I couldn’t stop the tears from running.
Spilling down my cheeks and salting the pillow where I’d first opened my heart to him and all those nights after.
He didn’t thumb them away. “You’re the moon, Story Hale. Some people will want to snuff you out for no other reason than to bring you into their dark”
I paused as West’s words came back.
I am fucking worried about you, Angel. You’re the moon, and some people out there want to snuff you out for no other reason than to bring you into the dark.
But if I had to guess who said it first, it would always be my thorny prince.
He gripped my face so tight it bruised. “You are the only person in this goddamn universe looking out for me. You are the only person who loves me enough to be hated. You are the only person who loves me.”
I pressed my forehead to his. “I want to spend what hours I have with you, just with you.”
Not the press.
Not the public.
Just him.
So for a while we lay together, talking about everything and nothing.
With my cheek resting on two hands, I stared into Grayson’s deep eyes. “Did you give my uncle all that money?”
The way he bit his bottom lip and looked away let me know the answer was a solid yes.
“Why?”
“He was like a father to me. I would have given him everything, if I could.”
I swallowed the tears in my throat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Grayson caressed his knuckles down my cheek. “It wasn’t my secret to share, little wife.”
I told Grayson of the cryptic letter my uncle left me, and how everything seemed to point back to Scotland. How I felt like I should know where it was.
“We’ve already looked everywhere,” I said. “I don’t understand why my uncle didn’t just tell me where it was or give it to me. Why all the secrecy?”
“Your uncle worked with us the longest out of anyone; he saw our darkest. He knew you weren’t ready. What would you have done if he handed you a coin on his deathbed?”
I worked my mouth. “I don’t know…probably forgotten about it. Lost it. Given it to someone…”
I probably would have tried to give it to a lawyer the day Grayson threatened me.
“I’m starting to worry…” I trailed off, chewing my bottom lip. “What if the coin is in Scotland? What if that’s why everything pointed there? What do we do then? My uncle wanted me to go, Josephine said I should have found it, the triplets were expecting me… What if it was in Scotland this whole time? What if we’re too late?”
He rolled away from me, staring at the ceiling. Silent.
After a minute, he spoke. “Would you still love me if I had to be the Crowne?”
I crawled closer to him, and he opened up his arm so I could sneak onto his chest. “What does that mean?”
He wrapped an arm around me, holding me closer to him. “I would be head of Crowne Industries.”
I sucked in a breath. “Like your grandfather.”
He nodded silently.
I traced the hard line of his jaw with my finger, the stubble prickly against my pad. “I would love you if you were destitute. If you were paralyzed. If you suddenly grew a thousand heads”—Grayson laughed—“but would you want to be that person?”
“Someone with a thousand heads? I don’t know—it would make buying hats a real bitch.”
I elbowed him and Grayson smiled at me, like the sun coming out after a storm.
For a while, we lay in silence. Because we didn’t really have answers to the big questions. So I was content to watch Grayson as the shadows stretched along the soft valleys of his lips and his chiseled cheeks.
“Are you ever going to talk to your siblings?” I asked.
He made a noise in his throat, shifting on the mattress like something hurt his back. And I knew then, without a doubt of certainty, what I said next was true.
“They’re a part of the reason you’re bleeding. I don’t think you’re ever going to be happy until you talk to them.”
He glanced down at me, lashes thicker in the dark. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I’ve been thinking…maybe we’re destined for pain.”
“Dark, Snitch.” He laughed—a throaty, deep sound that made his entire chest vibrate and bounce. A real laugh. I completely forgot what I was going to say next.
Gray lifted his head slightly, so I could see one shining blue eye beneath a silky lock, his crooked smile.
“Gonna finish that dark thought, little wife?”
“Um…” I trailed off. “Hear me out. I wish I could take the weight off your shoulders, Grayson. But if I take away your pain, I’ll rob you of the journey to peace.”
“Hmm…” He spun, and gently flipped me so I was on my back.
I lost my train of thought as he traced a pattern on my naked chest.
“Give me a secret, little nun.” He continued to trace that pattern, slow and deliberate.
He lifted his head, catching my eyes. He was somehow both boyish and roguish—and vulnerable. That unguarded, sleepy blue-eyed look that was all mine. I would die to protect it.
His lips were wet and redder from dragging them between his teeth, and they looked a little like when he ate too many suckers.
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.
I exhaled steam, shifting, aching.
“Little nun,” he pressed.
He was hard, it tented his silk pajamas and pressed on my thigh.
“I…” I swallowed, trying to form words. “I…I’ve told you everything.”
A heart. He was tracing a heart.
He exhaled. “I wish you’d let me scrape the rust off your heart, Story.”
He pulled away and I felt the loss of his touch like stark winter wind. I was left shivering with goose bumps—aching, needy.
He held out his arm for me. “Let me hold you for a while, little wife.”
Hold? For months I’d been nothing but need, and he is the only thing that could sate it.
But I slide into his embrace.
A little while later, Grayson rubbed cocoa butter on my stomach, somewhere else in his head. He slid his soft touch near my breasts, then down deep, but never touching where I needed most. All the while, his eyes were far away, staring out at the moon as I grew hotter and hotter.
“What are you thinking?” I rasped.
His dark eyes slashed to mine. “If I can fuck you when you’re this close to having my baby.”
I swallowed a cough. “Oh.”
He grinned, wolfish, but continued the same taunting motion with his hand. Up and down, slow, and never touching the parts I wanted most.
“Fuck me. Please.”
Grayson froze, his palm on my stomach.
“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?”