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Chapter Twenty-One

MERRICK

I’m not sure if I should let her see what we’re doing or not. I look behind me, and Theron shakes his head once. Jerking my chin, I can’t help but agree. I’m thinking I shouldn’t let her know that we’re trying to figure out who this mystery asshole is quite yet.

As much as I want to trust her implicitly, I can’t yet. Not only is she not telling me everything, I know that she’s hiding things from me as well. Until I can get everything from her, she can’t have everything from me.

It’s going to be a bitch to keep her at arm’s length when I finally allowed myself to take her, to keep her, to bring her into my world. It’s not like the first time when she was thrust on me by some bullshit scare tactic of her father’s.

This is all by choice on both our parts, and she should know the pieces of me that I have previously kept from her, and I should know all the pieces of her if she wants this to be real. If I want this to be real. And as I look into her green eyes, I know I do.

“You hungry?” I ask, taking a half step backward. “We were going to order some room service.”

It’s only a half lie. We talked about room service earlier but then got distracted. Her eyes widen as she slides them over the men in the room, who I know are all staring at her, then shifts them back to meet mine.

She places her hand against her belly and then lets out a sigh. I can tell she’s going to say she’s not hungry, but I can also tell that she’s lost an extreme amount of weight since the last time I fucked her in her bedroom.

“When was the last time you ate?” I demand before I let her answer.

Colette’s eyes widen. She takes half a step backward but realizes she can’t go far in that dress since it’s all bunched around her feet without those high-as-fuck heels they had her in earlier.

“Colette,” I grind out.

“Last night,” she whispers. “I was brought a salad with grilled chicken.”

If my head could explode in this moment, I think it might actually splatter all over the room and do just that. I press my lips together and roll them a few times. I’m trying really fucking hard not to say something that would upset her.

“I got clothes in the bedroom. Take that shit out of your hair, wash your face, and take that hideous dress off,” I growl.

I know I sound like an asshole, but right now, I have a thin hold on my control and am about to completely lose my shit.

Thankfully, Colette doesn’t ask me any questions, although I do see the pain flash in her eyes almost immediately. I can’t worry about that pain right now because if I go off, if I let that anger inside of me spill out, it will be more than just hurt feelings.

She turns around and goes back into the bedroom. Spinning on my heels, I hold up my palm at the men in the room. All of them have abandoned their tasks completely, mainly because they love to watch anything juicy unfold, worse than a group of clucking hens.

I don’t give any of them the opportunity to cluck at me. Instead, I make my way over to the phone in the kitchen and call the concierge. When you get a suite this big, you get perks, and I am all about the perks.

A few moments later, I’ve ordered one of everything from the menu. When I finish the order, I hang up and look across the room at everyone.

“Now you can speak,” I announce.

Theron and Boden’s eyes flick between each other then slide over to meet mine before they burst out in laughter.

“We thought you were going to blow your top,” Vaughn mutters.

With a jerk of my chin, I smirk before I shrug a shoulder. “I was seconds away from it.”

Without saying anything else, I head toward the bedroom. I should probably talk to Colette and make sure she’s okay. As pissed off as I am, it’s not her fault. She didn’t not eat on purpose. She didn’t put those marks around her throat. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to get to the bottom of it all—because I am.

I open the bedroom door and slip inside before closing it behind me. The shower water shuts off, but I don’t storm into the bathroom the way I want to. I’m sure my gruffness wasn’t appreciated, especially since when we were together the first time, I never showed much of any kind of emotion.

That is all changing now.

COLETTE

Merrick didn’t scare me, as far as physically. If he was ever going to hurt me, he would have done it a long time ago. His anger surprised me, though, and maybe it was because I was still in the stupid dress. I’m not sure. So when he told me to take the dress off and take a shower, I did just that.

Stepping out of the shower, I wrap a towel around my body and let out a heavy sigh. It’s almost as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Turning toward the mirror, I take a moment to stare at my barefaced reflection.

I look tired. The pink from my cheeks earlier is gone, and now it’s all sunken-in eyes and cheeks, overly sharp jawlines, and dullness. Everything about me is dull. There is no glow anywhere. I want to glow. I want to be happy, but I’m not sure if I ever will be.

Grabbing the black T-shirt I found in Merrick’s dresser drawer, I slip it on over my nakedness, then tug on a pair of his boxer briefs. I don’t know what else to wear, and honestly, this is fine.

Wrapping my fingers around the chest of the shirt, I lift it to my nose and close my eyes as I inhale. It smells like him. Cedarwood and sea salt. I don’t know how I can distinguish the different scents, but I can, and they are all Merrick.

I walk out of the bathroom, and I pause when I see him leaning against the closed bedroom door. His gaze meets mine, and my breath stops in my chest.

My heart stops.

He’s so beautiful standing in the distance, and the way he’s focusing on me reminds me of the day I met him. He’s got a little wrinkle between his eyes, just one, and he only gets it when he’s concentrating hard. I want to trace it with my finger.

“I don’t like how thin you’ve become, and I’m angry with myself because I allowed it to happen.”

My shoulders jerk as if he’s physically hit me. The fact that he thinks he’s responsible for any of this is beyond unfathomable. “It’s not your fault,” I point out. “You didn’t do this to me.”

He pushes off the door and takes one step toward me, then another before he stops. He’s close enough to touch me, but he doesn’t reach out. Instead, he bites the corner of his lip, his gaze focused on mine and never breaking contact.

“I didn’t stop it, and the blame lies on my shoulders, baby.”

His words hurt me. They cause my entire body to ache. How could he think that he did any of this? Reaching out, I wrap my fingers around his wrist, holding him as close to me as he’ll allow.

“Did you put a collar around my neck? Did you chain me to the headboard of a bed? Did you lock me in a cabin and only feed me once a day? No. I didn’t think so,” I snap.

And that’s when I realize I’ve said all the wrong things. Three of them, to be exact. I told Merrick what happened to me without actually going into detail, and I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have said a single word.

He jerks back, his eyes widening and filled with a wildness that I can’t describe. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out, and he begins to speak anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

“Tell me what the fuck happened. I was going to let you lick your wounds and heal, but fuck that. Tell me what happened right goddamn now.”

Shit.

Instead of fighting with him, which wouldn’t really be my style anyway, I reach out, wrapping my fingers around his forearm before I let out a soft sigh.

“Merrick, it doesn’t matter,” I whisper, trying to plead with him.

I know it isn’t going to work when he shakes his head once before his eyes connect with mine, unwavering and angry as hell. I squeeze his arm, applying a bit more pressure, and he pauses, but only barely.

“It’s over,” I whisper. “It’s done, and I’m here with you now.”

He shakes off my hand, lifting his arm to curl his fingers around my throat. He dips his chin slightly, his eyes finding mine when he does, and his lips curve up into a grin as he leans forward.

“You’re free now,” he whispers, his mouth touching mine with each word. He doesn’t stop speaking, and my heart races faster and harder with each word he says to me.

“Never will any man touch you again. They will have to kill me, and good fucking luck because I will kill them first. I don’t give a fuck who it is.”

God.

My entire body trembles when he says that.

I want him to kill them.

All of them.

But not at the cost of him possibly dying or being hurt. So I don’t tell him who it was. As much as I want to, I keep that close to my vest—for now. I need him to be safe because if he got hurt over anything to do with me, I don’t think I would be able to live with myself.

But I also know that I will need to come clean one day. It seems as if that day is going to come sooner rather than later. No matter how much I try to fight it.

But it’s not here yet.