I dragged my hand through my wild curls—as if that was what I’d been planning.
I hate that I know what he looked like in the morning. I know how the color in his eyes deepened when he was sleepy. There was a question burning in my chest now. It wouldn’t leave, and the longer I stayed, the deeper it burned.
Why did West use his coin on me? If people were willing to die over it. Kill for it.
That night with Grayson, he threw it down for a few seconds with me.
“Why did you use your coin on me?” I whispered.
West paused mid-stretch, arms over his head. He slept without a shirt, and in the morning light, his biceps glowed like roasted chestnuts.
Slowly, his warm brown eyes found mine. “You really don’t know, Story?”
“It doesn’t make sense to me.”
He stared at me a moment, chocolate eyes reading something from me. “Why have you slept in my bed every night for months?”
For Grayson.
For our love.
So he could have the happily ever after he deserved, so he didn’t have to choose. But I wouldn’t tell West that.
“So Gemma and Tansy aren’t thrown on the street.”
“That’s why you did it? For Gemma and Tansy? There’s probably never been a more undeserving pair for your kindness.”
I took a deep breath. “Can you still call it kindness if you only offer it to those who deserve it? You’ve never done something for anyone if you didn’t get something out of it, have you, West?”
He looked like I’d struck him.
For a second, I thought good. Maybe something was finally getting through to West, maybe he’d change.
Of course I was wrong.
I moved to get out of bed, and he gripped my wrist, pulling me back.
“How are you feeling?” He palmed my stomach, possession seething from his grip. “You’re so big now.”
I wanted to scream.
To shove him off.
But then something miraculous happened, and I lost all train of thought.
A kick.
I couldn’t breathe or move. From the joy that overwhelmed me, and the absolute dismay at having it happen with West.
I hoped in vain that he didn’t feel it, but then West let out a small, startled laugh, his eyebrows skyrocketing. “It kicks.”
She. She kicks.
“Is this the first time?” West rubbed my stomach, possession seething the grate in his voice.
I let out a weak, parched, “No.”
West’s brow wrinkled, and he stared at my stomach for a long time, an emotion I couldn’t read muddling his eyes.
Everything that had happened to me since I’d left. Swallowing my words, living in fear, the countless beatings… None of it compared to the heartache of this moment.
This was Grayson’s kick. This belonged to Gray.
“This looks fucking cozy.”
I jumped, scrambling up at Grayson’s voice.
He leaned in the doorway, watching me with no emotion. The more Grayson and I were separated, the colder and crueler he became. Not to me…to everyone. To the world. I don’t think he noticed, but I couldn’t help but notice.
West leaned back, throwing his arms out to rest on my pillow.
“Morning, Crowne.” West laughed, getting out of bed. “I think I need a shower after last night. Want to join, Angel? You’re invited too, Crowne. I think she’d want it, right, Angel? If he slid inside you, alongside me.” West’s gaze slashed to the side, catching mine.
Grayson stared at me. “Maybe she would.”
I sucked in air at the bitter coldness.
West made his way to the bathroom, his laugh lingering hauntingly with the spray of the shower. Every morning, Grayson was here; every morning, West taunted us. And every day we looked for a coin I was beginning to think didn’t exist.
We’ve looked everywhere, beneath every poem. In the library, the graveyard, even Gemma’s wing.
She really wasn’t happy about that.
Every clue we checked, every lead we followed, it was like someone had already been there. One step ahead of us.
Was it possible his grandfather had already found it? This was all for nothing?
I reached for Grayson’s hand and he pulled back like I was made of mold. Silence stretched. The perpetual sucker in his mouth evident by the stem between his lips.
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing with savage interest. “Why the tears?”
I swiped my cheeks furiously, trying to hide them. I knew how much this hurt Grayson and I didn’t want to add to that hurt.
He gripped my wrist, stopping me and yanking me close. He looked at my wet hands, jaw clenched. “Are you trying to fucking hide this? What the fuck did he do? Why are you crying?”
My shoulders fell with my head. “She kicked, Grayson. She kicked.”
For a moment, the iron wall Grayson had erected fell. I saw everything. The anger, the anguish, the joy. It bled from his face, into his bruising grip.
Then pain flashed in his eyes, stark and violent. Grayson pressed me hard against the window, his free hand found my stomach. “Did he feel it?”
I nodded, shame flooding my body.
He dug his fingers into my flesh. “That belongs to me.”
“I know,” I whispered.
His nostrils flared at my words, but the muscle in his jaw feathered. As if he liked my submission, but hated the reason for it.
He pressed me deeper into the cold glass, knee between my legs. “You gave something away that didn’t belong to you.”
I swallowed. “I know.”
“How are you going to make up for it, Snitch?”
He was angry and cold, a thin fraying wire.
In the background, the spray of water could be heard—West getting into the shower.
“I’ll do anything,” I said. I would do that, I would give him anything to show I belonged to him and only him.
He gripped my chin, yanking my neck back. “Well, isn’t that a fucking lie? You’re getting pretty good at those, wife.”
He didn’t call me little wife.
I missed it. Ached for it.
