Chapter 52
FIFTY-TWO
GEMMA
Grim kissed me rough, desperate, edged. The world narrowed to the reckless space between our mouths, breath stuttering, teeth knocking. He gripped my face like he needed to feel my pulse under his palms.
“You need a doctor,” I said as he broke to trail kisses down my neck. “You need—”
His lips found mine again, stifling my protests.
“Please,” I gasped against his mouth. “I can’t lose you.”
Grim pulled back, our foreheads touching. The silence between us throbbed.
“I’m going to fuck you, Gemma,” he said. The authority choking his words slid into my veins, every atom of me zinging with the need to let him. But…
“You’re hurt.”
He dragged my hand to his bicep, pressing my fingers into the wound. “The pain lets me know you’re still here.” I had a second for that to settle like broken glass in my chest, when his lips found mine again.
He dragged my bottom lip out in a bite, and said against the flesh, “Get on your knees.” His hands gripped my shoulder, but he didn’t push me down.
He didn’t need to.
I dropped to my knees without thought.
Grim exhaled, deep and slow, a quiet rumble of approval vibrating through him. His thumbs circled my shoulders, unhurried. He turned and faced the ocean, ripped off his bloody shirt, throwing it to the sand.
I had a sudden, stark flashback to the very first time.
Grim spun around. “Lie down.”
“Wait—”
I broke off at the raw dominance in his features. Grim’s expression had settled into something calm and unyielding. He was done playing around. But…I wasn’t playing. I grabbed his hand, trying to tug him down.
He stilled.
“At least let me do the work,” I said.
Another split second passed, Grim’s grip firming just enough to remind me who was actually in charge. Then he let me pull him to his knees. On the sand, I pressed a palm into his chest. He wrapped his hand tight around mine, pulling me with him as he fell to his back.
Wordlessly, I climbed on top of Grim. I hiked my dress up past my hips, spreading my naked thighs on either side of him.
Grim slid his hands up my bare thighs, lids heavy.
“Now this is a fucking sight,” he said, voice raspy. He pressed his palm between my thighs, landing hot on my pussy. I inhaled a sharp breath as something between a groan and growl slipped out of him.
I craned my arm, reaching behind to unzip him. His cock sprang free, hot and throbbing on my inner thigh. We didn’t need to talk. A spell had been cast. It glittered between us, made the air heavy and hazy.
Silently, Grim took my hand to his bicep again.
The pain lets me know you’re still here.
I let him press my hand to the bullet wound, grabbing his cock with the other. He hissed at the combined contact. The oxygen between us ignited in his hungry eyes and set jaw.
The waves shattered at our back. The sand cushioned my knees.
Memories collided with the present, crashing into one another like atoms unstable and incandescent, until something new caught fire between us.
The blood dripping from his shoulder and pooling black into the sand merged with the first time he stole my life for safekeeping.
With the memory throbbing between us, I slid Grim inside me. Grim’s head fell back on a low groan, throat bared. His eyes never left mine, heavy lidded, catching me even from that impossible angle.
I started to move. Testing him inside me.
He felt even fuller at this angle. I could barely breathe from it, but it was a good breathlessness.
The kind that happened when you laughed too hard or ran too fast. Everything faded.
There was no failed plan; there were no bodies to clean up.
It all disappeared into the pull of being totally fucking consumed.
I felt his stare all the way in my throat as I dug my hands into his chest, rolling my hips.
The past crashed around us with each thrust. His dark eyes, our hot breaths, the groans, the strain in his body built a melody. Notes I’d heard before, rearranged but unchanged.
Could he feel it too? The way this moment shattered into five years ago. How it was always going to be this. Inevitable.
“It was always you,” he said, voice raspy and hoarse. “It could never be anyone but you.” He gripped my hips, and I was no longer riding him. I might be on top, but he was in control. Thrusting into me deep and frenzied.
“I will always find you,” he grunted. “I will follow you into the afterlife. I won’t drink from the river so I never forget you.”
