Indulgence (23 page)

“Soon…but first I want to claim you.”

X’s gaze fixed on mine. “You already have.”

“Not quite,” I said through a heavy breath.

Pulling away, I raised my pussy over his cock, circling my
fingers around him and guided the head towards my opening. Reaching up, he
palmed my breasts as I slid down his length, taking him as deep as I could. It
was my turn to control our fucking. It was my turn to
claim
.

I raised myself off him, feeling him slide out of me before
he thrust up to meet me. Shaking my head at him, I whispered, “Let me take care
of you.”

His hips settled back onto the mattress beneath me as I
began riding him. Slowly at first, but before long, I felt heat prickle my skin
as an orgasm began building in my core. His gaze rested on my breasts as they
rose and fell with my movements and I felt powerful. I had this dangerous,
handsome, strong-willed man underneath me and I rode him hard. I rode him as he
moaned and pulsed inside my pussy…he was responding to
me
.

As if he couldn’t take it anymore, he sat up, latching his
mouth onto one of my breasts, licking and sucking. Pleasure spiked through my
nerve endings as I pounded my clit into his pelvis.

“You brought me back to life,” I said with a moan as I slid
down his cock. “You give me hope.” X’s hands bit into my hips as I rode him,
his lips hard against the breast he’d marked with his teeth. “You give me what
I need.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, grunting as he flexed up to
meet my thrust.

“Pleasure, satisfaction, revenge…” I buried my fingers into
his hair and tugged, raising his face to mine. “
Pain
…”

His gaze met mine and I didn’t understand the emotion I saw behind
his eyes, but he stared right through me and into my soul. He got it,
he
fucking got it
, and that was all the answer I needed.

With one swift movement, X had me on my back, his cock
filling my pussy. Resting his forehead against mine, he pulled out to the tip
and filled me again, pressing hard against my clit. He didn’t move to bury his
face into the crook of my neck, he didn’t close his eyes, he held firm as he
pumped his cock into me.

For the first time since we’d started this thing, he looked
at me while we fucked. He looked me right in the eye as we both came in tandem.
He gave me the one thing he’d denied me all this time.

He gave me a connection and I knew that we were finally in
this together.

He’d allowed me to
claim him
.

X

I’d held Mercy Reid after sex one time before.

I was a different man then, cold and unfeeling… I was
different now and I was sure I would be something else tomorrow.

I knew that I was made into a monster and that I wasn’t born
this way. I dreamed often about a dark room, unbearable pain and the man in the
hood that I shot in cold blood. I always suspected that it wasn’t a dream, and
some part of me understood that it was a reality too terrible to fully
comprehend. Now that Mercy had opened up the floodgates and emotions were
rushing in, I began to wonder if I had a family someplace. If they were looking
for me, or if they thought I was dead. I wondered who I was before.

And that might be the most dangerous piece in this game we
were about to play.

Mercy stirred beside me, her hand running over my stomach,
tracing the scars that were latticed through my tattoo. Scars I knew that they
put there.

“They know I have you,” I murmured.

She brushed her lips against my chest. “So we leave.
Regroup.”

She said it without hesitation and it was the proof I was
searching for all this time. She wasn’t afraid of me anymore. She was
completely and utterly with me until the end. I was hers and she was mine. It
was the most alien sensation in the world, caring for another human being.

I tilted her chin up and caught her lips against mine,
teasing them apart with my tongue. She sighed into me, licking deep and I lost
myself in her taste and in the promise of something else, something unknown.

“We should go straight away,” she whispered against my
mouth.

She was guiding me, knowing that I was lost, that my mind
was elsewhere. It was my mind that was regrouping, not us.

I nodded, knowing that it was only a matter of time before
Weiss got free. I should’ve killed him, but he was the only way of finding out
exactly what had happened to me.

He knew something, but it was more than that. When I was
coming to, out in the forest, a memory had tried to resurface through the haze,
trying to force itself out of my subconscious. Weiss had been there.

