Or maybe I just wasn’t her fucking type.
But then Helena did us both in by biting her bottom lip, hungry, bedroom eyes flicking up to me as she seized my belt.
I let her get as far as unfastening it.
34HELENA
I’d never been so turned on in all my life—and so far, he’d hardly touched me.
That kiss, though. Why did I get the impression it had evolved into a preview of… other things?
His muscled arms and lean torso, defined and sculpted—positively ripped—had me all but salivating.
Apparently, wielding a scythe on the daily was agreatworkout.
But the tattoos…
Those gave me pause. Now wasn’t the time for questions, though. I was satisfied with the chance to admire them—and him.
Everything I needed to know in this moment… I did.
He wanted me, too. That was evident in his ravenous gaze alone, but the sizable—perhaps even intimidating—bulge in his jeans erased all doubts.
My fingertips played over his warm skin, appreciating the pattern of shapes—a moth, a spider, a diamond, a dagger… Then my hands went rogue.
After that mind-melting kiss, I couldn’t have hoped to stop them as they latched onto his belt, which I unfastened. I undid the button on his jeans, too, but that’s when my fun ended.
Grim grabbed me, and I only gave the softest yelp when he picked me up and hoisted me over one shoulder before carting me off caveman-style to the bedroom.
I braced my hands against his muscled, tattoo-packed back, lifting my head. My ponytail bobbed in my face, and I blinked in shock while my living room and kitchen vanished.
Delirious, giddy, and maybe a little trepidatious, I had half a mind to wave the main room goodbye.
Then my fairy lights came into view.
God, I hoped there was more of this kind of brutish, reprehensible conduct coming.
I also hoped I was in trouble. Alotof trouble.
As if he’d read my mind, Grim half dropped, half deposited me on the bed, hard enough that I bounced on the mattress.
I’d been wet since the moment I’d laid eyes on him that day, but now I had to be drenched.
Was this really happening? Apparently, death wishes—all of them now—didcome true.
The idea that I hadn’t imagined Grim’s affection for me,orhis desire, had me soaring on the inside.
Terrified in the best way possible, like right before you get on the big looping, upside-down roller coaster, I sat up partway. Squishing my knees together, I gripped the comforter beneath me with both fists as my gaze traveled up those torn jeans, lingering on his unfastened belt and half-fallen zipper.
Lips parted in awe of his physique—and because I was already parched for another scorching kiss—I took a moment to appreciate the newly unveiled patch of tattoo-covered skin there, the V of his hips, and the faint impression of veins under taut skin before trailing my stare back up that chiseled and decorated chest.
I swallowed hard when some deeply felt instinct, perhaps a sliver of what others experienced around him, had me shifting and scooting back on the mattress. Maybe to get a better look athim.Maybeto put distance between us. But Grim put a stop to that quick.
“Don’t move.”
I froze. Then, finally, I found the courage again to meet that cool gaze.
Despite their icy hue, those eyes seared me with a heat that threatened to consume me from the inside out. But behind the roaring hell-flames of reckoning, there lurked something else. A glimmer of that depthless tenderness that, until now, had only been communicated through the comingling of our spirits.
