Page 135 of Their Princess

I was already feeling fine. Better than fine. Now that I was in Graff’s arms—him having held me all night—the pain seeped away.

For the first time, I felt . . . home.

“How are you feeling now?” he asked in a soft tone.

“Happy,” I murmured.

He raised his eyebrows.

“What?” I asked, almost laughing. When did I start doing that? Oh, right. Last night. But something had bubbled up from me and was still leaving me floating. This bed even seemed softer than ever before. “Can’t I be happy?”

He scoffed. “After last night, I just figured you would be, well, something besides happy.”

I studied him like he studied me. Realization dawned for how odd my desires were. And worry crept into my chest over what he might think of me now. Having been there.

Having used me like that.

“Am I becoming too much like one of the whores?” I asked.

He shook his head feverishly. “I don’t use that word. And I don’t think that about you at all, Adelina.”

“But you think it’s weird that I liked what happened?” My voice was strained, and my heart pounded.

Rejection beat against my ribcage. Humiliation for what I had craved but could never have before. The desires I never knew how to voice. Last night had been perfect in my mind, and I thought Graff would understand.

But I saw now how wrong I was. Embarrassment burned my cheeks.

He took my hand and laced our fingers together. “I would never judge you for your sexual appetite, Adelina. It’s not weird to me.”

I smirked. “To others?”

“Who the fuck cares what others think?” He waved a hand as if he were shooing away a gnat. “No one has a claim to normal. It’s different for everyone.”

“Because we’re in the Mafia and MC?” I sighed, then mused, “Those aren’t very normal lives, are they?”

“No, they aren’t,” he agreed, smiling.

His fingers interwove with mine, sliding our palms closer together and then retreating. The way he studied everything he did was so fucking intense. I half expected to see a new drawing around the warehouse of our hands half-interlaced.

“But normalcy,” he continued, “and all that is considered normal... those are just constructs that change over time. No one isnormal. We can only be and embrace who we are.”

He wrapped his fingers around my palm and held my hand like we were high-school sweethearts.

Staring at the symbols inked on his fingers and feeling how large they were, I wanted them back inside of me, or more. I knew Graff’s hand and his touch. It had been different from Sas’s cock moving inside me. Graff’s touch. His movement. His body. Just how we fit together. All those things were different—more peaceful.

Desire for him again was starting to burn. A fire was awakening in me, and he could fan in the flames.

The same inferno had to be sparking in him because he was watching me with narrowed eyes. It was the same concentration I had seen when he had tattooed me. Like I was a blank canvas or clay he could mold to his artist’s design.

Graff propped himself up on his elbow and used his other hand to slide his finger across the bare skin on my chest, drawing circles or an imaginary pattern only he could see. A soft smile played on his lips and lit up his eyes.

It took over his face and made him look younger than ever before.

Suddenly, he rolled me over, so part of his weight pressed me into the bed. He still had on clothes and there was a sheet wrapped around me—accursed barriers—but I could feel his erection pressing against me. Graff’s eyes roamed over my face, and I held my breath, waiting. Wanting.

When his lips came down on mine, they weren’t demanding, but coaxing and reassuring me that he would take good care of me.

Such a drastic contrast to the fuck fest Sas initiated last night. So different, yet so.. . needed. The variety touched different places in my mind and heart. This, I wanted too.

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