“If you’d let me die, you would be free.” My eyes flashed to hers in warning, but she continued. “If I died, everything would go away. Your dad wouldn’t be able to force you into working for him. You wouldn’t be on magazines. Peoplewouldn’t be trying to attack you. Your life wouldn’t be falling apart?—”
I reached up, gripping her face between my palms. “You are theonlyreason I’m living.”
Her lush pink lips parted. For a moment it was just this, her face in my hands, sweet puffs of air leaving her lips. When she spoke, it was with the same velvety softness now coating the air.
“Are you going to die? Everything you’ve built will crumble.”
“Why do you care?” I bruised my grip against her cheeks, pulling her closer.
Do you love me or something?
She’d said nothing when I asked her, and the silence had grown into thick, spiky barbs in my chest. I never thought I’d be like this. I never thought Icouldbe like this, my sanity hanging by a thread over what a girl felt for me. I was pathetic with my need.
I searched her eyes. “Why does this bother you?”
“You want me to say I love you?” She tried to push me off and I stood up, towering over her, sliding one hand to grip the back of her neck. “You already own everything. Have alreadytakeneverything. Do you really need that too?”
I dug my grip into her flesh, the sound that left me not quite human. “Yes.”
She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, brow cinched. “If I tell you that, you’ll keep it like you’ve kept everything else. You won’t ever say it back.”
“You’re right, I won’t.” Hurt collapsed her features, but I continued. “Because I don’t just love you, Gemma. You live in my bones, in my marrow.” I dragged her down with me into the chair. “A thousand years from now when mybones have dissolved into the soil, when I’m nothing but dust and ashes, the earth will still feed on my love for you.”
Her lips parted, no sound came out.
I traced my fingers along the mark at her neck. “You’ve only been inked on my flesh for five years. You’ve been inked on my heart since the day I met you.” Before she could second-guess me, I crushed my lips against her mouth.
“But—” She tore her lips from mine on a gasp. “—your father. What are we going to do?”
“I’ll give him what he wants.” I went to her neck, sucking and biting.
“But…but he wantsyou?—”
“Gemma.” I tangled my hand in her hair, holding her head still, waiting for her thoughts to quiet and her cheeks to flush. “Get to your knees.”
She dropped without a second thought, sliding between my open thighs. Her simple, easy obedience shot straight to my cock.Fuck. She was fucking made for me. I massaged my grip in her hair, moving her skull around until soft little sighs left her mouth. Then I dragged her head back so our eyes met.
“You don’t worry about this.Itake care ofyou.” A cute wrinkle formed between her brows. I tugged at her hair, quieting those thoughts. “Say it.”
“You take care of me, Grim.”
FORTY-EIGHT
GEMMA
I take care of you.
I tossed in bed, rolling from one side to the other, sheets getting annoyingly tangled between my ankles. He’d left to go tell the Horsemen the plan. Hisstupidplan. When Grim kissed me, it felt like a funeral.
A thousand years from now when my bones have dissolved into the soil?—
With a frustrated sigh, I sat up, throwing the covers off. The night air was chilly with winter, and goose bumps pricked my bare legs. The kind of cold that lives in the cracks and secrets of antique houses. No furnace could ever compete.
When I’m nothing but dust and ashes, the earth will still feed on my love for you.
Death.
That was the one consistency between Grim and me. When we first collided, in tears and blood.When I tried to kill myself and he became my reaper. The bodies piled like fucked-up bouquets between us.