“Sykes will come looking in a few hours,” I said. “We have
to strip the apartment.”

We had to clear out the closet and pack some clothes. There
wasn’t enough time to get rid of everything. Usually, I’d clean the entire
place down to the bare bones. Scrub the bathroom with bleach. Wipe the place
clear of prints. There was no time to do any of that. This time it was just
take the essentials and go. I just had to be careful about the things I touched
in the future. Maybe I could burn the prints from my fingers...

“Okay.”

I doubted she knew what I meant, but I’d teach her. She
wanted to know.

“What happened to you tonight?” she asked.

“Weiss tried to kill me,” I said blandly.

Mercy propped herself up on an elbow. “What?”

“I left him out in the middle of the forest,” I went on.

“He’s still alive?”

I nodded. “I couldn’t do it. He knows things about me…”

“I gathered as much,” she said. “He was your-”

“Handler,” I finished for her.

“We’ll find out what happened to you X,” Mercy said, sitting
up. “We’ll both get what we want, one way or another.” I watched as she stood
and began rummaging around in her bag, pulling out clothes.

Sliding out of bed, I dragged on a pair of boxers and a
T-shirt. “You really want to run with me?”

“Yes.”

“What if I snap again Mercy? What if I turn and kill you?
What then?”

“I don’t know,” she said and I snorted. “X, I don’t know,
but I’m willing to try. At least that’s something.”

I ran my hands over my face. “Still willing to try after
I’ve hurt you so much? It’s a dangerous game you’re playing.”

“It’s not a game,” she said sullenly. “It goes both ways you
know.”

“I’m a monster,” I said, sliding my legs into a fresh pair
of jeans. “I’ve done too much to go back.”

“Maybe,” she said, not sugar coating it in the slightest.
“But who says that you’re right? How do you know?”

I snorted, glancing away. I didn’t know shit anymore, so
maybe she was right. Striding from the bedroom, I went out into the lounge and
dragged on my boots before opening the refrigerator and pulling out a beer.

She had so much faith in me…so much misplaced faith. Sinking
down onto the sofa, I necked the bottle, the cold beer sliding down the back of
my throat.

The sordid story of Mercy’s dead family was still plastered
to my lounge room wall and I wondered why she hadn’t taken it down. Did she
need a reminder of what she was fighting for? I sure as fuck needed one.

“We can still get our revenge.” Her voice came out of
nowhere as she sat beside me. She already had the ghost thing down. She’d
fucking need it if we were going to win this game.

I paused, holding my breath as I stared at the photographs
of her dead family stuck to the wall. Revenge…how could I seek revenge when I
could hardly grasp what I was seeking revenge for?

I felt Mercy’s hand as she slid it across my thigh and
jerked away, standing to my full height. How could I seek revenge when there
were still reminders of who she was plastered on my living room wall?

Coming alive, I strode across the room and began tearing at
the photos, ripping newspaper clippings from the wall and tearing drawing pins
from the plaster. I teared at them like I was stripping pieces of flesh from my
bones, my breath coming in ragged gasps. And she said she was willing to try
when I was going full on crazy.

I stilled as I felt hands on my back, hands that trailed
across my waist and circled around to my stomach. Then her body was against
mine as she held onto me.

“X?” she murmured, resting her cheek against my back.

I grunted, my forehead pressing against the plaster.

“I’m not her anymore. I haven’t been for a while now, but I
still want to right the wrong that was done to her.”

“She’s always going to be a part of you,” I murmured, my
fingers curling around the last photograph that was stuck to the wall. The same
photo of Alison Crawford whose hair I’d colored in with a black marker.

“I know, but that’s the past. It’s done. Over. The future we
can change.”

We…her and I. She was so hell bent on it that it made me
wonder if it was fear for her safety that made me want to leave her behind. Caring
for someone else.
Fuck
.

If I went dark on my own, I knew I wouldn’t get through it
without giving up the last of my soul. I would be a real monster when all was
said and done. Inhuman.

