Текст книги "Berries and Greed"

Автор книги: Lily Mayne

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Beryl

“I have a surprise for you,” I told Greid as soon as we got home.

He glanced up at me as he tugged off his boots, hopping in place. “You do?”

Nodding with a wide grin, I pulled my phone out of my coat pocket and brought up my photos. There were hardly any in my camera roll—mostly just the silly selfies Greid sent me while he was working or still in bed waiting for me to get back from Deep Brew with his morning coffee, seeing as I saved all of them. I made a mental note to try and take more pictures, but for now, I pulled up one of the photos Parin had snapped of both of us.

Greid took the phone from me when I handed it over, peering down at the screen. His head cocked. “Who’s—Wait.” Wide yellow eyes darted up to mine then back down. “Holy fuck, is that Parin var Gelligar?”

I chuckled, shedding my coat after taking the napkin out of my pocket. “Yeah. She was in the bar having a drink. She’s in town to promote the new season.”

“Oh my god.” Greid was clutching the phone. “You met Parin var Gelligar. You met Jurik Aktonar,” he added, referring to her character on the show. “What was she like? Was she amazing? Did she do the thing like on the show? You know, the disapproving eyebrow raise when the Smiths say something stupid about demiurgus?”

I laughed as I pulled off my boots. “Yeah, she did. Well, kinda. When she clocked that I recognised her.”

“Oh my god. I can’t believe you met her. Man, she’s still so hot even though she’s older than my mom.” Greid reluctantly handed my phone over when I straightened up. “You have to send me that photo.”

“Sure.” I took the phone and held out the napkin. “And there’s this.”

I stepped closer after he took it and wrapped my arms around his waist. Parin had told me to read it with him, so I eagerly waited while he carefully unfolded the napkin and revealed the words.

To Greid and Beryl,

Enjoy the new season together!

Don’t let any obstacles stand in the way of your love.

Her name was signed with a flourish underneath. I could feel my cheeks growing hot as I read the words, fixating on one word in particular. Nervous energy filled me, making me grow flustered and loosen my hold around Greid’s waist.

What if he thought I’d told Parin I was in love with him?

Was I in love with him?

I had no experience with falling in love. None whatsoever. Were you supposed to wait a while? Would Greid get freaked out by the thought of it? We’d only known each other a little over a month. He clearly wasn’t a commitment-phobe or relationship-averse, but he’d also been hurt by his last long-term relationship.

What did falling in love even feel like? How did people recognise it? I knew that when I thought of Greid, I felt warm and safe and happy. I knew that thinking about anyone hurting him or upsetting him made me almost murderously angry. I knew I wanted to take care of him and give him anything he wanted. I knew that my favourite times of the day were when I was with him, when we were just hanging out while I cooked breakfast, or lounging on the couch together watching TV, or walking home after I finished a shift at the bar.

I didn’t know if that was being in love, or just… being really into him. I tried to consider possibilities in the future, like eventually deciding to move out and find my own place, to see how it sat with me.

My stomach squeezed into a tight, unpleasant knot at the mere idea of it—of no longer living with Greid. No longer getting to snuggle up next to him on the couch under a mound of blankets every night. No longer getting to hear his snorty little laugh while we were watching TV. No longer getting to see him shuffling out of his room in the mornings with bedhead and a sleepy, disgruntled look on his face.

I couldn’t imagine living on my own. I didn’t think I was codependent, but I’d grown used to living with other people for most of my life. And I still remembered feeling scared and alone when I was a kid. When my dad would go out in the evenings and leave me in the apartment to scavenge for my dinner in our gross kitchen and put myself to bed.

But it wasn’t just about living with someone—anyone. Not anymore. I didn’t want to live without Greid.

Shit, maybe I was in love with him already.

Neither of us had said anything for a while. We were both just staring down at the autographed napkin. I had no idea what Greid was thinking, but he cleared his throat and said, “Wow, that’s… Those are sweet words.”

I released him and quickly stepped back when he looked down at me. I managed to suppress my anxious cringe, but I suddenly wanted to flee. My heart was pounding too hard. My scalp prickled with sweat. Taking a quiet breath, I forced myself to look up at him. At his handsome, inhuman face, with its big yellow eyes and cracking smile lines and flat nose. Those little spikes around his hairline that twitched in time with the nervous flutter of his ears.

And my chest grew too tight. My throat closed up. My pulse hammered in my throat.

Fuck, I was in love with Greid.

