Chapter 46
I was blown away by his question. He looked cold and irritated, like I had interrupted his peaceful time alone.
All this time apart and I had thought he was searching for me, fighting to take me back. Had I really expected him to run into my arms as our eyes connected and passionately sweep me off my feet?
I looked behind me to make sure he wasn’t talking to Jax. Jax hid in the shadows, watching and waiting for his invitation. Turning back, Grayson’s glare bit into me.
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
I didn’t know how to respond. What the fuck are you doing here? What the fuck was I doing here.
"Well?" He asked.
"I..."
My brain was short-circuiting. I looked around the area. A little hut stood with stick walls and leaves half the size of me laid across its roof. The fire pit had a log seat and a neatly packed rock barrier. There was even a damned table he had built, blood stained and well used.
He had made a home here. Without me. Made it comfortable and convenient. Tears pooled in my eyes and I tried to suppress the quiver in my bottom lip.
His grimace deepened and he rolled his eyes.
"Come." He demanded. "Sit down. You can bring your boyfriend with you."
He returned to his own seat by the fire. I turned to Jax who emerged cautiously from the trees.
He glanced at me nodding as he passed, letting me know it was ok. He lowered himself next to the fire, across from Grayson, hand steady on the butt of his knife.
"Relax. I could smell you lot from a mile away. If I wanted to kill you, I would have."
"So why didn’t you?"
Jax’s voice came in deeper than i’ve heard before, and with an authority I didn’t know he possessed.
"Well, for starters, you’re not the one with wet fingers."
I gasped, knowing he was talking about Julien and the intamacy we once shared. Jax gave me a questioning look, and this time I was the one growling.
Finally moving from where I had been frozen in place, I stomped over to Grayson. He looked amused as I stood directly in front of him.
Glowering down, I slapped him. Not the wind my-hand-back and give-it-my-all slap, but enough to make it sting.
His face darkened, and he slowly rose. His chest nearly bumped into me, the sheer mass of him expanding as if he’d puffed out to fill the area between us.
He was broad, solid, and overwhelming. I had forgotten how grizzly and dangerous the muscles that stretched through him were.
Suddenly, I felt small in a way that had nothing and everything to do with my height. The fury that had brought me over here was diminishing.
He towered over me, the heat of his anger radiating off him. The way his body took up space, was like he knew exactly how intimidating he was.
I could feel the tension in him, the barely contained rage at my hand having touched him as it did.
With his breath starting to quicken through his nose, my small voice interrupted his temper.
"Where were you?"
I didn’t try to contain the hurt in my voice as I stared up at him. His eyes twitched but his stance remained the same.
"I saw you go over that cliff, I thought you died. Why didn’t you come for me?"
"I tried," he said through gritted teeth.
"Not hard enough."
My accusation hung between us and the tears I fought off had returned. His eyes tightened as he pinned me down with them.
I refused to look away, refused to let him off easy. He gave a long, exasperated sigh before finally looking away. Defeated.
This was a man who had fought off packs of werewolves alone, they called him a King of Alphas. Even when tied to a tree, he couldn’t be killed.Yet he couldn’t get to me?
"It’s been weeks Grayson. Weeks. Where were you?"
The raw pain in my words made him wince and he refused to return his gaze to mine.
He moved without looking. The distance between us collapsed as he grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me against him.
His hand trailed up my spine and into the hair at the back of my neck as he breathed me in from above.
My soul fell into him with the embrace. Every scent. Every muscle. It was like my skin had been ripped apart and only now was being stitched back together.
His cheek rested against the crown of my head. His whole body felt tense, like he was fighting an internal battle of whether or not to pull me closer or push me away.
He held me tight but careful, as if I might break beneath his grasp. If this was his way of saying sorry, I accepted. I only wanted him. The bond be damned.
Pulling back, he remained wordless as his hand traced from my forehead to around the back of my ear, and ending at my chin.
He stared at my mouth as his thumb swept over my bottom lip. Flowers bloomed with his touch, tingling and vibrant.
I wished for him to bend down and place his lips where his finger was. I wanted to taste him, to feel him. All of him.
His hand fell and he turned away again, returning to his seat as though the moment never happened. I felt as though I had just rode a roller-coaster. His hot and cold behaviour making my head spin. I had been in his presence for less than half an hour and already he was infuriating me.
Jax sat still and awkward, pretending to warm his hands as he stared deeply into the flames of the fire.
"Jax, could you go find us some dinner?" I asked him, desperate for alone time with Grayson.
He popped up, excited to leave the situation.
"One meat buffet coming right up," he commented while already halfway to the forest.
I smiled warmly, glad that Jax had come. Time on the island wouldn’t be the same without his witty remarks.
Turning back to Grayson, I kneeled at his feet. Placing my hands on his knee, I stared up at him from under my lashes with eyes wide. He returned my look with an unwelcomed aversion.
I sat on my heels while I leaned into his knee, remaining queit while I waited. The longer I watched him the softer he became.
With a quick sigh, he finally let go.
"What is it about you that ruins me?"
"I could ask you the same thing," I retorted.
The ethereal connection between us had rejoined itself, blocking out the bond I held with Dominic. Grayson no longer laid claim to me yet our bond was stronger than ever.
"I don’t understand. Why does it feel like I’m tied to you?" I asked.
I could see a struggle within him, a hollowness to his pupils. He didn’t want to speak of the thing between us but it was too strong for him to deny. He could cock an attitude with me all day but the strings were strengthening between us and I knew he felt it too.
"Its the bond." He said.
Was he talking about Dominic’s bond, I wondered. Or the one on paper that my father had me sign?
"I thought we weren’t bonded anymore. The others... they said it would be voided if we didn’t...consummate."
I looked away as I said the last word, my cheeks burning slightly at the thought of consummation with Grayson.
His hand raised to turn my cheek back towards him, as though he didn’t want me looking away for even a second.
I rested my chin against the hands that still rested on his knee. His brow furrowed, and I thought of every time I had seen him make that face.
"We’re not bound by the Lunar Laws," he confirmed.
The way he said it was unfinished and I dragged my fingers slowly up and down his pant legs while I waited. A twitching of muscle told me his body responded happily to my touch.
His hand moved to my chin and lifted, his other grabbed my hand and gestured for me to rise. I obeyed, pulling myself to my feet.
His grip fell to my waist and pulled it towards him. I placed a leg on either side if him, straddling his lap in mine. I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck, feeling the silky black hair beneath the tips of my fingers.
We gazed into each other’s eyes, quiet and observing. His hand rested on my waist where he had pulled me in.
His pheromones threatened to pull me undone. The urges to start taking clothes off tugged at the front of my mind. I could feel that he was thinking the same thing.
If this wasn’t the bond than how did it feel so similar?
"Then how are we bound?" I asked.
He smirked in that beautifully annoying way, arrogance kissing at every spot I wanted to.
"Its the fucking gods," he told me. "We’re fated mates."