Moment of truth. “Yes,” I answer. Then louder, “Yes. My boyfriend.”
That gives them pause. “Your boyfriend.” They exchange looks. “You were abducted last night at your place of work by a man known as Granger Hoskins. A felon, ma’am. Is he in the apartment with you?”
“Granger is my boyfriend.” I wet my lips, a sense of purpose settling over me, making my voice sound more confident. “And he didn’t abduct me. We were…roleplaying. We didn’t mean to alarm anyone.”
“Roleplaying,” one of the officers echoes doubtfully.
The newly twisted part of me chooses that moment to rear its head. I’m surprised by the pride that comes along with it. I want to own what I have with Granger—and I have to, if we’re going to be happy.
“Yes, roleplaying.” My voice dips to husky and I lovingly rub my wrist marks against my cheek, sensuality uncurling inside of me like smoke. “I went willingly. Very…willingly.”
I sense movement behind me and turn to find Granger outlined in his bedroom doorway, one forearm propped high on the door. “Hello, officers,” he drawls. His voice is casual, but his eyes are rife with intensity, boring into me, making me feel feverish. “Let me put on a shirt.”
Granger turns in the doorway and I gasp.
His back is covered in scratch marks. Fresh ones.
In slow motion, I look down at my nails and find them tipped with red.
Heat climbs my thighs at the visible proof of my pleasure. At it being broadcast rather inappropriately. Intentionally. To let the other men know how satisfied I am in his bed. It’s bad. It’s good. It’s us.
An officer coughs behind me. “I, uh…don’t think a shirt will be necessary, Mr. Hoskins. We’ll let the school know Miss Pruitt is safe and sound.”
Granger nods once, his expression hardening, no longer friendly or casual. Instinctively I know he doesn’t like men near me. At all. He prowls toward me and I turn into his arms, tipping my head back to sigh over his gorgeous face. The jealousy displayed there. “If you’ll excuse us,” he says to the officers, reaching over my shoulder to close the door—and immediately backing me against it, our mouths fusing together wetly, desperately.
My skirt is ripped up to my hips by impatient male hands and I wrap my thighs right where they belong. Around his waist. He grinds our foreheads together while reaching down and unzipping his jeans, a moan breaking past my lips at the feel of his shaft prodding the entrance to my sex.
“Let them hear you,” Granger rasps in my ear, filling me in one savage drive. “Just in case they have any more doubts that you love riding this dick—and this dick only. You love it. Tell them.”
“I love it,” I whine through my teeth, Granger pounding me roughly against the door, rattling the hinges. “And I love you, Granger. I love you.”
He pauses, lifting his head to stare with a look of wonder on his face. “You…chose me. I can’t believe it.”
“Feel me,” I whisper, wrapping my legs as tightly as they’ll go, clenching my intimate muscles where they cradle him. “Believe it.”
“I love you,” he groans, burying his face in my neck. “My fairy.”
“My dark prince,” I whimper back, the door beginning to shake again with each one of his frantic drives. And for the rest of our lives, he certainly lives up to the name.
Epilogue
Peyton
Five Years Later
I’m not the same girl I was five years ago.
After some profuse apologizing for having inappropriate relations on school property, they let me keep my job, so I’m still a kindergarten teacher who is given to blushing. But I’m a lot braver. Which is why I’m walking through the trailer park on a Friday afternoon in the summertime, memories reaching out to me from all corners. I’ve decided to come back and face my final remaining fear—my stepbrother.
If Granger knew I was here, he wouldn’t like it, which is putting it mildly. He’s a fearless man, though. The kind of terror I experienced in this park all those years ago is something only a woman fully understands. And I’m here to purge it. Over the last five incredible years together, a lot of Granger’s courage has worn off on me.
Among other things, such as his passion.
His lack of boundaries when it comes to how he loves me.
How he takes me.
Our hunger for one another is an insatiable thing that only continues to twine and twist and grow more complex. We married on a mountaintop in fall with only the preacher as a witness, but we don’t have children, because we simply can’t share each other. My job gives me all the affection and fulfillment I need from children—and the rest of my time is spent being stalked by my husband.
Stalking him in return.
He isn’t following me today because, ever since he bought the garage where he works, weekdays demand his attention. I’ve left my cell phone at home so he won’t track me here, like he normally would. We go nowhere without each other’s knowledge and I love that. Crave and treasure it—the sense of being on an undefeated team. Love being confident in the fact that he is watching me constantly, thinking and yearning and counting the seconds until we’re back in the apartment, dragging each other under with the spell of obsession.