“It’s been so long, please. Bruise me everywhere.”
Grayson continued the same motion like I hadn’t even said a word, ignoring me, but his cock jolted against my ass.
“Do you not want me anymore because I look different?” I whispered my fear aloud.
“You look different because you’re pregnant with my child.” His voice caught on a growl and he grabbed my hand, dragging it behind me to his throbbing erection. “Does this feel like I don’t want you?”
My lips parted, wet. “So why won’t you fuck me?”
He turned me on my side, pulling me flush against him. He held me, arms enveloping me. Everything was Grayson. I could see our future together, lying in this bed that had first been our stolen secret from reality.
He pushed aside my curls, kissing my neck.
“Can I fuck you in the ass when you’re pregnant?” His hand rounded my belly and he slid his thumb inside my ass like I was a doll to use, his words filled with bored curiosity. While I was burning up inside.
“Yes!” I gasped. “Do it. Please.” I pushed farther back into him.
“I don’t think I can, little wife.” He filled me up more, two fingers scissoring inside me. I scythed my nails into his thigh and he didn’t so much as flinch.
“You can.”
Blind with it. Begging. All I could feel was him.
That bored tone twisting my stomach up in knots.
“Nah. Because when I fuck you like this, I want to go hard.”
I groaned at the mental image, coupled with the hard thrust of his thumb.
“Do it,” I begged, my throat and voice ragged like the beat of my chest. “More.”
He slid out of me.
“This is all you get, Snitch,” he gritted. “Stop pushing it.”
The tone in his voice butterflied in my chest.
I grasped his forearm. “Why?”
“Tell me all your words, little nun.” He sounded desperate, pleading.
“I have.” I don’t know what else to say to him.
He slid a different finger inside of my pussy and I arched into him.
“Fuck, you look good like this.” He tangled his free hand into my curls. “You can tell me anything. Anything.”
“I…” He rubbed his throbbing dick up and down my ass. I was wild with need. Insane. It was burning me up inside. “I don’t know what else to say. Please.” Our eyes connected, his blue ones edged and half-lidded. “Grayson?”
I saw the moment he broke. The moment he caved. That notorious Grayson Crowne self-control shattering. He shoved his cock up to my cunt, I arched but he gripped my thigh, bruising. At the entrance but not in.
“Tell me your fucking secrets so I can fuck you.” His tone was hoarse and animalistic, words punctuated with a slight but powerful thrust inside of me.
Fucking—thrust.
Fuck—thrust.
“What the hell does that mean, Grayson?” I groaned. I was drunk, blind, heady and lost inside him. The room was a swirl of shadows and starlight and him. “You know me, you know all of me. Fuck me.”
He took a breath, nostrils flared, holding himself back. He bruised his palm from my neck across my tits, paying special attention on my swollen stomach.
“Please.”
His cock teased my entrance, pressing just a little bit inside.
A long, needy groan left my lips.
Or maybe his.
We were almost there…
“Fuck!” He shoved me off.
“You still won’t fucking tell me?” he growled, his lips to my ear, his voice a throbbing promise like the erection at my spine. “I’ll have to rip them from you. Rip him from you—”
A loud clatter from the other room shattered the moment. I blinked, and noticed the clock.
It was eleven.
“I have to go.” Tears welled at the surface of my eyes. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to ever go again.
He gripped my wrist, tugging me back as I tried to leave.
I swiped at my eyes. “I wasn’t supposed to stay past ten.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
His gaze was frayed, his grip bruising. He was at the edge of his rope and so was I. I couldn’t keep living like this, in our stolen moments.
“If you go to his bed again, I will rip you out by the hair.”
“And I’ll let you,” I sighed, melting back into him. “Grayson, tomorrow is the baby shower. I am done. I’m having this baby in just weeks and we are no closer to that coin. Everywhere we look, it’s like someone already beat us to the punch.”
He looked away. “We still have plan B.”
“I don’t like plan B, Grayson. Plan B is you leaving me—oh! Oh my God! Grayson!” I grabbed both of his hands. “Lottie told me West’s password earlier.”
Grayson’s brows popped. “What? How?”
“It’s songbird—like from my poem. She said he uses it for everything. I feel dumb and…a little violated. I don’t know. Like, he’s using that piece of me.”
His grip tightened on my wrist, pulling me slightly closer to him. I let him, falling into his embrace. Forgetting the clock, just for a moment.
Grayson dragged me close to him. “Well, we’ll use that piece against him, little wife.”
“Let’s end this tomorrow.” I fell deeper into him. Into his warm, hard chest. “Do you trust me?”
Forty-Seven
STORY
“You have to let me go,” I said as Grayson pressed the thousandth kiss to my lips.
Instead, we lingered in his doorway. He’d given me a white shirt to wear. It was a soft, cotton thing that probably cost hundreds.
“It barely fits around my stomach.” I played with the buttery-soft material, trying to stretch it.
When I looked up, his eyes were on my stomach, jaw clenched so tight the muscle feathered. “I would walk you back if I didn’t think it would draw attention.”
