It took every ounce of willpower not to get hard when she was on my lap, and in the end I failed, even when I got so high I almost didn’t see straight. Because when she came.
Fuck.
When she came.
I slid my hand beneath my satin pants, grasping my cock, a fucking traitor already hard at the thought of her. It was nothing. Story was heroin, pure and simple. A traitorous high not to be trusted. A black sludge I would rip out of my veins no matter the cost.
It wasn’t that I liked the feel of her in my lap.
Thighs spread on mine.
Ass against my cock.
Her small, throaty whimper only I had heard.
Fuck.
I gripped harder. The chandelier above my bed glittered in the moonlight and blurred. I hadn’t wanted to yank her mouth to mine when her head fell to my shoulder. Fucking Snitch, fuck, I hate her. I tugged faster, harder, punishing her. Punishing myself.
Almost there.
I groaned. “Fucking lemons.”
“I’m sorry,” Snitch’s small, raspy voice called in the dark.
I jumped, freezing.
“Jesus fuck.” Heart hammering, I rubbed my forehead. After another breath, I rolled over, head throbbing with adrenaline. Snitch stared up at me, eyes wide and annoyingly cute. She was like a rabbit cuddling against a lion. “You’re awake?”
It was three in the morning.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I really didn’t know about the lemons.”
She thought I was thinking about Lottie.
Lottie, the chick I’ve been chasing since I was a kid.
Lottie, the only one who never cared I was a Crowne.
Lottie, the reason Snitch is asleep on my floor.
“Neither did I,” was all I said.
Because how the fuck did I not know Lottie was allergic to lemons? Sure, Lottie and I had grown apart over the years…but aren’t allergies something you’re born with?
“Why are you awake?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t really sleep.” She stretched, then rubbed her shoulder. I briefly wondered if sleeping on the floor was hurting her. Snitch had no mattress, no pillow, but I’d given her a blanket.
“Looking for more leverage, Snitch?”
She yawned. “It’s the middle of the night. Can we just have a cease-fire. Truce.”
“Truce?”
“I’ll be Story and you be Gray.”
I glared.
Everything said not to trust her, but when she stared up with wide eyes, stifling a yawn, my chest tugged to tell her the truth.
No, I don’t.
She yawned again at the same time her stomach growled, and she slammed her hands across it, like it would cover the sound.
I wondered when the last time she ate was. I hadn’t even fucking thought about it. Had she been feeding herself?
“Fine. Whatever. Truce.”
Her eyebrows shot into her head. “To be honest, after what happened…I thought you were going to, like, bastinado me.”
Bastinado.
Only Snitch would use a word like that. I smiled, because in the dark she couldn’t see.
Only Snitch? The fuck is wrong with me?
I rubbed my eye until I saw white.
“You have another chance to fix what you fucked tomorrow—or today, I guess. Another day, another party. If you fuck it up again…” I raked my gaze over her body, a brief part of me wanting her to fuck it up. I shook my head and rolled back onto my back, staring up at my chandelier.
A few more minutes passed, Snitch tossing and turning. I opened my mouth to tell her to get up on the bed, but stopped. What the fuck was happening to me? Snitch was a means to an end.
Nothing more.
Snitch finally settled down, and for a second I thought she’d fallen asleep; then her quiet, husky voice drifted into the dark.
“I don’t know how you can…do…the things you do to me…and also be with Lottie.”
“What things have I done to you, Snitch? I remember you getting off on my leg.” I shifted, adjusting my dick.
“That was…I…you started it.”
“But you finished.”
Snitch inhaled sharply, and I drew my lip between my teeth, trying to stop another fucking smile.
“You’re twisting everything,” she finally said.
I closed my eyes. I could fall asleep to her voice. Like good, clean whiskey. Smoky and sweet. The kind I used to steal from my dad.
“Whatever things I do to you don’t concern her.”
She scoffed. “I guess Playboy Gray is somewhat accurate.”
