Chapter 18 Bad Memories #3
He lunged faster than I could recover, jabbing the taser into my stomach and pressing the button again until I lost consciousness. As it turned out, that brief reprieve of darkness was the first and last he’d ever allow me to have in my miserable life.
I blinked, the dark fog of remembrance leaving my eyes as I stared up at the plain white ceiling.
At some point in the repulsive story I'd flipped onto my back, unable to stand the warm press of Grant's skin while recalling something so disturbing. Not once did I look over to check Grant’s expression as I recounted the whole sordid past that brought me to this point. Quite frankly, I had no interest in the pity or sympathy I was sure he’d have on that striking face.
The only other person I’d ever told the details of my time with Elio was Lyre, and she was already buying plane tickets to Italy when I’d been able to reel her back in.
Not that I didn’t appreciate the sisterly support.
But if anyone was going to fucking kill Elio Messina, it was going to be me.
And it was going to be on my terms. He would know exactly whose hand held the knife running across his throat, when the time was right.
Instead of the tender brushing of fingers I expected, Grant’s hand wrapped around my throat and jaw and he twisted it to face him.
The fire that burned in his brown eyes was not soft or commiserating at all.
All I saw was rage, even as he lowered his mouth to capture mine in a brutal kiss that was more teeth than anything else.
“Let’s get one fucking thing straight,” he snarled against my lips.
“Whatever that bastard did to you means nothing to me, beyond wanting to torture him for weeks until he regretted ever being born. But nothing will ever convince me that you're less than perfect.” Grant’s mouth brushed over my jaw and pressed another hot kiss below my ear that made me shudder hard.
“I would mark you, if you let me.” His teeth grazed the side of my neck, the tips digging in the slightest bit and making me shiver in his arms. “And you could mark me. We could belong to each other until we die. Because I’m not letting you leave me, dead or alive.
” There was a hitch in my chest, a gasp of breath I tried to hide.
Grant must have heard it anyway and buried his face into the wild waves of my hair, the pink wig that hid it during the livestream tossed across the room long ago.
I could feel his lips move like he was smiling.
“Stop bein’ so feckin’ corny, pup,” I muttered.
He knew I didn’t mean it. I was not-so-secretly loving how wrapped up in me he was.
It felt like the kind of love that was robbed from me when I was young, the kind of love I should have had before all the sickening things Elio did to me.
I could even feel the tips of my ears burning with how hard I blushed.
. But I couldn’t push Grant away. My arms wrapped themselves even tighter around his back and I rubbed my face hard against the curve of his shoulder.
“I’m still a mob boss. I can’t give you everything you want. ”
“All I want is you.”
A sad sigh left my lips, and I tilted my head down so he couldn’t see my face. “Yeah, that’s the problem. I don’t belong to me anymore, Grant. You would be another liability I can’t afford to have.”
He scoffed. “Ouch! That’s fucking rude. You think I can’t hold my own? Like I’ll be some damsel in distress when someone comes after us?”
I hummed noncommittally. “It’s not that,” I began.
“But… you of all people know the bullshit that comes with being close to a boss, romantically or otherwise. The more people we care about, the more likely those people are to be targets for whatever revenge plot someone has against us. It’s a brutal, bloody, and short life. ”
My hand splayed wide and replaced where I’d laid my head on his shoulder, and I pushed myself up to straddle his hips as the silky black sheets slithered off my shoulders to pool behind me on Grant’s thighs.
As soon as he'd mentioned marking in his cute declaration of love, my brain latched onto the possibilities with scary intensity.
I had zero interest in exchanging the traditional mating bites; my scars were nothing more than a constant reminder of the violations I endured when I was Elio's captive.
I wanted something different to represent this… whatever the hell this was between us.
Something in my chest sizzled like sparklers at the possibility he’d want to play with me the way I wanted. I just had to reach out and take it. Take him. “Have you ever done knife play before?”
Grant blinked once, as if dazed. “Pardon?”
“Knife play. You know, someone gets a knife and—“
“I know what knife play is,” his snarky little tone came out again.
Something about Grant being a little bitchy really revved my engine.
Like melting the outer layer of a chocolate to get to the rich, gooey caramel inside.
“I guess I’m just shocked you’d be into that, given your… history with knives.”
“What, ‘cause I stabbed someone in the throat with one when they tried to rape me for a second time?” My nonchalance seemed to throw him even more off-balance, and I took the moment he was stunned to lean down and trap both his wrists in my hands. He let me pull them over his head to press against the pillow with little resistance. “That’s why I’m getting the knife, puppy. ”
“Oh, fuck!” Grant’s hips bucked beneath me, like he couldn’t stand being any further than skin-to-skin with every inch of our bodies. The thought was apparently doing something for him, too. “Shit, yes, Lore! I want that with you.”
I want that with you… Again with that word, ‘want’.
Sure, I heard it all my life. But hearing it come from Grant’s mouth was a shot of oxytocin straight to the brain.
He gave the option of whether to give him what he wanted.
Not taking, not forcing, but grateful for whatever I was willing to share with him.
Not being shy to say what he wanted. And I ate that shit up.
My grip shifted to one hand, still holding his wrists, while the other reached to the nightstand on my left.
I always kept a spare knife in the drawer of my filming room, just in case a guest on a livestream got the wrong idea.
Grant’s gaze locked on it as soon as I straightened.
“What’s with the damn charms?” The question sounded half exasperated, half desperate.
In response, I jangled them together, the pink see-through beads clacking against each other.
It wasn’t until they stopped swaying that he got a good look at what the blocky neon letters strung on the nylon string spelled out.
“‘Bitch’? Really? You’re cutting me with a knife that has ‘bitch’ dangling off of it? ”
I laughed harder than necessary. The look on his face was priceless.
Grant seemed torn between being insanely aroused and horribly judgmental.
That judgment fell away entirely when I pressed the flat of the blade to his pec.
He was barely holding himself together, staring up at me with those big brown eyes as his chest heaved with every breath.
His hands shifted on my hips, and he dug his fingers in with the first thin cut.
Bloody droplets welled like wet rubies and quivered before trailing down the side of his chest, catching my full attention until it made its way to the black duvet.
The next two lines had him almost falling apart beneath me as practically vibrated with restraint.
“Stay still,” I cooed. The devious grin on my face stretched even wider when he spat a curse and gripped tighter. I was like his personal stress ball. “Trust me when I say you do not want me feckin’ this up.”
Grant sucked in a breath between his clenched teeth at the next precise cut.
“Ah, fuck! I can't… Jesus Christ that's—” He seemed to be struggling with finding the words he wanted to say.
A thin sheen of sweat broke out over his brow, making the dark strands of hair stick there and add to his disheveled appearance.
It was so refreshing seeing someone so straight-laced falling apart like this, because of what I was doing to him.
I waited for him to settle his breathing a little, leaning back to grind myself on his stiff cock.
“Mmm, that’s not what this part of you is saying.
Methinks you like a little pain in your pleasure, hmm?
” My voice was honey, sweet and smooth, running my free hand from his neck to brush down the middle of his defined chest and bump along his abs.
“Can you handle a little more? I’m almost done with my art. ”
“Art?” he scoffed, but it lacked the usual bite of sarcasm. “What are you carving into me?”
“Something that marks you as mine.”
The groan that left Grant’s lips at the admission had my toes curling, and his back bowing from the bed as he tried to reign himself in almost broke my already threadbare restraint.
I had his dick pinned between his pelvis and my pussy, which I rubbed against to tease us both.
I had to wrap this up quickly before I forgot what the fuck I was cutting into his chest.