Turning, I held her to me, searching her blue eyes. I needed
her with me.
We
had to go. Because without her? I’d still be sitting in
the darkness, letting the monster devour what was left of my soul.

Mercy Reid was my missing piece. She filled the void where
my heart should be.

Cupping her face in my hands, she stared up at me with
glassy eyes.

Lowering my lips to hers, I murmured, “Let’s go.”

Mercy

I stood in the parking garage underneath X’s apartment and
watched as he screwed in new number plates on his car. I glanced at the empty
spot where his motorcycle used to be, frowning at the knowledge that he was
going to leave it behind.

He said it was still parked out the front of The Gambler’s
Inn and there was no point in going back for it. I wasn’t sure how attached he
was to it, but it was a damn shame.

X threw the screwdriver into the boot of the car, where a
choice selection from his closet of horrors was stashed. A pile of weapons
including that fancy sniper rifle I’d wondered about. Maybe he’d teach me how
to use it after all.

Staring at the car, I bit my lip. It really was a nice piece
of machinery. It was this black, vintage muscle car, sexy as all hell and it
suited him down to the ground. X had a flair about him that was so anti-biker
gang it made me wonder who he was before.

“Are you ready?” X asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I nodded and opened the passenger side door. There was
nothing to look back on, nothing but forward from here on out.

I slid into the car as X climbed into the driver’s seat and
gunned the engine. He backed out of the space, shifted the stick into first and
we shot out onto the road and into the early morning light. The sky was
starting to lighten, a smudge of orange dusting the handful of clouds that hung
amongst the stars. It was going to be a perfect day. Sunny, warm and heavy with
the promise of something new.

The car weaved through the centuries old buildings as we
crossed the city, flashing past monuments and museums, crossing the river and
heading out of the smog and into the countryside. I watched the sunrise with a
new sense of hope, a new purpose and a new mission. The sky was flaming orange
and red and to my heart, it felt like an omen for what was to come.

Rivers of blood
.

I glanced over at X, trying to read his expression in the
dawn light, wondering what he was thinking. Wondering if he had the same hope,
or if he was just thinking of something that was on a stiff, regimental list of
things that he had to do. Maybe, but most of all...I wondered if his heart was
still open.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked after a while.

His gaze met mine briefly, before turning back to watch the
road. “Yes.”

“That sniper rifle… Will you teach me how to use it?”

His jaw stiffened, but he nodded. “I’ll teach you.”

“Okay.”

He glanced at me again, his eyes flashing with something I
couldn’t quite catch. “I’ll teach you whatever you want.”

Whatever I want
. The thought sent a shiver through my
entire body.

It felt like an age since that first night at The Gambler’s
Inn when he’d walked in and called me a bitch. Now, I was a different person
again. And before that, the night I stood in Sykes’ house, gun in hand…and even
before that when I stood in my family home staring down at the bodies of my
parents and brother… Mercy Reid had evolved so much in such a short amount of
time. Who would she be tomorrow? Master assassin?

Maybe.

But maybe it would be as simple as being happy. Happy with
X. That was a future to look forward to, but first there were some scores to
settle.

“Where are we going?” I asked, eager to get the groundwork
of our master plan into place.

X glanced at me, before fixing his gaze on the road ahead.
“Someplace where they won't find us.”

“Then what?”

His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “We figure
this thing out.”

I reached over and slid a hand across his thigh, his warmth
soothing my cool skin. “And we figure out what they did to you.”

He let his hand drop to cover mine, the small gesture making
my entire body shiver. He was already learning and my heart swelled with pride.

“Then,” he said, lacing his fingers through mine, “we come
back and kill them all.”

Amity Cross
isn't her real name. That's no secret.

She is the author of wicked stories about rock stars looking
for redemption, gritty romances featuring MMA fighters and dark tales of
forbidden romance. She loves to write about screwed up relationships and kick
ass female leads that don't take s**t lying down.