I opened my eyes and rolled over, glaring down at her. “Am I supposed to be faithful to the idea of someone? Lottie is probably fucking someone as we speak.”
I grimaced and rolled back.
“She’s not my girlfriend.” I exhaled. “We aren’t together. Lottie has no idea she’s getting married, much less to me.”
“That’s horrible.” I could picture her open mouth, her wide eyes.
“That’s how things work in our world.”
Wedding days are funerals, the only difference is the women wear white veils to hide their running mascara.
Of course, it isn’t completely ancient. We all have the option to say no—and lose everything. Our inheritance. Our family. Our social circle.
“Just tell her the truth,” Snitch said fervently. “It was all a mistake. Or tell her I did it on purpose, that I knew you were going to be there and wanted to kiss the Grayson Crowne. I’ll say it’s true.”
I shifted, a muscle in my back straining. Why would she do that?
“It won’t do any good.”
“But why—”
“Why not?” I cut her off before she could press. Fuck, Snitch really didn’t know when to let things go. She had no sense of self-preservation. It was annoyingly endearing. Everyone around me was too afraid to ask me real questions. They asked questions only if they were certain of the answer, sure it would make me smile.
Not Snitch.
Snitch asked because she didn’t know.
I craned my head to the side, catching her hazel gaze. “Because I’m Playboy Gray, and you’re just another girl I convinced to lie for me.” She looked away, and I looked back at the ceiling, stretching my arms. “I’ve loved Lottie from afar for years. She’s always made it clear she never returned my affection. She…”
She never wanted anything to do with who I was perceived to be, the Crowne family, and what it meant to be in it.
Can’t say I blame her.
I cleared my throat. “I spent all year courting her, Snitch, convincing her I wasn’t who she thought I was, for that one moment in the antique room.”
All, in hopes that maybe I’d do the impossible and marry a girl who wants to marry me too.
I rubbed my head. Fuck. This wasn’t like me. I didn’t talk to anyone. The closest I ever got was with Woodsy.
A Crowne bends, it breaks.
“I didn’t think I would ever hear you say the word love,” she whispered.
“If you tell anyone—”
“I won’t. And even if I did, no one would believe me.”
My brow knitted at her easy acceptance. Another ghostly silence spread between us, and I figured she’d started to drift to sleep, when she spoke.
“I’m sorry. I’ll try harder. Tomorrow—err, today. I’ll learn everything about Charlotte du Lac! I won’t stop until I’ve fixed it. I promise. I know you don’t know me very well, and what you do know isn’t great. But I will fix it. I don’t steal what doesn’t belong to me. I don’t rip apart people’s love. I don’t do that.”
A whisper of a smile ghosted my lips. Even if I couldn’t see her, I could see the look on her face. The determination pinching her plump lips.
“Truce over, Snitch. Go to sleep.”
I must’ve eventually fallen asleep, because soon light blared against my lids. Groggy, I lifted my head. Always gro
ggy. None of us Crownes slept well. My grandfather didn’t sleep, liked to compare himself to Teddy Roosevelt too much. My mother and my sister Gemma used pills. I don’t know what Abigail did; maybe she slept with her demons like me.
I shook the hair out of my eyes and got out of bed.
“Ouch!” Snitch yelped, rubbing her thigh.
I lifted my foot back instantly.
“Sorry. Not used to having guests,” I said.
Not used to having people, period.
She shot me a look. I could tell she didn’t believe I hadn’t done it on purpose, but I didn’t care enough to tell her. I waited for her to look at me, or look at me then look away, but she only glared at the floor. Her lips were a soft heart in the dawn light, begging to be kissed, sucked, bruised.
I jumped out of bed, putting distance between us. Snitch really was poison ivy. Itchy, painful, annoying, impossible to ignore until you rip it out at the roots.
“Umm…Gray,” she called. “I mean, Mr. Crowne.”
I paused at the stairs. “Yeah?”
