Page 25 of At Your Mercy
The door shut with quiet finality.
I sat there, my cheek still faintly burning, my stomach churning, my chest feeling like it was caving in on itself. His words should’ve settled me, grounded me, reminded me of my place—they always used to.
I pressed my palm against my cheek, leaning into it.Good boy.
The echo wasn’t Elias’s.
It was Wes’s.
I tried to shove the thought away, but it clung stubbornly. Wes had said it once—soft, steady, not mocking—not like Elias. It wasn’t a threat disguised as praise, it was… something else, something I couldn’t exactly pin down. It was something… nice.
I curled forward, elbows digging into my knees, tugging at my own hair until my scalp ached. “Stupid,” I muttered under my breath. “Fucking stupid.”
Elias wanted me to play the game, slip on the collar, wag my tail—pretend. That should’ve been easy for me—itusedto be easy. I’d built my whole life on pretending. But then Wes had looked at me like he saw more than just a pawn, like he sawme.
And that was the problem.
I shouldn’t have cared about the way his voice dipped when he took control at the restaurant. I shouldn’t have cared about the way my pulse had jumped, not from fear but something darker, hungrier, when he leaned in just close enough to brush against me.
Elias wanted me to use Wes’s leash to pull him close enough to cut his throat. But the image that played in my head wasn’t of Wes falling, wasn’t of blood.
It was me on my knees.
It was Wes looking down at me with soft, reverent eyes, happy to have me between his thighs.
I swallowed hard and stood up quickly from the couch.
No. No, no, no.That wasn’t me. That wasn’t who I was. I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t someone to be handled or dominated. That was Elias’s lie, the story he’d forced into me, over and over until it had become a reflex.
And yet—my body still ached with the memory of Wes’s calm command, the way it made me want to fold in on myself, not out of fear but out of a twisted craving for release.
I shut my eyes, whispering it again, desperate for it to stick this time. “Stupid. Just stupid.”
And when sleep finally dragged me under, it wasn’t Elias’s hand in my hair I dreamed of.
It was Wes’s.
* * *
I blinked my eyes open, head heavy, mouth full of cotton from the sleeping pills I’d forced down the night before.
I dragged myself into my bathroom, staring at my reflection as I splashed cold water over my face. The man in the mirror looked too pale, with hollow, dead eyes; every single inch of him seemed frayed at the seams. I straightened my shoulders anyway, sighed, then washed and moisturized my face. After all, it was part of the job—to look pretty and soft, that is. It was almost laughable how men so often allowed lust to be their cause of death.
Elias’s words echoed in my throat as I watched my reflection, going through my morning routine, or at least the semblance of one.
You’ll be better tomorrow. Tomorrow, you’ll remember who you answer to.
My stomach turned. I gripped the edges of the sink, thinking back on the events of the previous day. This was supposed to beeasy—Elias had laid it out step by step. Approach the target, feed him the story of wanting to escape, and let him feel like he was rescuing me. Get close enough to be trusted, then end it. Clean and simple, just like all the others.
But nothing about Wes felt simple.
After brushing my teeth, I wiped my mouth with a nearby hand towel, then trudged out of the bathroom and to my closet. I chose neutral layers, nothing too polished, nothing too ragged. Enough to make me look nonthreatening, maybe even a little vulnerable.
I tugged the beige cashmere sweater over my head, fingers fumbling at the hem. Honestly, it was nice being able to dress down a little.
But what if Wes looked at me with those steady eyes again, sifted through my act, and saw more than I wanted him to? He was bound to be suspicious that I was suddenly donning a whole other personality.
Even worse, though—what if he believed it, and I found myself wanting it to be true?
