Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
GEMMA
The first time I met Grim was the one time I didn’t feel alone.
I couldn’t remember exactly what had instigated the crying, but I had a few guesses.
It was my first year at Crowne Point High, but my grandfather ripping me out of boarding school and shoving me into public school wasn’t the cause, just a symptom.
That suffocating buzzing I used to smother at boarding school with pills and sex had nowhere to go.
It clawed out of my chest daily, screaming.
That day, I couldn’t control it.
Tears fell in a deluge, so I skipped class and ran to an empty room. I swiped furiously at my eyes and dug my nails into my palm. Nothing worked. I couldn’t stop them. On the floor, I dug my head into my knees, hating myself. Hating that I was like this. Hating that I had nowhere to hide.
Then I heard a book fall.
I moved to get off the floor when Grim came out from behind a shelf. Still on my knees, I froze.
“You can’t tell anyone about this,” I said.
His hands came to my face. Silent. Smearing the tears beneath my eyes. His palms were big, encapsulating the entire span of my face. I felt…safe.
Maybe it was how his body eclipsed everything and became the only thing I knew. Or maybe it was how he held my face with a kind of knowing possession that should be reserved to past-life lovers, not two kids who just met. Like even back then he knew I belonged to him.
So when I should have been standing, shoving him off, and running, instead I leaned into it.
He didn’t ask if I was okay or if I needed help. Just stared at me with a knowing look that excavated parts of my soul.
Then he dropped to his knees too.
I still had to tilt my head to find his eyes. I remember my brain screaming at me to leave. That this was not what I should be doing. But then he took my hand in his and pressed my nails into his neck.
The same way his dark stare told me he knew what I needed, I knew what he wanted. I scythed my nails against his flesh.
“Who made you cry?” A threat lingered in the rough, rocky tone of his voice.
“No one. I’m…” I’m fucked up.
I expected him to press me, or say he felt sorry. Instead he pushed my hand deeper into his neck. His eyes grew, then drooped into something heavy with promise. I felt something more than sizzle between us; a part of me broke off and latched on to him.
Then the bell rang.
Grim stood off his knees, but I stayed frozen.
“Frankenstein, huh?” He nodded to the book that had fallen out of my bag.
“It’s my favorite,” I said.
Why am I telling him this? No one knew about my secret love of Frankenstein, and I definitely hadn’t told them.
Gemma Crowne was supposed to be untouchable—not aloof, but so very above everyone else.
As if possessed by someone who had never met Tansy Crowne, I kept talking.
“The author wore her husband’s petrified heart as a necklace.
I don’t think there’s anything more romantic. ”
His eyes sharpened, like he was homing in on some great treasure.
Then he turned to leave.
“Wait, will you—What just—” I broke off. What the fuck was I doing? Despite my brain screaming at me not to be such a fool, I asked, “Will I see you again?”
Pathetic.
Grim placed a knuckle beneath my chin, lifting my blurry gaze to his.
“My insides are radioactive. I corrode whatever and whoever I touch.” He stroked the side of my jaw with his thumb. “I’m poison, Gemma. Stay away.”
We never spoke of what happened in that room, but my starving soul feasted on the memory for years.
I will never let you go. Never.
I was that teenage girl again, frozen and on her knees, knowing she should run, but leaning into it anyway.
The only time I saw the Horsemen today, including Grim, was for breakfast. Zabby was gone, like they said.
I spent the day alone. I read, I took a bath in Grim’s massive black marble tub, then hours later came to the club.
It was weirdly touching to be left alone.
Like this was my home, and they expected me here.
It was just a few days until Valentine’s Day. As wrong as it was, it was nice being away from my mom, from Crowne Hall—
Someone was behind me.
Terror slid icy into my stomach as the mystery person bunched my dress up to my hips, fingers sliding between my thighs to where I was bare.
People will want to hurt you. To kill you. Just to make a point.
I swung my elbow into the mystery man’s stomach. A startled, slightly amused grunt shivered on my ears. My terror transmogrified into heat.
I knew that voice.
“Your cunt is sloppy for some man,” Grim growled, sliding his fingers inside me.
I gripped the railing as he slid one, two more inside me. The club below blurred into a bokeh of sparkly dresses and neon lights.
“Not some man,” I gasped. “The Reaper. If he finds out you touched me, he’ll kill you.”
“Oh, yeah?” he rasped. “Does he own you or something?”
