I came.
I wondered if I’d ever come before. I came with his grip on my jaw so tight I wondered if I’d bruise. I came with his lips on my cheek, not kissing but searing his possession. I came with the look in his eyes still blazing in my mind, setting fire to the pleasure coursing through my body, until I was left ashes.
I fell apart.
I absolutely fell apart.
His name a whisper on my lips.
My insides ripped and shredded, floating in the wind like ash.
The moment I finished, he tore his fingers from my body, as if he couldn’t wait to be done with me.
“I, um…” I blinked. Blinked away the tears. Quickly swiping my face so he couldn’t see. Except the feeling lingered, in my chest, and in the warbled way I spoke. “I thought that you wanted to…you know…”
I couldn’t look at him.
I stared at the door.
I was in so over my head.
I don’t understand how someone could hate me so much, but also look at me like I’m the answer to all his problems. I want to be his answer. For a moment, I swear he looked like he wanted me to be it too.
“I’m Grayson Crowne,” he said. “I’m not taking your V-card. You’re going to give it to me. Beg me to take it.”
Oh, right, he still thinks I’m a virgin. That lie between us, growing like an untamable weed.
“I’ll never do that,” I rasped, staring at the door.
He grasped my chin, ripping open my mouth, thrusting his fingers into it. Forcing me to taste them.
With his fingers gagging me, breath hot against my ear, he said, “You’re a pretty good beggar, Snitch.” Then he dropped me, my head banging against the floor.
Twenty-Nine
STORY
* * *
No falling in love.
I repeated it to myself, a mantra I tried to wrap around myself like steel, as we made our way to the Crowne family jet. Grayson was a few steps ahead and hadn’t said a word since he’d obliterated me. It meant nothing to him.
It couldn’t mean a thing to me.
In fitted dark-blue jeans, blond hair whipping his cheekbones as we got closer to the jet, he looked like something out of a high-fashion magazine. He threw a look over his shoulder, and I glanced down.
The Crowne jet was more famous than Air Force One, and bigger than it too. I’ve packed many things for Crownes who go on the family trip, but of course I’d never been on the jet. My experience with it was through gilded windows and itemized lists. Now I was staring up at the doors as a salty sea breeze whipped tendrils of hair around my forehead.
Tansy Crowne stood next to the stairs leading up to the open plane door. Grayson said nothing, taking the stairs, as Tansy spoke.
“Oh, dear, you know we have all the help we need on these trips.”
I froze, stuck on the stair directly parallel to her. Despite her carefully manufactured neutral tone, tension hung in the air.
“The help needs all the help they can get,” Grayson said.
He kept walking and I scurried after him. Though she spoke kindly with her son, her displeasure was like rotten food.