5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Mercer’s smell was still around me, rich and intoxicating. Manly, even with his power stripped. I pulled the lapels of his shirt to my nose and inhaled deeply.
My body weakened from carrying too many emotions. The hard wall held me up as I wrapped my arms around myself.
That darn clock ticked. Ticked. Ticked. And I went crazy.
My mind shut down, blocking out different images of Mercer’s pain, all fighting for priority in my head. It was so hard to get the visions of him getting punched out of my head without them being replaced by a still of his face, black surrounding his pretty blue eyes, marring his tanned skin.
Or, I envisioned him getting strangled, the first noises I heard from him being sounds of pain and distress. Hands around his throat. That little knife pressing into his perfect Adam’s apple. The blood rushing out, the small blade and the hand holding it, gouging through skin and muscle.
But I pushed it all away, finding a temporary comfort as a cold hair follicle glazed over my lips. I played with it, in and out of my lips, needing the distraction, and when the root no longer felt cold, I pulled another hair and started again.
I lay in a river of tears, surrounded by small mountains made of my hair. A small bald patch met my fingers as I tried to pull another. My hungry stomach rumbled, echoing in the room, but all I heard was the clock that probably wasn’t even really ticking.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, but it felt like a lot. I was awake for all of it. I couldn’t sleep without knowing if Mercer was okay. If another person was dead because of me.
“Is he okay?” I begged the camera for an answer.
But I didn’t get one.
I didn’t get anything other than another wave of guilt.
I willed the door to open for the creeps with painted faces to charge back in so I could demand answers. I would even beg.
But it remained closed. Its reflective silver surface stared back at me with a vague reflection of a girl who looked like me.
“Please, bring him back,” I groveled, willing to do almost anything.
But still, the door stayed shut. And Mercer stayed somewhere on the other side of it.
The second I closed my eyes—for a lengthy blink, not to sleep, because that was fucking impossible—the door opened.
My tired eyes blinked at the image of Mercer on all fours in the center of the stone room. I didn’t see who brought him back before they locked the door. I was too focused on the new colors surrounding his tattoos, blacks, purples, greens, and yellows. He was so badly bruised. He coughed, blood dripping from his bleeding lips.
I dragged myself to him.
He spat blood from his scarred tongue before falling onto his back. He winced from that and the pain of my gentle hands examining his injuries. Dry blood cracked under his nose as his teeth clenched in agony.
Something at the door caught my eye. A silver bowl, light bouncing off of it, resembling something stray dogs would flock around. Captive humans, too. But the water wasn’t a cold drink. Rags were concealed in the water to wash Mercer’s wounds. The warm temperature and the salty smell rivaled the metallic scent of fresh blood.
I dragged myself to it, spilling half of it as I pulled it back. Metal scraping against concrete had Mercer searching for the culprit assaulting his pounding head with noise. When he saw it was me, he didn’t complain. He massaged his temples with shaky fingers and tried, impossibly, to relax.
Water cascaded, starting loud and heavy, decreasing as I strangled the rag, wringing out the excess. Carefully, I guided the cloth to his split lip. He grimaced, his pain telling me it wasn't too much but still stung.
My free hand brushed his cheek, his dark stubble pricking my skin, tickling me with its efforts to penetrate. I moved the cloth to his eyebrow, wiping away plasma from an injury his skin tried to heal.
His soft lips fell into my palm as my hand cupped his face.
“Are you okay? I was so worried about you.”
Bloodshot eyes stared up at me, hooded over blurred vision. Blue moved from side to side, his struggle to focus on me still difficult when he gave up, looking away.
“What exactly did they do to you?”
He side-glanced me, his stare a little narrower.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you can’t talk.” I shook my head at my stupidity, continuing to wash his cuts and bruises.
He couldn’t thank me as I bathed him, but he showed his appreciation with little touches. His fingers twirled in circles on my leg. I couldn’t feel it there, but I could feel it...everywhere else.
The salty bowl of water looked more appealing now, the bloody rags not lessening the lure because my lips were getting dryer with each minute, hour, or whatever it was that went by.
I wished for a window. Wished for a connection to the outside world.
Miracles didn’t exist in this room.
Didn’t exist in my life.
I lay on the concrete, Mercer’s pained body between me and the bowl. Elbows pushed me up, and I licked my lips. My fingers stretched across Mercer’s body, heading to the dirty water. My tongue glossed my lips again, the thirst too much.
Mercer’s tight grip wrapped around my wrist, his fingers touching. I was foolish to think he was asleep.
I sank back to his side, dread swirling in my stomach, wondering when we would get a drink or even more of the dry fruit that offered a little moisture to our tortured tongues. Mercer zeroed in, propping himself up on his arm as he twisted to his side, his face twisting, too...with pain.
“Draw me circles?” such a vague ask. But I needed something…anything, a touch, a hug…to comfort me.
A smile almost cracked the healing cut on his lip. His hand landed on me, shadowing my leg and not stopping until he crept under the hem of my—his—shirt and reached the curve of my hip. His fingers danced on my skin, and goosebumps rose up in worship.
“How old are you?” I wondered, needing to talk, needing to know more about him.
Two fingers appeared behind his head, sticking up above his wild hair and looking something like devil horns.
His other hand tapped my hip eight times before waltzing around and around again.
“Twenty-eight?”
He nodded a single nod. A second later, he did it again, asking me.
“Twenty-two. Siblings?”
His head didn’t nod this time. It shook, his dark hair falling into his face. I brushed it away, careful with his injuries. “Me, either.”
Fighting the urge to lap at the bowl, I licked my lips again, my mouth too dry to ask another question.
Mercer neared me, his fingers brushing my hair back. He looked into my eyes, seeing something beyond the redness of pain and the fear in my blown pupils, and then he looked to my mouth, my tongue on my lips again.
He moved closer, his hand slinking from one hip to another, pulling me, without injury, into his heated body. He tugged down my hem as the shirt lifted, revealing my ass to the pervert, who was no doubt watching this with his hand on his tiny dick.
His tongue pushed mine out of the way, coating my lips in moisture. He slipped into my mouth for a second, our eyes closed and bodies lax as I took everything he offered, and I enjoyed it for the seconds it lasted, my fingers on his face, pulling him closer, deeper. Needing him closer, deeper. Needing him so badly because he was all I had.
My mouth no longer felt dry as he pulled back, his eyes opening a second before mine blinked in his image.
My tongue was wet...I had what I needed, but I wanted more. I wanted the moments back when he made me forget that we lay on a cold concrete floor, with him bruised for refusing to cut open my chest. We were just a man and a woman, lost to the moment.
And now, he was gone, even with his hands still on my body and my chest pounding against his. My mouth had nothing, was empty of him, but the stolen saliva still sat on my tongue.
It wasn’t enough, and as I gazed up at him and he mouthed the words, “Get some sleep,” my heart felt empty, too.