In The Devil's Stables (Spirited #1)

Chapter 38

Later that evening

Charlotte came to him.

Not Charlie.

Charlotte.

Greyson's bedchamber door creaked, and he had opened his eyes to find Charlotte in his rooms. He blinked, wondering if he had imagined her there. In his dream, Charlotte took a deep breath before she bunched the fabric of her nightgown in her hands. She licked her lips, her gaze soft, unsure. It swept from her body, tumbling behind her and baring her body to his gaze.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Her skin was pale surrounded by the flickering fire behind her. It cast her into an intriguing mix of shadows and light. She walked towards him slowly, and Greyson found his eyes falling to each part of her body. The shape of her collarbone. The deep curve of her hips. The sweep of her long legs.

By the time Charlotte had stopped before him, Greyson was reaching for her.

Charlotte had grasped his face, stopping his mouth from diving for a taste of her. Her thumb rasped over his day old stubble, the sound loud in the room. "All I can give you in return, Greyson," she murmured, her eyes imploring as if she begged him to understand through the haze of sleep, "is me."

That was more than enough for him.

By God...

"Charlotte."

She breathed out a sigh. "I love how you say my name."

He chuckled against her lips. "As do I."

Everything else became a haze. He remembered paying particular notice to the small divot in her left shoulder. The flesh of her belly. The curve of her calf.

It was awhile later, Greyson half asleep, when he heard Charlotte's whispered, "I love you so much, Greyson."

He mumbled her name, a smile on his lips.

"I love you too, my Charlotte."

Greyson pulled Charlotte's body over him, tucking her head beneath his chin. His eyes closed, and right before he sank into the oblivion of sleep, Greyson thought he had felt a tear drop land on his chest.

The next morning

Greyson woke up the next day, groggy and disoriented. Sunlight split through the curtains of his bedchamber, and his hand shielded his eyes. A flash of the evening before glinted from the corner of his mind, and Greyson had to wonder if he imagined last evening.

Had he hallucinated that Charlotte had entered his rooms of her own accord? Had she, in truth, been flesh and blood and vitality beneath him?

Greyson glanced about his chambers. Surely God couldn't be so cruel as to give him such a divine dream only to strip it away as much as the morning sunlight stole his vision.

His blue bed linens were wrinkled and in clumps about his feather mattress. The fabric hung half off the platform his bed was raised upon. The scent of lilacs teased his nostrils, however, and it was then Greyson let a brief smile form on his lips. He couldn't help but lean over to the empty side of his bed, the sheets cool to the touch. The lingering floral notes of her sprung through him, lightening his mood and filling him with a lazy satisfaction.

The most damning evidence of all, however, was what lay in the middle of his bedchamber. Charlotte's discarded white nightgown decorated the carpeting, the ruffled, frilly material so distinctly feminine and so unlike his Charlie, that it sent a surge of confusion to him at the same time a growing urge to see her. To hold her to him.