Indulgence (19 page)

Mercy Reid
.

She was the key to everything.

Mercy

Staring up at the ceiling of X’s bedroom, I couldn’t believe
that I was free.

He’d fingered me right to the edge of a shattering orgasm
before tying me to his bed and I’d been so worked up, I would’ve done anything
for him to sate the need that had swollen between my legs. He’d denied me the
one weapon I had against his conditioning, which meant he was onto me.

Then we’d talked…we’d actually fucking
talked
. He
showed me a tiny piece of him and it was a treasure I would hold onto forever.

But the most important fact was, he’d untied me while I
slept.

Fuck I wanted him. I wanted him to fuck me so bad. Was that
so wrong? Considering the things he’d done to me, maybe it was, but I wouldn’t
have it any other way. My life had changed irreversibly the night I walked into
my childhood home and found my family dead on the plush cream carpet. There was
no going back. Not now and not ever.

Padding out into the lounge room, I picked up the T-shirt
I’d dropped on the floor hours before and pulled it over my head. The room was
warm, the radiator having kicked in some time ago. I switched on a lamp and sat
on the sofa, curling my legs underneath me and stared up at the wall. It was
still plastered with my story, my reason for revenge, and I studied it as I
waited for X to come back.

I had no control over where he went or what he did, I was
willingly at his mercy, so I let my mind play over the night that I went to
Sykes’ home and tried to kill him.

It was that night that had taught me that I wasn’t a
cold-blooded killer,
not yet
. For six months I’d played that night over
and over in my mind until I knew it back to front. I’d had a foolproof plan to
get in and get out. I’d planned Sykes’ murder right down to the last detail.
Once he was dead, his body wouldn’t be found until I was far away and someone
else.

Alison Crawford entered that house and Mercy Reid was meant
to leave.

He’d woken when he was meant to stay asleep. If I didn’t
hesitate, then he wouldn’t have seen me and tried to defend himself in the
first place. I’d choked because I was still a human being who was afraid of
taking another life. What I had to do next was simple. I had to overcome the
fear and guilt of committing murder, but the secret to that sordid little
nugget was still lost to me.

There was one person who knew.
X
. He knew and he
could teach me.

It was a lot more than wanting him to do something for me. I
wanted to help X find his own path to revenge and salvation. I wanted his heart
to beat again and I’d carve my own out of my chest and hand it to him if that’s
what it took. X and I belonged together.

There was movement outside in the hall and I stiffened as
the deadlock clicked and the door opened. X shuffled into the apartment,
dumping his keys on the floor and slamming the door closed behind him. Blood
was smeared all over his face, his eyebrow was split and his nose had gushed
red all down his front...

“X?” I asked, fixed to the spot, my heart jackhammering in
my chest. “What happened?”

He ignored me, throwing his leather jacket over the back of
the sofa. He didn’t even glance at me as he strode down the hall and I began to
panic. What had happened to him? Had all of this suffering been for nothing?
Had he reverted?

I could choke again and hide in the lounge as he hurt, or I
could do the thing I was meant to do all along.
Have the fucking balls to do
what needed to be done
. So I followed him into the hall, my bare feet
silent on the carpet.

“X,” I cried at his back, desperate for his acknowledgement.
“Answer me!”

He turned sharply and grabbed me around the neck, slamming
me back into the wall.

“Do I have to tie you up again?” he snarled, eyes flashing
with anger.

His touch made my bruised skin flare and I winced. “Let me
help you. Let me-”

He leaned close, his breath hot against my face. “I don’t
need your help.”

I pushed against him, clawing at his hand around my neck. It
was the same old argument. “Then tie me up,” I pleaded. “Tie me up and
hurt
me
. Fuck me, bite me, take my blood… Let me help you.”

“You would let me cut you?” he asked, his grip slackening.
“You would willingly offer your life to a monster?
Still
? I was fine
before you came along.”

“I’m on your side,” I whispered. “How many times do I have
to say it?”

