Chapter Fifty-One. Limitations.
Fifty-One
Limitations.
“I asked you a question. What are you doing out of that room.”
Merc is tight on my tail while I march down the corridor to our room—my room, I mean.
As he repeats his demand, he’s keeping his voice low, but he might as well be yelling.
On my side, every time I blink, I see that bed …
and all that’s in it. The wrinkled sheets, too. And those painted nails on the woman’s—
With a lithe jump, he gets ahead of me and shoves open the door, staying in the jambs so that I have to push by him. I’m more than happy to give him an elbow, and as he closes us in, I continue to walk as if I have a destination somewhere, anywhere, other than here. With him.
“You are not supposed to leave!” He jabs at the bolt. “I told you, you have to stay here—”
I walk right up to him and peg him eye to eye, even though I might as well be trying to meet a mountain in the summit. “No, I don’t.”
The fact that he’s positively gobsmacked is satisfying in a perverse way. But he recovers quickly. “Yes, you do—”
“Why.”
Merc tilts in to me. “Are you joking? You think all those nice men downstairs who are drunk want to be your friend?”
“No, why do you think I have to do what you say.” I motion around us. “I’m not your wife, your sister, your child, your charge. We had a professional arrangement that you fulfilled, and having discharged it, we’re done—considering you said you won’t take money from me.”
Or take my body properly, I tack on to myself.
Something that is not happening for so many reasons now, given that his needs have obviously been attended to, and I got to see the aftermath.
“Listen to me.” He sinks down on his thighs so our faces are on a level, planting his hands just above his knees. “You’re going to get yourself killed—”
“Only forward, never back. That’s what you said to me in the tunnel. So go forward, Merc. The door is right there.”
As I swing my arm and point at the exit, I think about what a gift it is that others cannot read our own minds. The fact that he’s just been with another woman curls me with rage, even though I have no more right to that than he has dominion over me.
“I’m only trying to help you,” he grits out.
I open my mouth to hit that platitude back at him—except then I realize that, in some ways, he’s in the position I was downstairs with that maid. And thinking of her makes me want to curse.
Breaking off from him, I walk about the room, staring at the floor as I’m torn between what’s happening up here—and what I know is happening down in the kitchen.
On his part, Merc takes the opportunity to go into the water closet.
I hear him mutter, and when he reemerges, he has his backpack in his hand.
For a moment, I remember his warning to the woman who showed us this room.
So of course all our things have remained exactly where we’ve left them.
Merc thumps the weight down on the table, jerks open the throat of the shouldering bag, and rifles through the contents like he’s checking that nothing is missing.
When he closes it all back up again, I take it things are okay—in his current mood, I have to wonder if he wishes theft had occurred just so he could do something about it.
I expect him to walk out. Instead, he plants his palms on either side of the pack and leans into his arms. As the muscles bulge, I trace his bent back, narrow hips, and strong legs, and imagine him naked between that other woman’s thighs.
Did she relish the way his hair fell around her, too?
Did she like what he did with his mouth—
“Where did you go,” he says roughly.
I’m so caught up in my head, there’s a delay as I realize he’s spoken to me. It’s only as he looks around his shoulder with expectation that my mind decodes his words.
“Ronl came. He said Lena needed to see me. I had to go.”
Merc opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks back down at his pack. As the tension in his strung-bow body gradually eases, I resolve not to be impressed, one way or another, with the fact that my explanation has placated him.
What does it matter.
Turning to me, he levels his black and white stare. “Is she all right?’
“Yes.” I cross my arms and feel the bandage that the woman wound around my injury. “She is.”
I would mention what she did for me, but it’s best to start the separation now.
“Sorrel, listen to me, you shouldn’t go out alone here—”
“Sooner or later, I have to take care of myself. Whether it’s now or when you leave after this incessant rain stops, you’re not going to be looking after me forever.”
There’s a long pause. “It’s not that simple anymore.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.” Merc shakes his head and snatches his pack off the table. “And you’re going to regret this. Soon or later, you’re going to need me in this town, but it’s going to be too late.”
The truth of the statement makes me more angry because I do need him. Just not in the way he’s thinking.
Maybe this is a sign.
I point to the door. “Go forward, Merc. Take your own advice—and don’t lay upon me any lingering on your part. You’re less important to my destiny than you think.”
There’s another tense pause. “Fair enough. Fare thee well.”
And that’s where and how it ends. Merc just walks out, and there’s no slamming of the door, either.
Left to my own, I start to shake, so I go back to pacing, thinking of more things I should have said, want to say—none of which are conciliatory, all of which revisit me kicking him out. But then I move beyond myself.
I can’t get the maid out of my mind. And even if I have to let Merc go eventually, I can’t do the same to her.
I need him one last time.
With a curse, I march back over to the exit and yank open the door, prepared to hunt for him—
Merc is standing right outside, his pack on the floor at his feet, his body leaning against the gray wall. If his brows were down any lower, his belly button would be glaring, and as he turns his head and stares over at me, I don’t know what I’m feeling.
No, that’s a lie. I don’t like anything that I’m feeling.
“You don’t have to wait for the latch anymore,” I mutter.
“Habits die hard.”
As he bends over and picks up his pack, I can see down the corridor—and at the head of the stairs, the woman with the red bed has stepped out of her room.
She’s wearing a low-cut, black silken robe that reminds me of the color of Merc’s eye, and it brings out her long, pale hair.
Her lean against the doorjamb is an invitation if I’ve ever seen one, and her attributes are as obvious as mine feel invisible.
She’s turned toward Merc—to us, now—and she’s clearly prepared to catch him on his way out.
“You’re right,” I say.
My words stop him as he starts to walk away, and I find myself staring the other woman down—even as I remind myself I have no right to any of the aggression I’m feeling toward her. Too bad that logic is utterly irrelevant as I remember him coming out of her room.
Opening my own door wider, I step to the side. Merc narrows his eyes on me.
“What,” he demands.
Swallowing my pride, I say in a low voice, “I need your help.”
“What’s changed. In the last three moments since you kicked me out.”
There are so many ways to answer that, many of which are anger-based and will only drive him away, the rest of which I don’t want to say out here.
“I’ve decided…” I clear my throat. “As much as it pains me, I have to be honest about my limitations.”
His brows lift, and I expect him to gloat. Instead, he just nods once. “Fair enough.”
Merc’s big body moves by me, and I look down the hall.
The working woman smiles slowly and then inclines her head, as if she’s deferring to me and the claim I’ve staked. I wait until she’s disappeared back into her room.
Before I turn away and go into mine.