That was teeming with nerves and tentativeness, anguish and mixed emotions.
This is Mercy in control. Mercy on fire. Mercyliving.
Tenacity and perseverance.
With a nip to her lower lip, I manage to retreat enough to move my eye in front of the scanner so the door unlocks.
She glances around the secluded corridor, soft jazz music crooning in the distance, along with the indistinct murmurings of Magie Noire guests. “This isn’t what I expected.”
“It’s our private wing. I’m not good at sharing … not even a glimpse of you or a thought in someone’s head about what you’d be doing in the club. They’d wonder about your proclivities, and I’d have to kill them.” I stall with one hand on the knob, the other twining her fingers, pleased that she seems to accept that. “This is my room. No one has ever used it, including me.”
When I swing open the door, she wanders through, intrigue propelling her forward. And for a brief stroll, our unhinged heat is placed on hold.
A quiet rumble of yearning usurps it, like a muggy summer storm lying in wait.
Wall sconces wash the room in an amber glow, highlighting the antique tobacco pine flooring, alabaster walls, gilded mirrors, feathery pillows, and bamboo-silk throw rugs. In the center, a king bed is framed in reclaimed wood with a pillory footboard for bondage play. Beside it, a wall-mounted rack dangles ropes, cuffs, and crops. And diagonal from that is a cabinet and dresser, both stocked with unopened toys.
Mercy peruses the drawers, her chest heaving, lips parted, interest clearly piqued. “Why haven’t you used this room?”
“I was waiting for my queen, remember?”
Her brown eyes coast to me. With the orange-tinted lighting reflected in them, they’re the shade of cognac. “How long were you waiting? How long …” Her strength wanes before rising like a cresting wave. “You let me go out with other men,be withother men …” A shadow of guilt or maybe agony falls upon her. “Didn’t it hurt you?”
I knew this was coming, but Mercy rarely asks questions before she’s prepared to accept the answer. And my choices have tormented me for years, so I wasn’t overly eager to share.
“It killed me.” I stride toward her, hands in my pockets so I don’t pounce on her … yet. “That’s why I sent most of your dates packing.”
She peers around the room, almost as if the dungeon of erotic fantasies will provide her perspective. “But you didn’t offer me an alternative.”
“No.” I select a few of the massage candles from the cabinet, strike a match to light them, and set them on the dresser as I elaborate. “I wish I could give one succinct explanation, but the truth is, I was conflicted for several reasons. I wasn’t sure I could be what you needed long term. My lifestyle was in opposition to a lot of your desires.”
“And perfectly aligned with others.” Her gaze flicks from the lit candle to my face, embellishing that simple sentence with years of unmet cravings.
“Yes.” Resisting the urge to rip her clothes off, I prowl around her, keeping my movements slow until I’m standing behind her. “I also didn’t want to act on my feelings too soon. You wanted to be free until you were at least thirty-three. I respected that. I was afraid that if I tried to change our dynamic too early, you’d shut it down, and I’d lose you completely. So, I waited because I needed to know that what I was offering was right for you.”
If I could go back, I’d do it all differently. I’d shake some sense into my younger self and claim her the night of her twenty-fourth birthday. We’d have a decade of memories as a couple to warm us. But then again, we wouldn’t have Remy, and that thought is too devastating, so …
“Complicated.” Her simplistic response is precisely what we’ve always been.
I sweep her hair to the side, my lips cruising over the slope of her shoulder and neck while my other hand splays over her stomach. “Very.”
She arches her back and tilts her chin in a silent request for more. “And what inspired this room?”
“I had it designed for you a couple of years ago.” My teeth graze her earlobe, my words flowing over her skin. “You were gone, but I never lost hope. Hope that I’d find you or that you’d choose to come back to me. Hope that you’d be mine someday. Hope that I’d redeem those years when I so foolishly waited and deliver everything you needed.”
A chill rockets through her. “So this … non-vanilla playground is—”
“Whatever you want it to be.” The gravel in my voice renders it nearly unrecognizable, but I can’t believe we’re here.
When I researched how to approach this part of our relationship after everything she’d gone through, the answers were both intimidating and encouraging. Because there was no sure way. Every survivor is different, every journey lined with diverse setbacks and various healing avenues. Basically, the experts I consulted advised me to be clear with my intentions, to let her set the pace, to not make arbitrary decisions about what she could or could not handle, and to provide her with options.
Mercy didn’t undergo sexual trauma, and yet she experienced a loss of power and agency so great that I can’t even fathom how that transformed her. Her confession that us beingtogether was essentially a trigger nearly wrecked me, but still, I hoped.
So … I’ll be whatever she needs me to be.
“I want to be claimed, to be yours, to be fucked. To be owned.” She spins in my arms, her eyes vulnerable yet undaunted. “And I want to be put in that guillotine thing. No, not guillotine. That’s morbid. The pillory.”
A boisterous laugh bellows out of me before I thread my fingers into her hair and crash my mouth into hers. She opens for me immediately, her tongue swiping against mine with urgency, the hungry storm reignited. I pull back slightly, licking her lower lip and coaxing her to chase me. She doesn’t disappoint. My girl is ravenous.
