“How long have you known?” I asked.
“Since right before you came back.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? If all this time you knew I was writing you?”
He arched a brow. “Why didn’t you?”
I worried my lip between my teeth. “I didn’t realize until just today how many secrets I’d been keeping. It didn’t start out this way. I messaged you when I had no other option in Scotland, but then I discovered some truths are easier to say when I thought no one was listening…and then the secrets started hiding from me. I hope you don’t think I didn’t want you to hear them, I just didn’t know how to say them out loud yet.”
A soft smile speared his lips. “I know, little wife.”
I swallowed. “All of my…”
My shame. My doubt. All the insecurities that made me feel less than…Grayson Crowne had been there, and he’d been holding my hand the entire way.
He lifted my chin, my blurry vision colliding with his. “You watch me when I’m not looking, Snitch? I listen when you think no one can hear.”
We moved closer, our lips a thread width away, squashing the dark night between our chests.
“I should have torn him off you that first night. I never should have let him crawl back into your chest.”
“He was always there…” I breathed, steaming our lips.
“Rusted,” Grayson broke off, his bloody hand sliding over my heart. “No more, little nun. I’m not letting that happen again. I will cut him out of you. I will cut anyone who even tries to get you again.”
His voice dark.
His promise darker.
A single second stretched, then he crushed his lips against mine and gripped the back of my neck, ripping a groan from my throat.
“Fuck me,” I begged. “Please.”
I didn’t care we were outside, I could fuck him right here on the beach. He held my lip captive, eyes burning. Without responding he slammed his lips back into mine.
He was on the edge.
So close.
I knew what he wanted, what would push him over.
Holding on to his arms for stability, I fell to my knees. He caught my arm, trying to keep me from falling.
“Please.”
Cradling my head in his hands. “Little wife.”
“I don’t want sweet, Grayson,” I whispered. “I don’t need sweet.”
I saw the defeat waffling in his eyes. The clench of his jaw, the flare of his nostrils.
He dragged his knuckle down the side of my face. “I’ll take care of you, little wife, but let me take you home first.”
I looked over his shoulder, at the black spires of Crowne Hall.
Home?
Was it finally home?
He gently grasped my chin, pulling my gaze back to his. I let him lift me off the sand, and with his bloody hand entwined in mine, we walked hand in hand to Crowne Hall.
Fifty-Five
GRAY
Story kept giving me fuck-me eyes. Wide, begging eyes, her stony hazels aglow like the sunset, telling me she’d let me do anything to her.
Dangerous.
I don’t want sweet, Grayson. I don’t need sweet.
I adjusted my cock and her eyes dropped to the action, licking her lips.
I couldn’t make her bleed while she was pregnant with my child—but there was something dark and twisted about her begging me to hurt her while she carried my child, and it was twisting something inside me that was wrong.
But so fucking right.
We were back in my wing, she was in my bed, and I still couldn’t shake the feeling it wasn’t over. My blood zinged with it, like a wire left in a puddle.
Every time we got close to happiness, something ripped it away.
“Let me clean you up.” Story’s raspy voice brought me back to her walnut eyes. “I’ll go get a wet towel.”
“Nah. Then I’d have to let you go.” I lifted our entwined hands.
She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, cheeks heating.
“Oh fuck, Snitch, I missed that.”
I thumbed her tear-stained cheeks. I wanted to wash away all those stains. To eradicate anyone who had ever put them there.
“Tell me all your words,” Story murmured, lips brushing my chest. “The ones you’re keeping on your shoulders. What happened to Lottie, to the du Lacs? What happened while I was waiting?”
“I reminded them of the prenup Lottie signed. I get everything. I said I might be willing to overlook it, if they got the fuck out before the sun goes down.”
Story lay her head on my chest, one arm wrapped around my torso.
Perfect.
I exhaled, all the tension releasing from my limbs for the first time in months. This was fucking perfect—my wife where she belonged, in my bed.
“How are you, Atlas?” she murmured. She lifted her head, eyes finding mine.
I looked away from her probing eyes, to the clearing sky. Stars were appearing between the fading clouds, lonesome bright spots.
“If she’d just told me the truth, none of this would have happened. You never would have…” I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palm. “We could have left. All of these months…we could have left. We’d be happy.”
“Would we?” she asked.
My eyes found hers, already staring at me.
“You lied to me that night. I didn’t know you were going to destroy your family, and I never would have been happy if you’d done that, Grayson, because you wouldn’t have been happy. I’ve been wondering if this was really all just destiny. And that night—”
I looked away, swallowing thick and cottony. “That was still my fault. Her fault.”
I ground my teeth, focusing on the pain in my jaw, trying to see past the red in my eyes.
Story crawled up my chest, palms on either side of my face. “I am mad at Lottie, not because she kept us apart, because…well nothing keeps us apart, not really. I’m mad at how much pain this has put you through. I see the struggle, the fear that you’ve become your father. So I’m mad at her for that.”
