyes to mine, and I cleared my throat, looking away, looking for anything to change the subject.
“Do you remember when I asked you what you would want to be…you know, if you weren’t born Grayson Crowne. Do you have an answer for me yet?”
Silence spread.
“I’m not sure it matters, Story.”
It mattered to me, even though it shouldn’t. Even though all it did was feed the wrong, twisted part inside of me that kept me up at night, wondering if there was a universe where we could be together.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “You’re right. I’m leaving and…” And I won’t need to know anything more about Grayson Crowne. I shouldn’t know anything more.
He took a long swallow, staring back at my cracked walls. “I don’t like it when you say you’re leaving, Snitch. I know I’m supposed to let you go. I…” He shook his head, taking a deep draw of his whiskey. “It’d be easier to chain me to the fucking wall.”
I stared harder at the top of his blond head, willing myself not to do what I was about to do.
I climbed off the bed, sliding shoulder to shoulder with Grayson. If I stared at the wall, it doesn’t count.
“My uncle gave me this book of poetry with a note,” I said, reaching for the book from my bed. “I called him in Asheville and told him I would leave, take us somewhere…but he didn’t want to go. He knew. He knew I wouldn’t make it back in time and still said no.”
I handed Grayson the book, and he stared at it for so long I thought he would never speak. When he did, his voice was rough and warbled and raw.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Snitch.” His blue eyes found mine, gleaming like the ocean at dawn. “For just…everything.”
I realized I was looking at him.
I shoved his face away, and he gripped my wrist, keeping my hand pressed to his cheek.
“My wife is supposed to be the one I trust. The one I confide in…so why are you the only one I trust, Snitch? The one I want to tell everything?”
His truth shattered me because…
“I don’t trust you anymore, Grayson Crowne. I trust you the least out of everyone.”
“Don’t fucking say that to me,” he growled.
“Why?” I demanded. “It’s the truth. Don’t you like the truth?”
He went silent. I wanted to know the thoughts that made the muscle in his jaw pop. His eyes dropped to my shirt, and I realized too late why, too late to pull away.
He lifted his locket off my neck. “You’re leaving me, little nun.”
“Don’t call me that.” My voice held no power.
He worked the muscle in his jaw harder. “Did you forget because your bruises faded?”
He dropped the locket and grasped the skin beneath it between his thumb and forefinger. I should have pushed him off. I shouldn’t arch my neck to the side, arch into the dark possessive look in his eyes as he twists the skin painfully, bruising, eyes boring into mine. Dredging up memories of his lips, his teeth.
“You’re mine, Story. My little nun.”
His voice was so rough, it slid inside me, abrading my blood, until I could taste him in my throat.
We’d kept our distance for so long, and even still, this was barely anything. But I was burning up as his warmth suffused through my body.
“Say it,” he gritted.
He twisted harder and I saw stars. Beautiful, blinding stars…the kind that blind judgment.
“Yours,” I breathed.
He stopped twisting, ran his thumb across the mark. His eyes found my lips and for a second I thought he might kiss me. Then before I could remember all the reasons why I should say no, Grayson was up and against the other wall.
I pressed my hand to my collarbone. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Don’t,” he rasped. “Let me see it.”
The air had shifted.
That thing we’d been ignoring, trying to act like died the day of the wedding, was alive and throbbing. Grayson—my Grayson—was back and staring at me like he wanted to eat me. Devour me. The only thing stopping him the wall at his back.
“I tried to fuck my wife today,” he said. “When you told me you were leaving…that really messed me up, Snitch. So I tried to get you out of my head.”
My eyes darted to his cock. He was so fucking hard. The tapered outline of him was so vivid through his suit pants, and it dredged up every memory of us. Hot…full…deep.
I swallowed, throat dry.
“Did it work?” I asked softly, dragging my eyes up.
There was an answer in his eyes I desperately wanted to know, but he wouldn’t let me in.
“You should go back to her.”
“I should.”
My eyes dropped back to his cock, and Grayson’s hand fell over the fabric. Stroking. I watched, mesmerized as he grew longer, harder. I ached. I missed him.
“What are you thinking, little nun?” His voice was like gravel.
This time it was my turn to keep my thoughts in my head. I’m thinking I want you. I want more, the way only you can give me. His nostrils flared as though he could read the thoughts in my head.
“Sit up,” Grayson commanded.
My heart pounded, breath tight as I did what he said.
“Spread your legs. Keep your clothes on.”
I stared at him. The rational part of me that always seemed to take a back seat whenever he was around screamed to fight back.
Disobey.
Don’t give in to the asshole who’d left me.
He quirked his head when I didn’t listen, veins pulsing in his golden neck. A moment stretched like taffy. I couldn’t decide if I wanted him to come to me…or get the fuck out.
But then he started to stand, to listen to me, to leave me.
And my legs fell open.
He froze before falling back to the floor.
“Wider,” he grated. My groin ached with the stretch, but when he made a sound deep in his throat, I felt like I was floating on air. “Slide your hand beneath your panties.”
