Page 56 of Payne's Envy

He kept shoving and shoving the elixirs down my throat until everything was a blur. “You need to let loose. Stop trying to be so uptight, like my father. Even he knows how to have fun.”

I remembered the tickle of hair sliding across my skin. A body on top of mine. The room smelled of my mistake, but I refused to admit it. I had beensavingmyself. Sebastian couldn’t understand why I attacked him after Joy had darted from the room, crying. He couldn’t figure out why I was so furious with him and myself.

I should have never let him push the witch’s brew on me. I knew how strong the stuff was, especially when the females arrived. My reason for going into Grim’s castle had been to see Joy, but she wouldn’t come out of her room when the women arrived, and it reminded me of how innocent she was.

Fifteen to my twenty. Hades. What the fuck was wrong with me? And yet, I knew, deep down, what I felt wasn’t wrong. My love for her had always been there. Denying it only made it worse. I’d never do something I shouldn’t. I could wait. It was what I’d been doing since I was a child. What exactly? I wasn’t sure. Maybe to love her out loud? For her to mature? For me to?

I just knew it wasn’t time yet. And I was okay with that. With waiting.

One mistake ruined everything. I took it out on Sebastian and attacked him. Given the Reaper siblings’ abilities and immortalities, Sebastian beat the shit out of me, then healed me. After I attacked him again, he repeated the act of beating me up.

“I have no clue what this is about, but you’re pissed—”

I took a swing at Sebastian, and he toppled over. Asleep. The curse of sloth taking him under.

Hours later, as Joy cried, I had to accept what I’d done.

“Why are you crying?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Joy Reaper had chased after me since her little legs could, but those legs weren’t so scrawny anymore. Joy was tall—still tiny compared to my height, though. Her blonde hair was so long it covered her back. And Hades, she was beautiful. The prettiest thing to exist in two worlds. I’d say Heaven couldn’t match her beauty either.

“You already know.” She ran behind the tree. “I hate when you act like this. Like you don’t know.”

“Sebastian brings women around all the time,” I said as I stepped closer.

“I know. I see you guys with them all the time, but never like that.”

I did not mean it to be like that, but I couldn’t say that because it had happened. “It’s a blur, really. I remember little.”

“I don’t want to know,” she snapped.

“Joy, you know that you’re fifteen, right? You’re a child.”

“Don’t start again,” she muttered. “You always do this when you’re trying to tell me I can’t love you.”

“I never said you can’t love me, Joy. I only wish you could see that’s nothing wrong with what we are.” Friends that one day would be…

The insects chirped as the silence reigned in. I peeked around the tree where she had her hands tucked behind her as she leaned against the trunk. “I don’t even remember her face.” She looked up as I said, “But I could paint yours with my eyes closed.”

Her eyes watered again, and my throat got scratchy.

“Payne…” she whispered.

“If I say there will never be another woman I touch, would you be happy?”

She nodded.

“Then be happy.”

I’d never drink a drop of elixir again. Well, maybe in another fifty years. I smirked. When we were together.

The memory faded, but the raw pain at what I’d done, sleeping with someone other than my mate, ate at my insides. No! That was Payne.Not me.I would never be so foolish.

I had the odd sensation that he’d never repeated the mistake again.

The Joy I held in my arms was more mature than the one in the recollection. There was nothing youthful about my mate. She was naked before me. Her pert tits rose and fell with her breathing as she continued her crying. I would have no more of it. She wasn’t a child. She wasn’t someone I had to withhold myself from any more. I had no idea where that thought came from, but it was a fact.

We were mates, and everything I was about to do was meant to be.

I ran a large palm up her ribs and got no response. Just some slight goosebumps. I traced my fingers across her left breast. The crying stopped. Her shape molded to my grip perfectly as I fondled her, teasing and exploring her for the first time. When I tugged slightly at her nipple, she gasped and lowered her hands from her face.

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