Somehow we’d found ourselves fighting for the same team, but on opposite sides of the war. I loved him, he loved me, but like he’d said, It means we love each other madly. It means we’re soulmates. It means we’re always on the same side, even when we’re not.
“He’s right, you know. My family isn’t worth it.”
“But you are,” I said.
He looked away. “You’re so goddamn stubborn.”
I scoffed. “Pot meet kettle.”
At my scoff, he pressed into my pussy with his knee—hard. His hand spanned the length of my jaw, thrusting his thumb into my mouth, dragging along my lips and teeth as he rubbed my pussy with his knee. He stared at my lips as gasps fell from them.
Bored.
Like he was doing something routine.
“How long since you’ve been fucked, wife?”
Months.
Since before I left for Scotland. But he knew that, because it was him who controlled when I got fucked. I don’t know why he hasn’t fucked me, I don’t know how he hasn’t—I haven’t denied him. I’ve all but begged at his feet. Sometimes I think it was punishment for this, for sleeping in West’s bed.
But then he’d say something cryptic, and I felt like I already have the answer to end this torture
“Should I fuck you?”
Please.
He grabbed my hand, holding it to his iron-hard cock. “Flip you around. Bend you over. Make you scream in another man’s bedroom. Is that how you’ll make it up to me?” He laughed. “I think that’s a gift for you.”
Grayson ran his nose up and down my neck, pressing his knee between my legs. When he spoke, his voice was vicious. “And you haven’t fucking earned it.”
He pressed me against the wall, my back biting against the cold winter window, then stepped off.
“Lift up your nightgown. Show me my pussy.”
“But West—”
“Don’t fucking say his name,” he snarled. “Show me my cunt, Snitch. I might not be able to fuck what’s mine, but I can see it. I can see how wet it gets for me.”
The whir of West’s shower running was a clock ticking—but Grayson was a bomb about to go off.
I gripped the fabric of my nightgown, inching it up my thighs.
Grayson’s nostrils flared as my nightgown rose higher, the only sign I had that my Grayson was still in there.
A noise sounded and I froze—was West coming back?
Grayson’s eyes flashed, vicious.
I went all the way up, tugging past my thighs.
He took the lollipop out of his mouth, holding it an inch to the side, examining me. “Poor little wife, really needs to be fucked.”
His cock was an iron bar resting against his muscled thigh. I shifted on my feet, aching. I couldn’t stop picturing it inside me. Its weight. Its thickness. Would he stretch me, tear me, fill me up. It had been so long since Grayson had really fucked me.
He came back to me, pressing one hand above me on the window. The one with the sucker fell to my inner thigh. I was enveloped, caged. He breathed me in. His shirt stuck to his six pack so I could see every cruel flex as he took a ragged breath, as if with each inhale he was barely restraining himself.
I didn’t dare breathe, let alone touch him—afraid to shatter this moment. But then his head dropped to my neck, lips soft and warm on my flesh.
I sighed his name.
He jerked his head up, eyes zeroing on me. “Fuck yourself.”
I sucked in a breath. “What?”
He slid the sticky sucker slowly up my thigh, stopping at my groin. “Slide this sucker inside your cunt, Story.”
The warmth from his lips vanished from my neck at the coldness in his eyes and voice. Yet there was a wildfire blazing behind every icy action; it was the reason I reached down between my thighs.
I wanted the ice to melt.
I wanted him to burn me.
Mesmerized by his gaze, I took hold of the sucker, my hands briefly fluttering over his strong calloused ones.
“Good girl,” he growled.
Shivers ignited at his approval—the first in months. I faintly heard the shower, but it was nothing compared to my beating heart. I wanted more of that, more of his approval heating my lips. So, I slid the wet, sticky, round head inside me, lips parting.
“How does it feel?” he asked.
“Um—”
“Don’t fucking lie.”
His hand hadn’t left my inner thigh, stroking. Gentle. Tormenting.
“Not enough,” I breathed. “It’s not even close to enough. I feel so empty.”
His nostrils flared, eyes locked on my lips. He was so close now, I could almost taste him. He slid his hand up from my inner thigh, curving around my ass, leaving a trail of want and goose bumps.
I was getting mixed up in the sensations. It was torture—punishment, that was what this was. Need. Empty. Aching. Ghosting his touch along my ass, but never going to the spot I needed, having me use a small sucker when I wanted his cock.
His thumb circled my ass and I arched into it.
Yes. There. That.
“Please,” I begged.
“Harder,” he rasped.
I did as he demanded, fucking myself.
In that instant, he jammed his pinky inside my ass. A gasp spiraled out of me. I locked on his eyes—eyes that were locked on me, watching me like he was entering me.
His lips brushed mine. “Does it feel like you have two cocks inside you?”
A twist of heat curled inside my chest, a fishhook attached to my heart and scraping down to my gut and I paused—ashamed.
“Don’t fucking stop.”
Grayson pushed harder into me, his hand above me white at the joints and steaming the glass.
“How about now?” He slid another finger inside me, into my cunt this time, working me along the sucker. “Don’t lie,” he gritted.
“A little,” I admitted on a breath.
