Page 70 of The Tower

“Is it? Not X?”

“No way. X is all about assembly. No nuance.”

“Assembly?” he repeats, his brows rising.

“It’s just Insert Part C into Slot V. Light on the emotion. And the plot, for that matter.”

He looks like he’s about to crack up. I’m having a bit of trouble not laughing myself.

“So you’ve really never done this before?” He slides his hand down to slip between my thighs. “Sex,” I mean.

I sigh as his fingertip strokes me.

“Only in my dreams.”

“Good dreams, I hope?”

I think of Killiam. His eyes so much like Grimm’s.

He cups my cheek. “I’m sorry.”

I blink, both confused and surprised that Liam Grimm would apologize for anything.

“I took your virginity. You should have been with someone you care about.”

I start to say I was, but bite back the words, shocked they even came close to my lips. Clearly, I’m suffering from post-coital gooeyness.

“No, it was good,” I say, feeling strangely shy. “I mean, it was appropriate.”

His brows rise. “Appropriate? The trading of sex for protection? Women’s counseling services all over the country would beg to differ.”

I smirk. “I mean, you rescued me from the evil king’s castle. You’re keeping me safe. And if everything goes as planned, you’re going to slay the dragon. That’s a metaphor for the drugs,” I add.

Humor dances across his face, softening the hard lines and angles. Making him look almost vulnerable when he nods and says, “I got that.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong—you’re the Grimm, after all—but it seems to me that all that adds up to you being Prince Charming. And doesn’t the prince get the girl?”

“I suppose he does,” Grimm says.

“So there you go. Appropriate.”

He chuckles and nods. But what neither of us point out is that the original tales often ended in pain or death or horror.

Which, I guess, leaves us right back where we started, and me with no clue as to whether Grimm is a good guy, a bad guy, or something in between.

Twenty-Two

Owned

I wake to the sensation of being watched.

Grimm’s beside me, his hair mussed from sleep and sex, that hard mouth softened by the hint of a smile at the corner. The ridiculously luxurious sheet is a knot of three-thousand thread count at my feet, and his eyes are roaming over my naked body, leaving heat in their wake, as if from a physical touch.

When he reaches my face, I see that heat reflected in the ice blue of his eyes, along with a possessiveness that makes my core clench and my pulse race.

“There she is,” he says, now tracing lazy patterns on my stomach, dipping lower and lower with each pass. My breath stutters, and my core tingles in both anticipation and desire. I close my eyes, expecting his fingertips to trail lightly over my waxed pubis, then lower until he teases my clit, and lower still until he slips inside me. Taking without asking. Claiming.

And damned if I don’t want him to.