Page 49 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

He is reverent, almost ceremonial, as he mouths at me—soft then hard, teasing then urgent—lips and teeth mapping out a territory he intends never to lose. He presses me gently back until I’m braced against the velvet arm of the sofa, then sinks to his knees on the floor, looking up at me with that same question in his gaze.

I nod, because words are impossible now, and he slides his hands down my sides, hooks his fingers in the waistband of my leggings. He peels them downward, slow as gravity, pressing kisses to each revealed inch—my hipbone, my thigh, the tender skin of my knee. I am already wet for him, already coming apart, and he seems to know, seems to taste every molecule of it in the air.

When his mouth finally finds me, I almost lose my mind.

He pushes my knees apart, gentle but inexorable, and his tongue strokes a path up the seam of me, at first tentative, then deeper, a low growl vibrating against my skin when I moan his name. He eats me like he wants to be full of me, like he wants to replace every ending he’s ever tasted with this: with salt and sweat and the molten ache of my pleasure. I am undone in seconds, my back arching off the couch, eyes squeezed tight as his lips close around my clit and suck, hard, fingers pressing into my hips to anchor me as I fall apart.

It takes me a minute to catch my breath, and in that minute he stands and lifts me like I weigh nothing, settling me again in his lap, wrapped all around me. His cock is hot and thuddingagainst my thigh even through his pants, and I shiver with anticipation, with need.

He strokes my face, kisses my temple. “Still want this?” His hands shake, just a little.

I nod, wordless.

He kisses me again, open-mouthed and dizzy with need, and I slide off his lap, kneel between his knees and undo his jeans, and he lets out a strangled sound when I free him from his boxers. He is huge—no, actually huge, and part of me laughs because of course he would be. I stroke him with both hands, then lean in to take him in my mouth, and his head snaps back and he makes a sound so desperate it’s almost a sob. He grabs a fistful of my hair, but doesn’t guide or force—just holds on, like he’ll drift away otherwise.

When I pull off, I climb into his lap, straddle him. Lower myself down. Every inch of him fills me, stretches me, and it’s so good it’s almost pain, almost relief. He buries his face in my neck and stays perfectly still until I start to move, rolling my hips in slow circles.

We find a rhythm together, slow at first, then urgent, then something beyond urgency—his hands gripping my hips, pulling me down onto him as I roll forward, and the wet slide of him inside me is so good it steals language entirely. He says my name like he is losing something. Says it again like he is finding it. I brace my hands against his chest and take him deeper, feeling the thick stretch of him with every stroke, and his jaw goes slack, his breath ragged, his eyes fixed on my face as though he cannot afford to look away. The pressure builds in slow, devastating increments—a tide I can feel in my thighs, my belly, the base of my spine—until he grabs my hips and drives up into me hard, once, twice, and I come apart around him, clenching and shuddering, my whole body wrung out like light through water. He follows seconds later with a sound torn from somewhereancient in him, his fingers bruising-tight at my waist, his hips stuttering, his release flooding through me in long, shaking waves.

Afterward, I collapse against his chest, both of us shivering and slick and absolutely alive. His fingers stroke lazy patterns down my back, grounding me, and for the first time in years I feel completely, absolutely safe.

Neither of us speaks for a long time.

Eventually, he brushes the hair from my face and cradles my cheek in his hand.

“I have always thought of myself as an ending. For you, I would like to be something else.”

I kiss the inside of his wrist, where his pulse runs slower than any human I’ve ever touched.

“You already are.”

Wrapped together on my battered old couch, I begin to believe it, too.

When Grim finally sleeps—curled awkwardly on his side, long limbs spilling over the edge of the sofa like some mythic animal—I make a nest of blankets around us and watch his face in the half-light. I am not foolish enough to think that living with Death means the rest of my days will be simple, or even safe. But for the first time, I want those days, want every hour, every impossible minute.

CHAPTER 10

LAVINIA

When I wake in the gray light before dawn, my head is still resting against his chest, and his arm curves gently around my shoulders. The world feels different from this angle, closer and somehow more possible.

If Death ever comes for you looking like this, you will know him by the tenderness of his touch.

I wake properly to the smell of coffee. The living room is empty, but I can hear Grim muttering in the kitchen and quietly cursing my French press, which, to be fair, deserves every unkind word he gives it. I shuffle toward him with my hair wild around my face and find him pouring coffee with the exaggerated care of a man attempting to disarm an explosive.

He looks up and immediately straightens. “Bad dreams?”

“Only nightmares about a man who reorganizes my entire refrigerator by color.”

“I was bored,” he admits, almost sheepishly. “And the beet juice was leaking.”

He hands me a mug, and our fingers brush briefly around the handle. The contact sends an unexpected current up my arm, a warning shot across an otherwise ordinary morning.

We eat more of the funeral cake for breakfast, though by now it is approaching sentience and may technically qualify as another resident of the apartment. We share the newspaper at the little kitchen table, a ritual so commonplace that I am startled by how intimate it feels. I read the obituaries aloud while Grim offers tart commentary on the best-written entries.

“Lived for her garden and died pulling weeds,” he reads. “The circle closes.”

I slide the next one across the table.