“Umm…if I’m going to stay with you…I need to shower, and stuff.”
It happened in a flash, before I had a second to fight back. Snitch naked, and then I was hard, fucking rigid. I shifted, swallowing, rubbing my right eye until I saw white, trying to rid the image of Snitch. What did she look like underneath all those clothes?
I can’t decide if it’s a good thing that she dresses like an Amish nun, if seeing what’s beneath those clothes would drive me crazier, or stop my wondering.
“There are four-and-a-half bathrooms in my wing,” I said, voice rough. “You can use one. Never use mine; it’s the north one.”
I picked up my pace, taking the open stairs two at a time.
“Wait!” she called after me. “Which one can I use?”
I took a detour into my office and slammed the door shut behind me. I didn’t move. My heart pounded, and I felt like I’d just run from the fucking cops. My cock was hard as a rock. I couldn’t stop getting hard around this girl. I banged my head against the door, willing my cock to go down.
The shower turned on, water spraying. It sounded close, like she’d chosen the one just down the hall, and I went rigid at the thought of her, water running down her body. I had only the barest idea of what she looked like. Her clothes were so damn bulky and shapeless, but I knew what she felt like against my chest, how her thighs spread between mine.
But how did her hips curve?
I didn’t move from my spot. Listening to the water spraying. My cock pressed against my sweats, a wet spot darkening the fabric. Since she came on my thigh, I couldn’t get the thought of her pussy out of my damn head. Now I was picturing it—her—naked, wet.
Water dripping down her gingerbread skin.
Between her thighs.
Fuck it.
It’s like porn. It doesn’t mean shit if I jack off to her. I slid my hand beneath my pants, grasping hot, rigid flesh, determined to finish what I’d started earlier. Get it out of my system.
I stroked myself to the spray of the shower, the image of her like a siren calling to me. Her skin is so fucking soft. The kind for kissing and sucking and biting. She hides so much of it. I bet it’s soft everywhere. I groaned, the doorknob digging into my back.
Bite me harder.
Fuck—that hickey I gave her is faded. I want to mark her again. Cover her in bruises. Between her thighs. On her cunt.
My grip tightened. I tugged.
Hear her gasp when I sink my teeth and tongue into her.
Feel her nails dig into me.
Her—oh—shit.
I banged my head against the door, coming with a groan as my orgasm ripped its way out of my body.
I breathed in and out, sweat beading my throat and chest. Holy shit. I can’t remember the last time I came that hard or fast from jerking off.
I lifted my hand at the sticky mess.
Or the last time I came on my hand.
I don’t know what it is about her. Everything was the opposite of what I should want. She looked a little bit like Lottie, but she was nothing like Lottie. Lottie was quiet, reserved. Contrary to her outfit, this girl was a blaring siren.
I know despite whatever we talked about last night, Snitch was still like every other girl out there, someone who only knew the Grayson Crowne. Whether it was my money, my name, or what they printed in the magazines, whatever she’d fallen for was a mirage. And like them, she’d eventually seek to take.
I cleaned up and decided on a very fucking cold shower. Maybe by the time I was done her hair would be dry. The thought of wet curls dripping around her heart-shaped face, soaking into her clothes—fuck.
I shook my head.
Ice-cold shower.
I pushed the door open to my master bath; then everything in my head short circuited.
Snitch naked.
Well, fuck.
Question answered.
Our eyes locked in the same instant she screamed.
Twelve
STORY
* * *
I scrambled for a towel, out of my mind with embarrassment, but Grayson didn’t make any move. He just watched me.
“You said I could use any but the north one!” I said, shielding my body with the plush silver towel.
“This is the north one,” Grayson said, an utterly addictive grit roughening his voice, like smooth whiskey.
I mentally did my never-eat-soggy-waffles and…shit.
This bathroom was nice, but I just figured it was Grayson’s wing, so everything must be nice. The bath was bigger than most hot tubs and overlooked the ocean. In the shower, I imagined putting my elbows on the thin edge and staring out at the dark-blue waves.
