Chapter 6 Mercy
MERCY
Three Months Later
The last customer stumbles out of Devil’s Bar at two-thirteen in the morning.
I flip the lock with a satisfying click.
My feet are screaming, my back aches, and I’m pretty sure I’ll smell like beer and whiskey until I die, but there’s something peaceful about a bar after closing.
It’s like the building itself takes a deep breath and relaxes.
“Finally,” I mutter, kicking off my heels and sighing as my bare feet hit the sticky floor. “These things are instruments of torture.”
“Could’ve worn sensible shoes.” Cash’s voice comes from behind the bar where he’s already started counting the till. Because of course he is.
It’s been three months since that night at the hospital when baby Rose was born. Three months since we played strip poker in this very bar and nearly crossed a line I’ve been too scared to approach since.
Three months since I told him that night was a mistake, that we needed to take a step back, that I wasn’t looking for anything with anyone. He’d listened to my whole speech, leaning against the bar with his arms crossed and that knowing look in his eyes. When I finished, he just smiled.
“OK, angel,” he’d said, voice low and patient and way too confident. “I’ll wait. But we both know you’re lying.”
And he has been waiting. Every Friday. Showing up to ‘help’ with closing. Both of us dancing around what almost happened, what we both want to happen.
What I won’t let happen.
Three months ago, I made a choice—keep Cash at arm’s length or watch Gabriel destroy us both.
Since then, an unknown number has been calling.
Twice a week, like clockwork. A reminder that I’m not free, that I’m not safe, that he sees everything.
Cash thinks I’m scared of us. He doesn’t know I’m scared for him.
So I try not to flirt back, try not to respond to his teasing, but sometimes the tension snaps taut and we both go half-crazy—and even then I pull back.
It’s torture. But I cannot cross the line he keeps trying to coax me across. It’s the only way to keep him safe from the trap I’m caught in.
“Sensible shoes don’t get the same tips,” I say, padding over to grab the mop bucket. “Besides, these legs deserve proper showcasing.”
His eyes track down said legs, taking in the short black skirt that’s part of my unofficial uniform. The heat in his gaze makes my skin prickle with the same fire I felt that night when his fingers were hooked in my panties, when he promised me it wasn’t over.
“Your legs are perfect in anything,” Cash says, voice dropping to that gravelly tone that does things to my insides. “Or nothing.”
“Smooth talker.” I start mopping, very aware that bending over in this skirt gives him a show. “How much did we make tonight?”
“Enough to keep Summit’s lawyers from finding another lame excuse to shut us down.” His eyes stay on me instead of the money. “Though after that health inspection bullshit they pulled, I wouldn’t put anything past them.
Summit Development. Still trying to buy up Stoneheart, still making life difficult for everyone who won’t sell. The MC keeps pushing back, but we all know this war is far from over. I guess that’s why I’m trying not to add to their woes in my own way.
“Kya handled that like a boss,” I say. “Though Lee hovering like a protective grizzly probably helped.”
Devil’s Bar has been thriving under Kya’s ownership. She took this dive from run-down biker joint to a popular spot where the locals gather with live music on Wednesdays, bike night on Thursdays, and the best damn bartender in three counties—that would be me.
“Is that what you think I’m doing?” Cash says. “Hovering?” He raises an eyebrow, clearly amused.
“More like a vulture waiting for the gazelle to drop dead from exhaustion.” I mime wings with my arms. “Just circling and circling...”
The look he gives me could melt steel. Pure heat, pure want, pure done-with-your-shit. The same look he gave me when I stood right where he is now and called what happened between us a mistake, the same look he gives me every time I put that wall up between us and refuse to let him tear it down.
“Come here.” He sets down the stack of bills, voice dropping to that commanding tone that makes my knees weak.
“I’m mopping.”
“Mercy.”
Just my name, but the way he says it—patient and hungry and commanding all at once—has me setting the mop aside.
My bare feet are silent on the sticky floor as I walk toward him, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I stop on the other side of the bar, using the polished wood as a shield. “I’m here. What do you want?”
“Closer,” he says.
I shake my head, a small, defiant gesture. He doesn’t move. He just waits, his gaze so intense it feels like a physical touch. With a sigh that’s more frustration than exhaustion, I round the edge of the bar. I stop a foot away from him, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Happy?”
His eyes drop to my mouth. “Not yet.”
