Had I made the right choice bringing here? I thought I’d steeled myself against the memories, the feelings which haunted me. And yet, barely a couple days in her presence and all the carefully crafted sanity had been undone.
I needed her to have a front row seat to my machinations, but would I be able to ruin her once it was over?
I wasn’t as certain as I had been week ago. Before I touched her, and smelled her, and tasted her.
The only thing I could positively assess at the moment was how much I wanted her. Enough to risk it all.
I shoved my hands through my hair and bent forward, stretching my back and arms at the same time.
How did I get to my end goal without ruining my plans, and without denying myself the tiny bit of solace she gifted me with soft sighs and gentle cries?
A question to consider before I put my hands on her body again.
I sat up and cleared my head focusing on the breathing exercises the priest drilled into me for years. The room was shaded in sunset tones when I opened my eyes.
My body ached as I climbed to my feet with a groan. My stomach weighed in with a rumble.
It had been awhile since I lost myself for so long. I’d underestimated Mercy’s effected on me.
The sounds from the other room spurred me into dressed quickly, as did the empty gurgle in my belly.
When I exited my room, I found her sitting on one of the couches adjacent to the dining room.
She locked her eyes on me as I approached. “You didn’t specify dressing,” she said, and gestured at her black yoga pants and t-shirt ensemble. Even dressed down, she exuded elegance. Even in Armani I felt underdressed. “Shall we go in?”
The food had been laid out and I needed to eat before any rash decisions. She preceded me, and sat in the chair she’d come to prefer. I took the chair across, and poured us both a glass of the white wine the chef had placed near my plate.
She dug in with no preamble, and I had to shake myself from watching her.
My own meal: steak, potatoes, broccoli florets paled in comparison to what my mouth watered for with her so close, and so very unbuttoned.
I forced down a few bites. “Is it good?” I asked, watching her plush lips hug the rum of her wine glass.
“Mmm.” And a nod was her reply as she started eating again.
Riveting conversationalist I turned out to be, despite the priest’s training.
I polished off my plate, for once not forcing myself to slow to a more socially acceptable speed. Then I sat back in my chair with my wine glass in hand so I could study her.
It took a few minutes, but finally she glanced up and paused in eating. “What?”
“Did you have dreams, or goals, outside a criminal enterprise?”
I watched my question slide through her mind via the facial expressions she dropped like rain in a storm.
“So we’ve reached the interrogation course. Remind me, does that go with the desert wine or the red?”
I waited. Her default ran toward attitude and sass. She fidgeted a moment and hugged her wine glass before speaking again. “Did you?”
Hoping to buy some good will, I answered her question. “I did. I wanted to be a writer. Have a wife and kids one day.”
She stiffened and forced a fake smile. I’d begun to discern her real reactions vs masks. “At least you picked a career path. I wanted to be a unicorn wrangler when I was young.”
I remembered both of us, eighteen, laying with, her head on my chest while she traced the scars on my palm with her index fingers.
She’d dreamed of running away then, of getting as far from her father and cousins as physically possible. I let myself remember, for just a second, the way she used to smile at me back then. I was the key to her universe, until everything changed.
“Since you aren’t going to tell me the whole truth on that question, tell me, how did you and Taylor meet?”
