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)
I brace myself for the door to be slammed, but he closes it quietly.
As he turns to face me, I blurt, “What happened—”
“That man did not come up here for the oil. He wouldn’t do a woman’s job. What was he doing in here—”
“We are almost out of—”
“Don’t lie to me.” Merc looms over me. “And before you tell me it’s none of my business, I killed a man for you tonight. So you can bloody well be honest with me.”
“The cook is dead,” I breathe.
“Yes.”
Rubbing my aching eyes, I shake my head. “I tried to find her in the kitchen. I don’t know if we aren’t too late—”
“What was he doing in here.”
I drop my arms and lock eyes with him. “I asked Thale for help. For the maid. I asked him to protect her after you’re gone and I’m … wherever I am.”
I can’t stay in the lodging house permanently, after all. Not until I can figure out how to melt down Mare’s gold.
Merc’s black and white gaze goes to the bed. “And what exactly did you give him in return.”
“Nothing.”
“You expect me to believe a man like him would provide anything to anybody for free?” He looks back at me, his stare raking down the front of my blouse. “You’re lying. And do you have to bed every man you’re around?”
I glance down. The buttons are all undone, my chemise showing. From when I’d intended to fix the buttons.
Merc steps in to me. “You know what, I think I will collect. After everything I’ve done for you, especially tonight, I want what we agreed to in the beginning.”
His hands go around my waist, and between one blink and the next, I think back to being in Thale’s lair, with that man touching me. I felt nothing then. But when it’s Merc, now? My body comes alive, heat rushing to my breasts and in between my legs.
With a jerk, Merc pulls me against him, his arousal obvious.
“Will you deny me after you had him,” he growls. “You’re still in charge.”
Leaning back in his arms, I turn my hands into fists as I grip his leather lapels. I do some jerking of my own, roughly bringing his mouth to mine.
Though I have battled death for what feels like centuries, tonight it seems to be prowling around, looking for a way into me, and I feel the futility of any mortal contest against the grave. I’m also tired of worrying over so many strangers, the ones here, the ones back in my village … even though they’re all I’ve ever had.
And then there’s the parting with this man right here.
There’s nothing gentle in the kiss. Merc’s lips rake over my own as he backs me up not to the bed, but the wall next to it. The waistband of my skirt is yanked at, my hips tugging this way and that, the hard length of him pressing into me even through the stiff felt—which promptly drops down to my feet after he undoes it.
Merc lifts me up with one arm and kicks the skirt away. I don’t care where the thing goes, especially as his hands come between us. He’s working at the ties on his britches—and then he’s wrenching the top part of them down his thighs.
His mouth is still on mine as he paddles up my underskirts. I feel a cool draft on my legs, but there’s no dwelling on that. He cups the back of me, lifts me up, and for the first time, there is a blunt probing at the core of me.
I brace myself for the pain, squeezing my eyes shut. But I will not stop this.
I want him. I want to know what this is—
Merc drives into me with a thrust, his arousal penetrating me in one hot branding. My eyes flip open and I see through the shroud of his black hair the window seat where he sits. The lantern is glowing, the journal open where he left it, the shutters whistling from the rain.
All of that disappears as the pleasure flows through me.
I look up to the ceiling. There are no sparks that fall, no stars twinkling to their own little deaths at the floorboards. But I feel like I did when that happened, whole and complete as I soar. In between my legs, Merc is pumping into me, to the point where our mouths break contact, and all I can do is hold on. I wrap my arms around his big shoulders, drop my head into the raven waves that fall all around, and squeeze my eyes shut. The wall behind me is hard, his body is hard … he is hard, inside of me.
I become nothing but energy, nothing but what he’s calling from me. He’s unleashed, wild and alive, as if he’s killing me as he did the cook, his breath coming out in explosions, his hips pumping faster, the strokes shorter and shorter.