To attack West.
The waiting was torture.
“West. Please,” I whispered, eyes still on Grayson.
Grayson wasn’t moving and that was more terrifying than if he’d come and ripped me off West. It was…ominous.
“I can’t have this be a repeat, Story,” West said. “Tell me what you like now.”
I feel like I’m on the verge of something. Every dark, suppressed, fucked up emotion swirling a spell inside me. All the things I pretended don’t exist. Grayson. Grayson and his pregnant wife. Grayson and the love I can’t rip out.
The very shadows hung, waiting to drop for us.
I can’t breathe.
I want to break us, destroy us.
My eyes were still on Grayson. “It doesn’t matter.”
I flickered my gaze to West, beseeching, but he’d followed my eyes to the doorway and was staring at Grayson. If I didn’t know better, I’d say West looked hurt. For a split second, his pain poured inside of me like bleach.
I felt caught.
Frozen.
Twisted.
A bitter laugh left his lips. “I guess it doesn’t.”
Then we slammed together.
I opened my mouth on a silent gasp. My eyes connected with Grayson’s as West filled me. West hissed a curse. I kept my eyes open, locked on Grayson. Grayson didn’t move, a stone in the corner.
I hated that. I want him to hurt like me.
West tangled a fist in my hair, ripping my eyes back to his.
“You want to make it hurt for him, Angel?” West whispered, so low only I heard.
Before I could think, be disgusted, be anything, West flipped me, so I was on my knees. He knotted his hand tighter in my hair and dragged me back in an arch, slamming harder inside me.
I let out a gasp.
Grayson still didn’t move, but his eyes narrowed.
West’s lips came to my neck. “That’s not very convincing. Put on a show, Story.”
Fifty-Two
STORY
* * *
West bunched my dress with his free hand, fisting the fabric to my hip until we were obscenely exposed to Grayson. A taunt. A challenge.
I couldn’t breathe.
From the fullness of West.
From the emptiness in my heart.
“Is this what you like, Story?” West whispered against my flesh. “Is this what will get you off? When he watches me fuck you?”
Grayson still hadn’t moved and it’s driving me insane. I knew Grayson had insane self-control, I’ve known it since the beginning, but I want it to snap.
All he does is watch, dragging his pinky along his bottom lip.
Sometimes I watch you. I know you don’t see me, and you don’t think anyone is watching.
This moment is a dark mirror of our love, of every moment we’d shared together. I spent years watching Grayson. Years loving him with a broken heart.
“Bite me,” I demanded.
For the first time, Grayson took a step, and I can see it, picture him ripping West off me. I feel fire in my veins.
West’s teeth grazed the dip between my shoulder and neck.
I want you to bite me harder.
No. No, no, no. Grayson slid deeper into me.
My breath left me on a sharp gasp, eyes never leaving Grayson as West worked himself inside me. The sound of our slick sweat, of West’s groans and the howling wind, is a dark melody.
West slid his thumb to my clit, and shocks of pleasure I couldn’t control fall from me in whimpers. I liked the way Grayson clenches his jaw, the fist he made. I want him as broken and unhinged as me.
West licked my ear. “Why don’t you call him over? He can fuck your ass while I fuck you.”
The image assaulted me in hot flashes. Wrong. So why am I burning up? I’m starting to think he’s doing this to fuck with Grayson. Or maybe me.
“Stop,” I whispered. I’m losing control.
I groaned, dropping my head as West fucked me, staring at Grayson’s blue eyes gleaming through his mask.
West pressed harder on my clit, and for a blinding second I think I might actually come, but then he stopped.
It’s not enough.
None of this is enough. I need more. I need the man in the corner. This is all wrong. I feel the agony in Grayson’s eyes. See it in the throbbing vein in his neck, the muscles rippling in his clenched fist, his twerking jaw.
Why don’t you come to me? Why don’t you rip him off me?
Grayson tilted his head like he sees the words in my eyes.
Did he think he deserved this?
Tell me something. A secret. Anything. Something no one else knows.
The harder I tried to banish them, the more the memories rush like whispers I can’t unhear. Grayson hadn’t left the wall, but he’s closer than ever. Whispering words and stroking me with his blue, blue eyes. Somehow he’s still inside me.
“Your pussy is fucking magic, Angel.”
Grayson’s eyes flashed to West for the briefest moment. Murderous. Deadly.
“I’m gonna come,” West gripped my waist, and I’m pulled out of the stony, gleaming blue eyes in the dark. “I’m not wearing a condom.”
You’d never trap me, little nun. But I could trap you. So say your fucking word.
Grayson took a step. I zero on his fist, flexing and unflexing. When I speak, my eyes are locked with Grayson’s.
When I fuck you, Story—really fuck you—you’re mine.
“I don’t care.”
I care.
I don’t want his come inside me.
But that dark, twisted agony in Grayson’s eyes is the first time I’ve felt anything since leaving Lottie’s room.
It hurts.
It feels like a punishment.
It feels like a reward.
West tensed at my words.
Then I know he’s coming, first by the strangled groan, and then I could feel it.
Put on a show, Story. Put on a show.
