Page 125 of Grace

All I can see is Nikky’s body, covered in a black bag. Vultures circle overhead. The muscles around my eyes tighten. Reporters try to force their way closer. Lots of cameras click and flash. The cops can barely hold them back behind the yellow tape. They strain against it like hounds that smell blood.

When an aging, balding man asks whether this murder could be connected to my disappearance nine years ago, Chase steps up to the beat-up machine and turns it off.

The nightstand lamp fills the unfamiliar room with warm, dim light. The room smells as if someone had spilled sugar on the floor—I can almost taste the sweetness. Even though this is a cheap motel, the bedsheets are fresh and soft. Chase crouches in front of me and looks deep into my eyes. My fingers clench around the towel, and I pull it tighter against my body. The sight of him is a gift and a punishment at the same time. His broad shoulders, his messy dark hair falling into his forehead, and those deep brown eyes that can see right through me…

My breath catches.

Chase isn’t smiling. Dark power radiates from him, especially from those flat brown eyes—dark whirlpools. He’s beautiful, silent, and terrifying. Beautiful the way a barren landscape can be.

“You took my family from me. Everyone,” I whisper, my voice small. “Why did you send me messages like that? Why did you choose such a twisted way to lure me away?”

“If I’d told you the plan, would you have come with me? If I’d showed up at your door and told you what you mean to me, would you have left Cyrus?”

My jaw tightens.

“No,” I reply, furious. “But my sister deserved better, no matter how much of an asshole she was. I deserved better, too. You tricked me. Manipulated me. That guy at the bar… who was he? One of Lucas’s cronies?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs.

I freeze—as if my blood turned to ice in my veins.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“He was someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone who fit into my plan perfectly.”

“Someone innocent.” I can’t believe it. “You killed him just to make your story more believable?”

“The ends justify the means, Grace. And if you haven’t realized it yet, I’m telling you now”—his eyes catch with a dark, dangerous glint—“I would do anything to have you. Anything.”

My throat tightens painfully, my stomach roiling. Chase has always been a complicated puzzle. Of course he tricked me into going with him with a strategy as dirty as this. Just like nine years ago, when he didn’t ask nicely either—he stole my freedom. The difference is that now I had a choice. And I chose him, the same way I did when the cool hilt of the knife burned against my fingers.

“This is pretty grim and… romantic?” I laugh at my own absurd words and press my temples, like I’m trying to stave off a stroke. “There’s nothing romantic about this. You’re batshit crazy, Baker. And irredeemable.”

“Crazy for you. And irredeemably in love with you.”

I stop laughing, and my face goes slack. Chase’s eyes are intense and… begging? I lift my brows. That can’t be. He doesn’t see things the way I do. To him, all of this is as natural as our hearts beating.

“I wish you weren’t mine,” I sigh. “That would make everything easier.”

“And much worse.”

“Don’t be so arrogant.” I shake my head.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Grace. Would your life be better without me?”

“It would be missing something. You make me whole. You make me present. You warm my heart. But goddamn it, Chase—you killed an innocent man and used me as bait for Lucas to kill my sister. On the street, in broad daylight. That’s a crime. Don’t you get it? These are serious crimes. Just like kidnapping me—or Jason—was.”

“You don’t get it, either.”

“What?”

“That I’d go even further to keep you mine.”

Chase is smart, brave, merciless, irredeemable… and mine. A man shrouded in darkness who infects me with nightmares, whose heart beats only for me. Who bares his soul only for me, who shows his real face only to me.

He pries my numb, stiff fingers off the towel, one by one, and pulls it away. The soft fabric slips into my lap. His lips brush my sensitive skin, then closes around my nipple. He looks up at me. His hand slides between my thighs. I hold my breath as I watch him stroke my bare pussy, then slip two fingers inside me. He starts fingering me. He doesn’t take his eyes off me for a second while he sucks my nipple and moves his fingers in and out of me, steadily and rhythmically.

“This is not fair,” I pant and tilt my hip up. I press myself against his hands to make him rub my clitoris even more intensely. He sucks on my nipple with even more devotion. I look down at him, my vision blurred. He pulls his fingers out, then undresses. His erect dick jumps out of his jeans.