Veiled Innocence

Chapter Fourteen

Present…

Fairy tales don’t exist. I don’t know why we’re told stories about them as girls.

Why set us up for disappointment?

There’s a library here at Pine Groves. It’s a small room with three rows of books. Fictional books.

Books full of made-up characters in their make-believe stories.

That’s how I feel right now. Fictional.

I finger the spine of one and read the title before pulling it from the shelf. I run my hand over the cover and flip it open, skimming through the pages.

Tick, tick, tock.

There’s a clock on the wall in here. Doc had them put one up for me. He knows I like to come here to think. Which leads me to believe that he probably put this book on the shelf too. The Other Boleyn Girl—well, who cared about her anyway? No one cares about the other child when the most important one is gone.

Annoyed, I put it back on the shelf, searching for something very specific instead. The dictionary.

I open it and turn the pages until I reach the letter F.

F, for fairy tales.

As my eyes run over the definition, I’m left with a sense of clarity.

My parents weren’t setting me up for disappointment. They just presented the facts wrong.

Fairy tales are stories full of the unimaginable.

Why not tell the truth? That it’s all a lie.

They are nothing but stories to mislead and deceive us into thinking we can have what we want.

I’m not allowed to have what I want.

I can’t have the prince…because I am the unimaginable.

I’m the catalyst in the destruction of my own happy ending.

If only someone had warned the prince.

Tick, tick, tock.

Past…

I could see Grayson from where I was reclining on his king-sized bed. He was silently observing me from a leather chair in the corner of his room behind a dark wooden desk.

I’d stolen his shirt so he was left only in jeans, and when I nuzzled into the collar, I could smell him. Yes, I’d been right. It was the smell of hot sex.

“I like your photographs,” I said, inspecting the black-and-white stills on his walls. There were three on the far left, which I recognized right away.

The Pantheon, The Colosseum, and The Sistine Chapel.

“Did you take all of these?”

His eyes moved to the images hanging vertically.

“Yes. Last summer.”

I scooted over to the edge of the bed but kept my attention on him as I stood. Pushing my hair behind my ears, I strolled over on bare feet and stopped in front of them.

I ran my finger along the ruins of The Colosseum before turning to him. He had one foot resting on his knee and his fingers steepled over his naked abdomen.

I’d never been in the presence of a man so incredibly sexy.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked, curious about everything when it came to him.

“I was just wondering how you ended up in my bedroom asking questions about my personal photographs.”

“You carried me in here,” I reminded with a sassy wink.

Arching a brow, he agreed. “That’s true. I did. I was also contemplating how sexy you are in just my shirt.”

I don’t know exactly what I’d been expecting, but that hadn’t been it. I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I’d expected regret or rejection, but it seemed like my teacher had finally accepted the unthinkable. Me.

Giving him a coy smile, I fingered the material tickling my bare thighs and played with him a little. “Yeah?”

“Yes, Addison. Very much.”

“Well, I like wearing your shirt. It makes me feel sexy.”

He must have pushed off the floor with his foot, because his chair rocked back slightly. “Good. Maybe I’ll keep you in it.”

I liked that idea and was about to say more when I spotted the opposite wall and a large black-and-white photograph centered on its own.

It was beautiful, and I was drawn to it.

Walking across the plush carpet, I stopped and studied the image. I had no words. It was mesmerizing.

The sculpture was of a nude woman lying on her side with her arms raised back over her head and wrapped around the neck of a winged—

“That’s Cupid.”

Grayson’s voice, that hypnotic, commanding voice, found me and made my body shiver.

“And who is she?”

“That’s Psyche.”

I traced my index finger along her naked form. I started at her head then moved down over her breast and continued all the way to her toes.

“What’s their story?”

The chair behind me creaked, and I looked back to see Grayson sitting up with his arms resting on the desk.

“Well, Venus, Cupid’s mother, led Psyche down to the Underworld to retrieve a flask.”

Curious, I frowned at…my history teacher.

“Why?”

Grayson’s mouth stretched into a slow smile as he checked out my legs. When his eyes came back up and rested on my face, he answered.

“Venus was jealous of the way the villagers revered Psyche. They spoke of her as a goddess because she was so beautiful, and that enraged Venus. She ordered her son Eros, better known as Cupid, to avenge her. But he took one look at Psyche and became enamored with her instead. He believed she was perfect in every way.”

