He rumbled in approval.
Seconds later I fell apart.
I was still panting, still seeing stars in the ceiling, when Grim crawled above me.
He smiled, lips glistening. “Good morning.”
Then he kissed me, thrusting his tongue in my mouth so I tasted myself. He knotted his hands in my hair, yanking my neck into an arch to get deeper.
This isn’t over.
They’re captive.
It’s because of you.
All the unanswered questions shot through me like lightning. Grayson, Zabby—everything.
“Wait—” Grim found my neck. Kissing and sucking the hollow beneath my ear in a deliriously distracting way. His cock pressed against me, and I spread my thighs on a groan?—
No, fuck.
I pushed him off me and he pulled away—on his elbows, leaning over me in the most distracting way.
Hair messed. Lips glistening.
“We need to talk,” I said, words too breathy, chest rising and falling.
We didn’t do any talking last night. I couldn’t live in this pattern anymore. Where the things unsaid between us piled like shipwreck debris, cutting and heavy and blocking. Where we ignored it until we no longer saw each other.
“Someone told me you’re captive.”
Grim’s stare narrowed. “Who are you talkin’ to, Rich Girl?”
I went silent. I might have been a lot of things, but I was no snitch.
Grim was too smart—he figuredit out in seconds. “Sabrina.”
He rolled to the edge of the bed, ink stark in the morning light. It slid like silk over his corded back muscles.
Hisdebt.
“Is it true?” I asked. “Are you indebted? Were you close to getting out of debt?”Before me, left unsaid in the lingering air between us.
Grim gripped the mattress, knuckles white. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Who is it? Who owns your debt?”
Before I knew what I was doing, I reached out and feathered my touch along the ink. He tensed, before sinking into it.
Still, silence followed.
I pulled my hand back.
“Fine.” I stood up, walked over to where I’d found my book. I held up the weathered and beaten thing. “Will you tell me what this is, then?”
He stared at the book, jaw clenched with some inscrutable emotion. After what felt like an eternity, he spoke. “What does it look like?”
Itlookedlike Grim had been pining. But that couldn’t be right.