Maybe it was Uncle’s death that led us to this point.
Maybe we were always going to end up here.
“We shouldn’t,” I said as I arched into my hand. “This is wrong.”
“Yeah,” he agreed jaggedly, rubbing his cock harder. “Fuck, I can see how wet you are.”
Sparky tingles buzzed along the tops of my thighs and the tips of my toes.
“What are you thinking?” he rasped.
I couldn’t keep it in. “I miss your teeth.”
He licked his bottom lip, giving me a flash of his bright teeth. I felt them on me, and I arched. He released a deep, jagged exhale.
“Touch yourself. Palm your tit.” I started to slide my hand beneath my shirt, but he growled: “Over the fabric.”
My heart pounded, breath tight in my chest, as I did what he said. I couldn’t look him in the eyes. It was too intimate. Too much. So I focused on his shirt, the way the material seemed to tighten across his muscles with each breath.
“Touch yourself the way you like.”
“Should I imagine it’s you?” I dared to look into his eyes, and they flashed up to mine, then back down. He didn’t say anything, but I took the dark, needful look in his eyes as a fuck yes.
I fucked myself hard beneath my panties, bruised my tit over my dress. All Grayson could see were the motions. He didn’t get anything else, but it felt more obscene that way.
He made a noise in his throat, as if the way I was doing it was wrong.
He rubbed his bottom lip with his pinky finger, and when he spoke, his voice was like iron. “Harder.”
I arched on a sigh. It was exactly what I’d been m
issing. How did he know what I wanted better than me?
“How do you fuck her?” I whispered.
I looked away from him, terrified to know the answer.
Yet some twisted part of me needed to know.
“You want to know how I fuck my wife, Snitch?”
I sucked in a breath. Grayson had come off the wall. He was on the floor with me, arms on either side, caging me. So close but still not touching me. The air between us danced, as though it knew we couldn’t touch, so it would do it for us.
“Yes,” I breathed.
I could come to the way Grayson watched me, his blue eyes giving me all the focus I’d been denied these past months in concentrate. Drinking me in like he’d just discovered me and wanted to use me all up. I wanted him to use me all up.
“I think about you,” he said.
I swallowed air at the confession and was rewarded with a small quirk of his lips. I rubbed myself harder beneath the fabric as he whispered wrong, dirty, forbidden words.
He licked his bottom lip, still watching me.
“I picture it’s you in my bed, Snitch. Your taste. Your cunt.” He closed his eyes like he was picturing it now. When he opened them, they were raw. Dark. “I need you to come, little nun. I need to hear that perfect gasp you make.”
I wanted to touch him.
I knew if I did, it would break this spell.
I was frozen. Stuck. On the precipice with no way to fall.
“Did you forget your first rule of training? You come when I say come.” He leaned forward like a junkie locked on a fix. Until his breath fogged my lips. Until I could almost pretend we were kissing. “Come.”
I came with a violent arch, his name on my lips.
When I came back down to earth, the tender, aching way he looked at me broke me apart, back into splintering grief.
Tears I’d held in all day broke through the corners of my eyes. He brushed them away with the heel of his palm, his hand lingering on my cheek. He looked me up and down.
“Perfect,” he whispered.
Grayson stood up, and he helped me to my feet. In less than a second, every ounce of blood disappeared from my head and drained to my toes.
My head throbbed. I wobbled, and the room blurred and blackened.
A brief thought. Grayson Crowne was reaching for me.
He was holding me.
“Snitch?” The worry in his tone warmed me.
Right before everything faded to black.
I woke in what looked like a hotel room, but the bright, fluorescent light making halos in my eyes was a dead giveaway.
Hospital.
I was in a hospital—but the swankiest hospital room I’d ever been in. I covered my eyes, hurting because of the bright light, and tried to remember what had happened. The last thing I remembered was being in the servants’ quarters and…
Grayson.
Sorrow and disgust swirled inside me, remembering what we’d done just seconds before I’d fainted. I needed to get out of Crowne Point, away from him. He was a drug I couldn’t stop using.
I wondered if he brought me here. It would explain the swanky digs. It was just like the room my uncle had stayed in when Grayson had paid. But this time I was alone.
I hated that I wished he was here.
“Ah, you’re awake.” I turned my head, finding a woman in a white coat.
I rubbed the back of my head. “Yeah, um, I feel fine, though.”
She smiled. “That’s good. From what I can tell, you’re healthy. It looked like low blood sugar and low blood pressure.”
The doctor asked me a lot of questions, occasionally glancing at my chart. When she seemed satisfied, she said, “It’s very common with pregnant women. You’re eating for two now. You’ll have to make some adjustments…”
She continued speaking, and I opened my mouth, then stopped, as a stone fell in my gut.
Finally I blurted, “Pregnant?” cutting off her spiel about diet. “You’re wrong. I got my period this morning.”
