CHAPTER 10
WHEN ANGELS CRY, DEMONS PRAY
ARELLA
When I woke up, I was no longer in the same room, but lying on a small mattress with black sheets, a slightly scratchy blanket covering my body. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, the material falling off my chest, sending shivers down my spine. Then, when I looked down at myself, I wanted to die of embarrassment as I noticed my clothes, or lack thereof.
That asshole.
He’d undressed me again, but this time he hadn’t bothered to dress me. He’d also wiped away the blood stains that splattered on my thighs when I worked on his brother.
I bit my lip as I stood up, vividly remembering everything he did and said to me before I fell asleep in his arms. His kisses, his touches, his deviant words, those deliciously long fingers entering me, taking me to heights my vibrator never could.
I felt my skin heating up all over again when I remembered how the orgasm took over my body, how it ripped out of me, how different it felt, how decadent and how good.
I still couldn’t believe that I allowed him to intrude so deeply into my life and body, but I couldn’t get his desperate phone call out of my head, how panicked he’d been over his brother’s life. I couldn’t remove the expression on his face from when I entered the warehouse either, that mixture of agony, fury and worry that dissolved into relief when he saw me.
I could see how grateful he was that I came to help him, because somehow, Grimm looked at me like I was his safety vest, like I was the only source of his peace, like I held the power to calm every storm in his life with something as simple as a touch.
I weighed all the pros and cons of allowing him into my life, and though the cons were extensive - murderer, lack of moral compass, inability to feel remorse, and so many more - I couldn’t deny how his presence made me feel, how safe and appreciated, how beautiful and, against all odds, how loved. I wanted all the cons. I wanted him and everything he brought along. So what if it was wrong? So what if it was dangerous and outrageous? Deep down, I knew I had been waiting for this moment, for this man, for nine long fucking years.
Now he was here.
He wasn’t the knight in shining armor I used to read about in fairytales, but much, much better than that. He was the villain. The one everybody else saw as a monster, but whom I saw as the most beautiful fallen angel, whose wings had been clipped off and replaced with thorns, and I wanted to bleed light onto his darkness. And so, in the moment he decided to let me choose, my subconscious chose to return to him. My brain just had to get with the program, because Grimm had one advantage that outweighed all the disadvantages.
He had my heart.
Somehow, somewhere inside my head, I knew that she chose him as her keeper from the first moment we met and knowing that the men I had been obsessing over were one and the same, sent the little bitch into overdrive. With that knowledge, I couldn’t not touch him, not feel him, not want him.
My heart was his to protect, to own, to cherish, or to tear to pieces if he wanted to. It had belonged to the mysterious man for so long, all the while still beating inside my chest, and now it was time to serve it back to him.
And although I wanted to let him stew for a while longer, seeing him on his knees next to his brother’s unconscious body pushed me to make my intentions known sooner than anticipated, because my instinct pushed me to help him without question, because I believed he deserved something good among all the bad in his life. And because he reminded me of who I used to be, and somehow, the memory didn’t bother me so much anymore.
I shook my head and sighed, then looked around the room to find something to wear.
A small desk was pushed against the wall, right next to the mattress I slept on, filled with monitors displaying various images from all over the warehouse, which made me think that I was in one of the guards’ rooms.
I picked up my phone from the improvised nightstand, namely a wooden crate, and was surprised to find a note stuck to it.
“Now you can have coffee.
G.”
Arrogant asshole!
I found a clean T-shirt folded at the foot of the mattress, and quickly put it on, then slipped my feet into the dirty slippers I came with last night and walked out the door in search of the big asshole with incredibly beautiful eyes.
Was I crazy for wanting to see where a relationship with a criminal would take me?
Probably, but I also couldn’t help but taste more of the thrill he so willingly offered, and whatever consequences would come my way, I would face them when the time came, one by one, because right now, all I wanted was to see him again.
We had one more day together before my next shift at the hospital, and I didn’t want to be away from him for another second, even if red flags waved at me from every direction and thousands of alarms sounded in my head.
For the first time in the last nine years, I was doing something solely for myself.
I walked down the dimly lit corridor, passing a few heavily armed men on my way. Surprisingly, they all lowered their heads when they saw me, and I frowned in confusion, stopping next to one of them.
“Where is he?” I asked, and he just pointed to a door, then walked in the other direction without looking at me.
Ok, that was a little odd. What did he say to them?
I shook my head, opened said door and walked into what appeared to be an impromptu kitchen.
Klaus was sitting in a chair at a table, his eyes settled on his phone as he sipped on what I hoped was water, while Grimm had his bare, tattooed back to me, focused on something next to the stove, too lost in what he was doing to notice me.
Klaus gave me a nod in acknowledgement, displaying another one of those mischievous grins as he raised his cup to me.
