“Yeah, just like that,” he growled.
“Gray—” I started, but he cut me off with a kiss. He gripped my face, his strong fingers digging into my cheekbones, mouth slanting to get more of me. “Grayson!” He froze at the alarm in my voice, pulling back so his lips brushed mine. “You promised—we promised. We would do this with trust. Do you not trust me anymore?”
“You are the only one I trust, little wife.”
“You have so many secrets now,” I breathed. “You’re so far away.”
He dragged his hand across his jaw, along the five o’clock shadow, something dark flickering in his eyes.
In the end, all he said was, “You’re lying to me, too, little nun.”
We stared at each other.
“I thought it would be easy because we love each other but it’s harder,” I said. “Everything is so fucking hard.”
He grasped my biceps, crushing his lips against mine. “Give it to me bloody, raw, and jagged, little nun. I miss bleeding with you.”
GRAY
With Story’s sideways view on the pillow, I trailed my fingers up and down her thigh.
Nose to nose.
Perfect.
“Tell me everything,” she whispered.
“You first,” I said. “Tell me everything that happened to you.”
“He took me to Scotland. Some days it was beautiful. The songbirds sang every day and…” Her voice faded into the memory. I drifted my touch along her upper thigh, rounding the curve of her ass, waiting for her to come back to me.
“And?” I prodded after a minute.
She took the corner of her lip between her teeth. “And nothing. The days blended together.”
She was still lying. Her letters told me as much, of the heartbreak and heartache she endured.
“Did you forget?” I growled. “Your shadowy confessions belong to me.”
Her brow caved, but only for a moment. “They beat me,” she said quietly, raspy. My expression must have betrayed my fury, because she added quickly, “It was nothing I couldn’t handle, Grayson.”
My jaw was clenched so tight my neck strained, but I trailed a soft touch along her shoulder, her neck, until she closed her eyes.
I tried to steady my breathing.
This was her confession, and I wasn’t going to steal it with my reaction.
“He slept in my bed…he made me. I felt so bad. I felt like I’d cheated.” Her eyes were still closed as she relayed parts of her trip to Scotland I’d since memorized. I wanted to rip the real confession out of her, pull the secrets like thorns from her chest. Why wouldn’t she tell me the truth like she had in the letters she sent me?
I trailed my touch down the side of her face. “Did you remember me? Did you use memories as armor?”
Her eyes popped open, then softened into a smile. “Yeah! I did. So
it didn’t hurt as much.”
I trailed my touch along her cheek. “Good.”
She leaned into my palm. “West remembered a poem I wrote all those years ago. That…really freaked me out. When West ghosted me, I wrote my first poem. I shared it with my uncle, and he started to encourage dreams I’d always considered fantasy. I never thought he’d remember, but he quoted it to me in Scotland.”