I shifted from one foot to another and pushed my right toes down onto the top of my left.

“But no one’s perfect.”

Grayson shook his head. “No, no one’s perfect. Not even Psyche.”

I agreed with a swift nod of my head and waited for him to continue.

“Psyche’s father was very upset that his daughter wasn’t married because she was too beautiful not to be. So, he took her to see the oracle who told them that they would all meet a disastrous fate unless she was sacrificed to a monster.”

“That’s horrible! He got rid of her to save his own ass?”

I shot an annoyed look at Grayson, and I could tell he was enjoying himself. His eyes were lit up, and he was grinning at me in a way that made my heart thump harder. He was enjoying teaching me this lesson.

“Well, yes. He left her where he was told to, however, instead of a monster coming and taking her away…”

“Cupid did?”

Grayson chuckled and sat back in his chair. “Yes. But she didn’t know that. He took her to a palace, one that was covered in sparkling gemstones, where she would live for the rest of her life. Every night when it was dark, he came to her, and they made love, but he forbade her to know who he was...it was a secret.”

Grayson’s eyes zeroed in on me, warming all of the places he had touched earlier. I was his secret, and in that moment, he was conveying it with no more than a look.

“Psyche was curious, though…too curious. She wanted to see her lover. Wanted to see who touched her. So one night while he was asleep beside her, she shined a light over his face, and her lamp dripped hot oil on Cupid, waking him.”

I brought my thumbnail up to my mouth and began nibbling as I listened. I was enthralled.

Grayson stopped for a moment to ask, “Nervous?”

I nodded. “What did he do? Was he pissed off?”

“He wasn’t happy. He felt betrayed, so he left her there.”

My mouth dropped open in outrage.

“What? That makes him just as bad as her father. He took her to a palace where no one else lives and then just leaves her there? Because she wanted to see him? That’s not fair.”

“Maybe so. But that’s what happened.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s shit.”

Grayson laughed then, a full-bodied belly laugh. His shoulders shook, his chest moved, and his teeth gleamed at me. I wanted him. Bad.

“Gee, Addison, tell me how you really feel.”

I walked forward, rolling my eyes. “So how did she end up with him in the sculpture if he left her?”

“Well, Psyche went after him. She was distraught and wanted him back. When she fled the palace, Venus saw her and began unleashing horrible events. Eventually, Psyche was led down to the Underworld to retrieve a flask. The only condition…she was not, under any circumstances, allowed to open it.”

Almost as if he was calling to me, I moved closer to the desk and raised my hands to the top of his shirt.

“But she did, didn’t she? Psyche was too curious not to.”

Grayson’s eyes shifted to what I was doing as I unbuttoned the top button and moved on to the one between my breasts.

“That’s right. It didn’t matter that she’d been told not to. Psyche wanted to know…”

His words trailed off as the third button was freed, and I parted the material, leaving a wide strip of skin.

“Wanted to know what?”

“She wanted to know what was in the flask.”

I pushed one of the sleeves down my arm and let his shirt fall to the floor, leaving me completely naked.

“The first day we met, you told me to be curious. This is me being curious. What was in the flask, sir?”

Grayson’s brow rose as he opened jeans and freed his cock. He was hard, I was wet, and I wanted him all over again.

“Sometimes curiosity should stay just that,” he advised as he pushed his chair away from the desk.

“Should it?”

Standing slowly, he made his way behind me, and my entire body shivered with anticipation.

“Yes. There’s a reason Psyche was told not to open the flask.”

This was wrong. He’d told me that so many times. But I wanted him, and I was going nowhere.

“And that reason was?”

“Because opening it would only bring about the most severe of consequences.”

“Which was?”

“Death. Except she was revived by Cupid, who touched her with his arrow. That sculpture depicts the moment he finds her and fears he’s too late. He reaches for her as she does for him, and his touch makes her immortal.”

I thought his words over as I read the quote hanging above his desk.

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

Suddenly, I had a different question. “Do you fight monsters?”

I wondered if Grayson and I had more in common than the need to be with one another.

His hands clasped my bare shoulders before he ran them down my arms—then his mouth was by my ear. “Don’t we all?”

