Page 36 of At Your Mercy
“See?” he murmured against my mouth, breath hot, words searing. “Your body’s honest, even when you’re not.”
I shook my head weakly, but the fight in me was unraveling thread by thread. Each tug, each drag of his hand made it harder to remember why I’d drawn the knife in the first place.
“You came here to kill me,” he drawled, grinding his hips once to prove how helplessly pinned I was. “Supposedly. But I know all you really wanted—” his hand squeezed, forcing a broken sound from my throat “—was this.”
His mouth dragged from mine, leaving me panting. He didn’t give me the chance to recover before he pressed me harder into the wall, his thigh wedged between mine, forcing them apart. My wrists ached in his grip, the pressure more than enough to bruise.
“Broad daylight,” Wes murmured, voice rough in my ear. “On a street where anyone could’ve turned the corner. That’s not how you kill someone, Ro.” His teeth caught the shell of my ear, biting just sharp enough to make me jolt. “That’s how you beg someone to notice you.”
“Shut up,” I hissed, but it came out broken, shaking.
He chuckled darkly, the sound vibrating against my throat as his mouth moved there again. “You could’ve slit my throat. You had the angle. The blade. The nerve.” His lips brushed over the sensitive spot below my ear, making me whimper. “But you didn’t. Because you didn’t want me gone, you wanted this.” His hips rolled again, forcing my body to betray me.
I sucked in a sharp breath, biting back the noise that wanted out.
“Don’t fight it,” Wes murmured, kissing lower, just above my collarbone, then dragging his tongue up in a line that made me shiver. “You’ve been aching for someone to take the choice away. To pin you down. To make you obey.” He nipped again, and I couldn’t stop the gasp this time.
“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do.” He cut me off without raising his voice, but the authority in it silenced me all the same. “If you wanted control, you’d have finished me. But you don’t want control. You want surrender. You want me to drag it out of you until you can’t deny it anymore.”
His hand slid from my hair to cup the back of my neck, thumb pressing firm into the tendons there, holding me still. His mouth ghosted over mine, not kissing, just hovering, so that I’d have to lean into the contact if I wanted it.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” Wes whispered, so close I could feel the shape of the words against my lips. “Tell me you didn’t come here desperate for me to take you apart.”
My throat worked, no sound escaping.
“Thought so.” His smirk brushed against my mouth, infuriatingly soft compared to the steel in his grip.
Wes didn’t let me move. His grip at my nape was iron, thumb still digging into the soft spot where it met my shoulder. His thigh still pressed between mine, his whole body holding me captive with maddening steadiness.
“You pretend to be so in control of everything,” he said quietly, as though we were having some ordinary conversation in an office and not on a deserted side street with my knife still discarded somewhere on the pavement. “And I get why.” He leaned in, his nose brushing my cheek, forcing me to feel howcalm he was while I burned alive under him. “But the moment someone looks too closely, it all comes undone.”
My jaw tightened, but his voice slipped through the cracks.
“You knew you’d find me today.” His lips hovered at my temple, almost tender, and that nearly undid me more than any bruise of his hold. “You followed me not to kill me, Ro, but to force my hand. You wanted me to pin you here. To strip the mask off. To make you submit because you’re too scared to do it yourself.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” The words cut the air. His mouth was at my ear now, his breath hot. “Your body’s betraying you. You’re hard against my leg.” His thigh shifted deliberately, rubbing harshly against my crotch, making me choke on a breath I hadn’t meant to take.
He laughed low, cruel but not unkind. “You don’t want me dead. You want me to own you. To tell you what to do. To make you stop pretending all the time.”
My nails bit into my palms, and I hated how the silence between us filled with proof I couldn’t argue against.
“You’ve been waiting for someone to take this from you. Elias couldn’t. He used you, but he neversawyou.” His voice dropped darker. “I do. And that terrifies you, I know. But just know that I will never hurt you in the ways he has. Any pain I give you will be pleasurable. It’ll have you begging for more.”
I tried to turn my face away, but his hand on my neck forced me still.
“You’ll keep denying it until I drag the truth out of you. That’s fine.” Wes pressed his forehead to mine, his tone steady as a sentence being passed. “But you attacked me today because you wanted me to show you who you really are. And I will.”
Wes’s thumb smoothed once over the back of my neck, gently, before digging in harder again. He tilted his head, studying me like I was some rare find at an auction.
“As much as I’d enjoy dismantling you right here,” he murmured, his lips brushing my temple as if confiding in me, “you’re far too precious to take apart where just anyone could see.”
The words slid like ice down my spine.Precious.
Before I could snarl or shove him away, he shifted his grip just enough to pull one hand free. He slid his phone from his pocket with practiced ease, thumb flying across the screen while he still held me fast. I heard the softdingof a message sent.
