It was a wedding, but it felt like a funeral.
Lottie du Lac was always the princess, and I was always the thief. I could never look so right as she did in this moment.
She frowned at me in the mirror, touching her ears. “They forgot to put in my pearls.”
I set down the handkerchief, searching for the pearls. When I found them, I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach her. She was a bit taller than me. Add in the heels, and it meant I was stretching.
“I hate you a little bit, Story,” she said quietly, and I swallowed, trying to focus on putting in her earring. “I hate you because I know he’s going to be thinking of you tonight.”
The earrings fell from my hand with a clang so loud compared to her soft voice, clattering, disappearing into shadows I couldn’t see. I didn’t move away, close enough to smell her light, floral perfume, to see the resigned sadness in her dark eyes.
“The same way, maybe, you hate me,” she whispered. “Because after tonight, he’ll be mine.”
I swallowed.
Yeah.
“I think maybe…” she continued at a normal volume, and I realized I was still standing way too close, so I cleared my throat and took two steps back. “I’ve been thinking about it for a month now. How I can end this for both of us, all of us? I can’t share him after my wedding, but maybe…” Lottie rubbed the lace along her dress again. “Can you do me a favor?” she asked after a moment.
“Of course, Ms. du Lac.”
“Can you give Grayson something for me?”
I couldn’t hide the pain and anguish from my face. I was hoping to avoid Gray as much as possible. Go back to before, when I was a ghost, and he was the monster I tiptoed around. So I would live in his house—it didn’t mean I had to see him. I’d lived in his house for years without him noticing me. I just needed to survive a few months.
“Please don’t make me see him. Please. I’ll do anything else.”
“He’s not supposed to see the bride,” she whispered.
Didn’t I owe her this? After stealing him? After everything?
My shoulders fell. “What do you need me to give him?”
She rooted around the drawers of her vanity, pulling out a sweetly scented letter. Where it opened, she signed it with her name, so that I couldn’t sneak a peek.
“You have to wait for him to read it too,” she added.
With another resigned exhale, I went to go find Grayson.
“One more thing, Story.”
I turned back. Lottie faced me with a tense jaw, and if I saw right, fear in her eyes.
“I will forget everything that happens before he puts on the ring, but once we’re married, if you fuck my husband, I don’t care if your entire family is dying and this is the only place that can save them. I’ll put you all on the streets. I’m not going to be my mother. Do you understand?”
“I won’t be my mother, either, Ms. du Lac.”
She frowned, not understanding what I meant, but maybe understanding my intention, because she nodded.
“Mr. Crowne?” I asked, voice like sandpaper.
My fingers trembled with the note in my hand. The paper was thick and silky, rich feeling. I stared at the rose petal floor, not daring to look him in the eyes.
“Mr. Crowne, your fiancée has sent me to give you something.”
I could feel his eyes. I could feel the eyes of the crowd at my back. I saw his bow tie, his sharp angular jaw. His slight Grayson frown that served only to make his lips more luscious.
Back to being a blurry Polaroid
Then his hands were on mine, warm and strong, taking the letter.
Too brief.
Too swift.
His warmth gone.
I listened to the crinkle of paper as he opened the letter. His thick thumb grazed the edge of the silky paper.
I remembered too easily how his fingers felt on me.
In me.
It felt like forever that I stared at the rose-petal-dotted floor. The music was starting up, what sounded like a string trio playing popular songs as more people were being ushered inside. Then all at once Grayson crushed the piece of paper and tossed it to the floor. He grasped my wrist, pulling me away from the altar.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, throwing a look over my shoulder, at the quickly disappearing faces of the crowd.
He dragged me behind the flowery veil partitioning the antique room.
“You don’t get to touch me!” I yanked myself free the minute we were hidden. “I just dressed your fiancée in her wedding dress. A dress you either sent to me or sent to fuck with me. It was written in green.”
I couldn’t cry. I wouldn’t cry. But my lids burned fire.
Except as Grayson stood opposite me, he stared holes into me, a look that had been absent from his eyes, his face, for over a month. And it made me question again, question everything.
“I hate you,” I said, but the words held no heat. “I hate you with everything I have.”
My head was still down when Grayson took a step toward me, and lifted the locket from my collarbone with his pointer finger, raising my chin with it. His eyes throbbed with determination. “My honest little nun, lying really doesn’t suit you.”
We were barely hidden by our light-soaked flower wall, and I wondered if the guests could see us, two shadows of a love that never should have been. The soft sound of a wedding about to begin drifted to us, guests chatting, the trio starting a song.
“Fine.” I hung my head. “I can’t say I don’t love you.”
Weak.
That’s what I was: weak.
Or maybe this was the dignity my uncle spoke of. Not somehow avoiding shame but facing it. Shame for the heart that still beat for the man who broke it.
From the start, I’ve had an inexplicable, inescapable, connection with Grayson Crowne. Why? This boy ruined me. Treated me like fucking trash. That isn’t a soul mate. It’s pathetic.
“But I’ll learn,” I said, voice hoarse. “I’ll learn to hate you, Grayson Crowne. I promise.”
