Page 28 of Grim

The fourth rule of the Reaper Regulations states clearly: ‘ Limit personal interaction with assigned souls. Crossovers are cases, not companions. Complete the task and proceed to the next assignment.’

Safe to say that ship has sailed where Rue is concerned. At the very least, I owe her candor now.

“I’m sorry.” I repeat my plea from before in even more earnest. “I’m not trying to defend myself. I’m simply trying to provide context. The book was out. It was on the table. I did not go searching for it or even turn a page.”

She glares at me, but does not yell, which I take as a good sign, so I continue, attempting to insert some levity, “I wouldn’t have read it if I didn’t think it was good. So, really, it’s your fault I read the whole thing. If it was garbage, I would have already set it down.”

“What part of me looks like I am seeking your approval?” she snips, but I notice the softening in her eyes and the slightest blush in her cheeks.

Her hips sway softly, causing her purple plaid skirt to move. I cannot help my momentary scan of her exposed thighs.

“You really liked it?”

Her question snaps my attention back.

“You have a real gift. Shakespeare would have been happy to share his sonnet structure with your words.”

“You recognized the style?” she asks, her ire subsiding and her confidence growing. It looks good on her .

“I’ve been around for a long while, Mayday. Plenty of time to study up on all sorts of things.”

She hums curiously. “You don’t strike me as the poetry type.”

“There’s plenty you don’t know about me, Rue,” I state cryptically, which gives Rue pause.

I absentmindedly rub at my throat as she eyes me.

“Even in the face of having learned what comes after life, I still contend there is nothing quite so magical as a book. Nothing as powerful as a story.”

Rue inches near, a softness and a hunger replacing the fire behind her eyes.

“So,” I venture, “in this story, am I forgiven for reading your poem without permission?”

“I’m considering it,” she muses, her entire demeanor taking on a new edge.

I am intrigued by this side of Rue.

“Anything else I can do to pay penance?”

She thinks, smirks, and speaks softly as she steps even closer to me. “Tell me something, Kane. Tell me a part of your story. You’ve seen me naked. Maybe it’s time to show me the goods.”

I laugh softly to distract from the uncomfortable feeling beginning to surface.

“There’s not much to tell,” I deflect.

This is too much; I can’t play quid pro quo with her. Am I full of regret and shame for peering into her personal thoughts? Yes. But I will not allow her to find a way to break the seal on my box. I refuse to release those demons.

Rue’s gaze cuts from my eyes to the place on my throat I was just rubbing. Her hand moves to that same spot as she asks, “where did you get this scar?”

A tsunami of memory rushes forth at the gentle coaxing of her soft question.

I swallow back the lump forming and stare icily at her. The second her fingers make contact with my flesh, a searing heat courses through me. I can almost physically feel the armor wrapping itself around me. I grab her hand and remove it from my neck in one swift motion .

“My past is buried, Rue. Don’t go looking for shovels,” I growl low in my throat.

Rue cowers and takes a small step back. The distance feels like a chasm, and I want to erase it while I feel the need to run as far away from her, from this, as I can.

“Sorry, Rue. I didn’t mean to snap.”

“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Kane.” Her eyes match the pleading tone of her voice.

“You have no idea how wrong you are.” I swallow the space between us, taking the lead in this dance.

“I just want to know you, Grim.”

“No, you don’t, Mayday. I promise.” I take her hand back in mine and place it back on the tender flesh of my neck—an apology without words.

“What happened?” she asks in supplication.

“The unspeakable.” I give language to that heinous act of so long ago for the first time since the deed itself was committed.

If only Rue knew what a mountain of shame I have had to climb to offer even that much.

I say her name achingly. “Rue.” It’s a shocked breath as her fingertips brush over the line, so gently that I almost don’t feel it.

Almost. But I do. Every nerve in my body goes taut. Her touch burns. Not in pain. In feeling.

She presses her lips to my scar, and something inside me snaps.

Her tender lips on my callous flesh feel like unspoken absolution. Like Rue doesn’t need the details of that sordid, sad story. Like she accepts me regardless of the depth and darkness of my flaws.

I lurch forward. My mouth crashing into hers, wild and claiming. I swallow her gasp as I wrap my arms around her, pulling her flush to my chest.

Her hands fist into my shirt, dragging me closer, deeper.

This kiss isn’t sweet. It’s desperate and vital.