His fingers curled up inside me, hitting that perfect spot as we played out a dark, twisted fantasy.
“Yes,” I groaned, arching into his touch. “He’ll kill you just for looking at me—”
I broke off. Down on the main floor, nearly obscured by shadows, was Kennedy. Kennedy with Wraith. Wraith pressed her against the wall, touching her cheek—
Grim slammed inside me and the room blurred. All I knew was that perfect, delicious fullness. Grim stretching me, taking me, owning me. The pounding of the beat, the energy of hundreds of bodies below, thrummed inside me.
When I managed to blink open, Kennedy and Wraith were gone.
“If someone sees you come, I’ll have to kill them. So be good. Be quiet.”
I clenched at that image, and Grim’s answering groan on my flesh let me know he felt it. He wrapped his arm around my waist and hauled me backward, down to the couch.
“You’re mine now, Rich Girl. I can touch you whenever.” Grim gripped my inner thigh, spreading me wider. “Wherever.”
I couldn’t think. Soft, helpless sounds slipped from my lips.
As Grim spread me wider, it was like fireworks went off in my body. His cock hit the perfect, aching part of me and I’d never felt so full.
I glanced at the stairs. My silky pink dress slid over my thighs, shielding what was happening. But anyone could walk up the stairs. They would know. They’d have to know.
The thought sent wicked shivers down my spine.
I could feel release building, mounting with each slow, torturous thrust.
“You took that choice away the day you took my ink.” He licked the back of my neck—the tattoo. “So be a good girl and come when I say.”
His teeth closed around the skin of my tattoo, and that sharp pain, mixed with the delicious ache of him inside me, pushed me over the edge. I fell. Shattered. Came apart. I groaned, moaned—nearly screamed. At least, I must have, because his hand covered my mouth.
I fell apart on his cock and Grim came with me, his jagged groan seeping into the skin of my neck. Then I felt him, hot and wet, dripping out of me onto my thighs.
“There’s my good girl,” he said, hand sliding between my thighs to my pussy, massaging his come against me. I jolted at the sensation, still throbbing, too overstimulated.
He bit the lobe of my ear, whispering sweet words as I came down.
His words slid like wine into my blood. He pressed soft kisses up and down my neck, teeth and tongue and lips creating a delirious potion, and I couldn’t help but feel…home.
Right.
I stared out at the empty balcony. I’d been here so many times before, but never like this. Never with a sense of belonging.
The truth was, it felt like an oasis. No phone. No contact with the outside world. Not wondering how many followers I lost, what the tabloids were saying. Here, I could just…be.
I’d gone on many vacations, to private islands, exclusive resorts, palaces in Switzerland—but I was always on, always Gemma.
When I was on the beach, I was thinking about the best photo to take.
When I was at a club, it was, who is watching?
Who was going to send some stupid blind about how Gemma was drunk with so-and-so?
So of course it had to end.
“Gemma?”
I froze at the disbelieving voice, willing reality to change. Grim’s lips didn’t leave my neck, but he tightened his grip on my stomach, and with that I felt it—felt the violent, possessive glare he shot my brother.
“Grayson?” I squeaked. “What are you doing here?”
I tried to get up, but Grim pinned me. Even if my dress draped and hid the most illicit parts, he was still inside me. His come leaked rivers between my thighs.
Grayson’s attention shifted over my shoulder, to Grim. “Let her go.”
Grim bit my neck. “Gemma can’t go anywhere right now. She’s too busy taking my cock.”
I’d seen my brother this angry only once—the night his wife nearly died. A calm, detached cool slid across his body that didn’t at all match the fury in his eyes.
Grim kissed my neck in that same slow, lazy way he had been. As if my brother wasn’t right there. As if it didn’t fucking matter, because this was his right.
Grayson clenched and unclenched his fists. “I will use the full force of Crowne power to destroy you.”
“Gemma Crowne belongs to me now,” Grim said. “She’s never going back. Accept it.”
Grayson took a step toward us, his glare reckless. Violent. This wouldn’t end well. Grayson didn’t know when to tap out.
I didn’t know if Grim could tap out.
“Grayson,” I said. “Please. I’m fine.”
Grayson’s glare ripped away from Grim, softening on me. “It’s been two days, Gemma.”
“I’ll be home soon,” I said, not sure if it was a lie. Grim tensed at my back, his grip on my stomach even harder.
Grayson’s jaw clenched. His eyes slid back to Grim. “This is not over.”
Then he left.