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My face smooshes into the carpet as I stare at him, panting and unable to catch my breath. I can’t help but place my hand over that stunning tattoo and feel the rapid beat of his heart. “Who would have known that depriving you of a good time for so long would have you leveling up to beast mode?”
Grayson laughs and reaches for me before pulling me up onto his lap and letting me collapse against his strong chest. “There was no leveling up required,” he teases. “I’ve just been holding out on you, saving it for when I really needed it.”
A soft chuckle pulls from my lips and I let out a deep breath, wondering just how long we can stay hidden here in my closet because leaving this space and not letting the moment go on forever would be an absolute tragedy.
Grayson grips my chin and gently raises it until I meet his softening stare and see nothing but a fierce seriousness deep within his gaze. “I love you, Ellie,” he whispers. “I don’t ever want to be without you.”
I nod, feeling that invisible tether that was destroyed in the cabin explosion come back stronger and fiercer than ever. “I love y—”
My words are cut off when his warm lips crush against mine, not allowing me a chance to say what I needed to say, but it doesn’t matter anyway because I know he feels it, just as I do. Grayson and I are back, stronger than ever before. But instead of seeing me as the girl who needs his protection, a weak outcast with no hope, he sees me as his equal, a girl who doesn’t need his protection, but will dominate with him standing at her side.
CHAPTER 17
Disappointment floods me as I look over the selections that the heads of Dynasty have offered up as the replacements for both the Scardoni and Harding families. There’s not a single female applicant, and honestly, I would have thought that after everything I’ve fought through and all the strength and courage I’ve shown to hold onto my position, the men of Dynasty would have already figured out that females are clearly the superior gender.
Well ... not always. When it comes to my four boys and the way they fuck, hands down they’d take first prize every damn time, but when it comes down to leadership, women have proven over and over again, that we’ve got what it takes. If only men and their egos weren’t standing in the way.
The chair scrapes along the marble tile as I drop my ass back into it, letting out a loud, frustrated huff as I go. “What’s the matter?” Cruz murmurs, moving in beside me and bracing his hand against the table, scanning over the pages of applicants that are spread out before me.
“Nothing,” I grumble, reaching for the next applicant and flipping through the manila folder until I get to the section that holds all of the skeletons this guy was probably hoping to keep locked away until his dying days. “I just … I was hoping this was going to be a little more exciting.”
“Then stop,” Grayson says, striding into the living room with a small tumbler in his hand, most likely filled with an expensive whiskey and a few perfectly round pieces of ice. “We all know that you’re going to go with the guys that King and Carver put up.”
“Well, yeah, but don’t I owe it to the people of Dynasty to actually take the other applicants into consideration?” I ask. “And besides, I promised that I would narrow the applicants down to five or six for the other heads to vote on, so I need to make sure that the other applicants that I put through are worthy of taking on the role because there’s a good chance that King and Carver’s selections might not get through.”
“It’s going to be fine,” Carver says, taking the spot on my right and scooping up the application that I just finished with. He leans right back in his seat and props his feet up on the table before flipping open the front page to see the applicant’s details. “Our guys are going to get through. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
I scoff and slam my elbow into his feet, knocking them off the table. “I have a whole fucking society to worry about. If the wrong guy gets voted in, we could be backing ourselves into a corner.”
“Which won’t happen,” King says from the head of the table. I glance up to find his heavy stare on me, his brows furrowed and his stubborn attitude laid out on the table for the world to see, putting me on guard. But what’s new? He’s been a sour asshole since the second I got home despite not having the right to be, and for that, I do everything that I can to get on his very last nerve. “We’ve got our bases covered. It’s a game of mathematics. Put only five applicants through for the vote and just make sure that apart from mine and Carver’s selections, the rest of the applicants are so undesirable that the other heads have no choice but to vote for our guys.”