“Tomorrow,” I said.
“Tomorrow.”
He let me go with a lingering touch to my hand, and I felt his eyes on me as I walked down his stairs, tiptoeing through the shadows of his wing.
The door to Lottie’s wing was open, yellow light drenching the floorboards. I heard the same sound I had upstairs with Grayson, but louder, clearly coming from inside.
I looked at the clock—now eleven-thirty. I knew I shouldn’t go to her, but I couldn’t help but feel no one was watching her. No one saw what was happening to her.
She was falling apart.
So I went to her.
Lottie was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, staring at a dress hanging against the gilded arched window. She didn’t even flinch when I spoke.
“Lottie?”
She barely looked at me. “If you’re worried that I gave up our secret, my mother found me sitting in the hall. I made up an excuse.” She eyed my T-shirt outfit. “Do you need something to wear?”
“Um…” I tugged on the shirt he gave me.
Honestly? Probably.
“This is supposedly centuries old,” she said, gaze turning back to the window. “You should be wearing this dress. The jewels.”
“It’s for the shower?”
She nodded. Lottie stared at the dress. It reminded me of a princess dress from the medieval era. An empire fit made of periwinkle silk with a slight silver shine. The christening jewels hung over the neck.
“I thought my mother was the only one who loved me. I thought…” she trailed off, exhaling.
“I understand.”
Lottie blinked, jerking her head to mine with a glare. It was like in the bathroom, a mask fell over her face and whatever glimpse I saw vanished.
“What could you possibly know about how I feel?” Suspicion was venom on her tongue.
“I used to think my mom loved me. I did anything for her, because she was my mother, and I was certain she would do anything for me. I did…” I took a breath.
Lottie’s brow furrowed.
“I did horrible things because she asked.”
Her eyes found mine, uncertain, untrustworthy. “What could you have possibly done?’
“I lied. I ruined lives. We blackmailed the men she conned into loving her, so she would have money for her vice of the month.”
Lottie didn’t look at me with disgust, but eager eyes. “How did you fix it? All those lives you ruined?”
“You can’t take back what you’ve done, you can only try every day not to become her.”
“It’s not just me this will ruin, it’s my entire family. They didn’t even think to ask when they put everything on me because…why would they? Lottie does everything she’s asked. But then I did what Lottie never does. I made a mistake. I broke the rules. I did something for me. And I ruined everything.”
I knew I would never get this moment ever again. So I stole it. But I stole it for me. No one else.
I sat beside Lottie as my first night with Grayson came rushing back. That girl I once was, a thief stealing moments that didn’t belong to her, because she didn’t have the courage to demand a moment of her own.
I thought I’d ruined everything, too.
“Did you ruin everything?” I asked.
She glanced at me.
“I mean, maybe it needs to be ruined. Broken. Maybe it shouldn’t be fixed.”
Her gaze traveled back to the dress. “I want this to be over, I want this nightmare to end. I don’t want to become my mother. I know what I need to do, but I can’t do it. I’m so afraid.”
I looked at the dress, casting a gaunt shadow along the hardwood. I didn’t have any idea what Lottie was going through, what secret had bound itself across her chest. But I knew the feeling.
The fear.
“Stop looking at their shadows.”
Forty-Eight
STORY
I stayed up all night waiting for West to come to bed, but he never did. Now it was the morning of the long-awaited baby shower and my gaze kept slipping in the mirror, over my shoulder to the double doors. I think I’d worked my bottom lip raw with nerves, waiting for them to open, my heart on fire with simultaneous anxiety and excitement.
Today could be the day Grayson and I were both free.
My girl had come to ready me and was fastening the diamond pendant at my neck, when the doors finally creaked. I jumped off the vanity stool, and my girl let out a startled yelp as the necklace fell from my neck.
She dropped to the floor to grab the diamonds, and I spun to see West. He leaned in the doorway, his head lolling to the side.
My heart pounded painfully against my chest as I waited for him to speak. This was the first time I actually wanted to see West, that I wanted him to speak first, and he was silent.
As the seconds dragged on in silence, I finally spoke first. “You didn’t come to bed last night.”
“Do you fucking care?” he growled.
I chewed my bottom lip. “Yes.”
His eyes narrowed.
West seemed off. Unhinged. He was always so perfectly put together, his bow tie even, his suits tailored, his smirk perpetual.
Now the bow tie hung off his neck, his suit was wrinkled, the jacket lay somewhere I couldn’t see. He only wore a dress shirt, rolled up on one sleeve.
I stared at the phone in West’s hand.
Songbird.
So close to our happily ever after.
I let out a shaky breath, trying to rid myself of nerves, and closed the distance between us. The cloudy blue fabric of my Grecian empire dress trailed as air across the hardwood.
“I wanted to tell you something last night, but you weren’t here. I…” I worked my bottom lip harder between my teeth. “I choose you. I’m finally choosing you, West.”
He eyed me suspiciously, then gripped my waist viciously, dragging me flush against his body. The smell of alcohol came off him in burning waves.