She frowned, then glanced at her chart. “The blood work is here. You likely experienced spotting, which is very common in early pregnancy.”
My lips parted, but no words came out.
I’d only slept with one person without protection.
Two months ago.
At his wedding.
“I can do another blood test to confirm, but congratulations, Miss Hale. You’re perfectly healthy, just pregnant.”
She left, and I sank back into the hospital bed. Pregnant? I couldn’t be pregnant. I had to leave. Get out. Not become my mother, not die as a ghost like my uncle.
Pregnant.
I exhaled, and my eyes traveled to the door, and my body went cold. Grayson stood in the doorway, holding peanuts.
Grayson dropped them to the floor. “You’re pregnant.”
Shit.
Fifteen
STORY
* * *
Grayson rushed to the hospital bed, pulling me so close my face smashed against his shirt.
“You’re pregnant,” he repeated.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” I managed to mumble. “That was private.”
He pulled me deeper into his chest, pressing his lips to my forehead. I was so shocked I let it happen.
I’d been withdrawn from his touch for months, and now his lips were on my forehead. His touch in my hair. Sweet words like satin on my skin.
“You’re pregnant.” He kept repeating the words against my forehead, carding his fingers through my hair.
You’re pregnant.
He didn’t say it like I had in my head. With dread. With nausea. He said it as though it was the most amazing miracle.
I pressed my palms to the soft linen to sit up, put space between us, but Grayson stopped me.
“Rest.”
“I feel fine.”
Discomfort twisted my chest. I needed to leave, not have Grayson looking at me with his soft eyes.
“What else did she say?” He caressed my cheek, pushing the hair out of my face. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay? When you fainted I brought you here. After Woodsy…” I could see the worry raw in his eyes.
Died of cancer went unsaid but nevertheless burned in his eyes.
I looked at him, really looked at him. He hadn’t changed since the funeral. He’d discarded his jacket and tie but still wore his shirt and slacks. The top buttons were undone, and the shirt was rolled up to his forearms, but it was hastily done. The left forearm didn’t match the right one, and his pants were wrinkled.
None of this was his business.
And yet.
He gazed down on me with tenderness, his thumb bruising from cheek to jaw. I splintered. I wanted to lay my head on his chest, wrap my arms around him. Instead I couldn’t stop staring at the gold ring on his finger.
I pushed him off.
“I’m fine,” I said. “It was just low blood sugar. I don’t need to be at the hospital. I just need to get out of here.”
Let this horrible day from hell end.
“No one will know you’re here, Story. We have a private wing, and I took you in a private car.”
“I wouldn’t expect them to, Mr. Crowne.” I slowly pulled my head from his hands. “I think you should go.”
“Story—”
I lifted my head. “I’m not Story, I’m not Snitch, I’m your wife’s girl. Tomorrow I won’t be anything to you people.”
Gray’s eyes flashed dark. Furious. Like our first night together. “You want me to leave?”
“Yes. Forget about me.” Let me forget about you. “I’m not yours to worry about.”
His jaw ticked, nostrils flared, as though he had some argument to that. I stared at Gray, telling him with my glare to get the fuck out of the room. He stared back with that possessive glare, fingers digging into his flexed bicep. As if he was going to fight me on this.
“We need to talk about this. Come up with a plan.”
“We aren�
��t doing anything. You’re not involved. I was planning on leaving. That’s still the plan.”
All his joy, his love, vanished into a cold breeze. “That’s my baby, too.”
I threw off the sheets, getting out of the bed with a harsh laugh. “You’d have to acknowledge me for that to be true.”
“Easy. Done.”
I paused, legs hanging over the bed, not liking how easily that was fixed. If that were true, all our problems would be solved.
“I don’t mean while you still have a wife. I’m not going to stay and be your fucking mistress.”
I quickly jumped out of bed and went searching for my clothes, ignoring the fact that he had a view of my bare back and panties.
I grabbed my black dress, sorrow hitting me in a wave. Uncle is dead.
Uncle is dead and I’m fucking pregnant.
I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe—
Grayson stepped to me, crowding my space. “Mistress? I haven’t touched you. I’ve barely even fucking looked at you.”
His words stopped me in my tracks, suddenly hot in my chest, scratchy in my throat like I was…I was…going to fucking cry!? Is this why I was emotional all the time? Because I was pregnant? It was so easy for Grayson Crowne to forget what had happened just hours before.
I blinked, sniffed, looked anywhere but him. “You still haven’t let me go.”
I let my gown fall and numbly climbed back into my funeral dress. I was overwhelmed, drowning in emotion. I was wearing the dress I buried my uncle in, and I had just learned I was pregnant. Pregnant with a baby I don’t know if I should keep.
I couldn’t process these emotions, so I just let them sink deeper inside me.
“I won’t let my child grow up in the same life I did,” I said.
“So you’re gonna keep me out of its life?” he growled.
Her, some weird, internal part of me said.
“What about never wanting to have a mistress? To be your father? What about me? I don’t want to forever be the second choice.”
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