thumbs, and her words got thinner, threadier.
“I don’t…” I dragged a finger down the line of her cunt. “Want…fuck…oh…” Her pussy twitched for me. “To waste…don’t want to waste these minutes keeping secrets.”
“Trust me, Snitch.” I dragged her thigh over my shoulder. “This isn’t wasted.”
I buried my head in her, and nothing save small, ragged sounds left her lips. I couldn’t see her face, couldn’t see the way her eyes grow and then droop, how her lips part when she swallowed air.
How she begs with just her eyes alone.
I have to go by the way her pussy got wetter on my lips, how her nails dug into my shoulder and her thigh pressed into my head.
The sounds she made.
Fuck.
The sounds. Her soft sighs and her ragged, needy whimpers.
Those were all mine.
“Fuck,” I pulled back. “This is my pussy. It’s always sloppy and wet for me.”
“Don’t stop. Please.” She dug her heel between my shoulder blades. Needy.
Fuck. I shifted on my knees, achingly hard.
I liked her begging.
I trailed my finger between the line of her then—
Slap.
She gasped as my palm collided with her cunt.
“Say it,” I demanded.
“For you,” she breathed, nails biting into my shoulder. “Always for you—”
She broke off, then scrambled to stand up straight. The move forced me to an awkward position between her thighs.
“Snit—”
She fucking stepped on me, silencing me. I tried to slide out of her skirts, move out of the uncomfortable position, and she stepped on my hand.
I was caged between her thighs.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, and in any other situation I’d love to be between her thighs, but I’m crouched in a fucking ball.
No more than a minute later, I have my answer.
In the form of my grandfather.
“Hello, Story. Are you enjoying Christmas?”
STORY
Beryl Crowne stood before me in his iconic three-piece suit—the only thing different an emerald pocket square for the holidays—and Grayson was under my skirt.
He was under my skirt. I gripped the wall behind me for stability. My legs were spread as far as they could go in my crinoline, my hips ached. I fucking prayed it wasn’t noticeable.
“Are you enjoying Christmas?” Beryl asked, taking a sip of his eggnog.
Beryl had always been like the monsters in old fairy tales and stories, a shadowy thing. Seen in half glimpses, his booming voice heard like a dragon’s bellow from a cave.
Now, for the second time in two days, his shark-toothed smile peeked up at me from behind the eggnog in the perfectly polished porcelain cup.
I kept quiet.
“Ah…” He noted my silence. “Smart girl.”
Beryl was handsome—Grayson got his good looks from somewhere—but Beryl was sinister and silver-haired.
I hated him.
There was hate in my heart where it didn’t exist before.
This man had ruined everything. He was at the epicenter of all our pain. West, Lottie, Tansy, and the rest of the du Lacs…they were all a symptom of the greater disease, Beryl Crowne and the world he demanded turned on his say-so.
He smiled broader, like he could see the thoughts in my head.
“You know, you had me fooled. I don’t usually make mistakes, and that’s something for you to be proud of. I thought you were nothing more than a bitter distraction. Another whore trying at the crown.”
I focused hard on something—anything else—so I didn’t give him the satisfaction of my reaction. Grayson’s thumb stroked the bone at my ankle, trying to soothe, but his grip was tense and tight, betraying his anger.
“How long have you known, Story?”
Known what?
Against everything inside me, I met his red-brown eyes. Meeting Beryl Crowne in the eyes. I know I was allowed now, but he would see this for what it was.
Rebellion.
He arched a brow. “I see now you’re more, Story. A different, deadlier breed of trash.”
I felt Grayson tense beneath me, could feel his anger seeping like venom, when out of the bottom of my eyes I saw black—Grayson’s shoes. His shoes had slipped out. I stared unblinking at Beryl, willing him not to look down, where it would be painfully obvious.
Beryl exhaled—bored—and his gaze started to drift.
I had no idea what Beryl was talking about, but I was so tired of them talking down to me, of thinking they were allowed that right. I ground my teeth, trying to hold back.
“Because you’d never expect anything of a servant, would you, Beryl?” I asked. Grayson dug his nails into my thigh, fucking dug—pissed.
Beryl jerked back, eyes wide.
Beryl.
I’d called him Beryl.
My heart was in my throat. But at least he wasn’t looking down.
“Mr. Crowne, you look positively dashing