Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Merc steps out and is pulling his surcoat back on. Behind him, in a bed draped in bloodred satin, one of the working women is lying back in an indolent sprawl, her long, flaxen hair waving over the pillows, her naked breast exposed, her painted nails trailing down her cleavage as if she’s recalling what he did to her.
And being very satisfied with their interlude.
As his head comes up, he sees me and freezes. His face shows a brief flash of emotion, but then he puts a mask in place.
He recovers faster than I do. “What in the fates are you doing out of that room.”
Kicking up my chin, I arch my brow as I’ve seen him do countless times. “I’d ask you the same about being in there, but that’s self-explanatory. At least your pants were done up before you opened things.”
As I stride off, I find it incredible—in a bad way—that for someone who’s never felt jealousy before, I take to it with such facility.
Fifty-One
Limitations.
“I asked you a question. What are you doing out of that room.”
Merc is tight on my tail while I march down the corridor to our room—my room, I mean. As he repeats his demand, he’s keeping his voice low, but he might as well be yelling. On my side, every time I blink, I see that bed … and all that’s in it. The wrinkled sheets, too. And those painted nails on the woman’s—
With a lithe jump, he gets ahead of me and shoves open the door, staying in the jambs so that I have to push by him. I’m more than happy to give him an elbow, and as he closes us in, I continue to walk as if I have a destination somewhere, anywhere, other than here. With him.
“You are not supposed to leave!” He jabs at the bolt. “I told you, you have to stay here—”
I walk right up to him and peg him eye to eye, even though I might as well be trying to meet a mountain in the summit. “No, I don’t.”
The fact that he’s positively gobsmacked is satisfying in a perverse way. But he recovers quickly. “Yes, you do—”
“Why.”
Merc tilts in to me. “Are you joking? You think all those nice men downstairs who are drunk want to be your friend?”
“No, why do you think I have to do what you say.” I motion around us. “I’m not your wife, your sister, your child, your charge. We had a professional arrangement that you fulfilled, and having discharged it, we’re done—considering you said you won’t take money from me.”
Or take my body properly, I tack on to myself.
Something that is not happening for so many reasons now, given that his needs have obviously been attended to, and I got to see the aftermath.
“Listen to me.” He sinks down on his thighs so our faces are on a level, planting his hands just above his knees. “You’re going to get yourself killed—”
“Only forward, never back. That’s what you said to me in the tunnel. So go forward, Merc. The door is right there.”
As I swing my arm and point at the exit, I think about what a gift it is that others cannot read our own minds. The fact that he’s just been with another woman curls me with rage, even though I have no more right to that than he has dominion over me.
“I’m only trying to help you,” he grits out.
I open my mouth to hit that platitude back at him—except then I realize that, in some ways, he’s in the position I was downstairs with that maid. And thinking of her makes me want to curse.
Breaking off from him, I walk about the room, staring at the floor as I’m torn between what’s happening up here—and what I know is happening down in the kitchen. On his part, Merc takes the opportunity to go into the water closet. I hear him mutter, and when he reemerges, he has his backpack in his hand. For a moment, I remember his warning to the woman who showed us this room. So of course all our things have remained exactly where we’ve left them.
Merc thumps the weight down on the table, jerks open the throat of the shouldering bag, and rifles through the contents like he’s checking that nothing is missing. When he closes it all back up again, I take it things are okay—in his current mood, I have to wonder if he wishes theft had occurred just so he could do something about it.
I expect him to walk out. Instead, he plants his palms on either side of the pack and leans into his arms. As the muscles bulge, I trace his bent back, narrow hips, and strong legs, and imagine him naked between that other woman’s thighs. Did she relish the way his hair fell around her, too? Did she like what he did with his mouth—