Or maybe this was the dignity my uncle spoke of. Not somehow avoiding shame but facing it. Shame for the heart that still beat for the man who broke it.
From the start, I’ve had an inexplicable, inescapable, connection with Grayson Crowne. Why? This boy ruined me. Treated me like fucking trash. That isn’t a soul mate. It’s pathetic.
“But I’ll learn,” I said, voice hoarse. “I’ll learn to hate you, Grayson Crowne. I promise.”
His grip on the locket tightened, and he yanked the necklace forward. It bit the skin of my neck, forcing me forward on a gasp. Until I was at his lips, tasting him, breathing him.
“Good,” he growled, and crushed his lips against mine.
Fifty-Seven
STORY
* * *
“Kiss me,” Grayson growled when I tried to shove him off.
“What are you—” But before I could even get the word out, his lips were on mine again. Warm, firm, biting and sucking and so fucking good.
Lollipops and whiskey.
I sighed at the taste, arching into his kiss. He gripped my lower back, dragging me by the curve into his body, forcing me to bend more. He growled into my open mouth, devouring me. Anything I gave, he stole more.
Savage.
Wild.
The mask officially ripped off, tossed to the side.
I tore my mouth away to breathe, and he didn’t stop. Kissing my neck, tearing down my collar to bite. I grasped his shoulders, and when I looked down, I caught him staring at me. Piercing blue eyes.
I looked away, and he dragged my stare back by the chin.
“You’re mine, Snitch,” he growled, biting my neck, eyes glaring up at me from my exposed collarbone. “Say it.”
I licked my lips, avoiding the thought blaring like a freshly carved tattoo.
I’m his.
His palms rounded my ass, lifting me, thrusting me up against the table, causing the items on it to rattle. I tried not to pay attention to the rattle of what was on the table. The marriage license, the gilded pens to sign their names.
Instead I focused on the ache in my groin as he spread my thighs around his hips.
“Fucking. Say. It.” He punctuated each word against my skin with a sharp bite.
“I’m yours,” I gasped, eliciting a groan of approval deep in his throat.
He tangled his hands in my hair, drag
ging my lips back to his. “Mine.”
Because it was true. Even if he could never belong to me, I would always belong to him. Painfully, ruinously, irrevocably.
He broke from my lips and gripped the back of my neck with powerful hands. “I can’t promise you anything. I can’t promise you anything but this moment. After this…I’ll leave you to hate me, Story.”
Either allow me to love you or leave me to hate you.
Grayson thumbed tears out of my eyes. “So tell me to stop. Tell me your fucking safe word. Shit…don’t say anything, and I’ll let this be the end of it.”