I didn’t know why I was panicking. Maybe it was because I didn’t feel in control of my emotions all of a sudden. We’d been moving so slowly, easing into our friendship, and now easing into a deeper, more intimate relationship, but slowly. Giving me time to think about it all, to process what I wanted for myself and what I wanted with him. And now it felt like I’d just been… walloped in the face with one of the most intense emotions I’d ever experienced, and I had no idea why it had hit me now. Why a few words scrawled on a napkin by a famous actor had made the realisation thud into the pit of my stomach like a lead ball.

“Berry?” Greid’s voice made me jump out of my skin. I looked back up at him, knowing my eyes were dazed and a little wild at the realisation pounding in my head, to see his mouth twitching. “You look like you’re still in shock from meeting her,” he said teasingly.

“Oh.” I laughed a little too shrilly. “Yeah, well, I definitely wasn’t expecting it. But she was really nice. And she said she’d be back at the bar tomorrow evening if you want to meet her.”

Greid’s eyes went wide. He frantically shook his head, glancing down at the napkin. “Shit, no. No way. I’ll get all stupid and tongue-tied. She’ll think I’m a total loser. Or a weird stalker fan.”

“No, she won’t!” I hesitated, shifting on my feet, and guiltily admitted, “Although… I did mention that you had a crush on her in that sexy crime-fighting show.”

“Oh my god, Beryl.” He cringed, covering his face with a hand. “Now I definitely can’t meet her.”

I laughed, giving his stomach a gentle nudge. “Oh come on, she knows she’s hot. I bet she’s had millions of fans drooling over her.”

“I don’t drool over her.” Greid dropped his hand to shoot me a mock glare, then mumbled, “Anymore. But, I mean, she did always wear those tiny shorts on that show…”

Chuckling, I took the napkin and the bag of snacks still looped over his wrist and set them on the console table, then helped him take his coat off. “So go meet her tomorrow! If you want to, that is.”

“I don’t know,” he said uncertainly, hanging his coat up. “I can’t think right now. My brain’s still scrambled from working on that fucking headpiece.”

“Did you get it done?”

“Yeah, thank fuck. I’ll send it off tomorrow.”

“Good.” I grinned up at him as he approached. “I want to see it before you package it up, though. Will you show me in the morning?”

“Sure.” He stopped in front of me, threading his fingers through my hair and lightly scratching at my scalp with his claws, making me want to purr. He grinned, sharp teeth gleaming. “Your hair’s all crazy.”

I laughed, my heart once again going nuts as I wrapped my arms around his hips. “My hair’s always crazy.”

“Yeah.” He sifted through the strands. “I love it.”

My pulse leapt at the L-word coming from his mouth. As terrifying as it seemed when I hadn’t fully gotten to grips with it yet, a part of me was suddenly desperate to hear him say it. To hear him tell me.

My Aunt Violet was the only person who’d ever told me they loved me. My mom obviously hadn’t, having taken off after birthing me without a look back, and I didn’t have a single memory of my dad ever saying it. Ever saying anything a child needed to hear. That they were wanted and loved.

I tried to imagine Greid looking down at me, taking my face in his enormous hands, and telling me that he loved me, his big yellow eyes solemn and focused solely on me. My gut went all weird and fluttery, heart rate picking up speed yet again. Pure joy mingling with panic.

Fuckety fuck. I was definitely completely in love with him.

But I had no idea how strongly he felt about me, and that made me really freaking nervous. Sure, I knew he liked me. I knew he was attracted to me. But he’d been burned before in a relationship, and the fact that we lived together didn’t mean I could assume he was in this for the long haul. We’d had sex, but we hadn’t slept in the same bed. There was still a line there—a divide—and neither of us had brought up crossing it.

“Okay, you totally need to go to bed.” Greid’s hand shifted to cup the side of my face, his thumb smoothing over the skin beneath my eye. “Your eyes have gone all glassy and unfocused again. Was she really that amazing? If you run off with Parin var Gelligar, I’ll be kinda pissed, but I’ll understand. Do you think she still has those tiny shorts from the show?”

I burst out laughing, Greid’s cute dorkiness managing to, at least temporarily, tamp down the chaotic emotions suddenly swirling inside me. “You could always ask her tomorrow,” I said teasingly.

He gave me a dry look. “Yeah, sure, and while I’m at it I’ll ask for her home address. And her shoe size. Just to really hammer home the awkward creep vibe I try so hard to give off when I’m out in public.”

“You never give off a creepy vibe,” I said, defensive on his behalf. Tightening my arms around his waist, I grinned up at him, my head tipped right back. “You give off a super-hot quiet guy vibe.”

