“I love you too, Kaley,” Jillian replied with a smile as she slipped down the corridor to find Grimm.

Jillian entered his chambers quietly. He wasn’t there. She sighed, frustrated, and moved restlessly about his room. His chambers were spartan, as clean and disciplined as the man. Nothing was out of order except for a mussed pillow. Smiling, she stepped to the bed and picked it up to plump it. She pressed it to her face for a moment and inhaled his crisp masculine scent. Her smile faltered and became quiet wonder when she spied the tattered book the pillow had been concealing. Aesop’s Fables. It was the illustrated manuscript she’d given him nearly a dozen years before, that first snowy Christmas they’d spent together. She dropped the pillow and gathered the manuscript, stroking it tenderly with her fingertips. The pages were frayed, the illustrations faded, and little notes and oddities peeked out from the binding. He’d been carrying it all these years, tucking in his mementos, much as she had done with her volume. She cradled it wonderingly. This book told her everything she needed to know. Grimm Roderick was a warrior, a hunter, a guard, an often hard man who carried a tattered copy of Aesop’s Fables wherever he went, occasionally secreting dried flowers and verses between the pages. She flipped through, stopping at a note that had been crumpled and resmoothed dozens of times. I will be on the roof at gloaming. I must speak to you tonight, Grimm!

He’d never forgotten her.

Sensitive yet strong, capable yet vulnerable, earthy and sensual. She was hopelessly in love with him.

“I kept it.”

Jillian spun around. Once again she hadn’t heard a sound when he’d entered the room. He was framed in the doorway, his eyes dark and unreadable.

“I see that,” she replied in a hushed voice.

He crossed the room and dropped himself into a chair before the fire, his back to her. Jillian stood, hugging the precious book to her chest in silence. They were so close to the intimacy she’d always wanted from him that she was afraid to break the spell with words.

“I can’t believe you’re not bombarding me with questions,” he said carefully. “Like why did I keep it?”

“Why did you keep it, Grimm?” she asked, but it really didn’t matter why. He had carried it with him to this day, and that was enough.

“Come here, lass.”

Jillian gently placed the book on a table and approached him slowly. She hesitated a few paces from his side.

Grimm’s hand shot out and fastened on her wrist. “Jillian, please.” His voice was so low, it was almost inaudible.

“Please what?” she whispered.

Swiftly he flicked his wrist and she was standing before him, captured between his thighs. His eyes were fixed in the vicinity of her navel, as if he couldn’t summon the strength to raise them. “Kiss me, Jillian. Touch me. Show me I’m alive,” he whispered back.

Jillian bit her lip as his words slammed into her heart. The most valiant, intense man she’d ever known was afraid he wasn’t fully alive. He raised his head and she cried out softly at his expression. It was dark, his eyes swirling with shadows, memories of times she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. She cradled his face between her hands and kissed him, lingering on his lower lip, savoring the sensual curve.

“You’re the most incredibly alive man I’ve ever known.”

“Am I, Jillian? Am I?” he asked desperately.

How could he wonder about such a thing? His lips were warm and vital, his hands moved across her skin, awakening nerve endings she’d never suspected existed. “Why did you keep the book, Grimm?”

His hands fastened possessively on her waist. “I kept it to remind me that although there is evil, there is sometimes beauty and light. You, Jillian. You were always my light.”

Jillian’s heart soared. She’d come seeking confirmation of their fragile intimacy, to prove to herself that the tenderness and physical affection Grimm had offered her the night before had not been an isolated instance. She’d never dreamed that he might offer her words of … love? For what else were words like that if not words of love?

Her dreams were finally being realized. She’d always known there was a bond between herself and her wild-eyed beast-boy, but coming together as man and woman exceeded all her childhood fantasies.

Rising to his feet, Grimm pulled her against the muscled length of his body, unselfconsciously offering her the powerful evidence of his desire. The mere brush of him between her thighs made her shiver breathlessly.

“I can’t get enough of you, Jillian,” he breathed, fascinated by the sensual widening of her eyes, by the instinctive way her tongue wet the fullness of her lower lip. He captured it and kissed her slowly with scorching, lingering, mind-stealing kisses as he backed her toward the bed. Halfway there, he seemed to change his mind. He cupped her shoulders in his strong hands and turned her in his arms. Jillian had thought the sensation of him pressed against her thighs was too exciting to bear, but now the hard length of him rose hot against her, and she pushed back into him in a wordless plea. His hands began a languid journey over her body. He caressed the soft curve of her hips, slid his palms up the bow of her back, then slipped his arms around her to catch her breasts, finding the sensitive nipples and tugging them gently through the thin fabric of her chemise.