His grip on the locket tightened, and he yanked the necklace forward. It bit the skin of my neck, forcing me forward on a gasp. Until I was at his lips, tasting him, breathing him.
“Good,” he growled, and crushed his lips against mine.
Fifty-Seven
STORY
* * *
“Kiss me,” Grayson growled when I tried to shove him off.
“What are you—” But before I could even get the word out, his lips were on mine again. Warm, firm, biting and sucking and so fucking good.
Lollipops and whiskey.
I sighed at the taste, arching into his kiss. He gripped my lower back, dragging me by the curve into his body, forcing me to bend more. He growled into my open mouth, devouring me. Anything I gave, he stole more.
Savage.
Wild.
The mask officially ripped off, tossed to the side.
I tore my mouth away to breathe, and he didn’t stop. Kissing my neck, tearing down my collar to bite. I grasped his shoulders, and when I looked down, I caught him staring at me. Piercing blue eyes.
I looked away, and he dragged my stare back by the chin.
“You’re mine, Snitch,” he growled, biting my neck, eyes glaring up at me from my exposed collarbone. “Say it.”
I licked my lips, avoiding the thought blaring like a freshly carved tattoo.
I’m his.
His palms rounded my ass, lifting me, thrusting me up against the table, causing the items on it to rattle. I tried not to pay attention to the rattle of what was on the table. The marriage license, the gilded pens to sign their names.
Instead I focused on the ache in my groin as he spread my thighs around his hips.
“Fucking. Say. It.” He punctuated each word against my skin with a sharp bite.
“I’m yours,” I gasped, eliciting a groan of approval deep in his throat.
He tangled his hands in my hair, drag
ging my lips back to his. “Mine.”
Because it was true. Even if he could never belong to me, I would always belong to him. Painfully, ruinously, irrevocably.
He broke from my lips and gripped the back of my neck with powerful hands. “I can’t promise you anything. I can’t promise you anything but this moment. After this…I’ll leave you to hate me, Story.”
Either allow me to love you or leave me to hate you.
Grayson thumbed tears out of my eyes. “So tell me to stop. Tell me your fucking safe word. Shit…don’t say anything, and I’ll let this be the end of it.”
His eyes burned, willpower cracking in them like sky breaking through clouds. Months ago I could have ended this before the worst of it, if only I’d told him to stop when he’d given me the chance.
Say no, Snitch. Tell me to stop.
Then, I hadn’t given him an answer. I’d hidden behind a lie out of fear of my desire. Now, I had the chance to right my wrong on the altar of his wedding. Do it all over again. Be the person I always thought I was. Good. Moral.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I said.
His eyes grew, but he didn’t move. His body so tense and rigid, muscles coiled, like he wanted to grab me but was stopping himself, even after I’d said I didn’t want him to. I tugged at his bow tie, loosening it until it lay crooked. I undid the top buttons of his dress shirt, and bit his exposed neck.
He let out a ragged sigh.
“Please don’t stop, Grayson.”
I was already in hell without him. What was one more sin?
I took his hand from my neck, placing it between my thighs.
He dropped his head to my shoulder on a groan. “You’re already so fucking wet.”
He pushed aside my panties, pressing one finger between my lips, but going no further. I arched, trying to force him in.
“You want this?” His voice was rough, sharp, jagged. “I don’t have a condom, Story.” He thrust his finger inside me, and my mouth opened on a silent gasp.
Outside, the music grew louder, a violent clash of strings.
“That’s what happens when you only carry one around for ten years hoping to get lucky,” I breathed out, arching into him.
He slammed his free hand on the wall behind me. “No jokes, little nun.”
Still, he teased my clit with his thumb in slow, taunting circles. Watching me. Devouring me. His self-control evident by the muscle twitching in his neck.
His words cautioned, but his fingers pumping into me rough and hard belied what his lips would have me believe.
“I’m not on any birth control,” I admitted.
“I don’t give a shit. Tell me to stop. Tell me your safe word.”
He fucked me with his fingers like it was his last time…and I guess…it was. He drank me in. I curled into the feeling, lost myself. He wanted words from me when all I could manage were whimpers.
He thumbed my clit. “What’s the first rule of training?”
“When you say come…” I breathed, so close to hitting that spot.
He removed his hands right when I was about to come, leaving me dazed, buzzed, exhilarated.
“Tell me your safe word. Tell me your safe word, little nun, and I’ll let you come.”
His fingers ghosted across my clit, seizing my breath.
Everything about this was a bad idea. I knew it, but still, I craved him. I wanted him. Only moments ago he’d kissed me, and I missed his lips. It had been over a month since I’d had him inside me.
I reached for his pants, undoing them, reaching for his cock. “No. No safe word. I want you inside me.”
He didn’t stop me when I pulled out his cock, but he didn’t help me either. He swallowed a noise low in his throat when I held him in my hand.
I spread my legs, wanting him, wishing him to just come to me.
His tongue darted out, wetting his full lower lip, nostrils flared.
“Is it because I could trap you with a baby?” I whispered my deep fear—of becoming my mother.