His face spikes twitched with pleasure. “Shut up, no I don’t.”

“Yes you do.” Chuckling, I plastered myself to his front and rubbed my cheek against the soft fabric of his sweater, breathing him in. “I’ve missed you the last few days.”

My pulse jumped as soon as the words escaped me. I was suddenly worried I was being too obvious. About the whole being madly in love with him thing.

His twin hearts thudded under my ear, increasing in speed. I smothered a smile against his chest.

“I missed you too,” he said, wrapping his long arms around my neck and hugging me tighter.

I sighed, leaning my weight on him. When my eyes slid shut, exhaustion hit me in a wave. It had been a long week, and a weird, unsettling evening. First I’d met Parin, then Gavin had made me feel like crap for the rest of my shift. Then I’d had all my demiurgus coworkers—friends?—rallying around me, clearly trying to cheer me up and make me feel less self-conscious.

And then I’d had the jarring realisation that I was in love with Greid.

I needed to go to bed and let him go to bed too. He had to be tired as well. And as much as I didn’t want to let go of him, I knew I should take some time to process all these new, scary emotions.

Plus, my feet were really sore from being on them for so long.

“You okay, berry?” Greid asked, dipping his head to press a kiss to my hair.

I’m fine. I just realised I love you and for some reason it’s kind of terrifying.

My throat clogged up, and I allowed myself a few more seconds to cling to him. Go to bed before you do something stupid like blurt out that you’re in love with him! Go!

What I really wanted to do was ask Greid to come and sleep in my bed with me. The squirmy feeling in my gut held me back from voicing it, though. Irrational fear made me worry that it would be too obvious—that I’d be exposing things I wasn’t ready to expose.

Realising I hadn’t answered him out loud, I pressed a kiss to his chest and forced myself to step back. “All good. Just ready for bed.”

“I’m gonna go find a frame for that.” He nodded at the napkin, then seemed to remember the bag of snacks he’d picked up, which instantly diverted his attention. “Wanna take any snacks up with you?”

“I’m good, thanks.” My mouth twitched as I watched him rummage through the plastic bag and pull out some chips. And some jerky. And a purple cake-looking thing that I’d seen him eat before, but had no idea what it actually was.

“I swear I must’ve lost a few pounds this week,” he said as he unwrapped the cake thing. Stuffing it into his mouth, he added in a muffled voice, “I definitely missed some meals.”

He definitely had not. I’d seen the evidence every morning in the kitchen.

I reached out and lovingly patted the slight curve of his stomach. “You don’t need to lose anything. You’re perfect.”

He grunted. “Yeah, but I’ve been thinking I should probably like, I don’t know, eat healthier or whatever. It’ll get my mom off my back. And I’m not exactly young anymore.”

Greid was forty-two, which was still pretty young for a demiurgus. But he did sometimes eat like a toddler who’d been left unsupervised in the snack aisle of a grocery store.

“Well, maybe you could cut back on sugar…” I perked up. “I want to learn to cook more, so that works. Hey, why don’t we learn together?”

Greid swallowed his mouthful and cast me a wary glance. “You should get some sleep,” he said instead of answering.

I laughed, reaching up to wipe a crumb off his mouth before going up on my tiptoes for a kiss. He ducked his head eagerly, and his mouth tasted like sweet liquorice from the purple cake.

The maelstrom of emotions teeming just under the surface got even more tangled as lust rose from the taste of him and the feel of his ridged tongue in my mouth. I tried not to get carried away as we kissed, tongues gliding together, the brush of his sharp teeth making my belly jolt with arousal. I was tired, and I had another double shift tomorrow. I had to be a responsible adult and go to sleep. We couldn’t stay up all night fucking.

Could we?

God, I wanted Greid to touch me. Make me come. I wanted his big naked body between my legs or underneath me. I wanted to play with his enormous cock myself this time, not just watch him do it. I wanted to see him lose his mind and know that I was the one who’d got him there, who made him feel so good, who could give him the things he wanted.

I wanted to give him everything.

It took great effort to end the kiss, but I managed it. See? I am in control of myself!

I snorted a laugh as I stepped back. “You practically have to bend in half to kiss me.”

“I don’t mind,” he said quickly. “I think you’re the perfect height. But, um… yeah. Sorry.”

My brows twitched. “Sorry for what? For being tall?”

“I don’t know.” He shot me a mock glare, but his ears fluttered with embarrassment. “It just came out. Shut up. Go to bed, berry.”

