“I don’t want the first time I kiss you to be in front of an audience. They’ll know, and this whole charade will go to shit.” Another step forward. Another hitch of my breath.Charade.Another reminder this wasn’t really my life. “Any other man would’ve fucked you raw within the first week.”
Oh.
Suddenly I realized exactly why he’d been staying away. He wasn’t like the rest of them. Just like I wasn’t like those other girls in that room. They wanted to be there. They wanted to be chosen. Grey didn’t want this any more than I did. He’d avoided Judgment Day because he wanted no part of it.Until me.Until the girl he saved would save him right back. I didn’t expect anything from him, and in return, he gave me my freedom. Well, as much of it as he could give.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a hero.” His gaze moved over my face, studying me, looking for something, but I wasn;t sure what. “You’ve seen what I can do. This isn’t a fairy tale. There’s no happily ever after here. I’m not going to fall in love with you.” His jaw tensed. “I’m not capable of that.” His eyes held a darkness I couldn’t latch onto. They carried secrets to his soul that I couldn’t figure out. There was so much more to this man than what I’d seen so far, so much more than what he’d told me. He was just as broken as I was. He just held his pieces together differently. “I’m not even going to fuck you outside of the consummation ceremonies.”
He said ceremonies. Plural.
My dress felt too tight. The room seemed too small. The air drew in around me.
Breathe, Lyric.
I swallowed and focused on the now. There was time to worry about the rest later. “You said they’ll know you haven’t kissed me. Won’t they know you haven’t touched me? If they’re going to be watching?”
“They won’t know. Your body will bend to my will. I’ll make sure of it.” His hand trailed down my face, to my chin, then down my throat, stopping at the hollow base just above my collarbone. With his other hand, he swept his thumb across my bottom lip.
My stomach clenched as heat shot through my body, warming my cheeks.
His lips turned up in a devilish grin. “See?”
Asshole.
I hated that he was right. He’d managed to take me from panicking about the future to a panting mess in two seconds flat.
Darkness flashed in his blue eyes as he leaned forward and breathed me in.
And then he kissed me.
It wasn’t territorial and aggressive the way Lincoln always kissed me. This was slow. It was careful. Tentative. This was lips parting and tongues dancing. It was fingertips caressing skin and heartbeats colliding. I almost let myself get lost in it.
Then it was over.
He dropped his hand as he took a step back, and the cold mask fell over his face. “Fix your lipstick before you show up in the garden.”