He reaches out, fingers catching my wrist, tugging gently until I’m flush against him.
His free hand settles on my hip, thumb finding the strip of skin between my top and skirt.
My breath hitches. His scent—leather, whiskey, and something uniquely, dangerously Cash—short-circuits every rational thought I had about keeping him safe.
His head dips, forehead resting against mine.
His green eyes are dark with frustration that mirrors my own.
“We go through this every week, Cash,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
“We do.” He tilts his head, mouth ghosting over my pulse point. “And every week you bolt right when it gets good.”
Just like I ran that night. Just like I’ve been running ever since.
“I don’t bolt.” The protest sounds weak even to me.
“No?” He aligns his nose with mine, lips so close that I can feel his words as he speaks. “What do you call it then?”
“Self-preservation.” The truest thing I’ve said all night. Because that’s exactly what this is—preserving myself, preserving him, preserving this fragile peace that I can’t bring myself to let go of.
He pulls back. A brief flash crosses his eyes—hurt, maybe, or frustration—but it disappears before I can process it fully. He shifts his grip and draws me so close I can feel his erection pressing against my stomach.
This is the part where I usually diffuse the situation. I make a joke, step back, find some task that suddenly needs doing. But tonight, I can’t seem to move. Three months is a long time to resist when every nerve in your body is begging you to give in.
“Still scared of getting too close to the big bad biker, Mercy?” His voice is soft now, serious in a way that makes my chest tight. “Think I might ruin you?”
Yes.
“No.”
“Liar.” The word is a warm puff of air against my lips.
He knows. Of course he knows. This man sees straight through the flimsy walls I keep rebuilding.
His thumb hooks under the waistband of my skirt, tugging just enough for his fingers to slide beneath, tracing the sensitive skin at my hip.
My body betrays me, arching into his touch—a silent plea for more.
“You’re not afraid I’ll ruin you,” he murmurs, his mouth brushing along my jaw, igniting a trail of fire down my neck. “You’re afraid you’ll like it.”
I’m afraid of falling so far into you that I’ll forget how to climb back out. That I won’t be able to leave when my past catches up.
I push my hands against his chest and step back. Every ounce of control I have. “I’m afraid of making stupid decisions at two in the morning,” I tell him instead.
“Being with me is stupid?”
“Being with anyone is stupid.” The words burst out too fast, and I take a steadying breath, stepping around to the other side of the bar. “Listen, I’m good at a lot of things, Cash, but relationships isn’t one of them.”
He just smirks. “Who said anything about relationships? Maybe I just want to make you scream my name until the sun comes up.”
Heat floods through me, pooling low in my belly. “Charming.”
“I can be charming.” He leans on the bar, flashing that movie-star smile the guys in the MC give him shit about. “I can also be exactly what you need, when you’re ready to admit what that is.”
My hands land on my hips. “And what do I need, oh-wise-one-who’s-six-years-my-junior?”
His brows shoot up. “Oh, we’re throwing my age in my face now?”
“When it suits me, yes.” I try for a smirk, but it feels flimsy.
He pushes off the bar, rounding the corner in two silent strides that have me backing up until my ass hits the edge of the sink. He plants a hand on the stainless steel on either side of my hips, caging me in.
“Old enough to know what I want,” he murmurs, his voice a low vibration that I feel in my bones.
“And I want you.” His gaze drops to my mouth, a heavy, hungry look that makes my stomach clench.
“You need someone who sees through your sass to the woman underneath. Someone who won’t let you run when things get real.
Someone who’s been waiting patiently for fucking months for you to stop being so damn scared of what you know we are. ”
“I’m not scared.” I’m full of shit, and the look in his eyes tells me he knows it too.
The air between us feels too heavy, too intimate.
My sleeve tattoo becomes the only thing I can look at. I got it as an act of willful defiance against my past—ink to celebrate my freedom, covering skin that used to be picked apart and criticized with something that feels beautiful.
He lifts a finger, tracing the outline of a black rose on my forearm, his touch impossibly gentle.
“You remind me of a rose,” he murmurs. “Beautiful, but covered in thorns that keep anyone from getting too close.” His thumb strokes the inked petals on my skin, sending shivers up my arm.
“I’m not afraid of getting pricked, angel.
” His other hand comes up, cupping my jaw, his calloused thumb brushing over my bottom lip. “I just want to see you bloom.”