The look he shot me was fearsome, like I’d just ripped away water from a dehydrated man.
“You need to come.” I released my grip, attempting to bargain with the look in his eyes.
His eyes softened. “Ineedto taste your cunt.” He bent down, kissing the seam of my pussy. “Ineedto make you come again.”
“But—”
“Let me be selfish,” he growled. I opened my mouth to protest when he took one pussy lip between his teeth, dragging it out. It wasn’t painful, it waselectric. It made me want to give in.
So I did.
I sank back into the mattress and let Grim be selfish.
THIRTY-EIGHT
GEMMA
The sun had long since set, the pier moonlit. Grim held me tight to his chest, like I would disappear. I traced his tattoos with my finger, distantly wondering what was happening in my world. Blood still caked my fingernails, splattering across my soft manicure.
I was giddy, excited. Finally the outside matched the chaos inside me.
I traced the outline of a tattoo just below his collarbone—an upside-down cross. It stood out, a slightly different style than his other tattoos, but like all the others, there was a line drawn across it.
“Why is this one different?”
He didn’t have to look to know what I was talking about.
“That was my first.” His hand covered mine. “Before I took my ink. When I was still Santos.”
I looked up the meaning of his name after the night on the beach, the first time Grim asked me tocall him by it. On its surface, it meantsaint—irony of all ironies—but the name itself was rich with meaning and history.
Some tales spoke of a cursed “Santos” bloodline, descendants of a saint’s betrayer, doomed to bear the name in irony.
In old Spanish superstition, invoking “los santos” could ward off curses or bad luck, but using it carelessly or mockingly could invite divine retribution.
Holy name, unholy fate.
“What happened?” I asked. He tensed a little, and I quickly added, “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I killed someone,” he said.
There was a hollow ache in his voice that I didn’t understand. Grim was no stranger to murder, after all.
It was more vulnerability than I’deverseen from Grim. I wanted to press. I wanted to dig into him.
But I kept quiet, wanting to keep this moment even more.
He dragged a hand lazily down my arm to the elbow, then back to the shoulder. For what must have been the hundredth time since last night, I couldn’t believe I was here. I couldn’t believe I was with Grim, in his bed, and his touch was sogentle.
Knowing how violent those hands could be, that hands that murdered were caressing me gently, made my stomach do flips.
“Do you ever think about it?” I asked. “That…that night.” His jaw was sharp from my angle, eyes staring ahead.
I waited for it. For him to lie or tell me no, that I was the delusional one.
“Every day,” he said.
I shivered.
