Chapter Twenty-Six Violet
Chapter Twenty-Six
Violet
Grayson’s hand stayed at the small of my back as we crossed the station’s lobby. The glass doors threw the day at us. It was bright and blinding. The morning sun didn’t warm me; I was frozen to the bone.
“I’ll take you home,” he said. His voice was steady, but I heard the strain under it. “Do you work today?” I shook my head. “Okay, good. I have to check in with the bureau after dropping you off, but I’ll try to stop by after. I don’t know when I’ll be done with the briefing.”
His voice sounded off, and I noticed he was almost . . . rambling. It was unlike Grayson. He was always so controlled, so calm and collected. I glanced at him, the sun cutting across his face and showcasing the dark stubble that covered his cheeks and jaw.
“Okay.” That was all I could muster.
The parking lot was filled with police cruisers, but I didn’t feel any safer. We got to his vehicle, and Grayson opened the passenger door for me. He stayed beside me as I buckled up. I felt his focus on me, but I stared straight ahead, feeling . . . off.
“Violet.” He said my name softly, and I forced myself to look at him. I hated how Grayson watched me. Like I’m breakable.
Maybe I was. Maybe I was moments away from shattering.
“You okay?”
I nodded, but I felt zero emotion right then, like I was an empty void. “I’m okay. I’m tired.” He watched me for another second before closing the door and taking his place behind the steering wheel.
We didn’t talk on the drive back to my place.
The silence between us was full of everything we weren’t saying.
His knuckles were pale on the wheel, and intermittently I heard the leather creak as he tightened his hands around it.
He drove as if he weren’t in a rush. Smooth, precise, and never hurrying.
When we pulled up, the cruiser outside my house did not comfort me. It just meant there was another person in my circle I couldn’t fully trust.
I was a robot as I climbed out and entered my home. Inside, the air smelled strange. I could picture all the people who’d only left hours ago. They’d touched everything, their presence still hanging heavy in the air.
When I stared at my kitchen counter where the heart had been, all I saw was clean tile, but the stain still lived in my head.
“Sit down, baby,” Grayson said gently. “I’ll make some coffee.”
I sat there and watched him move around my kitchen like he belonged there. Everything seemed so mechanical as he grabbed a mug, filled the kettle, placed it on the stove, and heated it up.
My fingers dug into my thighs, and I relaxed them, exhaling and trying to find my center. I couldn’t because all I felt was the interrogation room clawing its way back into my throat.
The sound of a mug being set on the table in front of me had me opening my eyes. I blinked up at Grayson, seeing a closed-off expression staring back at me. After a second he crouched to my level, searching my face.
“Hey.” He placed his hand on my thigh, the weight heavy, grounding.
The tightness in my body loosened its grip. The emptiness morphed into something else, something hot and reckless. I wanted to feel something . . . else. “Grayson,” I whispered.
He must have heard something in my voice, because his eyes flickered with surprise, a dark sensation that covered his face as fast as it was gone. He didn’t move, but his breathing changed, his brows pulling down low.
I didn’t know what came over me. I didn’t know why this darkness, this uncertainty of my life—like I stood in the balance of something massive—filled me so profoundly I couldn’t breathe.
Before I knew what was happening, I stood and slid my hands up his chest. His heartbeat was a drum under my palm. He’d stood when I had, so when I lifted on my toes to kiss him, he dipped his face down and met me like he’d been starving for me in the same way I was for him.
The first press of our mouths wasn’t gentle. It was a surrender. I felt his hands move—the slightest brush of air—then hover before he settled on my hips. His fingers dug into me, and I hissed, loving the discomfort of that pressure. I sighed into him, and he swallowed the sound.
“Violet,” he said against my mouth, a warning, or maybe a prayer. “W-what’s going on?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. Instead, I murmured, “I need this, Grayson.” I didn’t mean sex, not really. I meant control. I meant something I chose. I wanted to claim all the power for the first time.
I kissed him again, and he gave me what I asked for. He stood there and let me take the lead. When his fingers threaded into my hair, my scalp tingled, and the rest of the world went thin and far away. I caught his lower lip between my teeth, bit down, and his hiss of pain turned me on even more.
