Page 14 of The Tower (Billionaire Brothers Grimm #1)

Nine

Elysium

I navigate Elysium’s simple landing page to the corner where I’ve hidden the secure portal that lets me log in even away from my computer at Reed Tower. All I have to do is ride Grimm’s WiFi like a giant waterslide all the way to the secure servers that provide the boundaries of my digital haven.

I hold my breath, expecting firewalls, digital barriers, something to jump in the way and keep me from my goal. But to my surprise and relief, Elysium’s elaborate silver gates appear, along with the familiar message requiring “the magic word” to enter.

I type in the complex password—a combination of letters and numbers which, if properly decoded, spell out the message Welcome to Freedom.

I bite my lower lip, still not believing it could be so easy. But sure enough, the loading sequence begins, unfurling a swirling pattern of stars that coalesce into verdant landscapes beyond the gate with the central castle rising like a dream from digital mist.

Relief washes through me, so intense it brings tears to my eyes. My father may control my body. Grimm may control my circumstances. But here in Elysium, no one controls me but me.

The moment the virtual world finishes forming, the gates swing open, and I’m swept inside, the world now appearing from my—well, Vale’s—point of view.

“Welcome, Vale.” The system’s voice is tinny through the laptop’s tiny speaker, and I ache for my bodysuit and headset back at Reed Tower. I miss the way the sensors trace my skin, translating every touch, every kiss, every stroke into electric pulses that fool my body into thinking they’re real.

With something like hunger filling me, I navigate through my territories—the Crystal Garden, the Floating Islands, the Mountain Sanctuary—each one a testament to countless hours I spent coding, creating, escaping. But none is my destination tonight.

On impulse, I summon Ember, one of my dragons. Her scales ripple between crimson and obsidian as she lands beside me, extending a wing to assist me onto her back. Soon we’re soaring above the digital realm, Vale’s shoulder-length hair streaming behind us.

As the tension eases from my real-world shoulders, I guide Ember toward a secluded lake nestled between snow-capped mountains—our most intimate sanctuary, where my prince awaits me.

The first time he came to me here, he’d stayed in the shadows, watching as I bathed in the moonlit lake.

Night after night, he’d crept closer, until the weight of his gaze felt as potent as a touch. Eventually, he reached out a hand, and when I folded my fingers around his, he pulled me to him. He became my secret, my solace, my forbidden dream.

In his arms, I found a world where I wasn’t caged. Where I wasn’t Victor Reed’s daughter, or anyone’s pawn.

We passed countless hours tangled together, talking of nothing and everything?—

The dragons of Elysium.

My loneliness in the castle.

My hatred for my father.

And my aching hunger for something else.

Something more.

Him.

He listened. Held my hand, kissed my fingertips, stroked my face, my lips. He confessed his desire. The hours watching me. The hours waiting for me. Craving me.

“I’ve wanted to touch you for so long,” he’d said, and there was a rawness to the confession that didn’t sound programmed at all. “To feel you. To know if you’re as real as you seem.”

“Are you real?” I’d whispered.

“As real as you want me to be.”

For weeks, I’d come nightly to Elysium to lie with him, to talk with him. And, yes, to crave him.

Finally, he whispered that he could hold out no more, and he’d drawn me close, holding me against him.

His lips found mine, demanding yet gentle.

His hands mapped my body like uncharted territory.

The weight of him pressed me into the soft grass as his body claimed mine with an intensity that left me gasping.

“You are mine,” he’d whispered, and I’d believed him. In Elysium, I could be touched, desired, possessed. In Elysium, I wasn’t trapped in a gilded cage. I was free and loved and alive.

The memories wash over me as Ember descends toward the lake, and soon I see him standing tall in the moonlight, his dark cloak fluttering in the virtual breeze.

Prince Killiam.

My lover. My friend.

I slide off Ember’s back, my feet touching the soft grass as Ember takes off in a shower of crimson sparks. Then I turn to face him, my heart already racing.

