He chuckles deep in his throat. “That, my dear, is not true.”
The idea he’s paid for women before shocks me. Then again, would it be better for him to have found a true love and never strayed out of loyalty? And why in fates do I care about his bedding partners.
“Sallae Mae never kissed the patrons,” I retort. “None of the working girls at the Gauntlet do.”
“Is that the woman who brought you into the trade?”
Ignoring him, I nibble off a bit with my front teeth, cautious in case my nose has misidentified things, and it is something tough and tasteless—
My mouth blooms with the most delicious taste, and I can’t help but moan while I eye the carcass. How anything so tough on the exterior can provide this singular delicacy, I have no idea, but my stomach doesn’t care about the particulars—or the bloody mess we took the meat from.
It just wantsmore.
“Oh, crescent moon…” I chew slowly to savor the experience. “This is—”
“Lewis was an arse who did not take care of you well enough. Here, have more.” Then Merc tacks on dryly, “Brace yourself, my sword’s coming at you again.”
As I glance his way, there’s a sexual charge to the comment and my cheeks get even hotter. “What about you?”
“We feed you first. Then I’ll see about me.”
I’m so touched, I nearly forget everything and meet his eyes. But that warmth fades as he announces practically, “If you’re going to make it through the journey that awaits us after our swim, we need you properly fed.”
The disappointment that hits me is as misplaced as my speculations about his lovers. And really, after all I’ve seen, why should I ever assume tenderness from any man?
“And one more thing.”
I finish chewing and take another piece. “What is that.”
“I am going to kiss you.” His voice lowers into a silky drawl. “Before we leave here.”
EighteenAn Abrupt End.
Merc feeds me as if I’m a pig to the slaughter. All of the bread, all of the meat he’s cut from the ribs of thebalas, and he makes me drink everything that’s in the bladder Mr. Lewis pushed into my hands. I’m now chewing on a root of mint wood, cleaning my teeth thanks to a supply he keeps within the folds of his surcoat. Following his announcement about our mouths meeting, he’s remained silent, but in my head, we’re arguing back and forth—
No, wait. I do believe I’m fighting with myself.
Iwanthim to kiss me, and know that’s a stupidity from which I’ll not easily recover. The problem is, even with the full belly he’s given me, I’m not likely to survive what we must do next—whether that’s somehow getting through that pool or whatever’s past that. Do I really want to go to a watery grave without knowing what it feels like to have a man’s lips on my own?
Merc’s lips.
Going on this theory, we might as well have the sex now—
“What—” Merc sputters. Then he puts his broadsword aside and shoves the butt of the torch into a fissure in the wall. “I mean,yes. Now—”
“Wait, what—”
Merc rises up on his knees, and he’s magnificent in the torchlight, his hair one with the black of his tunic, his harsh face carved with a mating need I’ve seen before on other men—but never had directed at me. His blunted fingers yank the knot out of the laces that close the front of his britches, and behind the leather, the bulge of his sex thickens and extends out to the side in its confinement.
I’m so shocked, I can’t respond. I must have spoken my thoughts aloud—
“Only a kiss,” I blurt.
And then wish I could take that back, too.
He freezes, his corded forearms in mid-flex, his hands run with veins. I have a thought that his palms must be callused from fighting, and I shock myself by wondering what they would feel like on the inside of my thighs as he spreads me—
Merc redoes the knot. “All right, a kiss then.”
