Page 29 of Grim

“Tell me to stop,” I murmur, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Please, Mayday, tell me to stop.”

She shakes her head. “Not a chance, Grim.”

I press her down, grinding her hips against mine, and her moan splits the quiet night like thunder.

I kiss her again, taking my time. Because this is more than want.

More than lust. This is the intermingling of souls made flesh.

This is the physical manifestation of all that is felt and can never be named.

And underneath it lies the aching fear of loss, curling its claws around the space between us. But I do not pull away.

I cannot. I close the distance as much as possible. Press myself harder against her.

Because Rue feels like the last page of a book I never want to finish.

And if she’s going to leave this world, then I want to be the one to help her write an epic final chapter.

Her fingers are in my hair. That’s the first thing I register. Tangled tight, urgent, trembling. Like if she lets go, she’ll lose her grip on reality.

Maybe I will too.

I press her back against the grass—soft, damp, and littered with the petals of dying flowers. The family plot. There’s irony in that. Or poetry. I can’t tell anymore.

Rue’s skirt is hiked around her waist, her legs parted for me like she’s offering something sacred. And that is an altar I am only too happy to kneel before.

I drag my hands up the backs of her thighs, feeling the goose bumps rise under my touch. I slide her underwear down her legs, tucking them in the pocket of my trousers, leaving her bare—no barrier. Just open and waiting.

I part her slit with my fingers. “You just licked away my darkest pains. Now let me lick you into unimaginable pleasure,” I murmur reverently.

I press my mouth to her already-slick center.

She cries out, hips jolting up, fingers clenching in my hair.

I groan against her—guttural and broken—and the vibration makes her whimper.

I lap at her slowly at first, tasting her, exploring her, savoring her.

She’s warm and wet and sweet, her taste addictive, heady.

She gasps my name, her breath catching on every flick of my tongue, and I swear I could die like this.

My cock is already painfully hard, pressed against the inside of my trousers, aching with each sound she makes. The heat from her seeps into me, tightening every muscle in my body, every needy, hungry stroke of my tongue only stoking the fire.

I shift slightly, gripping her thighs and dragging her closer.

She’s shaking now—tiny tremors running through her legs, her abdomen, even her hands as they twist tighter in my hair.

Her back arches, and her hips start moving—small, needy rolls that grind against my mouth. I let her. I want her to use me. I groan again, louder this time, and I feel her body react—feel her clench around nothing, feel her breathing stutter.

I suck her clit gently, before circling it with the flat of my tongue, again and again, until she’s gasping like she’s drowning.

The sounds she makes—soft and sharp and frantic—pull at every thread inside me. I can feel my cock begging for release, straining against the fabric.

Every part of me is consumed by her. Her taste. Her scent. Her sounds. Her full-throated need. It’s unraveling me. I’m losing rhythm. Losing sense. Losing control. I grind my hips down into the ground, desperate for any kind of relief, my breath coming harder now, almost in time with hers.

“Please,” she gasps, her voice cracking. “Kane, please don’t stop.”

I won’t. Not until I feel her fall apart. Not until I have used my tongue to praise her for her beautiful absolution. I will defile her with the same instrument she just used to purify me.

Then I remember— her heart. Can she handle this? I am on a mission here.

But I have a much more important one now , I think to myself as I slide my hands up her thighs, spreading her further for me. I dig my fingers into her inner thighs, palpating her femoral artery.

At the pressure, she gasps, “What are you—”

But the question is cut off as I apply long licks with my tongue to her wet cunt while I count the beating of her heart by the thrumming of her blood.

Elevated but manageable , I deduce after several focused seconds.

Time to put these fingers to another use.

I slide two fingers into her, deep, curling them up until she chokes on a cry. She clamps around me, already so close.

“Come for me,” I say against her center, my voice low and raw. “I want to feel you lose it.”

She lets out a needy whine that nearly takes me out. I continue to lick and suck while my fingers move inside her.

“Come on, ma chère . Let go.”

I feel her walls tense around my fingers as her back arches, and she releases a delicious cry.

“I knew you were a good listener,” I hum into her cunt as she comes undone. “Such a good girl.”

Her whole body seizes, a sob tearing from her throat as she clutches at me like I’m the only thing tethering her to this plane.

I do not stop. I lick her through the spasms, slower now, softer, catching every last tremble, every last quake of her release until she finally collapses back into the grass, spent and trembling .

I press my left hand into her femoral again while sliding my other fingers out of her pulsing pussy to ensure her heart rate is still at a safe level. When I note that it is, I pull back, breathless and aching.

Her thighs are still twitching. Her chest heaves. Her eyes are wide and glassy as she looks down at me.

“You …” Her voice is shaky. “That was …”

“I know,” I whisper, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, though I can still taste her, feel her. Crave her.

She looks wrecked. And beautiful.

I adjust slightly, trying to ease the pressure of my painfully hard cock, still untouched, still pulsing with the need I haven’t allowed myself to act on.

Her eyes drop to the movement, and for a beat, we just stare at each other—caught between restraint and ruin.

But I don’t move toward her. Not yet.

I need a moment and some distance to absorb the magnitude of what we just shared, of what we just started.

We have begun something terrifying, dangerous, and possibly forbidden. But nothing that anyone says or does now can undo the bond we created in this moment. There is no going back now. Only forward—together.

In the distance, from inside the house, I hear the faint sound of the grandfather clock beginning to strike the top of another hour.