He says nothing, but comes toward me, his movements fluid and deliberate, his head tilted down so that I can’t see his face—always shrouded in shadow or mist, no matter how many times we’ve been together like this, no matter how intimately he holds me or how closely I look.

He stops only inches away, close enough that I should feel the heat of him. At home, I would—I’d feel the warmth radiating from his body, the subtle tension in the air between us.

“I’ve missed you,” I type, wishing I could feel what I know will come next.

“Have you?” he asks, his voice sending heat pooling between my thighs even without the sensors. “Let’s see just how much you’ve wanted me.”

In my mind, I fill in the sensations the laptop can’t provide. His hands sliding under my dress, finding bare skin. His mouth at my throat, teeth grazing the sensitive spot that always makes me moan. The demanding press of his cock against my belly.

On screen, Vale’s clothes melt away beneath his touch. Without the bodysuit, I can’t feel his hands caressing my breasts or the scrape of his stubble against my neck as his mouth travels lower. But my body remembers and clenches with desire as I watch him lower Vale to the grass.

“Please,” I whisper, the word appearing as text.

“Tell me what you want,” he demands, his voice in my mind rougher now.

“You. Inside me.”

The words appear in the dialogue box, and he responds immediately, pinning Vale’s wrists above her head with one hand. I draw in a breath, imagining the delicious helplessness of being held down while his other hand explores between my thighs, finding me wet and ready.

“Look at me while I take you,” he commands, and she obeys, her eyes locked on the darkness where his face should be. And then he’s pushing inside her—inside me—and I swear I can feel the stretch and fullness of him.

He starts slow, always slow, drawing out the torment until I’m begging for more. Then harder, faster, driving into me with a force that would leave bruises if this were real. As if he’s trying to break through the barrier between digital and physical, to claim not just Vale but me.

“You’re mine,” he growls, gripping Vale’s hips with bruising force. “Say it.”

“I’m yours,” she responds, my fingers typing what my mouth longs to say.

“Only mine.”

“Only yours,” I agree, the truth of it searing through me. He’s the only one who’s ever touched me like this, the only one who’s ever made me feel like a woman rather than a porcelain doll.

His rhythm grows more insistent, and Vale’s body responds, arching beneath him as pleasure builds.

In my real-world bedroom, I’d be matching her movements, my hips lifting to meet each thrust, my hands clutching at the sheets as the sensors in the bodysuit translate every stroke into shockwaves of pleasure.

Now, my fingers between my legs are a poor substitute.

“Come for me,” he commands, and my body trembles in response to his voice, to my own touch, and to the sight of him claiming Vale so completely.

Pleasure builds as I watch, my imagination filling in the sensations that the laptop cannot provide.

“Look at me,” he demands. “I want to see your eyes when you come.” I obey, my fingers stroking my sex, my gaze fixed on the shadowed contours of his face, wishing desperately that I could see him fully, know him completely.

My climax crashes through me, digital and real converging in a shuddering wave. As I’m gasping, the mist that always obscures his features parts. And for a single, terrible heartbeat, I see his eyes in the moonlight—ice-blue and intense.

Grimm’s eyes.

No. No, no, no. Except it’s true. I can’t deny what’s on my screen.

What I built myself. A world where Liam Grimm is the prince I’ve craved for months.

The lover I’ve surrendered to night after night.

A prince who’s even now disappearing from my screen in a flurry of smoke and mist, leaving me alone amidst these mountains.

This isn’t right. It’s not what I want. But even as I think it, a disturbing warmth settles between my thighs, and I close my eyes, my body still tingling from the lingering echoes of virtual pleasure.

I’d created Prince Killiam out of nothing but code.

I’d fed the AI every scrap of my private world—my diary, my calendar, my chats with Ruby.

Even my dreams and fears. Any information that would help build this world in a way that was uniquely mine—and would ensure that my prince would be Vale’s perfect mate.

It built Grimm.

Arrogant, controlling Liam Grimm. With a shudder, I slam the laptop shut. What the hell am I supposed to feel now?