Something wild overcame me. Spurred by the frantic way he plundered me, and his deep, aching words. By his cock spearing me with each confession, like he was trying to bury the truth inside me.
I bent over his arm, licking the blood off him. No sooner had my tongue hit his flesh than Grim knotted his hand in my hair, pulling me into a rough kiss. Our lips collided, bloody.
He kissed me as I rode him, thrust his tongue into my mouth. Breaking only to drag his tongue along my flesh. Licking from the hollow between my collarbones, up my neck, swirling around my ear before biting the lobe. He whispered hot words I barely caught, consumed by the fire burning between us.
My abdomen contracted with unreleased rapture. My thighs shook, my fingers dug into his chest. I was going to come. It was building inside me, as inevitable as this night. Grim anchored me against him, gripping my hips.
Grim’s grip flexed, fingers bruising my hip bone. “Not yet.”
“Please,” I begged. The soft, dulcet edges of pleasure were transforming into something sharp and broken. The heat of the flames no longer licked my skin, they threatened to consume.
“No,” he said, simple but firm. I let out a choked sound, somewhere between a groan and scream. I sawed my nails into his chest, mindless with need. His hand came to my back, dragging up and down my spine. The soothing motion only added to the ache.
“I love you,” I said, but my voice came out a broken, strangled plea.
“Fuck.” His voice deepened into something jagged. “Say it again and you can come.”
“I love you,” I said, coming apart. “I love you. I love you.”
My words came out rushed and breathless, sounding more like thank you and please. I repeated them like a prayer, like they would anchor me while jagged pleasure cut and tore me apart, limb by limb.
I felt Grim come before I heard his strangled groan. The fullness and throbbing of his cock stretched my pleasure into something rough and barbed. I went blind with it. The stars above blended with the sand below, until there was nothing but Grim and this perfect, beautiful feeling.
“In case it wasn’t obvious,” Grim said, knotting his hand in my hair, yanking me up against his lips. “I love you.” He kissed me, vicious and hurried, biting lips and knocking teeth. “I will only ever love you.”
He released me and I fell to his chest, breathing hot into his skin, legs jelly—spent.
Time passed in the crashing of the waves, the moon changing positions in the sky.
The blood on his arm still messy, but somewhat dried.
Eventually I climbed off him, and lay next to the Reaper in the sand, my flesh hot against his, one leg wrapped across his thigh.
Hot and sweaty but for the chilly, salty beach whispering on my bare flesh.
Waves continued to count time, crashing at our feet like they had five years ago, the same ocean, now totally different water. That felt right. Because that was me and Grim. Immutable and ephemeral.
“What now?” I whispered.
“Hmm?” He stroked my hair like we had all the time in the world.
I lifted my head on his chest, catching his eyes. “What do we do now? Our plan failed.”
I felt his shrug. “I’ll figure it out. If I have to work for him, I will. Until I can find a way to get out.”
His past had already foreseen that future. Vander had blackmailed him into this, and whatever he made Grim do under this new tenure would mean Grim would be stuck. Forever.
“I can’t be the one who ruins your life,” I said. “I can’t do it.”
“I will gladly stand in the ashes of my world for you. I’m not losing you, Gemma,” he growled. “It took me ten years to get you.”
He’d never let me go. He never would let me go. But it was destroying him. I sat up next to him, looking out at the ocean. A finality slid calm and cool into my veins. I started this one way, I could end it the same.
“Maybe you don’t have to,” I said. “Maybe there’s another way.”
Five years ago, Grim saved me in exchange for his freedom. That contract bound our lives, but it could also mean freedom. He arched a brow, waiting for me to explain.
The prince wasn’t supposed to kill the princess, and the princess wasn’t supposed to wait for his knife. Maybe that was why our story got so twisted.
We were never meant to be a happily ever after. We were always a tragedy.
Resolved, I turned back to him. “Kill me.”