Page 23 of Bread By the Grim
RIP.
CRACK.
BANG.
They come one after another, each one louder than the last. My heart stops even as I find myself sitting up and pulling on some sweatpants. This is how people die in movies, my brain argues against my feet as fear fillsmy gut.
What a great time for Grim to be out of commission. I pocket my cell phone and grab the only thing I can think of–an umbrella–to use as a weapon as I slowly make my way up the stairs.
It’s not dark yet, but the sun is setting, and the kitchen part of the bakery doesn’t have nearly the same amount of natural light as the cafe part. The back door is partially open. I slowly move over to close it only to find it completely off its hinges.
Fuck…what could do that?
For a moment, I find myself frozen, just staring at the door frame like a deer in the headlights, the splintered wood just barely hanging on in the last of the light. I’m just about to run back down the basement steps and try to squeeze out a window when something clicks in the back of my mind. Something Bernice told me about Grim rescuing her—he’d pulled the door off the hinges that day. Someone from her church had to come help him fix it. They had to redo the door frame completely.
Hope mixes with fear. It could be Grim, but it could just as easily be anyone else.
Okay, not anyone. Not anyone human, at least.
I still need to get out of here, but Doux’s in the bathroom below, and I’m not leaving him alone with gods knows what here in the bakery. I pull out my phone and hold it in my hand, ready to dial, just in case.
Slowly, quietly, I step toward the swinging doorsthat separate the back from the front of the store. Everything is just as I’d left it. The register is untouched. Carefully, I move to the front of the room and stop.
There is the softest of noises—almost a hiss of a breath from above. My heart begins to pound in my chest. Is it Grim? Is he watching me?
I check the bathroom.
Empty.
I make my way to the storage closet.
Empty.
I walk to the front door, check the lock, then take my time shutting the blinds on the front window. It gives me the excuse I need to look up. There in the corner of the rafters, near the counter, is Grim or rather, my gremlin, in all of his naked shifted glory.
He has changed dramatically. He’s all reptile, all muscle. His scales gleam as they catch the light. His cock stands at attention as he rests on all fours, his tail slowly swishing, eyes on me.
He is no longer the Grim I know. Hopefully, that Grim is still in there somewhere. Now, he is something magical, something breathtaking, something otherworldly.
Well, this is what I wanted—the gremlin out and ready to have sex.
From the looks of his cock, he’s definitely ready. I can think of a thousand places far morecomfortable to have sex than the bakery, but beggars can’t be choosers, at least this time.
I turn away from the blinds and dramatically stretch and yawn. “Oh man, it’s so hot in here.” I step out of my sweatpants as I head across the store, leaving them where they land. For good measure, I take off my T-shirt, too. “I think I’m going to have to sleep in the nude, all alone in my bed tonight,” I say obnoxiously loud.
I’m about to head back around the counter when something, no, someone drops down from the rafters and lands softly behind me. A normal person would scream, but a normal person wouldn’t be trying to lure a monster out of hiding to breed with her.
My heart stops beating for what feels like an eternity, and then?—
“Phillllllll,” the gremlin’s voice is a hiss as he wraps his arms around my waist. His huge cock is like a steel rod against my backside.
I want to squeal with delight, definitely not the sexy thoughts I need, but it feels like a victory.
I didn’t even have to coax him out. He came of his own free will.
Now I just have to make sure I don’t scare him off. I lean back into his muscular body and let myself relax against his rock-hard abs, hoping he’ll take it as a sign to keep going. He presses his snout to my neck and takes a deep breath.
“Philllll,” he hisses again. “Clothes.”
