“I don’t remember saying you could look at me,” he said softly. Too soft.
I sucked in a breath and stared at his chest.
“You want me to sleep with you and I can’t look you in the eyes?” I’d learned to swallow indignity, shame, hurt…but even I had limits.
Grayson walked to me, forcing me to step back, back until I was flush against the glass-paneled wall. I thought he was going to shove himself against me, but he stopped with just an inch of space between us.
His laugh settled in my stomach. “You’re not sleeping with me, Snitch.”
Snitch. That fucking name again. I wasn’t a snitch. I hadn’t told anyone anything. I’d only overheard something I shouldn’t have.
“What if I say no?”
The Crownes were cruel, but abuse was limited to our morale and dignity, unlike many other employers in their caste who saw a disenfranchised girl as an easy target.
“You have this discount-bin nun look going, but I see you, Snitch. You’re just like every other fangirl who sent the Grayson Crowne their dirty panties. And like them, you shiver.” He curled a spiral of my hair between his fingers.
I tried to hold back a shiver and lost.
I wanted to tell him I wasn’t like every other girl—Grayson Crowne was my least favorite thing about him—but we weren’t shrouded by darkness anymore. I was back to being Story, the unknown maid, and he was back to being Grayson Crowne, the infamous prince, and that was all we could ever be.
I’d seen what happens when the prince chooses someone like me over the princess.
“Say no, Snitch.” He tugged on that strand of hair, leaning forward until his mocking whisper burned my neck. “Tell me to stop.”
Still with that inch of space between us, his other hand trailed the curve of my waist and I arched into his touch. He noticed. I couldn’t lift my eyes to see if he smiled, but I saw the way his jaw twitched, imagined his plump pink lips curling.
Say no. Say no. Say no.
In the dark room he’d kissed me with passion, his fingers bruising. Now his touch was a lazy, bored torment, like the annoyed way he spoke to me. He didn’t want me. This night would only end with my heart stomped and bloody.
So why couldn’t I fucking say no?
His lips found my neck and my gut somersaulted.
“Would you really…” I grasped for anything, something.
I couldn’t go through it again. A magical night followed by a nightmare. Giving up a piece of myself to someone who thought they deserved to smash it.
“Would you really take my virginity this way?”
The lie fell from my lips, and he froze.
Four
GRAY
* * *
“So tell me to stop,” I said.
Snitch wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t talk, her light breathing the only sound. From this angle, her eyelashes were too fucking long, eclipsing her full hazelnut cheeks.
“All you have to do is say no, Snitch,” I repeated.
She licked pouty lips, and her kiss slammed back into me. The husky way she’d whispered please stuck on a loop inside my chest.
I can’t. Fucking. Stop. Thinking about kissing her. Couldn’t get the memory of her breath off my lips. How she’d gripped me. Begged me.