Grayson studied my body without shame. Goose bumps pebbled my skin and slid into my throat as I watched him get hard beneath his gray sweats. A long, thick, tapered outline growing more and more defined. My eyes darted from it, to his eyes, back to it. His just-slept-in hair was even sexier, messier, matching the look in his eyes.
“Grayson?” Mrs. Tansy Crowne’s voice cut into the moment. “Grayson, are you here?”
My head snapped to her voice. Tansy fucking Crowne was out there, and I was naked with her favorite child.
“Sec,” he called back, voice hard, eyes still locked on me.
I couldn’t read the look in his eyes; it was dark and muddled. A quiet Grayson was a dangerous Grayson. Quiet Grayson had led me to the secret gambling den where I spent a night thinking he was going to bet me. Where I came so hard I saw stars…
“What are you doing?” I said low, so Tansy couldn’t hear.
My eyes kept bouncing back to his hard cock. He didn’t make me come yesterday because he cared. He did it to humiliate me. He wasn’t actually into me. I was shit to him. Charlotte was the girl in his dreams. I was the girl ruining them.
The butterflies in my stomach would just have to listen.
Gray held out his hand. “Give me my towel.”
I clutched it harder against my body. “What?”
He had no emotion in his voice, nothing. All fire, everything, was gone.
“I said, give me my fucking towel. I gave you one rule and you broke it. Which I’m starting to think is your deal.”
All the emotion and intensity that had clouded Gray’s face was gone. He was back to his normal half smile quirking his cheek.
I knew he was doing this to humiliate me.
To punish me for being in his bathroom.
But I wouldn’t give him my reaction. I took a breath, then stood. I undid the towel, holding tight for a fraction of a second before dropping it to the floor. I kicked it into the corner. His eyes blazed; then he turned on his heel, shutting the bathroom door behind him.
GRAY
* * *
I stared at the door.
My imagination was weak fucking drink. The hair she kept up fell to her back, curls a careless halo around her face. She looked untamed. Divine. Water
dripped down her curves like she was a seventeenth-century oil painting. Her breasts were full, the perfect size for my hands, begging to be bruised and bitten.
When my eyes dropped between her thighs, that was the moment I knew I was fucked.
A freshly shaved pussy. God fucking dammit. It was like a nun just ripped off her habit, revealing a sex kitten. Snitch was a paradox inside a contradiction. A strong jaw holding too-soft lips. Sex wrapped inside purity.
“Grayson?” my mother called, and I realized she’d been talking. “Did you hear what I said?”
I blinked, finding my mother holding her neck softly with her right hand.
“No. Sorry.”
“I said, did you see the latest stunt your sister pulled last night?”
Are you coming right now?
“I was a bit preoccupied.”
“Well, Abigail destroyed my beautiful maze.”
“Ah.” So that was why it was on fucking fire.
“Honestly, I’ve been up all night,” Mom continued. “Your poor sister struggles so much with emotions she can’t control. You know how your cousin Emmaline went on that retreat? She came back so much more…refined. I think it might be good for Abigail.”
Emmaline was all but fucking lobotomized. Our cousins looked at Rosemary Kennedy and thought, Well done.
This isn’t unusual behavior, my mother threatening one of my sisters in my presence. It’s a dance we do. She threatens them, and then I give up something so she doesn’t go through with it. Usually we’re more passive, we dance around it.
Gemma was caught with a gardener again, she might do better if we restrict her access to her own wing…oh, it’s such a shame how you keep ending up on those covers, Grayson.
Today I don’t feel like fucking dancing. “What is it you want, Mother?”
She made a sound in her throat like I’d just insulted her very core. “To talk with my son.”
But she didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t leave.
I guess we were fucking dancing.
“Something on your mind, Mom?
“If you really want to know…the house is atwitter with gossip.”
Stolen Soulmate Page 8
