Grayson looks back at me. “You good?” he asks, the need to stay right by my side flashing brightly in his eyes. I nod and he doesn’t waste a single second backing out of the room. “I’ll come back later on,” he tells me. “We probably have a few things that need to be discussed too.”
Grayson leaves me sitting on Carver’s lap and the second we’re alone, a perfectly round tear falls from my eyes. “Don’t cry,” he tells me, wiping it away with a simple brush of his thumb. “She’ll come around. She’s just hurting. She thought she was in love with him, and learning that he was just using her … that would have sucked.”
“I know,” I whisper. “It’s just … she’s the only real friend I have here and because of Dynasty, I had to betray her trust. It’s been weeks and I still haven’t been able to tell her what happened with Sam in that cell, and sometimes, all a girl needs is to talk to a friend about all the bullshit going on in her life.”
“I get it,” he murmurs, tightening his arms around my waist and holding me so close that I can feel his chest rumbling with the vibrations of his words. “Sometimes all I need is to see my little fucking sisters running around and annoying the shit out of me, but life happens.”
I let out a sigh and raise my head, meeting his dark eyes. “I’d give anything to be able to change that for you. If I knew you were risking losing your family, your sisters … I never would have pushed you to vote for my freedom. I—”
“Don’t,” he whispers, brushing my hair back off my face and showing that rare softness that speaks right to my heart. “I knew the risks of giving you your freedom and I took it anyway. My father went against my mother’s wishes three times over the past twenty years, and each time she came back to him. So don’t you worry about me,” he tells me. “I might never have a good relationship with my mother, but they’ll be back. It might not be tomorrow or the next day, but they’ll come back. I couldn’t bear to see you locked up like that, though. If my father never did time for the crimes he committed against your family, then you shouldn’t have to do time for the ones committed against mine.”
I adjust myself on his lap, turning around until I’m straddled over him and meeting him eye to eye. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he tells me, his hands falling to my waist, something I’ve been craving since being alone with him in the small dungeon below his father’s study. “I know things have been fucked up between us … well, since the fucking beginning, and I hate that. That’s never what I intended for our relationship, but you’re so fucking headstrong. You fought me every step of the way and that’s not something I’m used to. I like to be in control, and you … you fucking love to challenge that.”
“No shit,” I whisper, the words getting caught in my throat.
Carver just watches me as though he’s deep in thought, and without even thinking, I dip my head toward his and capture his lips in mine. I kiss him softly, barely brushing my lips across his, but when he kisses me back, it’s like two worlds colliding.
Our lips move together like the sweetest dance, and when he reluctantly pulls away from me, a tiny piece of my heart breaks, knowing that it could be a lifetime before I get to experience it again.
I pull back and meet his stare, both our hearts sitting on our sleeves. “I don’t like fighting with you, Carver.”
A soft grin pulls at his lips as his eyes remain locked on mine, his emotions loud and clear for the world to see. “I know, but we’re so fucking good at it.”
A soft laugh bubbles up my throat. “If I’m completely honest with you, I think I pick fights with you because I like seeing you lose control. It’s really the only time I get anything real out of you.”
Carver grins back at me. “This isn’t real?”
“You know what I mean.”
His tongue rolls over his bottom lip as a seriousness pulses through his eyes, making my heart race with fear of what he might say. “I’m not going to share, Winter,” he murmurs, pointing out the obvious elephant in the room—the fact that we both desperately want each other. “I don’t know how you managed to get Grayson on board with this whole sharing bullshit, but it’s not for me.”
“I get it,” I whisper. “If I had you, I wouldn’t want to share you either, but just because we can’t make something work between us, doesn’t mean that there has to be hostility every time we walk into a room.”