“That’s funny…” I dragged my thumb across her bottom lip. “I’m not mad at her for that. At least now I know without a shadow of a doubt I’m not him. But I don’t think I can forgive her.”
Story’s throat bobbed with her swallow.
“What? Speak, Snitch. I can always tell when you have a secret, anyway.”
“I don’t think she could accept your forgiveness. She told me she had a secret, and it was killing her to keep it, but telling it would ruin everything. I asked her who it would hurt the least, if she told it or if she kept it. So, I guess she chose you—chose us—and not her mother.”
I know how much Lottie depended on her mother. Without her mother, she was truly, utterly alone.
And that pissed me off, because I wanted to hate her.
We fell into a sweet silence. Story lay on top of me as much as she could with her pregnant stomach, one leg wrapped around mine. I stroked her back, between the shoulder blades.
“Are you still planning on giving the coins to your grandfather?” she asked.
“You want to leave Crowne Point, right?” I asked. She worked her mouth, silently drawing pictures on my chest. “It’s our only option, Snitch.”
“There has to be another way.” She lifted her head, eyes meeting mine. “Another way than giving someone like him all that power.”
“There is.”
Her glare shot to mine. “Another way than you giving up your freedom.”
We stared at each other for a moment.
“What are you thinking?”
“I think…” Leaving might not be an option. Maybe it never was. “You can’t leave this bed, ever again.”
She bit her lower lip, a smile twitching her cheeks. “What if I get hungry?”
I leaned up and over her, pressing her into the mattress. She was so big now—and it was fucking hot.
“I’ll bring
it to you,” I growled against her lips.
“What if I want to see the stars?” she asked. My lips hovered over hers, because I wanted to feel her smile against my mouth.
“I’ll bring them to you,” I rasped.
“You’ll bring me the stars?” She laughed. Fuck. I’d missed that sound.
I smiled against her mouth. “Yeah, Snitch. I’ll bring you the stars. The moon. The ocean. You name it.”
“French fries from France?” she breathed.
“From wherever the fuck you want them.” I teased my mouth across hers, barely kissing. “Maybe even where they were actually invented.”
I could feel her heating up beneath me, and my willpower was a ragged shred. I pulled back, and she tangled her hands in my hair, knotted.
“Stop pulling away. Fuck me.”
I groaned. “When you rip out thorns, it’s supposed to hurt. It’s supposed to be bloody. I need to protect you.”
“So do it. Protect me.”
I nearly caved, nearly gave into that sweet, desperate look.
But I fucking couldn’t. What she needed, I couldn’t give her. Not now, not while she was pregnant.
So I pulled away, ripping a sucker from the nightstand and slamming it between my lips.
STORY
Grayson’s cock had been hard for the past hour, but he just stroked me. Sliding up and down my spine, over the curve of my ass.
I couldn’t think.
He’d gone through at least five suckers and I was so wet my thighs stuck together.
Every time you eat a sucker, any time you watch me eat one, know I’m thinking of fucking you. Of eating your cunt. But I won’t.
“What do I have to do to get you to fuck me?” I demanded.
He froze, hooded eyes slowly finding mine beneath an arched brow. Some thought clouded his eyes, but then he reached like he was going to grab another fucking sucker. I grabbed his hand before he could, slamming it between my thighs.
He must have felt how wet I was.
How much I wanted him—needed him.
Then I heard the lollipop shatter between his teeth.
“Please. Please. Please.” I climbed on top of him, beyond shame, gripping the headboard. “Fuck me.”
A pained, ragged groan slipped from his lips. “I can feel you through my fucking jeans.” He closed his eyes, arching his cock into me.
I ground against his cock. “You told me once if I ruined your jeans you’d be pissed.”
His eyes opened, dark, half-lidded. “Ruin them. Fucking destroy them.” He snaked his hand around the back of my neck, yanking me down to his lips for a furious kiss.
I gasped into his mouth. “Is this like you imagined?” I groaned, gripping the headboard. “Your fantasy with me on top?”
I squeezed my legs. Aching. His eyes dropped to that, nostrils flared.
“No,” he growled.
I had half a second to register the dark lust in his eyes, before he wrapped his arms around my thighs and yanked me up onto his greedy mouth.
Oh my God.
His mouth.
“Fuck,” Grayson broke on a breath. His lips were red, wet, juicy—from suckers, from me. He dragged his nose across my inner thighs. “There’s a lot I want to do to you, Snitch.”
“So do it.”
“You’re pregnant. Really pregnant.”
“So?”
“The fuck did I say about being reckless?”
Every time he spoke, his words vibrated against my pussy, the stubble on his jaw providing a delicious, distracting friction.
“You…” My words disappeared into a moan. I could barely think, let alone form a sentence as he teased my pussy with his mouth. I don’t think he meant to torment me—his willpower was cracking too.
“You said you couldn’t fuck me because I had secrets,” I breathed. “You know all my secrets. Fuck me.”
I leaned all the way onto him, onto his hot, hungry mouth. “Only you can give me this. Cover every inch of me in bruises and I’ll beg for more.” His mouth grew hungrier and hotter with my words. “Fuck him out of me or there will always be a piece of him stuck inside there.”
