Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
GEMMA
Grim’s kiss was a heady mix of rough and gentle.
The scrape of stubble against my cheek. Gentle, worshipping lips.
Dragging out my bottom lip with his teeth only to capture my sighs with his mouth.
His tongue slid across my lips, and I opened for him, slanting my face so he could get deeper access.
He took it greedily, pressing me deep into the bed, mattress dipping.
Like he wanted to devour me.
Consume me.
His kiss moved to my neck, to the area beneath my lobe, biting at the soft flesh, before soothing it with his tongue. He trailed kisses down my neck, to the hollow of my throat, and then between my breasts. He paused, my dress preventing him from going further.
With two hands he ripped, butterflying the fabric. He stilled, eyes darkening at my bare chest—the dress had a built-in corset. Then he shoved me to the bed and ripped the rest of the fabric down past my belly button, to the hem. I lay naked and exposed, dress ripped to my sides.
I had a half second to register the way my heart skipped at the ravenous gleam in his eyes, when his lips landed on my flesh.
He kissed down the now exposed skin. My collarbone. The wing of my ribs. Above my belly button. My hip bone.
Anywhere but where I needed.
He drew a line down the middle of me with his tongue, from chest to my lower abdomen, then back.
I grabbed his hair, forcing him to look at me. “Grim.”
He quirked a brow, licking a hot line underneath the curve of my breast, from rib to sternum. “Yeah, baby?”
“I—” I broke off as his kiss turned into a bite, tugging at the thin skin above my ribs.
“Please.”
“So polite.” He groaned. “You sound so good when you beg.” Finally his mouth found my breast. I arched up into him, and his hand slid to my lower back, holding me in the arch against him.
“You’re not afraid of me, Rich Girl?” His gaze caught mine, taking a nipple into his mouth, rolling it around, biting it. “Even after today?”
He slid a hand up my body, smearing the blood from the man he’d assaulted across my skin—as if to punctuate his words, like he was marking me again.
“I knew who you were before you were king of the damned,” I said. It was meant to be a joke, but I was too breathless. As he bit and teased my nipple, my thoughts scattered into fireworks, bursting in a thousand different sparkly directions.
I couldn’t think past the heat in his eyes. The way his hand lingered on my stomach, possessively.
A smirk quirked his lips, his eyes flashing back to mine. “Then you must be fucking terrified, Gemma.” He bit my hip, sliding kisses down my body. The dip between my stomach and pussy, the top of my thigh and inside. He slid his tongue along the crease of my inner thigh.
“I’m not—” I broke off as he planted a hot, open-mouthed kiss on the center of me. His stare found mine, locked.
I couldn’t breathe.
The room melted away. Past, present, and future dissolved. All that existed was Grim on his knees, a look in his eyes that went beyond hunger and desire—vulnerable and open. I saw him—Santos—and I felt the depth of him, reaching inside and tugging at the bond we had.
He broke the stare, sliding his tongue between my pussy lips.
“So fucking good,” he groaned, the sound vibrating against my flesh in a delirious way. “I’ve wondered how you’d taste.” He punctuated each sentence with a deep thrust of his tongue, as if trying to consume the very soul of me. “I’ve only ever got a taste. It wasn’t enough.”
His voice was shredded and raw, angry even, like I’d kept this from him. He dragged one lip between his teeth, sucking and pulling until I saw stars. It felt like a reminder, like whatever he gave me was for him.
He gripped my ass, pulling me deeper into his hungry mouth. “You are perfection. So fucking good.”
He plunged a finger inside me as he licked and sucked my throbbing clit. My spine bowed on a gasp. The room went blurry. I heard things distantly.
So fucking wet.
Such a good girl getting so fucking wet for me.
But the words were like trying to pinpoint rain in a rainstorm. I could only feel how he kissed and licked and bit me while his fingers worked inside. I melted into the feeling, into him.
“You’re too tight,” he gritted.
I lifted my head, delirious, finding his eyes. “For?”
“Me.”
The thought, as much as the low snarl with which he’d said it, made me clench. He was going to be inside me. After years of nothing, I would have him again.
“I told you—” My words disappeared into a gasp as Grim dove his head back between my thighs. “There hasn’t been anyone since you.”
He froze, slowly lifting his head up. The room vibrated and pulsed between us. His lips wet with me. Then he climbed on top of me and grabbed my hand, pressing it against his pec, against the three scratch marks that started everything.
“Why?” he repeated the question he’d asked days ago when I’d first confessed. I couldn’t give him the truth then. But now? I hesitated, the words on my lips.
He let go of my hand and slid his back down. Out of sight. The moment hung on the shared breath between us. Then I felt him, his cock at my entrance, spreading me slightly.
My spine bowed.
“Why, Gemma?” He pushed a little bit more inside. I closed my eyes, body melting into a hot pile of need.
Oh, God, finally—
Grim grabbed my chin and my eyes shot open. The muscle of his jaw twitched, control about to snap.
“Why haven’t you fucked anyone else?” The grit in his voice, the power in his gaze, burned the answer out of me.
“You know why,” I breathed, arching, trying to get him inside me. “I wasn’t lying when I said I’d never come again without your cock. You fucking ruined me.”
His eyes flashed, searching mine, looking for the truth.
He cursed under his breath.
“I’d planned to get you off first,” he said. I had a half second to process the regret in his voice, before he was inside me.
Oh, wow.
“But then you go and say that.” His voice was strained, the rough edge sliding into my veins, making my blood fizzle and pop.
What happened next was a blur. It was Grim inside me, it was his lips against my neck. It was that delicious, delirious fullness. It was my body singing for him. It was rough and hard and perfect.