He pulled back first, breathing hard, forehead resting on mine. “Violet,” he groaned, and the hardness of his erection dug into my belly. “Slow down, baby,” he rasped, voice rough with restraint. “We don’t have to rush this.”
My rage at the world slammed into me, this angry, living entity that took root and grew to every single inch of my body. He was panting as he stared at me, opening and closing his mouth, hesitating another beat, like there was something he wanted to say but didn’t trust himself to actually say it.
I pressed my body against his, feeling the solid, unyielding strength.
He said my name, but I gently pushed him back, my palms flat against his pectoral muscles.
He grunted in surprise. I kept walking him backward until he reached out, his hands slapping down on the tile countertop to catch his balance.
“Violet, what—” he began, his voice low and confused.
“No more words,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with a need I didn’t fully understand.
I pressed myself harder against him, his cock thick and hard and ready for me.
I was on autopilot, my hands shaking as I scrambled for his belt buckle, the cold metal a sharp contrast to the heat pouring off my skin.
I fumbled with the clasp for a second, frustration making my movements jerky, before the leather slid free with a sharp hiss.
His zipper came down next, the sound obscenely loud in the quiet kitchen. I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his boxer briefs and his pants and shoved them down his thighs in one rough motion. The air left his lungs in a surprised rush.
“Jesus Christ, Violet.” His cock sprang free, so big and hard and impossibly, beautifully thick. The skin was stretched taut and smooth over the hard shaft, and the subtle blue veins mapping its length made my pussy wet.
The head was a deep ruddy purple, already glistening with a single bead of precum at the tip. My mouth watered instantly. “God, Grayson,” I moaned. I was focused on how hot he was, how much his male body aroused me.
I sank to the linoleum in front of him, the hard floor a dull shock against my knees.
I didn’t care. I wrapped one hand around the base of his cock, feeling the hot, living weight of it, the pulse that beat in time with my own frantic heart.
I leaned forward and didn’t tease. I didn’t play.
I took the entire fat head into my mouth in one go and sucked.
A guttural groan tore from Grayson’s throat, a raw, unfiltered sound that went straight between my thighs.
I hollowed my cheeks and sucked hard, my tongue flattening against the sensitive underside of his shaft.
I dragged my tongue to the crown and licked that pearl of precum away.
It was salty, musky, and purely him. God, he tastes good.
I pulled off with a wet, slick pop, a string of my saliva connecting my lips to his glistening dick. I glanced up his body to see him looking down at me, his eyes hooded and dark, wide with shock and intense hunger. Good. I wanted him just as out of control as I felt.
I let a thick mouthful of saliva drop right on the tip of his cock.
It dripped down the length of him, and I followed its path with my tongue, licking him from base to tip like he was the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted.
I took him deeper this time, until the head nudged the back of my throat and I gagged.
My eyes watered, my throat muscles convulsed around the intrusion, but I pushed through it, relishing the burn, the stretch of my lips around his girth.
I established a brutal, demanding rhythm. My head bobbed fast and messy, one hand working the base of his shaft in a tight fist, the other gripping his hip so hard I wanted to leave marks. The sounds were filthy, a combination of wet, sloppy sucking, and my audible gags as I took him too deep.
I pulled back, and he inhaled, the sounds ragged, choked as they tore from Grayson’s chest. Drool and spit dripped freely from the corners of my mouth, slicking my chin and dripping onto the floor. I was a mess. But . . . I wanted to be messy for him. Because of him.
“Christ, Violet,” he moaned, his knuckles white where they gripped the counter. His entire body trembled with intense, pure need. “Your fucking mouth . . . damn, baby . . .”
I pulled off, panting, a thick strand of saliva still connecting us. “You like that?” I breathed, my voice wrecked from where his cock hit the back of my throat. “You like me taking control?”
“Yes,” he hissed, the word strained.
“Good,” I said, and dove back down, feeling so powerful it sent a surge of arousal through me.
I knew he was losing it when the rhythm of his hips became involuntary.
They were shallow, desperate thrusts, and I took it all into the warm, wet cavern of my mouth.
His cock throbbed against my tongue, his length growing even harder, if that was possible.
And the scent of him . . . sweat and musk and sex, filled my head and drowned out the chaos of the outside world.
This is the only thing that’s real right now.