Page 134 of Lessons In Grey

I yawned, rubbing my neck. “Good,” I breathed out as we both made our way down separate paths to the kitchen. “Who was that?”

We hadn’t done anything more than touch since he had gotten home. He cleaned my wounds, held my hand, the occasional brush back of my hair, but nothing more than that. I couldn’t be sure why. Maybe he was afraid I would break. Maybe he was afraid I wouldn’t remember, whatever it was, I missed him.

He was living in my loft, and I felt like the distance between us was as far away as the conference had been.

“Malachi and Jack,” he answered as I took a seat in the barstool. He grabbed my favorite mug, a nerd mug, Ash had called it. It was shaped like the Tardis, and I absolutely adored it.

He poured some creamer into it. “Malachi found the driver; Jack spotted him through glitches in the camera’s feed.” He poured the coffee in and walked over, sliding it over to me. “Smart enough to disrupt the feed, stupid enough not to wear a mask.”

I could still see that flicker of anger in his eyes, just ever present now. I wrapped my hands around the warm mug, chewing on my bottom lip, searching his eyes. “Professionals, but not like you guys,” I concluded.

He looked exhausted. I couldn’t remember if he had been sleeping well. Had I asked? “No one is like us,” he confirmed. “We’re a step forward, but not where I would like to be.”

I nodded, my hands tightening around the mug. My fingers still hurt. Rags thinks they might have attempted to snap my acrylic nails off, I didn’t like thinking about it. “That anger,” I finally said, trying to hold his eyes as nerves burned through me, “it’s been in your eyes since that first morning. Are you angry at me? Because I didn’t say anything?”

I still couldn’t remember those days. All I could pull up wasgoing to school Monday morning, and then nothing, but I would understand if he was. I would have been.

His brows softened and he immediately shook his head. “No, never.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. After a moment, he ran his hand through his hair and walked around the counter. “I was angry,” he admitted. “When Ash first told me. I thought you had lied to me. I thought you were so scared that I would be angry, that you decided the safest thing to do was keep whatever it was from me, but then I got here. I walked in and all I could think about was how hard it was to breathe.”

He caught my chin gently, gazing at me with this look that broke my heart. “The thought of anyone taking you away from me,” a muscle in his jaw feathered. “The rage you see isn’t because of you, Emily. It’s because I’m terrified of losing you. It’s because I hadn’t been here and if something had happened to you?” he breathed, his voice thick. “I wouldn’t have survived it. I would become something worse than Azrael.”

I reached up, cupping the side of his face, seeing the pain in his eyes, it broke something inside of me. I wanted to feel connected again. I wanted to take him to our euphoria, to remind him and me that we were still alive, still here, still breathing. “Take me to the bedroom,” I requested, watching his eyes darken at my words. “Please,” I added, stroking his cheek. “I want us to feel again.”

He watched me for a moment before stepping back, taking me in. Looking over the yellow bruises, my scabbed over hands. I could see the war in his own mind. He didn’t want to hurt me. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fuck, he just didn’t want me hurting anymore than I already was.

“Grey,” I breathed out, turning to face him.

His eyes lifted back to mine, concern, guilt, and lust in their depths.

“Please,” I said again, desperate.

Something overtook him then. He held out his hand and reliefflooded through me.

I took it without hesitation, and he gently pulled me up, leading me to the bedroom, his eyes constantly locked with mine as if I might disappear if he looked away.

My heart thudded against my ribs as he led me to the bed. “Take off your clothes,” he instructed gently.

I nodded, slowly reaching for the hem of my tank top. I was still sore, but not enough to cause me to wince as I easily pulled it off, revealing myself to him. Revealing my already hardened nipples and the goosebumps that flooded over my skin.

I shivered and slid down his boxers, the warmth already pooling between my thighs.

I straightened and watched as his eyes slid over my body. Slowly, softly, as if he were trying to memorize me. “Close your eyes,” he told me, walking up to me.

I did as he said, shivering again. I felt overly exposed as his presence overwhelmed me, but we had done things like this before. Me closing my eyes while he overloaded my senses in other ways. It had healed me in ways I never thought I could be healed.

Grey stepped up behind me, close enough to feel the heat drifting off his body, but he didn’t touch me. He lifted his hands, hovering them over my arms, running up and down the length of them as he tilted his head forward until his breath teased my neck.

My lips parted in need, every hair on my body standing on end as he just stood there, teasing the length of my neck with his breath, teasing my arms with his hands. Fuck.

God, I wanted to fall into him. I wanted to press myself into him, feel him with everything I was.

“I won’t let you go,” he hummed just before his presence disappeared from me, only to reappear in front of me a moment later. He stepped up until I could feel the ghost of his lips hovering above mine. “Ever.”

I clenched my hands at my side, forcing myself to remain still even as I felt his hands hovering over my breasts.

“Don’t move,” he mumbled, his hands disappearing from above my breasts. I felt one hovering over my left hip, the other shuffling elsewhere.

God, I wanted to look. I wanted to see what he was grabbing, stroking. I wanted to see him touch himself for me.