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He’s right, I don’t. But there’s something about him that makes me wonder about the darkness of him. Because he’s some kind of demon. I’d stake my life on that.
Mercer slides his phone away and turns his hazel eyes on me. The hint of his scent coils around me, drawing me in, making me want to move closer, breathe deeper, ask to touch…
And that’s exactly it. Why I think he might be the Devil. He makes me want to do things out of my comfort zone that turn all my dials up and make my body hum.
Even now, even after he mauled me at the bar, his insistent kisses so intoxicating and sweet, I would have done anything and everything for more.
He made my toes curl, my heart throb. He made the ground disappear from under my feet.
And then Mercer made me come with a brutal, mocking touch that was both humiliating and scorching.
Did the humiliation turn me on?
What the hell’s wrong with me?
“Do you want to hear about prison? How I couldn’t afford a lawyer, and the one appointed was such fucking crap I fired him?”
“No.” The word’s a whisper, my voice a scratch.
A gleam burns in the depths of his hardened gaze. “Is that a touch of guilt from Pollyanna in her ivory tower?”
“There’s nothing to be guilty about.” My chest squeezes tight, like my lungs are being twisted with ropes and chains.
That look he gave me on the night of his arrest. Betrayal was there, along with a beaten down, hopeless acceptance of his fate.
I remember the prickles of heat that sprang up on my skin under his accusatory stare. That same sensation hits me again for the first time in all these years.
Guilt licks at me.
More guilt.
Always guilt.
“I couldn’t afford bail, so I had to stay in prison before I was sentenced.” His voice is flat, toneless.
I suck in a breath, my lungs still squeezed tight. “You…you went to a progressive prison. You got your sentence reduced. I don’t know many of the details, but I remember Dad being angry over that. You shattered our family, you?—”
He grabs my chin with demanding fingers. The heat of his fingertips burns down past muscle and flesh and into bone. “No. That was all you. Pollyanna with the dark, dirty secrets. Guilt at crushing on the bad boy. Thinking she could have him locked away as punishment for him not wanting to kiss a kid. Iwas a man, you were a child. And just because I wasn’t interested, you destroyed your family, didn’t you?”
Mercer leans in, his lips a kiss away from mine. My protests die on the tip of my tongue.
“But right now, you can right those wrongs and save the last piece of your family. Do some good for both Elise and the world. Or not. Up to you.”
“It’s not a choice,” I say. “It’s blackmail.”
“Call it whatever the fuck you like. I’m helping your sister, footing the bills?—”
“Holding her future in your hands.”
“—giving her a chance, all in exchange for your help and a taste of everything your body is begging to give me.”
I want to say no. I want to hang on to that label of blackmail, but I can’t. It’s blackmail, I know that, but he’s got me. So damn tight. And my God, I do want that, even though I wish I didn’t.
“We’re here.” He nods his head toward the car window. “Get out and wait on the stoop near the door, Pollyanna.”
My limbs numb, but somehow, I manage to do just that. Across the road is Central Park, inviting me into its shadows, twisting paths, and pools of lamplight. I could get lost there, escape my guilt and the need plaguing me every time Mercer is near.
But I do what he asked and stand in front of the building, an old façade of sandstone with a brass and glass revolving door.