“Good morning,” I broke the silence.
Every muscle on Grimm’s back tensed with attention, then he turned around. His eyes shamelessly roamed over my body from top to bottom before settling on my face, the intention of a smile curving his lips as he slowly walked towards me.
A chair creaked on the floor, and I turned my attention to Klaus, who rose from his seat with the cup in his hand.
“That’s my cue to leave,” he said, winking as he walked past me and slipped out of the room before I could ask him how he was feeling.
The door closed with a subtle click, and before I could even process the action, Grimm pushed me against it, those big arms of his resting on either side of my head.
Having him so close to me again, feeling him invade my space so purposefully, made my brain spin.
“Good morning.” His hot breath fanned over my face, and I heard myself whimper as his hands traveled down to my waist, gripping it tightly before lifting me up as if I weighed nothing. “Did you sleep well?”
I turned my head to the side and bit my lip, not wanting to speak so close to his face since I didn’t brush my teeth. I didn’t even shower, and I probably smelled as good as a bus on a hot summer day.
I nodded in response and saw how his eyebrows drew together as he leaned down to kiss me. My hands flew to his chest, and I tried to push him away, but my fight only seemed to excite him, because he pressed himself even harder between my legs, making me swallow a moan.
“Why are you trying to push me away, Snezhinka?” he asked as he walked with me to the counter and sat me down on it. “Are you perhaps… afraid of me?” he whispered in my ear as his hands toyed with the material of the T-shirt I was wearing.
I shook my head, my breathing already ragged from his closeness.
God, he was intimidating.
He stepped back, giving me some space, his eyes watching me intently, as though he was trying to read through my very soul.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his calm almost menacing as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“I didn’t brush my teeth,” I told him the truth, because I didn’t want him to think there was another reason for my rejection.
He raised an eyebrow, then took me by assault.
Grimm was all over me, and I felt myself swallowed up by him as his lips collided with mine. This kiss had nothing in common with the somewhat gentle kiss from last night, nor with the hungry ones he gave me as he pumped his fingers into me.
No.
This was meant to prove a point, not to mention to show me that last night’s kiss was the first and last time I would hold the reins. Last night, he’d only offered me a glimpse, a small percentage of what he could do, and right now, he was displaying everything with brute force. His tongue invaded my mouth without a warning, hungrily pushing past my lips as his hands freely explored every inch of me. He squeezed, kneaded and claimed me without hesitation, unapologetically.
He devoured me as if I was his last meal, deep groans pouring out of him and into my mouth, making my entire being tremble, and when he had enough of my lips, he moved on to my neck, greedy for a taste while his palm slid under my T-shirt and grasped one of my breasts possessively, as if to punish it.
“Did you think that would stop me?” he spoke over my pulse, then his teeth grazed over the marks he left on my skin last night, pain mixing with pleasure as I succumbed to his touch. “You could be covered in mud, and it still wouldn’t stop me from taking what’s mine, Snezhinka.”
I cried out as his teeth dug into my already sensitive flesh, sucking on it before licking away the pain.
“Because you are,” he continued. “The moment you allowed me to kiss you, you sealed your own fate.” He let his hand fall from my breast and grabbed my hips, his fingers dug into my flesh as his teeth scraped over my collarbones. “Every inch of you is mine, just like every inch of me is yours.” The grit in his voice sent shivers down my spine, covering me in goosebumps.
While I knew the bruises he left weren’t going to disappear too soon, and they were also rather dangerous, I couldn’t find the strength to care as long as he was the one inflicting them.
I always believed that when it came to intimacy, I would want sweet, slow, sensual lovemaking, but as Grimm manhandled me to his liking, not caring about leaving his marks all over me, I realized that my fantasies regarding the perfect sex life were nothing but the monotonous desires of a religious girl.
He wasn’t sweet, nor slow, nor sensual.
No.
Grimm was spicy, frantic and downright savage. Grimm took and took and continued to take until I crumbled beneath his fingertips, then he put me back together only to ruin me all over again.
After another not-so-gentle squeeze, his hands finally released my hips. If the carnality of his actions didn’t shatter my brain to pieces, then the gentle press of his lips on my forehead sealed the deal.
He returned to what he was doing before I came in as if nothing happened, and I tried to return to the fully rational side of myself.
Now I could see that he was filling a plate with food, namely fried eggs and bacon, both a little burnt and slightly oily, and a few strawberries cut into uneven shapes.
I giggled when he put the plate on the counter next to my thigh and pulled a chair next to me, scratching the back of his neck as he looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read, somewhere between shyness and embarrassment.
The Grimm who was all over me a few seconds ago had nothing to do with the Grimm who now looked like a teenager struggling to ask a girl to prom.
