“That was abso-fucking-lutely not a joke.”
He shut off the water, and when we got out of the shower and into towels, Grim brushed my hair. I let him do that, too. He even took the curl cream from me after he was done, insisting on applying that for me, too.
“I could get used to this,” I said.
“Yeah, me too,” he replied, the smallest catch in his voice. Enough of one to bring all my worries rushing back. I wouldn’t dare let my heart sink under the weight of them. Not so long as I had him with me. Not when I wanted our time together, however long that happened to be, to be happy.
When he carried me to my bed, I held on to him extra tight.
“Don’t tell me you have to go,” I whisper-pleaded when he laid me on the covers.
“Not yet,” he said. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
“Stay. Please.”
He evaporated and re-formed on the bed next to me.
Unable to help myself, I all but attacked him, kissing him as I straddled him.
“We think the same, librarian,” he said, his human voice rough with renewed desire as those tattooed, ring-lined hands, following my curves, fell down my body, which once again came alive under his touch.
Then I relished giving him a taste of his own shock-rock medicine when, guiding his hard shaft to my entrance, I lowered myself onto him, moaning as he again filled me to stretching.
His mouth fell open in awe before he seized my hips. I rode him with slow and even movements. For a little while, he even let me have control, his hands only encouraging my rhythm, deepening penetration.
Until he flipped me under him, taking over to make love to me again. Soft, slow, and human this time.
Which maybe, just like him… I needed.
44GRIM
I only departed from Helena after she fell asleep, though I left her a note—again in fucking pink ink—that I’d be back the following night to take her out. Somewhere nice again. At eight.
Left a PS that she shouldn’t wear anything she minded getting ripped off.
What could I say? I knew myself.
About an hour late delivering souls to the Basins but still within the expected time frame, I returned to the Hallowed Halls.
Johann wasn’t at his desk. No bird in sight, either.
It was never my favorite thing to find the old man missing, butIwas the one off schedule, so who was to say he wasn’t just brewing a fresh pot of coffee in the apothecary?
Flora’s statue had its eyes closed—so she was still out.
Hourglass in hand, still drunk on Helena, her scent clinging to me, I trudged toward the Basins.
As I neared the White Basin, I slowed, a sense of ill ease creeping over me—and not just because Johann wasn’t here.
The sensation of eyes boring into my spine had me halting.
For a long moment, I stared forward, but then I swung around sharply, cloak, robes, and mist swirling behind me.
My soul withered, cramming itself into the shape of a human heart behind my sternum before giving one hard thud.
I clamped my hand more tightly around the handle of my scythe, having to fight back the surge of terror that banished, in its entirety, my lingering bliss.
A dark figure stood behind me, black robes spilling long around his form, an obsidian crown encircling his head, its clawlike spikes jutting toward the ceiling.
