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 m
y 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.