I Will Revel in Glory

by Stunich, C. M.

  “Gidget, come with me,” Crown orders briskly, dropping his smile. He saunters off like he expects me to follow like a trained dog, and I bristle.

  “Well, I never,” Reba murmurs, finally getting the brush to glide through my hair without encountering any snags. “Are you really gonna let him talk to you like that? The man is rude.”

  Grey chuckles, and I smile, gently pushing Reba’s hands away, grabbing my food, and taking off after Crown. I find him waiting for me on the stairs, gaze focused on the landing and not on me.

  He doesn’t even look back at me as he starts to climb, leaving Reba and Grey alone in the kitchen. That’s a big deal to me. Crown doesn’t trust Grey for shit, but I trust Grey, and he’s putting his faith in me. He’s accepted that maybe on this subject, my judgment is slightly clearer than his.

  It’s the silent gestures like that which seem to matter the most.

  Fem-fem follows me into the entryway, but I point at him with a single finger, opening the lid of my food and extracting a single fry.

  “Stay,” I command him, tossing the fry over before closing my container back up. He snatches it midair and then whines, but he does lay down, his single paw stretched out in front of him, and watches me ascend the staircase by myself. Not sure if it was our time spent apart, the new environment or what, but my beautiful husky boy seems more clingy than usual.

  Crown hesitates slightly at the top of the stairs before moving over to his room and opening the door. He steps aside to gesture me in, and then closes and locks the door while watching me settle onto his bed.

  The very first thing I do is get ketchup on the pristine white linens, and he frowns.

  “Shit, sorry,” I say, spitting on the long sleeve of the pullover sweater and scrubbing at it. “Little elbow grease, and this’ll come right out.”

  “You’ve never once tried to get a ketchup stain out of anything, have you?” Crown asks, moving over to sit on the edge of the bed. He’s close enough to me, but not too close. He gives the stain one last wrinkle-edged sneer with his mouth and then opens the box of food.

  Watching him now, I realize how monumental this really is.

  If I’d told sixteen-year-old me that I’d be sitting here next to this man, sharing a meal, and getting a pass on staining his pretty little bed, I’d have scoffed and probably thrown something. I take a very careful bite of the burger.

  “I don’t think you’re eating enough,” he says, and I pause with the food still partially bitten and sitting in my mouth.

  “Eh?” I grunt around the food, finishing the bite, chewing carefully, and swallowing with suspicion. Like … what the fuck is he even talking about? My heart starts to race, and I feel like I might throw up.

  Crown ignores me, tearing into his burger but looking at the wall instead of my face. It’s annoying as fuck. I pluck a fry from my box and throw it at him. It hits him in the chest and falls into his lap. He looks down at it, picks it up, and folds it between his lips.

  “It’ll be nice to have my bed back,” he remarks absently. He glances my way, moss green eyes taking in the damage to my face before he scowls and looks at the wall again. Of course he’s mad at Gaz, but I think he’s also mad at himself. “Now that you and Beast are married.”

  He turns back to me, and I frown, taking another bite of my burger and leaving the elephant to sit pretty in the corner of the room. I’m crazy. I must be crazy. I keep feeling like they’re all about to tell me something I don’t want to hear.

  He didn’t … like, cheat on me with a groupie or something when he disappeared, did he?

  No, no, that’s ridiculous. Isn’t it? But he’s acting weird as hell.

  “This is my room,” I say, and Crown literally throws his food at the wall. I kid you not. He just fucking chucks it and lets fries explode all over the floor. He turns back to me and rakes his hand through his hair.

  “Goddamn it, Gidget,” he grinds out, looking like he’s about to lose his shit. “You want to know where I was during the reception?”

  My heart skips a beat, but I don’t say anything. I just stare at him. Then I take another bite of fry, and he stands up suddenly, turning to look directly at me.

  “I had to take a walk to calm myself down.”

  “Calder,” I start, and he scoffs at me.

  “Stop that. Calling me by my real name isn’t going to change what I want to say.” He stares down at me with a very serious, very dark expression on his face. Doesn’t scare me. He literally cannot scare me, not now. Not ever. “I had to take a walk and ask myself if I could do it.”

