I was a fucking bull in a china shop compared to the girl, who was basically kissing his ring for the fucking seat in his kitchen. I didn’t miss the side eye she gave me when she breezed by with so much possessiveness it could have knocked me over.
No one could own Grimm.
“Someone should fill her in…” I didn’t mean to speak out loud the last part I was saying in my head. Damn alcohol was an anti-filter, breaking and letting every thought tumble into the world.
“Fill her in?” Following a drunk girl should be a language all in itself. It was messy, abrupt, and barely made sense unless you were drunk too. Grimm was stone cold sober. His sobriety was intimidating.
“No… nothing. Are you in the Illuminati or not? We said full transparency, and I haven’t gotten that.” Walking away from the bad energy she dumped next to the exit, I leaned over the island, trying to find a new center of gravity, while I waited for how he would avoid this one.
“Yes. Satisfied?”
Every part of me wilted along the table, hit with the truth with no warning, and my head rested on my outstretched arm. He didn’t avoid it. He didn’t cover it up, and he was honest in a way I didn’t expect. Transparency was actually pretty fucking transparent.
“And…? Want to elaborate? Who the fuck let Khaos in? He’s not stable enough for a cult.”
He moved around the kitchen from what I saw sideways, still blown over, when he slid the glass jar of Oreos my direction and snapped, “Eat. You’re drunk.”
“I want answers, Grimm. Transparency.”
I wasn’t going to reject Oreos, though, not in my current state. The alcohol had dried up every ounce of fuel I had, and I was running on hangry.
“You smell like a fucking bar. Never mind the fact that you drove here drunk as fuck. Do you know how stupid that is?!” His voice started calm, but ended up feeling like a lash as I pulled apart the two halves of the cookie to scrape the frosting off into my mouth.
Grimm angry was a new one, and honestly, I didn’t love it.
“I’m finnnne. Made it in one piece.”
“This time. Let’s use our brain next time we make bad decisions, Abigail. Clearly, one day with Khaos and you’ve fucking lost it.” I didn’t expect his balled up fist to hit the countertop with so much force when my shoulders shot up to my ears as the sound flooded between us in the quiet.
“Are you going to explain or berate me like a child?”
For the first time since I got there, he made eye contact—a scary kind of focus with his lips in a thin disapproving line across his face. “Don’t act like one then. You aren’t ready for the truth if this is how quickly you fucking crumble.”
I felt stupid and insecure all in one sentence. That is how much power I gave this man over me.
“I’m never going to be ready to be told you’re a monster with no heart. Nope. Unwilling to accept it. Everyone is worthy of love.” My TedTalk came out of nowhere, well, not nowhere. That was the kind of drunk I was: fun, flirty, sassy… and then an emotional crasher. Guess I moved through those pretty quickly to land here, at his kitchen island with Oreos, demanding answers, when the only question I wanted to ask I didn’t.
Why didn’t you want me too?
“Just ask me what you need to ask me, Abigail.”
“Why did you save my job that one day? Why didn’t you let Vic fire me? Does it have to do with the cult you're in?”
“I’m not talking about this. It’s in the past. You got to keep your job, congrats.” He bolted from the kitchen and headed for the stairs, thinking I wouldn’t follow him.
Wrong.
“That isn’t transparent. You said boundaries, which we clearly broke in case you have amnesia, or transparency. We agreed.” I sounded like a teenager trying to make my curfew later and laying out all the reasons that truly didn’t matter at all. The decision wasn’t mine. It was Grimm’s.
He stopped in his doorway, and if I was paying attention to anything but these Oreos in my hand, I would have stopped before colliding into him. “You want full transparency? All the details? Why, so I can watch you run away? I’ve watched enough shit run out of my life.”
Suddenly, Oreos and figuring out how her sitting on his kitchen floor was enjoyable became background noise to the very vulnerable Grimm standing in front of me. Jarring my chin up to make eye contact, I wanted to reassure him I could be submissive too, but I couldn’t find the words.
Whatever he was hiding was scary enough to make his life vacant, leaving only the four guys he grew up with.
“Just tell me. I won’t run away…” After a long pause, the words fell out of my open mouth, still reeling from his confession.
“I’m in the fucking Illuminati, cult… whatever the fuck you wanna call it. I kill people for a living, whoever they want, with zero questions. My family is all psycho in the way you would think cult members are, and Xanax is pretty much the only relief from this bullshit. Does that paint the ugly picture in your head now?”
I watched him stalk over to his bed and slump down like every ounce of cruel he had left in him was expelled the minute he responded truthfully.
I could sympathize. He had just told me more than I bargained for to probably the first person in a long time. Maybe ever. “Am I the only person you’ve said that to?” I took a seat next to him on his bed, and I felt our legs touch, sending my attention right to our laps.
“The door is that way. Why are you still here, Abigail? Glutton for punishment?”
“Maybe we both like punishment in different ways…” It wasn’t a lie.
I preferred my punishments to look like Grimm, by embodying exactly what I couldn’t have. Emotional torture over what I couldn’t fix, have, control…
He preferred his punishments to be more physical than emotional.
“I just told you I’m in a cult. One willing to sacrifice your life over not being sneaky enough in my house.”
Leaning closer to him, I let my hand rest on his thigh. “Exactly how I like my punishments. A cruel twist...”
Without warning, his lips crashed into mine with so much hunger it took my breath away. It almost hurt the way he didn’t care what collided between us, but I didn’t dare let him know it, not after telling him he was the best punishment I’ve ever endured. His greedy hands grabbed at my hips pulling me closer, and our lips finally fell in sync with each other, opening and letting each other explore even more.
His tongue was soft, gentle even, when he found the inside of my mouth. I wasn’t sure if he was being gentle because he was vulnerable or because he thought I was so fragile I couldn’t take him as he was.
Gasping at his lips pecking mine, we both needed to catch our breath, when I choked out the words. “You don’t need to be gentle with me. I can take it.”
His body pushed me back until I felt the safety of the soft blankets break my tumble backwards. “One truth at a time, Abigail.” His shirt came off, exposing all the ink underneath, causing my skin to bloom into goosebumps. The pit of my stomach and my tailbone blazed, starting the fire inside me.
Unbuttoning his jeans and leaving them open, he looked down at me. “How drunk are you?”
Drunk enough to think fucking my very attractive boss is a good move?