“
I don’t believe you.
”

How could he? He didn’t seem to believe in much these days.
He had no reason to trust anybody considering his lot in life.

“Let me show you.”

His gaze searched mine for a moment, my heart breaking at
the sight of the blood smeared over his face and chest. He snarled and let his
hand drop from around my neck and turned, shoving open the door to the
bathroom.

I sucked in a few lungfuls of air, the bruised skin aching
from his constant touch. Water started flowing in the shower and I padded down
the hall, lingering in the doorway. X had stripped, flinging his bloodstained
clothes on the floor. He stood in the shower, naked as the day he was born.

The bathroom was rapidly filling with steam as water pounded
in the shower and I stepped into the room boldly.
No weakness, no fear and
strength, Mercy.

X turned sharply at my entrance, water cascading over his
head, and my nipples began to tighten at the sight of his naked body. He was
really something to look at and covered in blood…that was a sight that awoke a
desire too dark to understand.

I dragged the T-shirt he’d dressed me in over my head and it
dropped to the floor, his gaze settling on my breasts where his teeth marks
were still visible against my pale skin. Trying to keep the fear from reaching
my eyes, I stepped into the shower, warm water trickling over my body, soothing
the ache in my flesh.

“Get out,” he snapped, grabbing my wrists and twisting.

Pain burned through my raw skin, but I pressed my body
against his defiantly. “
No
.”

He pressed my back against the tiles, flexing his cock
against my stomach. “I want to kill you,” he murmured. “I need to kill you.”

“Then why haven’t you?” I asked, terror and lust thumping in
my heart all at the same time. I pulled my hands away and trailed them over his
abs. My fingers found his cock and began stroking.

X’s eyes rolled back slightly and he lowered his lips toward
mine, before covering my mouth with his. I sucked on his bottom lip, my fingers
leaving his cock and burying into his wet hair, holding him to me. I kissed him
softly at first and as he began to respond, I increased the pressure, teasing
his skin with the tip of my tongue. He moaned softly, brushing his fingertips
across my hips, his cock starting to harden even more against my thigh.

That’s it
, I thought as I began to roll my hips
against his erection.
Give into it
.

Strong arms wound around my waist, holding my body against
his as he plunged his tongue into my mouth, killing me with a passion that I
hadn’t felt from him before. Wherever he’d been and whatever had happened to
him, X was trying to fight the changes that were assailing him from every
front.

Who’d beaten him?
Why
? It was clear that he’d let
them, because I knew enough about him to know that he would never let anyone
lay a finger on him. He was using the pain to escape his emotions, using it to
numb himself to them. Well then, I just had to bring him back again and again
until he didn’t want to escape anymore.

I tasted his blood as the water from the shower pulsed over
us, washing it from his skin. He never once pulled back from the sting in his
cut eyebrow as he pinned my body against the tiled wall, kissing my mouth and
rubbing his cock against me. I ran my hands down his back and cupped his ass,
digging my fingers into his flesh. He moaned deeply into me in response, his
hands grasping desperately at my hips.

Then I was in his arms, winding my legs around his waist,
latching onto him as the head of his cock rubbed against the length of my
pussy. I needed it in me. I needed him to deliver me right to the edge and into
the abyss. I needed to come and X was the only man who would do.

I clawed at him, writhing between him and the wall, trying
to force myself down and onto his erection, but it seemed he wanted the same
thing.

X thrust without warning, striking deep and I cried out, my
fingers digging into his back. His cock slid in and out, his pelvis massaging
my clit at the perfect angle and I tightened my legs around his waist. He
filled me again and again, his lips against the skin of my neck, licking,
sucking…
biting
.

I rolled my hips, meeting him thrust for thrust. My skin
began to burn against his as my orgasm swelled to the surface. I clawed at his
face, trying to pull his lips to mine desperate for something to connect with.
X was too strong for me, even in his beat up and exhausted state and he
resisted my touch.