  “Do what?” I ask, and Crown laughs dryly.

  “Watch you marry another guy,” he says, and then my stomach lurches, and my eyes go wide. Please don’t say it. Don’t say it. It isn’t true. “Or watch you have another man’s baby.”

  “No,” I say, nice and firm. Deliberate. “I’m not pregnant.”

  “You are pregnant,” Crown says, and I want to scream. I want to throw my own food at the wall like a thirty-year-old brat. Instead, I make myself sit still and keep eating. They can’t know that. They can’t. “Grainger told me before the wedding.”

  “I hope your balls rot off and your dick gets infested with maggots,” I snarl at him, but he just stands there and stares at me while I feel like my body’s rocking on a boat astride a stormy sea. I might puke. Oh fuck. No. “You’re full of shit.”

  “You’re pregnant whether you like it or not,” Crown hisses, leaning over and putting his palms on either side of my legs. The mattress dents slightly, and I drift toward him without meaning to. Turning, I look right into his face, and I feel my emotions cracking and breaking like thin ice. “Grainger even showed me both tests.”

  “I want to see them,” I demand, as if that’ll make this better. I’m definitely in shock right now. The world rocks on its axis yet again, and I shove another fry between my lips. Fuck.

  “Good luck. They were in Grainger’s pocket when the blast went off.” Crown looks right at me, still frowning. Our mouths are close enough to kiss, but I get the feeling that neither of us is in the mood right now. I know that I’m not anyway.

  Pregnant? I don’t want to have a goddamn baby.

  I close my eyes and groan, putting my head in my hand and nearly knocking my forehead against Crown’s. He draws back slightly, letting out a long, tired sounding sigh. I kept wondering where he was yesterday, what he was doing, but now that I’m thinking more clearly, I imagine he was dealing with politics, with Cat specifically. Probably cleaning up other bodies.

  I’ve been selfish as fuck.

  “Have you slept in the last twenty-four hours?” I ask, closing my eyes. When Crown doesn’t reply, I have my answer. “You aren’t an infallible being, Crown. You’re not fucking Hercules. You need sleep.”

  “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” he quips back at me, and I open my eyes to return his stare.

  Crown moves over to the box of spilled food and begins dutifully cleaning it up. The move annoys me so much that I really do pick up my box and consider throwing it at him. But with a sigh of my own, I set it back down and continue eating. I’m not wasting a single fry.

  My stomach rumbles, and I cringe, gritting my teeth.

  “I don’t know which one of you assholes got me pregnant,” I say, but Crown ignores me, taking the box of spilled fries into the bathroom. Presumably he’s throwing them away and washing his hands. With a frown, I shove my food aside again and stand up, opening the top drawer of his dresser and digging around. I look in the nightstands next and, bingo, there it is.

  A small velvet box.

  I lift it out and crack it open.

  “Gidge, what the fuck are you doing?” Crown asks me, and I turn around slowly. With great defiance, I continue opening the lid and stare down at the silver band with the large octagonal cut ruby at its center.

  I take the ring out and slide it onto my finger above the rings Beast gave me.

  It fits perfectly.
>
  I look up at Crown in challenge.

  “How did you know my ring size? Are you a serial killer or something?” I ask him, and he frowns again.

  “Probably. What’s the rule? Three or more victims? Anyway, I’m sure I qualify.” He delivers that bit of news in a completely insipid sort of way, but I can feel the fury still simmering underneath.

  “This fits.” I hold up my hand and Crown’s eyes find the ring. His lip curls at the edge before he meets my eyes again. “It’s mine.”

  He comes at me so fast that I barely have time to scramble over the bed to the other side. We stand facing each other as Crown crosses his arms over his chest.

  “Don’t be like this, Gidge,” he warns me, but I’ve already spilled ketchup on his blanket, so … fuck it. “We’ll get a DNA test, but it’s likely Grainger’s baby.”

  My turn to frown back at him. I have a sense that these are two completely different issues. I feel like I might pass out.

