Page 71 of Grim

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 cannothave. 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 ça. 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.

“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.