Rogue (Real #4)(59)

“I don’t know what to say,” she finally whispers. “I want to know why you left, how you are.” Her tone gentles in a way that sends all the yearning in me spiraling outward like a hurricane. I exhale through my nostrils, trying to keep the blood in my body out of my already straining cock.

“I had work to do, but I’m good now,” I explain. “Come on, princess, talk to me.”

“Okay then. I’m lying in bed in my panties and bra.”

My brain nearly explodes. Fuck me with that. My heart slams against my rib cage and my dick punches into my jeans. I instantly picture her: lying in bed, her hips hugged by those panties, eyes heavy lidded, and suddenly I’m in that bed, right with her, and I’m holding her braid to keep her still while I f*ck her sweet, hot mouth with mine.

“Isn’t that why you called me? Aren’t you horny?” she asks when I don’t reply.

I throw my head back and roar with laughter. I’ve laughed more with her in months than I have on my own in years. “Princess, I’m horny with anything that has to do with you, but that’s not why I called.”

“Oh. Why then?”

I keep picturing her in that bed. Yeah. With me right next to her. “You wearing your braid yet?” I have to know. I still can’t figure out how she so easily grabs so many strands of hair and winds them all perfectly together, silken, gold and lovely when they fall in that braid against her slim white neck.

“Yes, I am.”

“You chewing your lip?”

She giggles softly. “Yes.”

I smile in wolfish delight. “I want to suck that lip, baby, but what I most want right now is to be there, kiss the shit out of you, and f*ck you without a rubber. I’m going to get tested, so next time I f*ck you, I’m not wearing one. Would you like that?”

“Yes, please. One Greyson without a rubber, and can you make that an express order?”

My chest floods with tenderness at how playful she is. “Yes, baby, I will, but I didn’t call to hear myself talk. I want to hear you. So talk to me, princess.”

“What about?”

“What else? About you, baby.”

“All right, so that girl who wanted my Mustang? She went up a thousand and I accepted.”

I groan and slam my palm to my forehead, then drag my hand roughly down my face. “Princess, I’m telling you . . . sell something else. Not your car. You need your car.”

“It’s all I have to sell, Grey.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, I’m sure. My car is all I have to sell.”

“The necklace I gave you, that’s not sellable?” I bluntly come out and say it.

“No.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because it’s all I f*cking have of you!”


My heart thuds once at that admission, then keeps on thudding from the frustrating urge to assure her, in person, that’s not the case. “Nah, that’s not true.”

“It’s all I have, Greyson. I spend days alone and all I have to know you exist and remind me you’re going to call are these stones. They’re all I have of you.”

“You got me, princess. Jesus! Do you not see what you’re doing to me? You have all of me, Melanie. I’m states away and I feel like half a man, I feel like I’ll tear something apart if I don’t see you soon with my own two eyes . . .” I trail off.

What the f*ck am I doing? Is this f*cking Oprah here? I press my palm into my forehead and breathe. Shut the f*ck up, you f*cking *!

She softens her voice like she understands. “Greyson, when are you coming home?”

Home.

God, I love that she calls wherever we are together “home.”

“Not yet. I have work to do,” I whisper, rubbing the pang she just caused in my chest.

“But when are you coming back to me?”

Holy god, she’s going to be the end of me. “Soon, baby,” I concede. On your birthday. When I want no more bullshit between us, nothing between us. “I’m coming home soon and next time when I leave, I want to bring you with me,” I gruffly whisper. “Just answer me this. Are you my girl?”

“First tell me you’re my guy.”

She misses me.

It’s in her voice, in how she speaks to me.

“Yeah I am, which officially makes you my girl. And, Melanie?”

She’s quiet on the other end of the line, breathing hard.

I add, my voice low but uncompromising, “I’m going to eat YOU UP when I get in. As long as I have breath in me, you’re going to be my princess.”

“Okay, Grey. Then you’ll be my king,” she whispers.

Oh, yeah, she’ll definitely be the end of me. “I thought we said no majesty jokes.”

“It wasn’t a joke,” she counters. Then she adds, “Grey?”

“Yeah?”

“I knew you’d call. This is why I’ll never sell the necklace.”

“I’ll always call, necklace or no necklace. Let it go, baby, and I’ll give you something better.”

I hang up and try to get a grip on myself, but my blood runs hot from talking to her. I remember the first day I saw her screaming for Riptide in the Underground. She was bouncing up and down, clamoring for another man, and I just stood there feeling strangely assured, and a little voice in my head said, This one’s mine. I knew I’d been had in the same way I know when I’ve got my marks in my pocket and a debt slashed—I’d been had.