  Really lived up to those high expectations, eh Gidge? Eighteen, married, high school dropout, pregnant, negotiating deals with the mafia. Sounds about right.

  “And what if it is? What if it’s Sin’s?” I curl my hand into a fist, running my thumb over the surface of the ruby. “What if it’s yours?”

  Crown just keeps staring at me. And then he’s moving even more quickly than I thought possible. He hops the bed like it’s nothing. His hands grab my wrists and slam them into the door behind my head. He holds me there with his right hand and uses his left to steal the ring back.

  “Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” he asks softly, still keeping me pinned there. He slips the ring in his pocket and then rests his big hand on the curve of my waist. I’m panting as I look up at him, at the classic good looks that hide the monster underneath.

  I should’ve known he was the one who’d give me the most trouble.

  “You can’t give this house or this ring to another woman,” I declare, and Crown laughs. It’s a low, dark sound.

  “Can’t I?” he asks me, but in a manner that’s … mocking? Like when I asked him about Amber’s ring. What did he say?

  “How could you think that? I … fuck, I put everything on the line for you.”

  “You’re married to another man,” he growls out, his gaze so intense that I squirm beneath it, tugging on my wrists and knowing that I’m not going anywhere. If I wanted to, I could use one of the moves that Beast taught me to get out of this.

  I don’t bother.

  “Even if you were going to get with another woman, it’d be fucked to give them this house or that ring.” I nod my chin in his direction. “No woman wants a secondhand house or worse—a secondhand engagement ring. You’re not as much of a hero as you pretend to be; you don’t get it.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Crown says, leaning down and brushing his hot mouth over mine, just enough to taste. “But who the fuck do you think you are, giving me dating advice? I won’t be bossed around by an eighteen-year-old girl inside my own house.”

  “It’s my house,” I repeat yet again, and then Crown’s mouth is taking mine with savage ferocity, making my toes curl against the wood floors as his tongue sweeps over mine in the most demanding and infuriating way possible. His hand on my waist flexes, wrinkling up the sweatshirt and making the bruises beneath ache in an entirely different way than they did before.

  My hips thrust forward of their own accord, grinding against the front of Crown’s jeans.

  “I was moping, and I almost missed it,” he growls again, and then he’s kissing me so hard that I can’t breathe, and his hand is reaching for the button on my jeans. I just barely remember that Beast asked me not to have sex with anyone else.

  Fair enough, considering we only got the chance to consummate our marriage with a quick, wild rut. I push Crown’s hand away, and he turns his head sharply, closing his eyes and sucking in a sharp breath.

  “Beast and I haven’t really had a wedding night …” I hazard, knowing that I have to say it whether it pisses Crown off or not. He releases me suddenly and stands up, turning back to watch me as I rub at my wrists. They don’t hurt; they burn.

  I want Crown to hold me down on his bed and fuck me so hard that the old wood frame breaks into pieces. I want to dent the wall with him. I want to scream and tear his back to ribbons.

  Instead, I lean my body against the door as he prowls around to the opposite side of the bed, inserting the ring into the box, and then carefully replacing it inside his nightstand drawer next to a spare, pre-loaded pistol.

  He closes the drawer and then looks over at me.

  I’m sure I still look hideous with all the swelling in my face, but that’s not how Crown looks at me. He looks at me in such a way that I imagine he’s calculating the risks of breaking Beast’s barriers and taking me anyway. I really hope he doesn’t do that; we need balance here.

  “If the baby isn’t mine,” he starts, and my heart stutters strangely in my chest. Not only do I not want a baby period, but I also don’t like the way he’s talking, as if this is it, as if our chances of being together rest on some stupid fucking DNA test. “Then I want a baby of my own next. That’s my ask.”

  I just stare at him, blinking through the confusion.

  “What?” I choke out as he comes back over to stand near me, slamming his palm on the door near my head and breathing in the scent of my hair. Crown reaches up to run inked fingers through it.