“Your sheets will be destroyed,” I gasped at another thrust, realizing we were still covered in blood.
“Good. Fuck up my sheets,” he growled. “So when you come to your senses, I’ll still smell you.”
I disappeared into Grim. Into the smell of him, masculine and strong, earthy and dark. Into the feel of him, like the ocean at night: all-consuming, powerful, a depth that can never be seen, only felt.
His thrusts were ruthless and calculated.
He lifted up my leg, pushing my knee to my chest, driving deeper.
His hand encircled my throat with that always perfect amount of tension. Never violent. Never too soft. Just enough to remind me he’s in control.
He whispered things I couldn’t quite hear, but felt nonetheless.
I didn’t know how to describe the thing between Grim and me. Grim stole my life. Grim held me hostage. I barely knew him when we first had sex. But what we had defied logic. Before Grim, I could lie to myself. Say this was just how sex was supposed to be.
But after…
Grim had shown me what it was like to feel safe.
I felt comfortable giving him my submission because I knew he wouldn’t weaponize it.
I felt safe with his hand around my neck.
I knew he would listen if I said no, but the beautiful thing was I didn’t need to.
He sensed my hesitation before I did, and he switched it up.
Like now.
I didn’t need to tell him the position was starting to get uncomfortable. He was already sliding out of me, shifting us to the side, him at my back.
“This better?” he asked, sliding back inside me.
Oh…fuck.
I went cross-eyed at the sensation. Better? It was amazing. I melted into him on a sigh.
“Yeah.” He laughed. “That’s better.”
His hand slid back around my neck, pinning me tight against him as he continued driving into me with a slow, torturous rhythm.
“Arch for me,” he commanded. I did and he groaned, felt him twitch inside me. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Yeah, just like that. Good girl.” He licked at the tender flesh of my tattoo—his mark—groaning against my neck. “So perfect.”
I felt my orgasm build with each deliberate thrust.
I was so close. My body tightened. But I needed something. I didn’t know what. I just—I needed—
His grip tightened on my neck. “Come.”
That’s it. With his permission, I came apart. I disappeared into hot Spanish words against my flesh. I became nothing save shivers and sensation and rippling, electric currents.
When it was over, when I was nothing but raw sensation, Grim didn’t stop.
I grew hazy. I became a doll. Grim flipped me onto my stomach, pushed into me from behind. He flipped me back to my side, positioning me how he wanted. He grabbed my thigh, pulling and bending my leg at an impossible angle, so I could feel his cock deeper.
I was weightless. A pile of needy goo. I could only moan and come again.
And again.
Until the world was a delirious blur of Grim’s soft, coaxing whispers. Until I was sweat and need. Until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t come again.”
I tried to squirm away from him. He stilled, stopped moving inside me, but he didn’t let me go. His hand pressed into my stomach, keeping me in place.
“Yeah, you can. Breathe.” He thumbed circles above my belly button, waiting. I took a deep breath and he rumbled his satisfaction against my neck. “Good girl. Just like that. Take another.”
So I did.
And on the third deep breath Grim started moving inside me. The dichotomy of his gentle words and hard thrusts. How safe I felt in his arms. It spun me out.
“My slut,” he praised. “My good little slut. So obedient. Still so open for me.”
I’ve had guys try to call me a slut in bed before, but it never did anything for me.
I didn’t get off on degradation. The guys in the past would say it with venom, like a punishment.
Grim said it like it made me the most precious thing in the world.
I got off on that. On being his slut. I would do anything if it made him purr that I was a good girl.
I felt it building again.
Could feel the tightening of my thighs, the clenching of my abdomen. On a cliff’s edge, about to dive into the water.
“Don’t stop breathing, Rich Girl.”
Not realizing I’d stopped, I sucked in a deep breath and fell off the cliff.
The orgasm tore through my body. Grim pumped harder and harder and I cried out, trying to bury my face in the sheets, but he tangled his hand into my hair and pulled my head back against his chest. He swallowed my screams with his mouth, his tongue diving deep into mine.
I scratched at anything. His hand in my hair.
The bed, pulling the sheets into a knot in my fist. The world went black, and I disappeared into sensation.
When I came to, I was no longer on my side. I was on my back, and Grim was on top of me. He stroked his fingers through my hair.
“Welcome back.” He smiled—a real fucking smile. My stomach did a somersault at the way it stretched his cheeks. It was like the sun breaking through, shining on a bloody battlefield. The light inside the darkness so clearly visible.
So perfect.
Without thought, I lifted my fingers to his smiling lips. He pressed his head into my palm, still smiling.
“Did you come?” I asked, his still hard cock like hot lead on my thigh.
In response, he lowered his head and planted a soft kiss on my shoulder, on the cluster of freckles.
“These freckles? Mine.” He moved lower, kissing above my stomach.
“This mole? Mine.” He dove lower, to my hip.
“This dimple in your hip? Mine.” He kissed my hip, then bit it, teeth clamping softly over the bone.
“Yours,” I breathed.
Grim kept moving lower, planting kisses all along my flesh. Into the soft thatch of hair on my pussy. Lower still—
I sat up, grabbing his hair.
The look he shot me was fearsome, like I’d just ripped away water from a dehydrated man.
“You need to come.” I released my grip, attempting to bargain with the look in his eyes.
His eyes softened. “I need to taste your cunt.” He bent down, kissing the seam of my pussy. “I need to make you come again.”
“But—”
“Let me be selfish,” he growled. I opened my mouth to protest when he took one pussy lip between his teeth, dragging it out. It wasn’t painful, it was electric. It made me want to give in.
So I did.
I sank back into the mattress and let Grim be selfish.