A mean grin slid across his lips. “Does it feel like him?”
I froze. “W-what?”
“Did I tell you to stop?” he snarled, and I kept fucking myself as he fucked my ass and cunt harder, working against the pressure of the sucker.
He was creating a fantasy. A dark, twisted fantasy.
“Do you want that, little wife?” Grayson slid a second finger inside my cunt and I nearly purred at him calling me by the endearment. “Do you want two cocks inside you?”
The image assaulted me as he made a V inside me with his two fingers, stretching wide as if to create the sensation of another man.
I had to grip his neck to keep from falling.
I’d never felt so stretched, so full.
“I can feel you getting wetter, Snitch,” he growled, mad. “Too fucking bad. You’ll never get to feel another man stretch you again.”
Good.
I didn’t want that.
This was what I wanted—Grayson. Using me up until I was nothing.
“Never feel anything but me inside you.” Grayson tugged on my ear with his teeth. “I should make you beg at my feet.”
His voice was sandpaper, rough and almost unrecognizable, slipping inside of me and scraping me raw. I was delirious with need, the room spinning. I was buzzed and drunk on him.
“I should make you both beg at my feet.”
I couldn’t say anything, could only make groaning sounds that got stuck in my throat and came out warbled and helpless.
“Are you ashamed? Are you?” He demanded it, words tripping over themselves, like he was fucking hungry for my answer.
“Yes,” I gasped.
It was potent as aged wine, thick in my blood, heady and wrong, and it made everything about this encounter raw and violent and bright. It made me arch harder into his touch.
“Give me your shame. It’s mine. I own it. It belongs to me.”
I groaned as he licked a hot trail up my neck. His lips finally on me. The heat starting to burn.
He was a beast. A monster. A wicked thing.
I was ready to disappear into this vicious fantasy, groaning into his mouth as I felt his fury like a living thing. It boiled me up with him.
“Dance,” he demanded, until the word vibrated inside of me. “Fucking bleed.”
He filled my pussy with a third finger as I fucked myself. His other hand fell from the window to my hip, forcing me against his hard cock, rocking me against him.
I was so close to coming, I could see the wicked edge of the cliff.
“Do you want my cock yet, little wife?”
“Always. Please. Please.” I whined and whimpered against his lips.
“Then tell me your fucking words,” he demanded. “All of them.”
He repeated the words I’d heard over and over again for months. I wanted to give him what he needed, but—
“I have,” I gasped.
And in an instant, he went cold.
He ripped the sucker from my cunt. I expected him to shove it into his mouth, but he pushed it into mine.
Cherry.
It was cherry.
“Taste how badly you need my cock.”
He gagged me with it until tears fell, but through them I saw his blazing blue eyes. He tore the sucker from my lips, tossing it to the ground, ripping my lips to his for a swift and brutal kiss.
Over too fast.
“Every time you eat a sucker, any time you watch me eat one, know I’m thinking of fucking you.” He cupped me and I swallowed air. “Of eating your cunt.” He slid one finger inside me, and out too quickly. “But I won’t.”
Forty-One
GRAY
The months passed by sluggish. February into March, and March into May. Every day it seemed like my mother and Lynette came up with a new fucking way to celebrate Lottie’s pregnancy. Today
it was the ephemeral cherry blossoms in her garden—and us, our budding newborn.
Snitch was eight and a half months pregnant, and just as fucking stubborn. She was determined for us to have a happily ever—but at what fucking cost?
Something came in the mail for her this morning, something I’d barely intercepted before it got to my mother. I had no fucking idea how to get it to her, or how to help her.
Helpless.
Again.
I was getting real fucking tired of being helpless.
In a few weeks, she would give birth. Story could only wear flowing dresses because she’d grown so big. Every fucking day it was a lesson in self-control not to pull her against my chest, to hug and kiss her. Like today, as she stood beneath the silky petals, all I wanted to do was sit her down and rub her swollen ankles.
Instead, I stood next to my mother.
“Why are they back?” My mother exclaimed, pulling my attention from Story. She pressed a hand to her chest, staring at Charles, Keller, and Jo on spring break and standing beneath a cherry tree, as though they were locusts descending on her crops. “Their mother is dead. What reason do they have to be here?”
“Maybe they want to know why their mother is dead.”
That their mother was murdered. By my grandfather, maybe because she was about to tell me something important.
“What are you implying, Grayson?”
“Nothing, of course. I’m sure they only wanted to attend the shower.”
She made a sound in her throat. “Them and everyone else in the world.” She lifted her chin, trying to get a better look at them.
“You could always go and ask them,” I said.
“Why don’t you go ask them?” she countered.
For the same fucking reason you won’t.
My grandfather was in Switzerland, as far as I knew, and everything was back to normal. Except, Josephine was still in the fucking ground, those three kids’ presence a jarring reminder that everything was not normal.
My mother made a noise in her throat, turning away from them as if mortally disgraced. “Your wife is alone.”
Lottie was supposed to be sat on a silky, turquoise chaise beneath a cherry blossom tree, but she was standing—fawned over by socialites and reporters.
“And?”
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