  “If you want the farmhouse and you want the ring … if you want me … you will—to the best of your ability—give me a baby sometime in the next …” Crown trails off, lifting his eyes to the ceiling in thought. “Five years.” He gives a little raise of his lip as he looks down at me. “I don’t know how I feel about you having a baby at eighteen anyway.”

  “You want a baby from me?” I choke out at him, ducking under his arm and moving away toward a horrible painting of a flower on the wall. It’s so very … not like Crown. It fits the farmhouse vibe, I guess. I wonder if he picked it up at an antique store or something? Anyway, I hate it. I want to take it down and replace it with something else.

  I turn around.

  “I’m not a womb for rent. I’m not a fucking baby factory.”

  He gives me a look, moving back over to me yet again. I circle around him, but he just follows after me until we’re standing close and facing each other.

  “What if I can’t have kids?” Maybe a weird thing to ask considering the circumstances, but a pregnancy doesn’t always result in a baby. “What if … I get injured between now and then? What if I have this kid, and it’s Grainger’s, and I almost bleed to death and never want to do it again?”

  “Semantics. I said everything in your power,” he tells me, looking me over like he’s already looking forward to the ‘fucking’ portion of the baby making equation. “Is that a lot to ask? For me to give up all of my other hopes and dreams?”

  “You should be able to say yes to this without asking me to farm your seed,” I snap at him, but he just smiles tightly.

  “You should be able to agree to my terms without hesitation.”

  There’s a long pause where I see that we’re both right. I want four men. Crown wanted one woman. He’s asking for a baby. I don’t know how to feel about that.

  “If I agree to this, can I have some of your money to buy new clothes and décor that doesn’t look like it belongs in my grandmother’s house?”

  “Huh,” Crown says, but his breathing’s heavy. He looks dead serious. He looks scary as fuck. I mean, he would if I were anyone else.

  “Or I could take a quarter of your money, a quarter of Beast’s, a quarter of Sin’s, a quarter of Grainger’s … Having a one-fourth wife is cheaper than having a whole one.”

  “Have you talked to Beast about this?” Crown asks, raising his brows at me. He isn’t latching onto my desire for dark humor. Always so damn serious, this motherfucker. “Or Sin and Grainger for that matter?”

  “Not exactly,” I confirm
with a slight cringe. “Well, Sin, yes. But no on the other two.”

  Crown goes to move away, and I step forward, causing him to stop.

  “You guys don’t have time for your own wives anyway; this is better.”

  He narrows his eyes and moves back toward me, sliding his fingers into my hair and making me shiver with a violent shimmer of heat.

  “You don’t need to spend anymore time convincing me; I told you what I want.” He wets his lips, and I can see that he’s thinking about kissing me again.

  “Give me the ring,” I repeat, and he shakes his head. I’m not sure whether he takes that as my agreeing to his conditions or not. I am not sure if I’m agreeing to his conditions or not.

  “If you’re going to wear it, I’m going to give it to you properly. You’ll have to wait.” He scoffs at me. “Impatient little brat.”

  I reach down to cup him through his jeans, loving the way his breath hisses out between his teeth.

  “I thought old men had a harder time getting it up; you seem to be doing just fine though.”

  Crown snorts at me and then wraps his other arm around my waist, yanking me close.

  “Jesus Christ, you’re an asshole,” he growls, and then he’s kissing me again. His fingers knead the back of my head as his arm bands tight, pulling me firmly against him. My hands fist in the leather of his cut, my poor chipped nails scratching at the VP patch.

  Crown groans as I arch into him, allowing him to take whatever it is that he wants from my lips. Whatever he needs. I moan in response, clawing at him, wishing I could get closer, wishing with every beat of my heart that we could fuck right now.

  The way he kisses me … I know his answer.

  He’s demanding a baby; he’d settle without one if he had to.

  My hands slide up to his firm shoulders, kneading the tense flesh and making him growl at me again.

  And then I finally—fucking finally, I could sob—feel what it’s actually like when Crown allows himself to have me.

  I think … I mean, I know that I’m the only woman in the world that’s ever felt this way with him. He could’ve fucked a thousand groupies for all I care, but not a one of them would ever know what it’s like to be in my position.