I turned my head to the side until our mouths were only inches apart and pushed for an answer. “What’s your monster?”

“What’s yours?” he pushed back, not responding to my feeble attempt to dig.

Instead of telling him the one thing that would make me less than perfect, I looked back at the quote.

“Who wrote that?”

“Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche.”

He entwined our fingers and brought our right hands up until we were both caressing my breast before he slid the other down to stroke between my thighs.

“He also stated that, ‘The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman as the most dangerous plaything.’”

Our fingers found me hot and wet, and I shivered, resting my head back on his shoulder. I felt safe there, wrapped up in his arms with his warm breath against my ear. Everything I feared, everything that made me the person they all knew, disappeared.

Here in Grayson’s house, I could let go of all the things that made me broken. I could cling to the illusion I was creating. The one where he would complete me, and we’d live happily ever after.

“And you? Are you a true man?”

I sucked in a breath as he pushed two of our fingers inside me.

His mouth found my ear and he sucked my lobe between his lips. He manipulated my fingers until I was brushing them over my nipple and grinding my hips on the hands between my legs. I turned my head, and when our eyes caught, all I could see was the same hunger and need that I was feeling.

“Addison, the time for play stopped when you walked through my front door.” He pressed his lips to mine and conceded, “But the other half is true. You are so fucking dangerous that I’m not sure I’ll survive you.”

Was this where we were supposed to decide?

Every decision comes with a choice. There were two here—bliss or survival—and as the taste of him hit my tongue, I knew my answer.

Naked and aroused, I moved so I was facing him. He stepped closer, causing me to back up against his desk. As my backside hit the edge, he lifted and placed me down on the surface. I spread my thighs for him and braced my hands on the cool wood as he pushed his jeans away from his hips.

“I have no idea why I’m allowing myself to be with you, but I have no clue how to stop.”

Moistening my top lip with a flick of my tongue, I asked, “Do you want to stop?”

He grabbed a condom from the desk as he stepped out of his jeans, kicking them to the side. He walked back to me and slid his hands around my thighs until they were under my knees and then tugged me forward so my ass was on the edge of the desk. When his hard cock pressed up against the entrance of my aching heat, his lips found mine and he admitted, “No, I fucking don’t.”

Present…

“Addison?”

The intrusion of Doc’s voice rips me from my past. I must have fallen asleep in here. I glance around at the rows of books and blink several times before I hear it.

Tick, tick, tock.

Yep, I’m back in reality, all right.

“You were supposed to come and see me at four.”

The clock on the wall indicates it’s now going on five—shit, I slept through therapy. Oh well, sleep here or sleep there. Either way, it usually has me wishing I was elsewhere.

“What are you reading?” he asks, walking over to me.

I look down at the dictionary, still flipped open. I move to shut it, but Doc places his fingers on the page and turns it around.

“Fairy tales…”

I look up at him as he eyes me skeptically.

“Why fairy tales?”

I don’t plan to answer, but before I know it, I hear myself saying, “Why not? We have all the characters. The prince, the princess, and the monster.”

Doc concentrates on me as I push away from the table. “Is that what you think? When you think about what happened?”

I walk around the table until I am shoulder to shoulder with the man who is supposed to be helping me. Really though, he just wants to solve me—like some kind of fucked up puzzle.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me, Doc?

I feel him turn, and I know he’s confused. “Addison?”

Without looking at him, I whisper, “What happened is...the fairy tale ended.”

Just before I walk away, I feel a hand on my arm. “Did it?”

I meet Doc’s eyes this time as he studies me, trying to work me out.

“Of course. There’s no fairy tale without the prince.”

My eyes remain on his until he removes his hand.

“You can talk to me about him, Addison.”

I shake my head. “And which him would that be?”

“Both. But right now I mean Grayson. Talk to me, let me help you.”

“And why would I do that?”

“You need to talk about him.”

“No,” I murmur. “I need to forget. Forget that I knew him. Forget that he ever existed…” I walk to the door thinking, forget that I destroyed him.

“Addison?”

“What?”

“What happened wasn’t your fault.”

And there it is, the unimaginable—me.

What happened was my fault, but like all good fairy tales, everyone chose to believe the lie.

Tick, tick, tock.