side… I was caged.
I thought about kicking West, kneeing him in the back of the thigh—when a solid, strong hand closed on the back of my neck. I froze, heart leaping into my throat. Was Arthur back?
Then the callous, cocksure voice I would recognize in my marrow spoke. “Don’t move. Don’t react.”
Grayson must have come up the steps.
“Do you remember those first nights you slept in my bed? I asked you a question then.”
How could I ever forget our first nights? They were engraved on my bones.
Have you ever come on someone’s hand, Snitch?
Do you want to?
Maybe he felt my neck heat, maybe he saw the blush on my cheeks, but he made a sound low in his throat, all manly satisfaction that settled deep in my thighs.
“You remember.” His lips were pressed close to my ear. “I want to feel you come on my hand. So be a good little wife and don’t talk. Don’t make any noise. I’ll be pretty fucking pissed if you get yourself caught.”
I looked around; no one had noticed us. I was hidden behind West and the terrace was packed. If you managed to see us…it probably looked like we were just two more people standing close together.
But all West had to do was turn around. “West—the paparazzi—” I broke off, sucking in air.
Grayson slammed me back against his body using only my neck. “The fuck did I say about warning me?”
His free hand gripped my stomach, pressing me harder against his chest, his iron cock. I swallowed, throat thick.
I stared at West’s shoulder blades, heart thudding as Grayson ripped my head to the side, hot mouth landing on my exposed neck. I was helpless and his.
A heroine in an old gothic romance.
Stuck in the hands of the monster, at his mercy.
“I don’t fucking care,” he growled, grip bruising my swollen stomach. “Let them see. Let them all see you’re mine.”
He was a drug, sliding into my system. Intoxicating and overtaking the consequences.
Let them see I’m his.
Let me be his.
My head fell on his chest.
“Good fucking girl.” His chest rumbled on my back, his approval like sweet wine in my blood. “That’s my girl.” His teeth scraped harder at my neck. “You’d let me do anything to you. Anywhere. You could never say no to me, little nun.”
“But you always knew when I should have, Atlas,” I whispered.
That stopped him in his tracks, his blue eyes cracking. At the very same moment, West shook the hand of the man he’d been talking to. He was going to turn around soon.
Gray spoke so low no one else could hear. “Find an excuse to leave or I’m coming back and fucking you in front of everyone. I don’t give a shit what happens.”
Cold. Bored.
Vicious.
Goose bumps rose.
“Five minutes, Snitch.”
He pushed me off him and I stumbled into West, grasping his arm so I didn’t fall. West turned around, steadying me. His eyes narrowed on the now empty steps.
What kind of excuse could I make?
But I believed him.
Thirty
STORY
I knew where to go instinctively—our room.
I first saw the flash of gold, glimmering in the low light. Grayson sat on the ground, one arm on his knee, the other rolling the coin from knuckle to knuckle.
“Grayson?”
“You’re late.” He slammed the coin beside him into a priceless painting.
“I couldn’t…I had trouble getting away.”
A lot of trouble. In fact, I didn’t really get away. I kind of just never went back to West.
“I could take you from him.” He scratched the coin into the paint. “I could use this and take you from him and he couldn’t stop me.”
He knew why he couldn’t do that. He was stuck on the web with me, and didn’t need me pointing it out.
I took a step closer to him.
“I have all the luck in the world…” Scratch.
In the dark, his reckless hair falling over his eyes, and his profile illumined only by the stars outside, Grayson reminded me of a Byronic hero.
Yet even more wild and unhinged.
“You were on your knees. He put you on your knees. I don’t like you on your knees. For him. For anyone.” Scccratch.
I tried to think of what I could say to him, what words would pull Grayson out of this and prove I was his and his only. Then I realized, words could never do it.
So I dropped to my knees. “What about for you?”
He paused, coin mid-scratch and pulling up paint. A thousand looks ran through his eyes.
He exhaled slowly. “You’re cheating.”
I looked up at him from