Denied the one thing I wanted, I latched my mouth onto his
shoulder and sunk my teeth into his flesh. The contact seemed to give him a
burst of energy and he slammed his cock into me, letting his teeth dig into my
shoulder. We’d have matching marks after this was all done. Beautiful,
intimate, pain.

With a cry, I raked my fingernails down his back, across his
scars, marking him in my ecstasy. He fucked me hard, pushing my orgasm to
breaking point and I was lost to it. I was obliterated under his assault as he
began to pulse inside me, letting out his pleasure and pain inside my pussy.
This guttural, almost animalistic grunt, escaped his lips as he thrust one last
time and held, coming deep inside of me.

Fucking hell
.

He held me up against the tiled wall of the shower for what
felt like an age, his cock still inside me, as we both gasped for air. We were
frozen in the aftermath of another epic fuck and this time it was almost on
equal ground. It was him and me.
Almost
…

X pulled his softening cock out of me and I slid carefully
down the tiles and onto my feet, my knees feeling unsteady. I was beaten in all
senses of the word, but I still had to keep fighting.

“
Mercy
,” X said through a heavy breath.

“I’m here, X,” I replied, clinging to him as he slid down
the tiled wall and onto the floor of the shower.

I climbed into his lap and buried my face into the crook of
his neck as warm water pounded down on us. He was emotionally exhausted,
utterly beaten and his arms wound around my back, encasing my body against his.

“Everything will be okay,” I murmured, kissing his neck.

He held me so tight, it was like he was clinging to me to
stop himself from drowning. Which was ironic, considering where we were and as
far as I was concerned, he could hold onto me for as long as he needed.

“What are you doing to me?” he whispered.

“I’m bringing you back to life.”

As we curled up in the bottom of the shower, water pounding
over us, I realized he’d never answered my question about my fate.

And you know what? I didn’t give the slightest fuck.

X

One touch from Mercy Reid was all it took to break my
resolve.

Staring into the bathroom mirror, I regarded the black eye
Sykes had given me. It’d swollen some, but I could still see out of it. It’d go
down in a couple of days, but who the fuck cared? A black eye meant shit when I
had less than forty-eight hours to deliver my mark.

I had two options. Give him Mercy or die.

But there was a third, wasn’t there? Another option that
she’d
been trying to drum into me from the moment she’d woken up tied to my bed.

Forsake everything I had ever come to know, abandon my
nature, abandon my masters, take her and run. That freedom would only come with
a river of blood and a pile of corpses. The pile that I already sat atop was
higher than I could ever hope to count.

There was movement behind me and I caught Mercy’s reflection
in the mirror. The bruises around her neck were changing from black to yellow,
fading at the edges. Her unnatural black hair hung around her shoulders,
blending in with the T-shirt she wore. The sight of her wearing my clothes did
something strange to my heart and I closed my eyes to separate myself from it.
She’d had plenty of reason to give up, plenty of opportunities to escape, but
she was still here.

“Where are you going?” she asked when I didn’t say anything.

“I need to see Weiss,” I replied.

She was silent and I opened my eyes, fixing on her
reflection again. She looked panicked and I couldn’t blame her.

“Royal Blood expect results,” I went on. “I have to report.”

“Are you-?”

“
Don’t
.” My fingers dug into the counter top.

“X-”

“
Mercy
,” I snapped. “If you know what’s good for you,
you’ll shut the fuck up.”

She cowered against the doorframe, but didn’t let her gaze
drop from mine. She had balls, all right. Maybe next time she wouldn’t choke.

Straightening up to my full height, I turned to face her.
“Stay here.”

She sunk back into the hallway as I passed, not making a
move to stop me. No doubt, she’d be gone by the time I came back and maybe I
should feel something about that, but right now I didn’t give a fuck. Give her
a head start. I’d catch her eventually.

Forty-eight hours
. It was more like thirty-seven now.

I picked up my leather jacket from the sofa and slid it on,
scooping up my keys from where I’d dropped them on the floor.