His harsh eyes softened, and he leaned forward, swallowing me in his arms, planting soft, intoxicating kisses along my neck. “You’d never trap me, little nun. But I could trap you. So say your fucking word.”
He was hard at my entrance, so close to being inside me.
“No.”
He crooked his neck, jaw tense, nostrils flared. Then he slammed inside me.
“Fuck,” he groaned into my shoulder, muffling the noise.
I grabbed his shoulders as he moved inside me, the marriage license rattling. I wrapped my legs around his, urging him farther. I buried my face in his neck, so I didn’t see the flower wall, trying to scrub away the why and where of this moment in him. His warm neck, his strong arms, his intoxicating scent.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “I want to fill you up until I leak down your thighs.”
His dirty words sent shivers up and down my spine, and somehow had me aching, even as he was inside me. I wanted that too.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Yeah?” his voice was hoarse. “Please what?”
He sped up faster, harder, holding the desk for balance as it rattled against the wall.
“I want you to come inside me.”
“Fucking say it again.”
“Please come inside me.”
As I spoke, Pachelbel’s Canon started. Lottie would make her appearance soon, but we were already too far gone.
“More,” I whispered, delirious.
“That fucking word,” Gray said, a delicious cocksure tease to his words. “More what?” He dragged out my lip with his teeth. The canon grew louder, masking his groans. I gripped his taut butt, flexing. He bit my shoulder, my neck, kissing my ear.
“More of your cock, more teeth, more—” Grayson slammed into me, and I broke off on a scream. He covered my mouth.
Because he had to.
Because his wife was walking down the aisle—to an empty altar.
Tears fell, and he grasped my face, kissing my cheeks, kissing away my tears, before finding my lips and consuming me in a long, soul-deep kiss. Sucking me. Consuming me.
For how wrong it was, but how much I wanted it.
His cock worked an evil, delirious rhythm inside me. I could feel every ridge, every throb, and he was hitting that perfect, amazing, addicting spot.
I scratched the wall behind me as pleasure started to hit too high, and he grabbed my wrist, putting my hand against his neck.
I blinked. “I’ll hurt you.”
“Do it,” he growled.
“But—”
Grayson thrust, and I dug without thinking.
“Fucking mark me, Story.”
I dug my nails into his neck.
“Harder,” he demanded, voice like rock. I dug until I felt skin break, and his cock throbbed within me.
“Fuck yes,” he groaned.
I lifted my hand, seeing four uneven lines down his neck. I touched them, and he hissed, quirking his head to the side, but his eyes burned, and his cock throbbed harder inside me. Shivers ran all along my body, setting into my gut.
“Fuck, I can feel you coming.” His hoarse voice was like whiskey against my lips. His grip tightened on my hips. “You were fucking made for me, Story. Your cunt is fucking magic, fucking mine. Fuck—fucking tell me your safe word.”
“No,” I said, tears wobbling my words. “Don’t leave me alone. Don’t make me be the only one.”
The only person addicted, consumed, and lost to their wretched desires.
Tears streamed down my face as Pachelbel’s Canon reached its crescendo, knowing Lottie had started her wedding march. I heard murmurs of the crowd, wondering where Gray was.
He gripped my face. “I won’t. You aren’t.” He swallowed my lips, masking a soul-shattering groan as he came inside me.
For a moment I let myself forget this was an ending, our soundtrack my true love’s wedding to another woman. Grayson pulled back, forehead pressed to mine, th
en grasped my hand, kissing my ring finger over and over again, before biting. So hard I let out a gasp.
“I love you, Story Hale,” Gray said, voice so hoarse it sounded like sandpaper. “I’ll never stop loving you, Story Hale.”
My Atlas, crushed.
That was when he finally told me he loved me, when he was about to marry another woman.
More tears welled in my eyes, but he thumbed them away before pressing his thumbs to my jaw—hard—and kissing me again. Sucking all my breath, my soul, bruising his lips.
I wanted to extend this moment forever.
But the song was almost over and Grayson…Grayson was back here, with me. The murmurs of the crowd were almost louder than the wedding march. How awful Lottie must feel.
“I think you need to go,” I croaked, breaking our kiss.
“Story…”
“Goodbye, Mr. Crowne.”
I used our safe word, throat dry and scratchy.
Grayson kept his forehead against mine for a moment, and I redirected my gaze to the floor.
He swallowed, then disentangled himself. I wished I could curl up in a ball and die, but I settled for closing my legs. Grayson buttoned his pants, fixed his shirt, retied his bow tie. He looked perfect, like he hadn’t just shattered my world.
He watched me a moment, then took out the green pocket square, dabbing the tears I couldn’t stop from my eyes. He let me take over after a moment.
I lifted it to give it back, but he raised a hand. “Keep it.”
A pause.
“If you tell anyone—” he started, but I cut him off.
“Even if I did,” I whispered.
A wrinkle formed between his brows, but it quickly disappeared, and he walked around the flower partition.
Back to his wedding.
Back to a fiancée and world where I would never belong. Because this is what happens in the real Cinderella story. The prince has to marry a princess, and people like us? We have to find peace in the ashes.
Fifty-Eight
STORY
Stolen Soulmate Page 32