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—
“Where did you go,” he says roughly.
I’m so caught up in my head, there’s a delay as I realize he’s spoken to me. It’s only as he looks around his shoulder with expectation that my mind decodes his words.
“Ronl came. He said Lena needed to see me. I had to go.”
Merc opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks back down at his pack. As the tension in his strung-bow body gradually eases, I resolve not to be impressed, one way or another, with the fact that my explanation has placated him.
What does it matter.
Turning to me, he levels his black and white stare. “Is she all right?’
“Yes.” I cross my arms and feel the bandage that the woman wound around my injury. “She is.”
I would mention what she did for me, but it’s best to start the separation now.
“Sorrel, listen to me, you shouldn’t go out alone here—”
“Sooner or later, I have to take care of myself. Whether it’s now or when you leave after this incessant rain stops, you’re not going to be looking after me forever.”
There’s a long pause. “It’s not that simple anymore.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.” Merc shakes his head and snatches his pack off the table. “And you’re going to regret this. Soon or later, you’re going to need me in this town, but it’s going to be too late.”
The truth of the statement makes me more angry because I do need him. Just not in the way he’s thinking.
Maybe this is a sign.
I point to the door. “Go forward, Merc. Take your own advice—and don’t lay upon me any lingering on your part. You’re less important to my destiny than you think.”