I focused on Grayson as the words leave my lips. “Fill me up until you leak down my thighs, West.”
Grayson dragged his pointer finger along his full bottom lip.
Then he smiled.
He fucking smiled. Not the Grayson Crowne smile, not the bright one that makes my chest full. This one is…dangerous. Crooked. Predatory.
My chest bottomed out. What do I do with that?
I can’t think past the throbbing in my skull, the pressure in my gut, the aching in my thighs I didn’t let West sate. Past Grayson.
As West came inside me, I can see words in Grayson’s eyes, see them in the aching determination creasing his brow. From the first time he’d whispered them in this room to every time after, they slide deeper than West inside me. Curling around my heart and locking forever into place.
You’re still so goddamn perfect, you know that?
I had to look away.
Focus on the rug beneath my hand.
This moment never belonged to me.
The fate wasn’t mine.
I stole something forbidden.
West finished, sliding out of me, and my tears fell like dark pearls in the shadows.
I wanted to exorcise us.
I wanted to destroy us.
I should’ve known; when you desecrate, you don’t banish—you empower.
“Angel…” West pulled me to him and I tore my head away, only to have him rip it back, anchoring me. For a minute, the world around us vanished as West thumbed the tears away. Tenderness burned in his eyes, something he wanted to say.
Then he kissed me.
This kiss was like none we’d shared before. It was furious and punishing, and it consumed me. The wet heat of his tongue, swiping and claiming every inch of me. The power of his mouth, swallowing not giving me an inch to breathe—
West was ripped off me.
Grayson.
Fifty-Three
STORY
* * *
The air
in my lungs vanished, all the power and confidence I’d felt gone. I thought Grayson would leave. I thought we would end it here. What kind of person stays after witnessing that?
My heart wouldn’t slow down, because I already knew.
Grayson grabbed West by the collar, jerking him to his feet.
“Done watching?” He smiled at Grayson.
“You know, I made a promise to Story that if you touched her, I’d kill you.” Grayson pressed his thumb into the vein on West’s neck. I couldn’t look Grayson in the eyes. He was a blurry Polaroid, sharply tailored pants and a sharper jaw, a fist so tight I could see the veins bulging.
“Feels kinda like you’re gonna fuck me, Crowne. I might have worn our girl out, but I’ll be generous. You can suck her off my cock.”
A caustic, callous laugh fell from Grayson’s lips, which I knew meant he was a second away from losing it.
West was going to get himself killed.
I lifted my eyes to see them shadowed above me. It was like a perverted fantasy, with West still exposed and Gray so close. Some lascivious mythical Greek painting.
Sharp chin to sharp chin, lips so close, two gods warring and about to collide.
“If you touch her again. If you ever fucking kiss her”—he growled the words so low I felt them inside my bones—“I will end you.”
West swiped his tongue across his red lips, eyes dropping to me. “But there are so many places I haven’t kissed her yet.”
“Her lips are mine, du Lac, but I might let you jack off to the memory of them—”
“Who the fuck do you both think you are?” I cut him off. “I don’t belong to either of you.”
Both their eyes dropped to me as I quickly stood up and started to leave. This was a mess. This was not how it was supposed to go. Me on the ground, stuck between these two men. Again.
“Angel—”
“Snitch, wait—”
They said my name at the same time as they grabbed me. West held one wrist and Grayson the other, stopping me just as I reached the door.
“Let me go.” I yanked, but they held my wrists firm.
“Shouldn’t you be with your wife?” West taunted Grayson. “The one losing her child?”
“Lottie’s losing her child?” I lifted my head, so stunned I forgot I was about to look into the sun.
Grayson was staring at me, his blue eyes searing.
I quickly looked down.
“She’s not losing her child, and it’s not my baby,” he gritted.
Lies.
Liar.
West scoffed. “Women in our family have difficult pregnancies. She’s not supposed to have any stress for the first and second trimester. Has there been any stress, Grayson?”
More shame slammed into me.
All the men around me know how to do is lie.
I yanked my hands out of their grip, turning to West. “How long have you known she’s pregnant?”
West ignored me, eyes on Grayson. “You’re going to stay here while your fucking wife could lose your child?”
A silence followed West’s words, and none of us moved.
My two princes standing on either side of me like titans.
The way Grayson had looked at me was still stuck in my head. I slowly lifted my eyes, wondering if he was still watching me.
Bad idea.
Grayson dragged a knuckle across his lower lip, his narrow glare fixated on me. I clenched my thighs and was grateful my dress hid it.
West was the first to speak, the first to act.
He casually buttoned up his pants as though he hadn’t just fucked me in front of Grayson, adjusted his mask, and gave me his hand. “Come with me, Angel.”
The sliver of vulnerability was back in his brown eyes. Maybe I should have gone with him…or maybe I should have just left, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Grayson, even if it would destroy me. All I wanted to know were the thoughts that made him rub his lower lip.
“I’ll meet you in the ballroom,” I rasped.
His hand stayed outstretched a moment. Then he stood upright, shoulders square.
“You sure you want to do this, Crowne?” He turned to Gray. “I think you have a lot more to lose now.”
