Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
GEMMA
I didn’t bother sneaking back in through the window. A small sliver of satisfaction hit me at the surprise on the Horsemen’s faces when I walked through my front door. Before they could say anything, I went to my bedroom and slammed the door.
I fell to my bed, not bothering to pull back the sheets, replaying the night over and over again in my head, wishing I had some kind of drug to numb my inner thoughts.
Why did I let him touch me?
Why can’t I stop thinking about the way his fingers felt?
The hungry, possessive look in his eyes when I came?
Like he’d been waiting for it.
My thighs ached with it. Even though I’d come, I wasn’t satisfied. If anything, the orgasm released something I’d caged deep inside me. I was more out of control. More desperate. I scissored my legs and rolled onto my stomach, groaning as I slammed my head into the silk pillowcase.
I didn’t like the goose bumps peppering my arms, the way my gut still twisted in knots.
Good girl.
Pathetic.
Black night faded into gray morning. I stared at the ceiling until it blurred. I was so sick of this. Sick of being on Grim’s puppet strings. But I wasn’t really the damsel in distress type. I was more the “light myself on fire to burn your house down” kind of person.
So I would set Grim’s world on fire until it was nothing but ash. So he’d know exactly how I felt in this moment, and all the moments that led to this.
What did a Horseman really care about? What couldn’t they stand to lose? I sat up on my elbows, looking to the shadows at my door.
It was time Grim lost something for once.
How would he feel if I fucked one of his brothers?
If I tried to fuck Wraith, pretty sure he’d kill me first.
If I went for Raze, he’d tell me to fuck off.
Lock…I assessed the six-foot-tall figure shadowing my door. Well, he’ll put his cock in anything that moves.
So as the sun rose, lighting my room up in golds and yellows and whites, I planned. I went to my closet and picked out a lacy, pale-pink Cadolle guêpière. I slid into the top, laces open at the back, with matching lace panties.
“Lock?” I called through the door.
He opened the door, his unruly black hair falling over pale-gold skin and blue eyes. A joint poked out of his pierced lips.
He arched a pierced black brow at my state of undress. “Princess.”
“I can’t call my girl, because, well, you’re here.” I turned around, giving him my back, where the corset was undone. “Can you help me with the laces?”
His calloused hands rubbed against my flesh, gripping the laces.
It’s working.
And when Grim finds out, he’ll be—
Before I could finish my thought, Lock tightened them so I couldn’t fucking breathe. He stabbed his joint into the wall above me.
“Think you’re safe? Think I won’t fuck you because I know you’re fucking my brother?” I had a half second to register what he said before he gripped my hair, ripping me back so I had a view of his sharp jaw.
“You look like you love it rough, princess.” His lips were hot against my ear. “I won’t fuck you because you’re so goddamn beneath me.”
He shoved me off him and I stumbled, grabbing my vanity for stability.
Fucking Grim?
Grim won’t even fucking kiss me.
I spun around and he snapped a picture of me with his phone. “Not beneath my spank bank, though. Nice tits, princess.”
Lock turned to leave.
“Did he ever tell you about the night of our contract?” I said to his back. “It’s an interesting story, but he doesn’t always get it right.”
He stilled for a half moment, then shut the door after him.
Time for the real trick.
It wasn’t like I didn’t expect this. It was no secret the Horsemen were into kinky, fucked-up shit. Shit most girls would balk at, yet still had girls lining up around the block to be their willing victims.
But you didn’t rule the Underworld by thinking with your cock. They were cold, calculated, ruthless.
They didn’t care about my ten-thousand-dollar tits or my perfect glowing skin. The ass I spent at least an hour a day on meant nothing to them. All the pieces of me, the parts I bought, chiseled, and erased so that I could be perfect—so that I could be powerful—had no effect on them.
I was a contract. A line that still needed to be drawn.
When that line was finally drawn, I would become something worse. I would become irrelevant.
I slid out of my clothes, held my phone up to find the right angle of my breasts, and posted it.
The photo was shared only to my close friends, a list of one: Grim’s not-so-secret burner account.
But as far as he knew, I’d sent it to everyone.
I’d known Grim for over a decade. He might have me on his little puppet strings, but I knew how to make him dance too.
I put on a pair of soft cashmere pants, and waited.
I waited hours, watching the guard outside my door change. Lock had left, and by the shape of the shadow, the new one was Wraith. Sun was setting burnt orange on the horizon. I hadn’t left my room all day, hadn’t eaten anything, was ignoring the notifications on my phone.
He would come.
Before the faint smell of cannabis drifted through my window, before the balcony opened, I knew he was there.
That thing that connected us popped and sizzled, my skin suddenly too tight.
Then came his voice, rough like sandpaper on my skin. “Busy today?”
I stood off the bed, facing him.
“Maybe.” I stepped to him. “Why didn’t you come through the door? You know, say hello to your friends.”
His attention traveled above my shoulder and to the door, some inscrutable emotion shadowing his eyes, before settling back on me.
Feral.
He shoved me to the bed in one rough push. The dying light shrouded him in thick shadow. I couldn’t see his face, just the outline of him. Broad, strong shoulders swallowing all the space in the room.
He was like a monster out of an old horror movie.
My gut flipped. My breath caught.
He slammed his hands into the mattress on either side of me. Caging. A second stretched into forever, his shadowed features coming into clarity. Cheekbones like razor blades beneath his glare. Lips like bruised rose petals.
He sank deeper into me, swallowing any space, lips nearly touching.
He’s going to kiss me.
At the last moment he diverted, pressing his face into the side of my neck. He took a deep, unrestrained inhale. The power and need of it caused my insides to fizzle and carbonate.
A ridiculous, needy thought slipped into my mind.
Now. He’ll do it now.
“Reckless girl,” he said, face still pressed against my neck, hand sliding beneath the waist of my pants. “You think I won’t kill everyone who follows you? End the life of anyone who sees what’s mine?”
The word mine disappeared into a sound not quite human. I knew I should tell him to stop, but instead I arched, making it easier for him to drag my pants off my body. He peeled away the cashmere with slow and torturous deliberation, landing on his knees between my thighs, pants discarded.
His thumbs dug into my thighs, pushing them so far apart the thin, thready muscles in my groin screamed. I was wet—embarrassingly so—dripping between the soft skin of my inner thighs.
Time stood still, held captive by his bruising thumbs, the starvation in his eyes.
“I can post whatever I want,” I breathed, trying to regain some control.
Grim dragged his knuckles along the crease of my thigh, just barely grazing my pussy, gaze flashing to mine. For an instant I didn’t think. I felt the intent in his eyes. He was going to make me regret that.
I couldn’t fucking wait.
“I don't belong to you,” I said, yet my voice came out breathy. “I’m not yours.”
Grim slid a finger inside me, dragging it back out too quickly.
“Ah, Rich Girl…” He held his finger in the air, glistening with me, and arched a brow. “I don’t give a shit who you think you belong to. I still own you in every way that counts.”
There was no going back.
Good, some dark part of me whispered.
I waited for him to fulfill the promise blazing in his eyes. Seconds dragged on to what felt like forever, Grim unmoving between my legs, grip tantalizingly close to where I needed it. His stare fixed on the center of me, hungry.
Then his eyes tore from my pussy, locking with mine. “Touch yourself.”