“Do you trust me?”
“Completely.”
His lips were hot on my ear when he hissed, “Run, Snitch.”
Seventy-Four
STORY
Grayson’s footsteps pounded behind me.
As I ran, I passed the memories of our love. This wing was where I first confessed to Grayson, and I could almost see our ghosts dotted on the walls, see him caging me, his blue eyes burning and demanding my truth.
You’re the only friend I have, Story. With you, I don’t have to lie. You see me. I can’t lose that. I can’t lose you.
Now, in the present, he closed in. I knew the only reason he hadn’t caught me yet was because he needed the chase.
I needed it.
There was something so hot about running away from him when he was so fucking desperate not to let me go. I could feel the desperation and primal lust like a wire pulling at my gut. Grayson Crowne, the thing that had been haunting Crowne Hall, hot on my heels.
I think he needed to chase me as much as I needed to be caught.
To affirm that missing piece inside him that I was real—I’m here.
I could see the entrance to Gemma’s wing as Grayson rounded on me, his breath all but fanning my neck. We were nearly at the stairs, the past surrounding us, our love bright and burning in the shadows.
I love you, Grayson Crowne—
SLAM.
Grayson gripped my ankle, and I went down. Hard. I grasped the bannister to keep from slamming fully into the stairs. He was on top of me in an instant.
With two hands he ripped my pretty, white feathered dress down to my navel.
Bare.
In the fucking foyer.
I looked around. “Grayson—”
He slammed inside me and I broke off on a cry. I arched my back off the steps, opening for his invasion, grasping anything—his back, his neck, his hair. I was ready, our foreplay had taken place over the course of months.
He pounded into me like he wanted me to feel him in my heart.
“You own this house.” Slam. “I own the beach it’s on and the town it’s in.” Slam. “If I want to fuck you on the steps, the floor, in the middle of a fucking party, you won’t tell me no.” Slam.
I groaned long and ragged at the image.
The steps burned into my back—a good burn. Grayson is all-consuming.
With each thrust, white gossamer and feathers bunched around my body. He hadn’t taken his tux off, only pulled his black pants down enough to pound into me. I don’t know why, but that burned me up so much I could barely breathe. Having Grayson in his perfectly tailored tux, caging me, knowing he barely had enough willpower to rip down his fly to get at me.
“I thought you died. I thought you were gone.” He growled the words with each thrust, like each thrust cemented my personhood.
It wasn’t sorrow coming off him, it was animal. A living, breathing feral desire, tugging at my own chest. Hot, untamed, until I was aching and wet and needy with it.
“I thought you fucking died.”