“I tried to make you breakfast, but I clearly suck at it,” he said, pointing at the food.
My heart filled with something unknown, his words feeling like a punch to the gut.
“It’s perfect, thank you,” I smiled down at him.
I took the plate in my hand and cut the eggs with the fork, then almost gagged when I tasted them because there was so much salt, but I stifled the need to spit it up and forced myself to swallow, then popped a strawberry in to cover the saltiness. I had no idea how I was going to eat all this food, but I also had no intention of making him feel bad after he tried to do something nice for me.
“It’s good,” I lied.
He frowned, taking the fork from my hand and shoving a bite into his mouth. His face changed color three times before he stood up and spat the contents into the sink, then took a big chug of water straight from the faucet.
“It’s awful,” he said, picking up the plate and throwing it in the trash.
“Hey, my strawberries,” I giggled.
“Fuck the strawberries,” he wrinkled his nose in disgust.
Without giving me a warning, he picked me up again and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, then walked to the door.
I burst into laughter at his caveman way of carrying me, and that laughter only grew louder when I saw the big men on the hallway avert their eyes from us as he passed them.
“Why aren’t they looking at me?” I asked.
“Because I told them not to,” he replied simply.
“You’re ridiculous,” I scoffed, then pouted, but he couldn’t see my face, so I pinched his thigh.
Huge mistake, because the next thing I knew, his teeth sank into the side of my leg, mercilessly biting my flesh, and I jumped, a wave of heat traveling down my body.
“Where are you taking me?”
“I’m taking you home so you can change and then out for some edible breakfast.”
“I liked my breakfast just fine,” I continued to struggle, trying to get him to let go of me, but my lie was met with a spank that was sure to redden my skin.
“I appreciate you trying to spare my feelings,” he said the last word mockingly, as if he was disgusted by it, “but do not ever lie to me.”
Another spank followed, and before I could protest further, we were outside.
“Grimm, I need to check on Klaus,” I said as he set me back on my feet.
“Klaus is fine, and you need to eat and put on something that doesn’t make me want to eat you,” his voice carried a menacing tone as he held the door open for me.
I didn’t know why I liked the idea of him wanting to eat me, but I had to rub my thighs together and make sure I sat in such a way that wouldn’t get the seat wet.
The ride to my apartment was quick and uneventful, except for the greedy looks Grimm kept giving me. In his presence, I was slowly becoming one of those women who fell for guys they barely knew. And with the feel of the fall, the insecurities I spent my entire life suppressing reared their ugly heads, making me doubt myself.
Suddenly, I felt as though I wasn’t enough.
But who could feel as if they were enough when sitting next to him?
It was odd to call a man beautiful, but in my eyes he was, so much so that I could barely look at him without feeling warm inside. Not in the conventional sense, as in light, delicate beauty. No. He was beautiful in a harsh way. Grimm was raw, untamed masculinity. Sharp features you could cut yourself on, strong arms that could snap you in half, long legs that could kick you into oblivion. Dangerous beauty, that you couldn’t stop yourself from wanting even though it could kill you, the type you wanted to be ravished by.
Lethal beauty.
Granted, I had yet to see him lose control around me, because I knew that the anger I saw in his eyes, and continued to see, was a small flicker of what actually lay beneath his skin.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as I unlocked my door.
“Nothing, just… you,” I answered as we entered my apartment.
“What about me?”
He looked around as I mindlessly munched on my lips and started to fidget when I realized my apartment was a mess. A colorful one, but a mess, nonetheless. There were clothes strewn across the floor, takeout boxes on the coffee table, piles of books everywhere, empty coffee cups that I never washed until I ran out of clean ones, and an overflowing ashtray at the foot of the couch.
It wasn’t always like this. Actually, it was never like this, but the last few days had been a nightmare, and I hated that he was seeing this side of me. The side that became lost in chaos when faced with sadness.
My apartment was so different from his, a polar opposite actually. Messy while his was spotless, almost as if taken out of Architectural Digest, colorful while his was a black hole, and it smelled like food and cigarettes while his smelled like lavender and him.
My apartment carried the signs of depression. I did too, but I seemed to forget about it in his presence. Maybe because he kept me so overwhelmed that I couldn’t think about anything other than him.
“I’m sorry about the mess,” I said as my cheeks caught fire, remembering that he’d already seen it last night when he brought me the pants.
“Don’t worry about it.” He placed his palms on my shoulders and gently rubbed them as he slowly pushed me towards the bathroom. “Get ready, okay?” He turned me around and kissed me, then went out and closed the door behind him.
Alone.
With the black thoughts.
Again.
As I washed my face and brushed my teeth, I continued to wonder what he saw in me. He was so frighteningly out of my league, and yet he wanted me, even if he could obviously have any other woman on the planet.