She tastes like rain on scorched earth, and I long for her liquid cool.

She bites my lower lip while pulling us to the ground.

“Fuck,” I groan, one hand trailing down her spine to anchor her against me as she climbs into my lap without hesitation, legs straddling me, her skirt bunching between us, heat radiating from every inch of her.

Her lips trail from my mouth to my jaw, down the side of my neck—over the scar again. She tongues the marred flesh, gently kissing that one spot. Rue’s impassioned strokes cleanse my shame.

“Rue,” I reluctantly pull her back from my neck—the separation a most acute torture—and look her in the eyes, “I was overcome. I had lost everything. I did an unimaginable—”

She places her finger over my mouth, shushing me. “I don’t need to know, Kane.”

She keeps her eyes locked on mine as she returns to the same spot as before. She sucks on my scarred flesh again, purifying my pain. Rue takes away centuries of guilt and regret with her unconditional forgiveness of my deepest hurt.

“Mayday,” I whisper, broken. How do I tell her to stop and to keep going at the same time?

She grinds herself against me, and I roll my eyes at the feeling as my hand grips her thigh.

“I need you,” she breathes. “Please.”

I should be the one to stop this, but I don’t. I let myself feel everything. The pain, the lust. The ages of hunger and loneliness and restraint—all of it unraveling under her small hands, delicate mouth, and soft body pressed against mine in a cemetery filled with ghosts.

I don’t because, for the first time in many years, I feel again.

Because of her. And I would trade every agonizing ounce of immortality for one more strike of the clock in this moment. Even if it’s the last one we ever have.

Her body ignites against mine. Not just heat. Not just skin. But something elemental. Something divine.

Rue clings to me like I’m the last solid thing in a crumbling world, and I don’t deserve to be held that way.

Not by her. Not by anyone. But, fuck me, I take it.

Her lips are still on my neck, pouring reverent kisses along the scar that marked the end of my life.

Her touch makes it feel like the beginning of something new now.

Doubt creeps into my thoughts, and I try to silence the noise.

This is the beginning of something I cannot have.

These feelings do not belong in our story.

They can’t. They are impossible. Every time she touches me, it’s like she rewrites history.

Like the centuries of cold, the years of silence, the burden of duty—all of it burns away under the brush of her hands. I will those thoughts out of my head.

I pull her back just enough to look at me. Her eyes are wide and glassy, her chest heaving like she’s been running for miles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so heartbreakingly alive.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispers. “I don’t know what I’m allowed to want anymore.”

I reach up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, my hand trembling. “You can want anything, Rue. Anything.”

Her eyes flick to my mouth. “Even you?”

Tout sauf ca. Anything but that.

I lose the last thread of control.

I grip the back of her neck and pull her into me, kissing her like I’ll never get the chance again. Because maybe I won’t.

There is nothing restrained about this. This is not the practiced hand of a centuries-old immortal. This is need—raw and frantic and terrified.

She moans into my mouth, and the sound tears straight through me.

My hands move down, gripping her hips, guiding her down until her core grinds against mine, and I swear I see the entire span of a star’s life play out in a second.

And Rue, like a powerful black hole, sucks me all the way into her orbit.

She rocks against me, slow at first, searching, then more. She’s insistent. Desperate. The friction is unbearable in the best possible way.

Her skirt is riding up her thighs. My hands slide beneath the fabric, finding bare skin.

Rue whimpers when I touch her. When my fingers trace deliberate lines along the inside of her thighs.

Her head drops to my shoulder, and she gasps, the sound of her need pressed right against my skin.

I want to taste her. I want to lay her down beneath the shadow of her family tree and make her forget what pain is .

I want to give her the antidote to loss. I want to make her feel pleasure unbound.

“Kane,” she breathes, her voice broken and shaking.

My name moaned from her lips must dilate my pupils because moonlight floods into my eyes.

I grip her tighter, my resolve, my restraint leaving me. “Say that again.” It’s a near beg.

“What?” she asks, the confusion in her voice adorable.

“My name,” I demand with a predatory growl. “Say it again.”

She pulls back, her forehead pressed to mine. “Kane …”

I shift her in my lap until she’s straddling my thigh. My mouth moves from her lips to her throat, nipping, sucking—marking her. Her skin tastes like salt and magic and some forgotten thing I buried long ago.