His eyes grew vicious, wild, and then he sucked my clit so hard I saw stars. I gripped the headboard for support, arms shaking.
“Rip him out of me. Please.”
He broke off for a breath, biting my inner thighs. “You don’t know what it does to me to hear you beg like that, Snitch.”
“Please,” I said again. “You know how much I need this. You’ve read all my letters.”
I reached behind, sliding my palm along his cock. Rock-hard. I could feel every tapered, thick outline through his jeans.
He gripped my hand. “There’s time.”
“What if there isn’t—”
“There’s time. This is it. This is our happily ever after. We’re free of West, and Lottie—” He broke off when saying her name, jaw clenched. “My grandfather will have to accept you as carrying the heir. Lottie has nothing, the du Lacs have nothing. He’d be an idiot to keep them in the family. So be still.”
“I want your cock. You said you’d fuck me—”
“I said I’d take care of you. And I will. Now shut the fuck up and let me.” His words vanished into a throat-aching growl, his head disappearing between my thighs.
And I let him take care of me.
Fifty-Six
STORY
“I like the name Sonnet for a girl,” he said.
Grayson trailed his fingers over my rounded belly, eyes soft. I spent a week lying in Grayson’s bed. It was quiet in Crowne Hall, only the soft early summer wind our melody.
Grayson promised with Lottie’s announcement we would be left alone, and I wondered if this really was happily ever after.
Being left alone to just…be.
It felt like there was still an elephant between us. Four coin-shaped elephants.
Behind Grayson, the sky smudged iron as the sun rose into the sky. I would never get tired of this, never get used to it.
“But it could be a boy,” he said, absently thumbing my shoulder.
“We’d know if you let me check the sex—oh.”
“Dickinson…” he wondered, then shook his head. “Everyone at boarding school will have a fucking field day with that.”
“Grayson,” I said.
“Keats… Keats Crowne,” he mused, rubbing my shoulder up and down.
“Grayson.”
“Whitman?” he wondered aloud, lost in his fantasy.
“Grayson!” I yelled.
“What?” His eyes focused on me.
“My water just broke.”
Our eyes locked, and I saw the gears in his head stop working. All at once he jumped out of bed.
In the corner of the room, we’d prepared a leather bag for this occasion. He tossed it to the center of the room while I hobbled out of bed. There were no guards to call, no car to call, because we still didn’t trust anyone.
So I watched Grayson pace one side of the room, stop abruptly, then pace the other as if suddenly remembering a more important thought. While he did that, I went and grabbed everything else we needed.
As if suddenly remembering I existed, Grayson jerked his head to me. He rushed back to me, gripping my face between his hands, then crushed his lips to mine.
His kiss was consuming, breath stealing, thumbs digging into my skull.
I forgot where I was.
Forgot I was having a fucking baby.
Foreheads pressed, Grayson whispered, “We’re having a baby, Snitch.”
I smiled. “We’re having a baby.”
GRAY
“I’m going to change—”
“No time,” I cut her off.
“I’m not going to the hospital in a wet nightgown, Grayson. There’s time.”
I rubbed my forehead, nostrils flared. “I’ll get it, you sit down.”
With a hand on her lower back, she made her way back to my bed.
I peered over the railing. All the du Lacs had been kicked out. There was no way she could still be here…
“Story?” I called as I went to the stairs, eyes on the open door.
“Yeah?” she called back.
I knew I had to check, as dread wove inky through my veins.
“Are you okay for five minutes?”
“Contractions haven’t started yet.”
I pushed the door open into Lottie’s side of the wing. My worst fucking fear confirmed by the shadow on the floor, sitting against the back of the couch. Staring out at the ocean.
“Why the hell are you still here?”
She looked over her shoulder. Her lips cracked with dehydration, hair wild and frazzled; she was in the same satin pajamas from her baby shower.
“They won’t let me leave.”
“What do you mean they won’t let you leave? Your mom and dad are gone.”
She stared at me like I was insane. “If I give birth here, married to you, then the world keeps on spinning…and spinning…and spinning…”
Fear was wine. My vision blurring, the room slimming. It was the ominous hand clutching my chest, the grip that hadn’t dissipated after West’s words, slowly curled tighter around my heart.
“Have you been here this whole time?”
Lottie groaned a moment later. I nearly opened my mouth to demand her to tell me what was wrong, when I saw. Water pooling between her legs onto the hardwood, reflecting the white sky outside.
I stumbled back. “Holy shit.”
Lottie jerked her head to mine. “It’s nothing. Go away.”
“You’re in labor?” I eyed her like it was a trick.
“No!” Her face contorted and she groaned into her hands. “This is all wrong. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this. I want all of this to go away.”
“You’re lying. Again. Your entire fucking family is supposed to be gone.”
She groaned. “It’s not up to me. I didn’t choose this. I don’t ever choose anything.”
“Who the fuck else is here?”
Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point Book 4) Page 30