Sure, I wasn’t ugly, I knew that, but there was this little voice inside me that kept telling me that something wasn’t right with him lusting over me. While I loved the fact that I inherited my mother’s skin tone and features, I used to feel like a poser between the women in my previous life, because I was pale when most of them were tan, and blonde when most of them were brunettes.
I often wondered if my mother had felt like an outsider in that place, too.
Shaking my head, I took off his T-shirt, folded it carefully and placed it on the overflowing laundry bin.
I looked at myself in the mirror as I removed my plain cotton panties, biting my lips to the point where I drew blood as I saw the rolls that formed on my stomach when I bent over. Sure, I feigned confidence on a day-to-day basis like it was my second skin, but deep down I wished those rolls didn’t exist.
I felt the warmth of my tears before I realized that I was crying, and I gripped the excess flesh between my fingers and winced. Then I looked at my thighs, wanting to hang myself for every acne scar, for every cut left behind by clumsy shaving and for every ingrown hair. Now that I looked closely, they all seemed to grow.
You’re good. You’re healthy. You’re beautiful. You’re warm
.
So warm.
That’s what I told myself every morning, and for a while I actually believed it, then he came along, and made me question everything about my body. Not because he was clearly working out and his body was sculpted like a God, but because I wondered what the women before me looked like, and imagined them as these perfect beings with perfect bodies, perfect skin, and perfect hair.
Fucking perfect.
Why was it that we could feel beautiful for a while, then put ourselves down whenever someone more attractive came along? Why did this man’s attraction bring back insecurities in me?
I pinned my hair in a bun, shook my head and crawled into the shower with my sadness, where I turned on the water and let it run hot over my skin, silently crying as I remembered all the disasters in my life, all I was before coming to the United States, and all I became afterwards.
Alana’s image flashed before my eyes and I pressed my forehead to the tiles, trying to focus on him and how he made me feel.
He saw you. He saw you. He saw you.
He liked what he saw. He wanted what he saw.
He’s just pretending.
“Shut up,” I whispered as I opened my eyes and stared at my toes.
Dark shadows crept up my legs, seemingly swallowing me, and I blinked frantically, then aggressively smacked the wall, making the shampoo bottle fall to the floor with a loud thud. The pain seemed to temporarily calm the nefarious shadow that always waited for a moment of weakness to swallow me up.
I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.
After scrubbing every inch of my body and shaving my legs even though I probably didn’t need to, I got out of the shower with dry eyes and wrapped myself in a towel, then left the bathroom without looking in the mirror again. I hated the mirror. The mirror spat nasty things at me. The mirror hated me. I didn’t hate myself.
I didn’t hate myself.
I didn’t…
Did I?
“Took you long enough,” he sounded positively cheerful, and I felt his arms wrap around me before I could turn around to see him. “Fuck, you smell so good.”
“Sorry for the delay,” I pulled out of his hold and walked into my bedroom, hearing his steps behind me as I struggled not to cry in front of him.
“Why are you apologizing so much?” he asked casually, closing the door after entering.
I avoided looking at him as I opened my dresser, fishing for a set of lingerie. I didn’t have many, since I usually went for cotton panties and comfortable bras, but he didn’t need to know that, and frankly, after the deplorable situation in the bathroom, I needed the boost of confidence.
I threw them on the bed, then took out a pair of jeans and a silk peach-colored blouse.
“I don’t know.” It was the truth. “I guess I’ve apologized to so many families that it’s become second nature to me.” I looked at him and tried to smile, but I bet it looked crooked.
Grimm noticed, because he seemed to think about something but didn’t voice what exactly as I turned my back to him and allowed the towel to fall to the floor.
It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to him about my problems. That wasn’t what I wanted to distract him from. I just didn’t want him to notice that I had been crying. I didn’t want him to notice the little abrasions on my knuckles that I got from punching the shower wall. The insecure part of me was back in its cage, locked, and I didn’t want him to ever see it.
Grimm was already grim enough; he didn’t need to take on my monsters as well, since I was sure he had his own share of them lurking beneath that seemingly hard surface.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” I felt his presence behind me before I heard him, since I only managed to pull my panties up to my knees when his hands stopped me.
“I thought we were going for breakfast,” I reminded him when he spun me around to face him.
His eyebrows drew together, casting menacing shadows over his eyes as his pupils swallowed the blue, and he leisurely picked me up and threw me on the bed. A short scream escaped me as he kicked off his boots and sat on his knees at the edge of the bed, then grabbed my ankles and pulled me closer to him, spreading my legs like it was his right to do so.
The grin that carved his lips made my skin burn, while it simultaneously sent shivers down my spine.
“We are, but I’m having dessert first.”