I’m lifted and flipped around, thrown over a shoulder. An arm bands the back of my thighs to my assailant’s chest. I raise my head, but I don’t see Paris or her lackey, or the snake she was tangling with. Until I inhale his scent, and understanding dawns.
Ah.
Grey carries me outside and down the block. He doesn’t set me down, and I don’t fight it. The world is tilting, and I’d rather tumble headfirst into traffic than let him assist me. Right now, he’s just taking charge.
Nothing I can do about that.
“Your girlfriend already get you off? Is that why you came back for me?” I ask the concrete.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Does she suck your dick like I do?”
He groans. “You said that really fucking loud back there, you know.”
I roll my eyes and relax further. His steps aren’t headache-inducing. It’s kind of nice actually, to be off my feet. I let myself sway with his movements.
“Hey. You pass out?” He jostles me.
I yelp and grab his waist. “Easy, asshole. What do I look like? A sack of potatoes?” I consider that, then frown. “Don’t answer that.”
He chuckles. “We’re almost back.”
“I don’t have my key,” I lie.
“It’s not in your pocket?”
It’s weird, having a conversation with him while my ass is right next to his face. He doesn’t seem bothered by it, though. In fact, his pace is slowing. And then he sets me down, and the world flips again.
“Whoa.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I didn’t sign up for this ride.”
“You’ve been dancing for hours.” He moves my arm to loop around his waist, then puts his around my shoulders.
“Hours?” I shake my head, and my stomach heaves. “More like minutes. I just got there.”
He laughs and shows me his phone. Three o’clock in the morning. The game ended forever ago…
I groan and close my eyes, but he just shakes my arm.
“Keep your eyes open, Vi. We’ve got to get you inside.”
I exhale. “I don’t want to go inside.”
He pauses and sets me against the wall outside the hotel. Its sign glows above the door, feet away. “Why not?”
I rub my hand under my nose. “Because inside, everything becomes real. And I just really don’t want to live in the real world for a little while longer.”
He stares at me. He’s a starer. I don’t know if he realizes it, because he doesn’t stare at anyone else. Just me. And it’s kind of creepy, sometimes. But other times, it feels like he’s trying to carve out a spot in my soul for him, and that does seem nice. Like he wants room inside me for him.
What he doesn’t know is that he’s been digging his grave in my chest for weeks, and me in his. We’re going to trade one day. My heart for his. An even exchange.
“Are you going to have your wicked way with me, Mr. Devereux?” I run my finger down his chest.
He steps closer, between my legs.
Boy, does this feel familiar. I’m not mad about it.
No matter how hard I fuck you, I’ll still hate your guts .
I’ve got to wonder if there’s room for hate and love in the same space. In us. I don’t know if I want to consider it. Leaning into the hate seems a lot less scary.
But wouldn’t I still be in the same predicament with or without the accident? With the possibility of stress fractures knocking me out of the game? Indefinitely, maybe.
I’m twenty. How much longer would I be able to sustain this career?
That was always the nightmare floating over my head. That my body would give out well before I was ready to retire. It led me to CPU. It led to the business degree I don’t care about, because a backup plan is better than nothing. Dance classes came first, and fitting my regular college classes around that schedule was always my priority.
Except, now? The only thought rattling through my head is that I shouldn’t have had a backup plan. I should’ve gritted my teeth and worked through the break, through the pain, and come out stronger on the other side because I had no other options.
Did a backup plan make me weak?
Too many questions and no answers for me.
“Violet,” Greyson says softly. “You’re in no shape for that.”
“I’m as good as I’m going to get.” I let out a harsh laugh. One that scrapes my vocal cords. “Newsflash, Grey. I’m the broken girl.”
He looks down at his hand, then back at me. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
I sneer. I should be happy from the Molly, I should be floating still. I miss that experience. I miss the euphoria of it.
Instead, I’m leaning against a cold brick wall with an even colder man at my front. And I’m burning hot for him.
So instead of answering, I fist the front of his shirt like I’d seen him do to an opponent before he decked them. I don’t go for the hit, though. I yank him down and rise at the same time, slamming my lips to his.
They slide against mine, and I take that as a comfort. I take. It’s what I do.
I take and take and take.
