I pressed my hands on either side of her pillow, pressing down until my lips were a thread away. “I won’t mourn her.”
It was as much a statement as a taunt, begging my Snitch to contradict me.
“No.” Her breath heated mine. “But you’ll grieve her.”
I raked my gaze down her body, her chest rising and falling, legs slipping open for me.
Her honesty was the rawest aphrodisiac.
Heating and twisting me up until I was rock-hard. Curling the satin pillowcase beside her face into knots so I didn’t jackhammer my pregnant wife into the fucking bed.
“My mother died before I could make any happy memories,” she said, voice a raspy siren’s call, and my gaze ripped from her open legs, back to her hazel eyes. “It’s so fucking painful when somebody dies before you have a chance to make it stop hurting. It just…keeps hurting. My uncle died, but I have fond memories of him, and it’s almost a sweet ache. My mother…it’s bad. Our relationship in life was bruised and rotten and she died that way, and so it just always feels bruised and rotten.”
She was right, she’s always right.
I dragged my hand along her rounded belly and she arched into the touch, slamming her hands over mine, forcing my touch deeper into her stomach.
I have wicked thoughts. Wrong thoughts. My wife is pregnant and she deserved gentle, but I want to give her rough.
Hard.
I want her covered in my bruises, her swollen stomach marked with me. For a brief second, I gave in. I dug my nails into her skin and her eyes fluttered closed. A twisted, needy moan slipped from her lips into mine.
“Wait!” Her eyes popped open. “We still have so much more to talk about. I need to tell you. Like what Jo—” She broke off on a breath, my knee pressing into her cunt. “What Josephine told me earlier today. What do you think that means?”
I brushed little baby hairs off her forehead. “I have no idea.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about West?” I pulled away, but she tugged me back by the arms around my neck. “Grayson, please let me in.”
“I couldn’t accept the fucking reality, little nun. Still can’t.” I pushed her into the mattress, breathing her in, her marshmallow scent and her warmth. “You had to lock me to the fucking bed.”
She sighed. “If I sleep in his bed, I’ll have access to his phone and I can try. I can at least try password combinations—”
I cut her off. “If you want me to be the kind of man that sends his wife into another man’s bed, I can’t. I’ll never be him. I don’t care if it saves the world.”
Her lips parted. Wet. “How are we going to do this?”
I exhaled. “I don’t know.”
I’d been working it over in my head. Over and over.
We had no other options.
I know it was the only way, but I don’t know how.
My head fell between her shoulder and her neck, defeated.
Her hands slipped from my neck and she gripped my face, pulling me back up so I could see her eyes. She kissed me softly, slowly, biting my bottom lip.
Melting me.
I groaned, biting her lips. “What are you doing, Snitch?”
“I don’t think you’re going to be okay,” she breathed. “I know I’m not. So let’s stop trying to find that magical reason that somehow makes us okay with this. It doesn’t exist. We just have to survive it.”
I pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “If we do this, you don’t choose him. You don’t sleep in his fucking bed. Promise me?”
“I promise.” She pulled back, rolling her lips. “Promise me you won’t keep anything else from me?”
I didn’t want to lie, but I don’t know how to tell her. I didn’t know where to start. I wasn’t trying to lie or keep secrets, I just…didn’t know how to say it aloud. I don’t know how to tell her the truth—that even with five coins, my safety wasn’t guaranteed.
I’d fight tooth and nail for our happily ever after, but my plan B would always be keeping her safe.
So if it looked like we weren’t going to find that fifth coin, then I’d use four.
To save them.
“I can’t lose you.” The words were ragged and ripped from me. Just the idea of losing her tore my insides to shreds.
She pressed her forehead to mine. “You won’t lose me.”
“You can’t guarantee that, Snitch.”
“I promise.” The grit with which she said it almost made me smile.
Story was so strong, so sure of herself.
I thumbed her bottom lip, wanting to kiss her and punish her all at once. Kiss her for her strength, punish her for how much it would get her into trouble.
Her lids drooped at my touch. “I’ll come back,” she said, husky. “I’ll always come back.”
I bruised my forehead into hers. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Grayson…” she sighed my name with so much emotion it bled into my chest.
“The only thing I care about are you and the baby, Snitch. That’s all this has ever been about. Promise me you won’t do anything to put yourself in jeopardy. My family isn’t worth it. My happiness isn’t worth it. Without you, I don’t even have a chance at either.”
“I promise,” she whispered. “I know it feels like we’re so behind. Like everyone knows more than us, like we’re failing. But I’ve decided this isn’t a loss. It’s a win.”
A reluctant smile quirked my lips. “You’ve decided, huh?”
“I’m so furious for Josephine. For the life she was forced to lead, the life they took so easily. I want to get revenge and avenge her. But…she didn’t die in vain. They just showed their cards. They’re nervous. They’re scared…of us. We’re going to win, Grayson. We’re going to get a happily ever after. We will. It’s kind of romantic, if you think about it. We’re closing the circle. This whole thing started with a stolen kiss and a coin, and now we’re ending it with one.”
“Story, what you want to do is impossible. Our happily ever after? It’s only been done in myths and legends.”
“But you’re Grayson Crowne.” She smiled. “You were born to do the legendary.”
I loved her strength, her determination.
But it scared me.
Death surrounded us.
“Fuck me,” she groaned. “Please. More. While you’re here, while we can.”
She arched into my cock and, fuck, I wanted her. There was a piece inside of her that she wouldn’t share with me. A piece of him that was hurting her.
And it just felt…wrong.
Wrong to fuck her when she was still keeping secrets.
Wrong to fuck her when I wanted to rip them from her, bloody and raw.
I pulled her against my body. “Sit with me. I want to get drunk on you.”
Twenty-Four
STORY
Grayson pulled me against his chest, and for a while, we lay like that as he absently stroked me—my hair, my shoulders, my back…everywhere. He slid his arm under my shoulder, wrapping it across my chest and bracketing my entire body from neck to stomach. He slid his other between my thighs, hand digging into my hip.