His hand completely enveloped my pussy. And I suddenly couldn’t think of anything else but Grim touching me, his hand chilled from the winter air against my hot flesh.
I barely inhaled and his eyes dropped to my mouth, muscle twerking with the clench of his jaw. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. My heart hammering.
The air felt leaden with his stare.
His free hand gripped my hip, as if trying to hold himself back. It was because of that dichotomy I was so spun out—that wire inside me hot and vibrating and about to snap. The picture of him in my head was like a mirage. Every time I got close, it vanished between my fingers. I wanted him on me. In me. To justfeelwhat he was doing to me.
My mouth parted, heart skipping in my chest, waiting for him to justdo itandcross the line we’d drawn years ago.
I arched, trying to get him inside me, but his hand stayed firm and unmoving. I felt deliciously trapped and at his mercy. That hot, throbbing part of my soul came loose.The part that wanted to drop to my knees and do anything for him,lethim do anything for me.
His palm curled ever so slightly tighter against my pussy, like he could read the filthy, desperate pleas in my mind.
“When I have you again, you’ll be sober,” he said, parting me with his thumb and lightly touching the aching center of me. “Remember every cutting, jagged edge.”
Then he stepped back, the night air cold between my thighs.
I knew I should pull the skirt of my dress down, move—something.I stayed frozen. His eyes dropped between my thighs, smoldering like the cigarette at my feet. Then he turned without another word, disappearing down the beach.
FOURTEEN
GRIM
A short hour later, I climbed into Gemma’s room. She would be out for a while, so it was as good a time as any to check in. I bent down, pressing a little black button hidden inside the doorjamb’s weather strip, and tried not to think about how close I came to crossing the line.
How much I fucking wanted to.
Howwetshe was on my hand. The silent plea in her eyes, her body and mind yielding so easily for me. Gemma’s obedience was a drug I would kill myself with. Happily. In life she was a spoiled, entitled brat, but with me?
Fuck.
I shook my head as a cherry-red light blinked. Still armed. It was a secret dual-locking system that only I knew about—Gemma always left her fucking room unlocked. The moment her door opened, an alarm went off, alerting only me.
There were three things I focused onwith Gemma Crowne: secure from outsiders, accessible to me, invisible to her.
I walked past the red light and into her room, reading it like a diary. The book she was reading was face down, the bookmark deeper inside than the last time I’d been here. I lifted it up to see the title. Gemma Crowne pretended to read whatever book Reese Witherspoon picked out that month.
Madame Bovary.
This she was reading for real. Gemma liked dark and broken; old books that spoke of timeless pain.
I dusted my finger along the white powder on the vanity, remnants of cocaine.
Didn’t matter how many fuckers I threatened in this town, Gemma always found a way to get drugs.
Next to the powder, shiny pink flecks of nail polish caught the light. I stilled.
Something had made her sad.
Gemma liked to pretend she was perfect and happy, but there were tells. I pictured her ripping apart her manicure, that stony, walled look in her eyes.
I opened and closed my fists, tried to reason with the blood rushing through me, with the spikes in my veins screaming that she may have shed tears for someone other than me.
Those were my fucking tears.
I took one last look at the nail polish—who the fuck made her sad?—then moved on. It was a few hours before the night maid service. Her bedsheets were wrinkled, and a distinctly not-blonde hair lay on the pillow.
I swallowed, possession sliding like a knife down my throat.
