I numbly handed it over to him so he could call Timothy.
We fled from the fire as people emerged from the restaurant and surrounding businesses to see what happened. We tucked ourselves back in an alleyway while emergency services put out the blaze.
I clung to Grim, unable to stop touching him. He didn’t push me away. Instead, he held me close and ran his fingers over my hair, muttering soothing words about how it was over, and everything was okay now.
Time passed in what felt like forever and also mere minutes. My mind crowded with the prospect of what almost happened. But it didn’t. Grim was alive. He was okay. He couldn’t die.
The limo showed up, and we climbed in. Timothy sat on the side bench. His cheeks were drawn with displeasure. Timothy hadn’t brought an extra set of clothes, but Grim’s unclothed state didn’t seem to bother either of them. Grim and Timothy discussed the attack, but I wasn’t listening.
What once had been a forgotten memory resurfaced in a crisp clear picture. My parents dying in that car crash. The man in the suit who showed up to walk them to the afterlife. While it had bewildered Grim that I could see him, he was even more surprised when I vowed to walk with him someday. Only now could I see the brilliance of my child mind.
If I attached myself to such a figure, I could never lose him. But tonight, I’d known every aching, screaming bit of loss for a few moments when I’d thought he’d gone up with the car.
We arrived in the private underground lot. My brain fuzzed as Timothy and Grim discussed the plan for damage control before we got out of the vehicle. Then Timothy took off in the limo again.
Grim and I got in the lift that led up into the library of the penthouse. The doors slid open, parting the bookshelves, and we were back in the safety of our place. Mahogany shelves full of tomes loomed over us, and the smell of books and leather surrounded me.
Once inside, I turned, facing up toward Grim. Still nude, there wasn’t even a trace of soot on him from the fire.
“I’m not okay,” I said, not knowing what else to say. Tear tracks dried on my cheeks, and my eyes stopped stinging, but I’d dropped into a far scarier place. A place where Grim left me all alone. Where I faced eternity by myself.
His brows dipped together in concern and love. “What can I do?” he asked, gently.
“I need—I need to feel you,” I said. Then I grabbed the back of his neck and crashed my mouth against his. Needing to touch every part of him, I hungrily tasted him. A smoky flavor mixed with his masculine one, and I kissed him deeper, trying to erase the fire.
He was here. Here with me. Nothing would take him from me. I had to make myself believe it.
Grim didn’t shy away from my onslaught, meeting me with as much passion. The velvet skin of his shaft hardened against my thigh.
An emptiness yawned inside me, threatening to eat me up. A black hole of fear and desolation. I needed to fill it. He needed to fill me, or I would die.
I broke long enough to turn and shove the papers and books off his antique executive desk. They hit the floor with a crash, but I was already sitting on the edge of it, pulling Grim toward me. Understanding innately, he backed me farther onto the surface. Grim pushed my leather dress up around my hips while positioning me at the edge of the desk.
“No panties,” he mused, eyes hooded. He took himself in hand, the tip already glistening with his desire.
Panic and need crawled up my throat faster as what felt like a hysterical breakdown threatened to beat him to the punch. My desperate urge to be filled had already turned my center liquid.
My bronze god wasted no time entering me. He stretched me, filling me in the way I needed. My body clenched around him, as if never wanting to release him. I cried out, a million emotions rioting through me—fear, desire, and the word I refused to let touch my tongue, though it squeezed my heart with painful bindings.
This felt right. He felt like home. Wherever Grim was, it’s where I belonged, and I never belonged anywhere before.
A hand cupped my face and I saw so much love and reverence in his eyes. I saw a mirror image of the same hunger that gnawed at the pit of me. We'd both been alone for far too long. No one really seeing us, only seeing what they wanted to see.
My aunt and uncle saw a girl they could use to complete the image of the perfect family, to hide the ugliness inside them. Qwynn saw power, and possession. And the world saw him as darkness, as salvation, as the end.
But I saw Grim, and he saw me. We could be messy, combative, and petty. But no matter what, I could always be myself and completely accepted the way I was. I’d become addicted to that.
Grim’s body rocked and my hips met his rhythm, stroke for stroke. My legs wrapped around his hips as he pulled me closer, driving deeper into me. The friction of his hard strokes sent shockwaves of pleasure radiating through me, sending me higher and higher. His forehead rested against mine and our eyes stayed locked. Molten gold moved like liquid in his powerful eyes, occasionally sparking. He was mine. The god of death himself loved me, and he would have to live for me. I couldn’t accept anything less.
“More,” I gasped.
Grim obeyed, straightening to speed up, thrusting deeper and harder. My fingers clawed for purchase—in his hair, along with the straining bulges of his arm muscles, his strong shoulders.
“I’m here,” he rasped. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Even as my body tightened around him, pushing toward the breaking point, the lump in my throat doubled.
Say it. Say it now. Say you love him.