The people in my life who know me best, they know I take and don’t give back. My mother, for instance, always leaving those pieces of herself behind. I collect them because the alternative is worse. I kept them to remind myself of her, because even when we’re standing in front of each other, she’s not there. She lives in baubles and forgotten bits.
My father? I harbor the watercolor memories of him.
Willow? I steal her generosity, I leech her comfort.
Greyson.
I’ll suck the anger clean out of his body, because I think he can live without it—while I need it to keep going.
His lips move against mine, giving me exactly what I need, and I open my mouth. I take his tongue. I palm his dick through his jeans, tug at his waistband to get him closer. Fuck public indecency. I bite his lip, then flick at it with the tip of my tongue. His blood is metallic and hot.
We dig at each other. Teeth and nails and pain, until we’re both breathing hard.
He’s the one who pulls away first.
He’s the one who steadies both of us, his gaze searing into me. I’d keep taking until I couldn’t take anymore, I think.
“Come on.” He leads me inside, brushing his thumb over his lower lip.
His arm is warm over my shoulders, and I twist my fingers in his shirt while we walk. My nail traces an indistinguishable pattern across the skin I can reach, and he shivers against me.
On my floor, he helps me off and leads me to the door. He swipes a key and pushes the door open.
There’s my stuff on one of the beds, the familiar room I used to get ready, but no Willow.
I rotate slowly and stop when he closes the door behind him.
“What are you doing?”
He opens the closet and reveals…
His stuff.
My heart skips. “Grey?”
“I changed your room.” He admits it so casually.
I can’t respond for a long moment. My mouth just gapes open. He changed my room? Where is Willow? How the hell did he manage to do that?
“Knox put Willow on his room reservation. I put you on mine. You two checked in separately…” He shrugs. “It was rather easy. We canceled your other room.”
I shake my head, which has started to throb. “Bet you had a whole sexy night planned, huh? And then what happened? You decided to fuck me on the ice instead, then asked Steele to try and set me up again.” I nod, my anger spiking. Not high. It hits a threshold I’m not prepared for. My brain seems to mellow before my face can get red or my hands shake. I just feel the anger circulating under my skin, pulsing and then fading. “Is she back with him?”
“They left the club an hour before I took you.”
I circle around to my clothes, the assortment I had laid out on the bed when I changed, and shove them back into my bag.
“What room?”
He shakes his head, leaning against the wall. Casually blocking me from the door. “No.”
“What. Room.” I glower. “Fine. I’ll just text her.”
I pat my pockets.
My empty pockets.
“Looking for this?” He holds up my phone.
“Pickpocketing now? You just love to push what you can get away with.”
He shrugs. “Prove it in a court of law, Ms. Reece.”
I lunge for it, and my left leg gives out. I fall hard, narrowly avoiding smacking my face on the edge of the bed frame.
Greyson drops down beside me. “What happened?”
I put my weight on my hip, bringing my leg around. I watch his gaze go from it to my face and back again, and his jaw tenses.
“Why won’t you tell me?”
My mouth opens and closes. I can’t tell him. I can’t speak it into existence. And also… I have this giant fear that he’s going to laugh in my face.
“Vi,” he tries.
“Do you ever want to say something so fucking bad,” I whisper, my attention fixed on my shoes, “but you know that no one will give as big a fuck about it as you?”
He nods slowly, then reaches out and pulls the lace of my boot. I watch in silence as he completely undoes it and gently slides it off my foot. Then my sock.
My feet are… dancer feet. They’ve improved since I haven’t been training, but the remnants are there. My toenails are chipped and short. My toes are crooked from years in pointe shoes. My feet and ankles are still flexible. I stretch every morning and crack my joints. My foot is still pretty by ballet standards, but to the naked, untrained eye…
I pull my leg in, but he grasps my ankle.
“Stop.” I know the power it holds, and I say it anyway.
He stills.
It’s the word. The magic word that ends everything between us. A wall slams down into place—that wall is his guard and my own defense against him. It’s going to save both of us.
I exhale. I can deal with him choking me, chasing me through a forest, fucking me into a different stratosphere, bullying me—but I can’t bear this kindness.
Not when I don’t believe it to be true.
“If we’re sharing a room, fine. I can live with that,” I tell him. “But I’m not doing… whatever you were about to do.” I rise and snatch my toiletries. “I need a shower.”
And he’d better believe I’m locking the door behind me.