He was such a dork. A perfect dork. Who I was in love with.

“Goodnight, Greid.” I finally started heading for the stairs. “See you in the morning.”

“With coffee?” he asked eagerly, his mouth already full of whatever snack he’d picked next.

I glanced back as I began ascending the stairs, blowing out the candles on the way. “I wouldn’t dream of entering your lair so early in the day without coffee.”

“You can enter my lair any time you want,” he called after me, making me snort as I trudged up the spiral staircase, my legs suddenly feeling like they had fifty-pound weights attached to each one.

I was yawning as I entered my bedroom and stripped off, but I wanted to take a shower before getting into bed. The bar always got hot and humid when it was packed, and I’d spilled some beer down my pant leg at some point during my shift. I could still smell it, like the cloying blend of booze and stranger sweat and many, many perfumes and aftershaves had soaked into my skin.

I tried to keep my mind blank as I showered, but I couldn’t. I’d thought time alone would help me process my feelings and work out what I was going to do and whether I was brave enough to tell him, but now that he wasn’t here, I just missed him.

The shower chased away some of my exhaustion, and I was feeling a little wired as I dried off and put on my pyjamas. Could I go see if he was still up? Not to tell him—no way, not yet—but just… to see if he wanted to hang out for a while before going to sleep.

Or maybe to see if he wanted to make me come.

Silently easing open my bedroom door, I peered into the hallway. I’d blown out all the candles up here already, but usually I could see the faint glow of any still lit downstairs. It was pitch black, meaning Greid had gone to bed.

Sighing, I shut my door and trudged over to my bed, sliding under the sheets. They were cold at first, making me shiver and shift my legs restlessly as I turned off my bedside lamp and lay back.

My mind raced as I stared up at the dark ceiling, insecurities and ugly thoughts rising to the surface, as they were so wont to do in the dead of night, when everything felt so much more overwhelming.

What if it’s weird to fall in love with someone so quickly?

What if there’s a universally agreed upon timeline for these things that I don’t know about because I never had a life before this? Like, you date for a certain number of months, then confess your undying love for someone?

What if I’m not actually in love with him but I have no idea what it feels like because I’ve never had a true romantic relationship before, and I’ve barely had any other kinds of relationships either?

What if he doesn’t feel that way about me?

I squirmed in bed, shifting onto my belly then immediately back around to continue blinking up at the ceiling. Sometimes I felt embarrassingly juvenile. Like I was experiencing all these things for the first time in my thirties that other people went through years earlier, and it was painfully obvious to those around me how small my world had been before.

Was I overthinking it? Probably. But I wasn’t usually a big overthinker—not like Greid, who overthought everything.

My chest got all tight again just thinking about him. I squirmed, thighs rubbing together and clit pulsing at the fresh memory of Greid’s tongue in my mouth. God, I just wanted to be close to him. Maybe I wasn’t brave enough to tell him how I felt, but I could show him in other ways.

And fuck, I really wanted him to make me come. I’d been waiting days now.

My hands crept up to my chest. Through the thin cotton of my pyjama top, I smoothed my thumbs over my nipples, shivering at the memory of his hot mouth on them. God, he’d been so sweet and eager. Needy. All he’d done was suck my nipples, but the memory of it felt like he’d been practically worshipping me.

How would he act with his mouth on my cunt?

Pulse rabbiting in my throat, I reached over and grabbed my phone from the nightstand. Wincing at the bright light from the screen, I licked my lips and opened my messages with Greid.

What was I going to do? I had no idea. Did I have any kind of plan? No. But I needed to at least speak to him, even though it’d been barely a half hour since we’d parted downstairs.

What are you watching? I typed out, seeing as I was pretty sure he’d still be up and watching TV in his room.

His reply came through just a few seconds later. A photo of the TV screen in his room, showing—of course—late-night infomercials. My mouth twitched into a fond smile, chest warming as I pictured him curled up in a mound of blankets, probably smoking a joint.

How come you’re not asleep? he sent. I thought you were really tired.

Dunno, I sent back, heart beating fast. Can’t sleep.

He replied, Want to come watch infomercials with me?

I stared at my phone screen, the urge to go and curl up with him in his bed making my stomach tighten. But my body was restless. Wired.

I want something else, I found myself typing back, belly dipping with anticipation. He replied just a second later.

What?

My pulse quickened as I licked my lips, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. I could practically hear the eagerness in his text. Whatever I wanted, he’d give it to me. He was so sweet. Eager to please. It made me want to give him anything he wanted.

I started typing again.

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