“My songbird, do you think I’m a fucking idiot?” His head fell between my neck and shoulder. “You’ll never choose me.”
He lolled from side to side, and I gripped the doorframe to keep us both steady.
“I do,” I said. “I choose you. It’s always been you.”
He lifted his head, searching my eyes. For a moment, his softened and I saw the walls crack.
Then he shoved me off him with such force, if my girl hadn’t caught me, I think I would have fallen.
She held my elbows, helping me to stand up. I felt her presence linger at my back, oddly comforting, as West closed the distance between us.
He eyed me from down his nose, his sharp jaw a shadow.
“I could lock you in this tower for decades and you still wouldn’t choose me.”
He was right about that. It took him months, but at least he finally fucking figured that out. And still, I don’t think he’d let me go.
I think West would rather me trapped and miserable, but his, than free. Wasn’t that the difference? Grayson Crowne would rather me safe and happy, even if it meant not with him, as long as I was free.
“Then what’s the point of all this, West? If you won’t even let me choose you?”
A vicious shadow fell across his face. “So then, you won’t give a shit if you tell me all this downstairs, in front of that boy you’ve spent months pining over?”
I schooled my features, fighting back the hard swallow. “Of course not.”
He laughed. “Because if you really wanted me, you would do this in front of your prince.”
I placed my palm on his chiseled cheek. “You are my prince.”
He placed his palm over mine, enveloping my entire hand. The pounding in my chest grew with his inscrutable glare. He slowly pulled my hand from his cheek, keeping our hands locked tightly together.
A cruel, cold smile twisted his soft rose lips. “We’ll see about that, Angel.”
He dropped me, leaving me to finish getting ready as he slammed the doors behind him. A dreadful knot tightened in my gut, and I stared at the double doors until my girl snapped me out of it.
“Miss?” She called to my back, and I turned to her.
She held up two variations of shoes, one silver and the other blue. Both looked fucking uncomfortable.
I chose silver.
In this fairy tale, we all started with the wrong people. And in order to correct that, I’d have to choose the wrong prince for a little while longer.
I had to fight for West. I had to fall for West. I had to bleed for West.
So I could have my real happily ever after.
Forty-Nine
GRAY
The morning of the baby shower, I knocked on Lottie’s door, pushing it open when she didn’t answer.
Something had felt off for a few months now, and some of that came from my relationship with Lottie. I’d been trying to ignore it, but that only made it worse.
If I wanted to be different—better—then like Snitch had said, I had to be better.
Lottie was on the floor in her white pajamas, sun hitting her in slashes and lighting up her pajamas into white gold.
The dress she and my mother had demanded she wear hung in the window, seeming to glow from within.
Lottie stared at it.
“Lottie?”
She jerked to me, eyes growing into saucers, as if I were a ghost.
“Where is your girl?” I asked, looking around the room.
She settled back against the couch with a sigh. “I sent her away.”
I came to her, bending down on the soles of my feet. “Let me help you off the floor.”
“I prefer it down here.”
She kept staring at the dress.
I sat down opposite her, just next to the dress.
“I know you gave Story the password,” I said.
Her eyes slowly found mine. “Did it help? Did I fix it?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I hope so.”
She sighed, looking back at the dress.
“I broke it
too, Lottie. We all did.”
Tears started to fall silently, wetting her cheeks; still, she stared at the dress.
“I’m not going to abandon you, Lottie. Or the child. We’ll make it work.”
Her face crumpled and she sniffed. She looked away, embarrassed.
My chest caved, and once again, I felt like garbage. What had I put her through these past couple of months? Every day she must have wondered if I was going to treat her like Josephine, treat our child like the triplets.
I moved forward, grabbing her hands. “We’re not our parents. They don’t have to compete. I know I’ve been horrible—”
She ripped her hands free.
“I need you to leave.” Her face broke and she turned away from me. “Please.”
“We can go down together—”
“I’ll meet you,” she cut me off.
Something was off. Really wrong.
I stood, but lingered. It was almost time to start, and she wasn’t nearly ready.
Lottie, if you could do anything right now, what would it be?
I don’t want to smile for pictures. I want to take off this dress and this tiara.
The conversation we’d had the night of our reception drifted into my mind. Words I’d said to her when I’d been filled with hope that I could be someone for her—someone better.
If she wanted out of this shower, I’d give that to her at least. No matter the consequences. It would be an apology. For the wedding I ruined, for the dream I shattered.
“Lottie,” I asked softly. “If you could do anything right now, what would it be?”
It had the opposite effect I’d hoped. My question was a bullet to porcelain. Lottie didn’t crack, she obliterated. Her sobbing echoed in the large room, her body convulsed, and she fell to the ground.
Horrified, I fell down too, hand on her shoulder.
“Lottie, what is it? Is it the baby?”
Her arm fell limply out, pointing to the door.
“G-g-g—” She stumbled to speak through crying and snot. “G-g-get o-o-out!”
I paused.
I couldn’t leave her like this.
“Now!” she screamed.
Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point Book 4) Page 27