Grayson’s eyes flitted to him, something unsaid, but landed back on me.
West laughed when he left; it was bitter and choking and nearly stole all the oxygen in the room.
Then the door slammed, locking us in silence.
Follow him. Leave.
Grayson bent down until we were eye to eye, still dragging that knuckle across his lip. So close, the sound of our breathing was no longer drowned out by the howling wind. I could feel my power slipping, draining like smoke through a fan into him.
“Go fuck yourself, Grayson Crowne.”
He grinned, that same smile he’d worn only moments before, then gripped my hair, tearing my face to his. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Fifty-Four
STORY
* * *
I tried to yank my head away from Grayson, but his grip was iron, and it only burned my scalp.
“I had a plan, Snitch. I had a really good plan.” His voice was raw, warbled. “I was gonna get us out of this clean. Or…” he growled. “As clean as we could get.”
“I don’t give a shit about your plans and your promises. Whatever Lottie does to you, West does to me.”
His eyes seemed to burn darker. Then he thrust me against the window sill. It was like he couldn’t hear me. Grayson grabbed the collar of my dress, ripping it across my shoulder. His lips found the spot West had bitten, kissing slowly, easy, without any hurry.
“I thought we might get out of this without burning everything to the ground,” he said as we kissed. His words were nonsense to me, but his lips stoked fire.
Then he bit.
Fucking hard.
I gasped, slamming my hands against the window.
I felt cold on my neck, wet trickling down from his teeth.
“You have no idea what the fuck you’ve done,” he said against my skin. “But I don’t fucking care.”
“It’s done. It’s over. I broke us. Let me go.” I tried to elbow him off, and his grip slipped from my hair to my wrist, slamming it back against the window.
In contrast to my fast, furious, and angry emotional movements, Grayson was calm. How could he be so calm after watching me fuck another man?
I don’t understand.
I’m burning up inside.
“You’re mine.” Lips to my neck, he slid one palm between my thighs, thrusting a finger inside me. “You’ll always belong to me.”
I resisted the urge to melt into him, but as he slid another finger inside me, my vision blurred, my thoughts fractured.
“That’s not something that changes. Run away. Leave me. Get fucked by every man in every continent.” He growled the word fucked as he fucked me harder, like he wanted me to hear it, hear the sloppy sound West’s come made as he fucked me.
Some distant part of me said to stop this, but I had missed Grayson’s touch, been deprived of it for so long.
I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t give in…I was boneless.
He gripped my abdomen, keeping me up, forcing me to stay pressed to him as he used me like a doll to fuck another man’s come inside me.
It was a twisted punishment, like he knew I hated it. Hated West inside me.
I think he hated it too, but he continued to fuck it up inside me.
“Your soul will always be mine.”
He spoke with his teeth at my shoulder, fingers now thrusting faster as he fucked me. The sounds harsher than the howling. Sloppy. Cruel.
It was like Grayson couldn’t decide if he wanted to rip it all out of me, or push it farther inside me and punish me.
We’re locked on this brutal and forbidden ballet, forced to spin and spin and spin for an empty audience of our own sins.
Maybe if I gave into this moment, I could end that crushing desperati
on wreaking havoc on my soul. My life.
My head fell back on his shoulder, giving in.
He smiled, his lips stained with me, like rose petals that had been touched one too many times.
“My poor girl,” he said, voice a low sultry lullaby against my skin. “You didn’t even get off.” His lips were just beneath my ear, warm, seductive, intoxicating. He slid the hand sticky with West’s come up to my clit.
A jolt of pleasure fluttered through me, and my eyes fluttered shut.
“Keep your eyes on me,” he growled.
They popped open, into his deep blue.
His lips were so close.
I arched for him, and he pulled away just as I was going to meet his mouth. Teasing. Torturing.
“You want to kiss me, little nun?” Grayson slid the hand from my hair down to my ribs, between my thighs, replacing the one currently working me senseless.
He pressed harder on my clit and I gasped, searching for him. Our tongues touched featherlight, too brief, before he pulled back.
He grinned. Mean.
“Then don’t give away shit that doesn’t belong to you.” He held up two dripping milky-white fingers.
“Open your mouth,” he gritted.
“No fucking way,” I breathed. “I don’t want to taste that.”
Further solidify what I’d done.
Grayson pried my lips apart with his fingers, shoving them into my mouth, forcing me to taste it.
“Then you shouldn’t have fucking done it.”
He crashed his lips into mine, tongues tangling as the storm raged on. He finger-fucked me, forcing my cries into his mouth as he swallowed the taste of our sins. Because even if you couldn’t see him, Grayson Crowne was never someone to make you go alone, especially into darkness.
As the last aftershocks of the orgasm hit me, Grayson pulled away, dragging my bottom lip between his teeth.
“You owe me new sounds, little nun,” he growled, biting my lip. “You gave mine to him.”
He released my lip with a brutal pop.
“First, I’m gonna fuck his come out of you. Then, I’m gonna fuck your ass. I’ve waited too goddamn long.” He crushed his lips against mine swiftly. “No use waiting anymore.”
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