There’s nothing gentle in the kiss. Merc’s lips rake over my own as he backs meup 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.
A growling sound vibrates into my ear.
And then I don’t hear anything at all.
I’m flying free of my body on a rushing wave that turns my blood into sunshine as Merc pushes into me one last time and stays here, his sex kicking deep within me.
Forcing my lids open, I look to the ceiling again.
I’m breathing heavily. So is he.
The rain seems loud as our panting.
When he withdraws and puts me on my feet, I feel the cold again, even as something hot comes out of me. His seed, on the inside of my thighs. From where he left it inside.
Merc never stumbles. He does now.
He trips over one of his own boots as he yanks up his britches, and he turns away as if to spare me.
“Considering what we just did,” I say roughly, “it’s a little late to worry about modesty—”
“We’re settled up now.” He pivots back around, but not toward me. Toward the door. “I got you here. You gave me what I wanted. What was started between us… is finished.”
Merc goes to the table and picks up his pack.
He doesn’t look at me as he leaves.
The door closes as quietly as a last breath.
The pain is indescribable, a horrible counter to everything I just felt when we were joined, and if I weren’t already leaning against the wall, I’m certain I would collapse. This is not how it’s supposed to end. This is not…
Across the way, I stare at the bolt.
I go to the door and try to calm my breathing. Before I open it, I tap the latch for luck—
He’s not waiting for me.
Leaning out, I look down the hall. Merc is nowhere to be found, and the next thing I know, I’m all the way to the head of the stairs. I expect to see his shoulders and that broadsword descending to the lower level. All I get is a pair of drunks bumping their way up the steps.
“He left.”
I turn to the female voice. Through an open door, I see the blond. Bethle, I think her name was.
