I sucked in air at the position.
He held me like that for I don’t know how long. Caged and at his mercy, tight against him, like he was afraid I would vanish into smoke.
“He’s going to try to screw us, going to try to double-cross you,” I said.
“I’m counting on it,” Grayson gritted. “But the day before you left for Scotland, you said we have the one thing he won’t see coming. The one thing none of them will see coming.”
I lifted my head to see his sparkling blue eyes, like an early ocean morning. “Trust, little wife.”
Wow.
I melted back into his chest.
“I missed your tired voice,” I whispered. “I missed falling asleep to the gravel in my ears and waking up to the sun and your smile.”
He pulled me closer, pressing his lips to my neck. “Yeah? What else did you miss?” Goose bumps rose along my arms at the low hitch in his voice, as much as the way he hardened beneath me.
“You. This. Us in the dark.”
“Did you know she’s about the size of a Meyer lemon now?” He trailed his nose along my neck, a dark possession wafting off him.
I let out a breath. “No way.”
“I looked it up and that was the comparison they gave me. Even though it feels like the universe is conspiring against us, sometimes I think the universe is talking to us. Sending us a message. I don’t know…” I swallowed as his grip on my stomach spanned wide, strong. “She’s probably bigger now, actually. I checked a while ago, and you’re…”
“Bigger,” I said.
“Yeah,” he croaked. “Even though she’s bigger than a lemon, I want to think of her that way. We don’t have a name for her, anyway…our little Meyer lemon.”
He was iron against my ass and I wanted him like fucking air. I ground against him mindlessly but he held on to my hip, holding me still.
“Please,” I whimpered. “I used to look in the mirror and see you everywhere. But now… My bruises have faded.”
“You want bruises? Here?” His thumb traced my hip and I whimpered. “Or here?” I groaned as he trailed his touch down to my inner thigh.
Yes. I wanted that. Everywhere.
“What happened the last time I bit you?” he growled.
West. The bite was still fresh.
He slid his hand from my stomach and yanked my head back, so my eyes met his. “Don’t be so fucking reckless, little wife.”
“What about here?” I lifted my ring finger, where his bite had long since left me. “Who will know what it means? I can say I slammed it in the door or something. It could be another secret we have.”
From the world.
From everyone.
He groaned. “Fucking trouble.” But then he slid my finger into his mouth.
Slow.
His tongue swirling around the digit, eyes burning on me and palm digging harder into my stomach. Heating up my lungs until l had to part my lips to let go of the steam.
Then he bit.
I arched and he bruised his fingers into my inner thigh, holding me in place, his cock throbbing against my ass. His fingers inched higher, into the soft skin creasing my groin.
On the edge—like me.
“More,” I begged.
He released my finger, wet, red, and throbbing. He licked the newly formed indentations, blue eyes never straying from mine.
“Please. You can bruise me in other ways…” I whispered. “You can bruise me inside. Where only I can feel it.”
“Little wife…” He groaned deep—a surrender. “Tell me to stop.”
Of course I couldn’t tell him no.
I could never tell him.
But fear and worry rolled through me in waves.
Who needs to die for you to realize this isn’t a game? That your kisses have consequences.
Someone had died, and still, all I wanted to do was melt into him. We were going up against Goliath and we’d always had one very obvious Achilles heel: each other.
I arched into him in answer.
His breath hot in my ear, heartbeat pounding against my back, he slowly slid his fingers inside me. I think I went cross-eyed, or at least, the ceiling blurred. I hadn’t been drunk in months, but now my blood was wine. I writhed into it, against his perfect, thick fingers.
My head fell to his shoulder, catching the dark shadow of his square jaw, the sheen on his pink, pouty lips. For one second, our eyes locked. His softened blue eyes—a look reserved only for me.
“There’s my girl,” he said, soft.
And then something flipped inside him, some kind of switch. He turned wild. Animal. Fingers still inside me, he ripped my nightgown down, past one breast, teeth descending.
“Grayson. You’ll…you’ll—”
You’ll leave marks.
Drawn back to the very first time.
Only this time, the stakes were higher. They were death. They were destruction of our happily ever after, what we’d been fighting for tooth, nail, and blood since the moment in the closet when everything snapped and broke between us.
“If he sees this, I’ll kill him anyway,” he snarled.
He arched over me, teeth searing my flesh, fingers fucking me, still holding me flush to his body and entirely caged. I felt like a dame in an old vampire novel.
I was helpless. Boneless. His.
“Anytime you’re with him.” He was crazed now—I was crazed. “You look at this mark and you remember me. If the world can’t know.” Thrust. “Then I want you to know, little wife.” Thrust. “Whenever you walk, I’m there walking with you. I always will be.”
Grayson pressed me against the sheets, and I breathed him in as we slept in the shadows of my prison as the sun smudged the night sky gray.
“So what are you guys gonna call yourselves?” I joked. “Team Anger Issues?”
“Jokes.” He exhaled like he could breathe again. “Nah, probably Team Eskimo Bros.”
Gray barely lifted his head enough to see my shocked face, rose gold hair falling roguishly across one eye. He mirrored my shocked, open mouth, then grinned, a body-melting, devious boy grin, that showed his teeth and pink lips and actually met his eyes.
Oh, I missed that.
He crushed his lips against mine, still holding me in place by my chin.
“You started it,” he murmured against my lips, then pulled back, suddenly serious. “I gave you your phone. So you’ll write me morning and night, and if you feel the need…anytime in between.” He gave me another boyish smile.
I bit my lip. “Yeah.”
His eyes dropped to my bitten lip briefly. “And if you have something else to say to me, you’ll tell me your words? All of them?”
His brow furrowed, jaw clenched, as if reading something from me.
Digging.
My throat was scratchy. “Always, Atlas.”
He exhaled through his nostrils like there was something he wanted to say, but didn’t.
As the sun grew higher in the sky, my heart pounded with the ticking clock it represented.
“Grayson, you said you want to be a hero. A good man. A good father. You said if you went down this road, you couldn’t promise you’d be the man I loved on the other side.”
His eyes cracked. “Story—”