Page 38 of Obsessive Cravings

“You’ll move in?” he asked.

“No. I won’t have you lead my life, Greyson. I…it reminds me too much of my brother.”

“You have a brother?” he asked quickly.

“I told you we didn’t know enough about each other,” I said, flashing him a smile.

He sat and pulled me to his lap. “Tell me about your brother.”

“There’s not much to tell. We’re…we’re estranged. I don’t talk to him anymore.”

I looked away, but he eased my face back to him. “Why not?”

“Because of the shit you’re pulling and, well, he’s not the man I thought he was. He lied to me about a lot of things, and I found out the hard way. Getting hurt in the process.”

“So that’s why you left Treemont?” he asked, rubbing his hand down my thigh.

“Yes. There was a situation that turned bad, and none of it would have happened if he had been honest with me.” I looked away again, not wanting to relive the pain. The fear the memory of those two days held. The way Clint had turned on me, using me only to get to Mason. I still didn’t know what had hurt more: the pain from knowing he’d used me, the pain of his fists and the knife wounds, or the pain of learning Mason’s secrets.

“Riley,” Greyson said softly.

“I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it. Do you have siblings?” I said, turning the questions to him.

He let out a long sigh before saying, “I have a brother. Correction, I had a brother.”

I creased my brow. “He’s dead?” I asked, my heart breaking for him.

“No,” he said, with the shake of his head. “But he’s dead to me and I’m dead to him. We had a falling out twenty years ago.”

I waited for more, wondering if it could be any worse than my falling out with Mason.

“Over a woman.”

I gritted my teeth, the thought stirring an envy I didn’t like.

“That’s cute. I might ease up on my punishment if you keep that jealousy thing up,” he teased.

“Punishment?”

The memory of his smacks to my ass returned, warmth rushing between my legs. He’d followed every one with the firm smoothing of his hand over the sting, his body pressing mine into the tile wall as he breathed in ragged exhales close to my ear. I’d come so hard when he finally mumbled a ‘good girl’ and jerked my hips back and penetrated me, I could barely remain upright.

He didn’t answer me. Instead, a wicked gleam filled his eyes. His hand moved up my back before it slid down my arm and encompassed my wrist.

“Oh,” I breathed, a fire heating in my belly. He was distracting me, and it was working. “What woman?” I asked, needing to fight for my control back.

“A beautiful redhead I stole from him. He didn’t like it when he found her mouth around my cock, and we haven’t talked since. I saved him. She was a bitch who needed to be put in her place.”

I cringed at the visual he’d put in my mind, not liking the thought of another woman touching him. But the harsh way he’d spoken surprised me. It was crass and heartless. He must have noticed my reaction, his eyes crinkling with humor.

“You don’t like my language?”

“No, I don’t.”

He laughed harder. “Says the woman who told me to fuck her when I had her tied up.”

Butterflies skittered through my stomach. He tightened his grip on my wrist, bringing my other one behind me, and my breath hitched. “What do you say I give you that punishment now?”

I couldn’t help the way my body pressed toward him at his words. Aside from the few smacks to my ass, he’d been nothing but gentle with me, although there was a force behind his gentle moves, a strength that was Greyson.

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