Page 47 of At Your Mercy

Usually, after a job, there’s a clarity—a sense of calm. The noise in my head goes quiet, at least for a while. Tonight… it was worse. My body still trembled with adrenaline, but underneath it was something else, something that didn’t fade with the wash of blood down the sink.

What the hell was wrong with me?!

I shoved away from the mirror, tearing off my robe and slutty underwear. I threw them across the room, then collapsed onto the couch naked, pulling my knees up to my chest in an attempt to ground myself.

I hated this feeling.

I knew what Elias had made of me. I knew what my body was supposed to be for, what sex was supposed to mean—control, degradation, pain wrapped in someone else’s pleasure. That was the script I’d been given, the only one I’d ever learned.

But Wes had torn it apart. He’d made me feel something I didn’t have a name for. Something too soft, too dangerous.

And the worst part?

I wanted it again.

I buried my face against my knees, nails digging crescents into my shins, trying to drown it out. If I could just be numb again, just be sharp and lethal and empty, maybe I’d survive this.

But all I could feel was him.

12

Wesley

The sunlight streaming through the curtains felt harsher than usual, stabbing across the hotel room in sharp lines. I’d slept through the night without trouble—something I hadn’t done in years. But when I’d reached across the sheets, expecting warmth, all I’d found was emptiness.

He’d left before I’d woken up yesterday, and for whatever reason, instead of going home, I’d stayed, spent the night.

His absence was everywhere. In the faint indentation of his head on the pillow. In the half-tangled sheets that still carried his scent. My chest tightened just looking at it. I wasn’t supposed to care. I wasn’t supposed to let someone like him under my skin.

And yet… I’d spent hours last night thinking about the look on his face as he slept.

It wasn’t peace, not exactly. More like exhaustion, as if he’d been running for too long and finally collapsed. Vulnerable in a way I doubted he ever allowed himself to be while awake.

I’d wanted to keep him here.

Instead, he’d slipped out like a ghost. No note. No explanation. No trace.

I slid out of bed and paced the length of the suite, rubbing the back of my neck.

I’d checked with the front desk the moment I woke up—no one matching his description had been seen leaving. That was yesterday. I should’ve let it go by now. I should’ve told myself he was justwork, and that I needed to either bring him to my side and have him betray his keeper, or eliminate him.

But I couldn’t.

Because for the first time in a long damn while, I felt the need to take care of someone. Not “take care”of them in my normal way, but in a tender, affectionate way. And instead of using that newfound weakness against me, instead of trying to twist the knife, he’d… left.

Why?

Why leave if he wanted me dead? Why leave if he didn’t?

I sat heavily on the edge of the bed, elbows braced on my knees, staring at the floor. I could still vividly remember how it had felt to hold him—how tightly he’d clung to me in those fleeting moments when he forgot himself.

That wasn’t just lust. That wasneed.

And it scared the hell out of me, because if he could need me, I could need him.

And needing someone like Ro was a dangerous fucking game.

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