Page 27 of Penance

Mercy

T he door to his apartment creaks open, and I step into the shadows. I’m not scared, not like I was. Something about the darkness has become comfortable, like a deep hug.

Draco follows after me like a guard. Like he’s protecting me.

That’s all he has done this whole time. He’s been my protector, my rock.

I can’t shake the memory of my parents’ expressions—their disappointment etched into every line in their faces, their eyes dark with judgment.

“How could you let this happen, Mercy?” My mother’s voice echoes in my head, like a knife twisting into my chest.

I’ve always been their good girl, their dutiful daughter.

Now, I’m something else entirely, something they can’t even look at.

The apartment is cool, almost cold. The hum of the city outside is muffled, leaving only the dull thud of my heartbeat in my ears. I hug my arms around myself, trying to chase away the chill.

“I’m sorry, Mercy,” Draco says from the hallway. Turning, I look up at him, and in his eyes I see something that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before.

Guilt.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “It’s not your fault.”

“I’m still… just sorry,” he says, shrugging. “I’m gonna go take a shower.”

I nod, and then follow after him, moving towards the bedroom instead. I just want to climb into the bed, wrap myself in his scent and sleep.

Maybe I’ll sleep forever.

Stepping into the bedroom, I sigh, reaching over my shoulder and grabbing the zipper to my dress. I pull it down as far as it will go, and then I let it fall to the floor with a muffled fwump.

I look down at myself, and I swear I can see a swell in my abdomen, right above my public bone.

Is that… my baby?

He had called it ‘our’ baby.

I wish it was.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I wish the baby that was growing in me was Draco’s.

Reaching down, I splay my fingers across it, and press just enough to feel the bump through my skin.

It is.

That’s our baby.

I feel the sting of tears, but I blink them away as I hear the water come on in the bathroom next door.

I can’t cry.

I have to be strong.

I’m going to be a mother, and I swear with everything in me, I’ll be a far more loving mother than my own ever was.

With a sigh, I step up to the bed and peel the comforter back, sliding over the silky black sheets.

I’m tired.

I’m tired a lot lately, but right now it’s just… my mind. It’s like I have reached my limit, and I can’t take anymore. I just want to feel nothing for a while.

I pull the blanket up and burrow myself beneath it.

For a long time, I lay there, and beg myself to feel nothing.

I don’t want to be sad anymore, and I don’t have the energy to be happy or excited either.

I just wanna be.

Suddenly, Draco’s arms wrap around me from behind, his body pressing against mine.

I stiffen, and my heart skips a beat in my chest. I hadn’t noticed the lack of water running in the bathroom, or the sound of the bedroom creak open.

I even missed the feeling of the mattress sinking down as he climbed in behind me, but there is no mistaking the scent of him.

I don’t even need to turn to see that it’s him. His breath is warm on my neck, his lips brushing against my skin in a gesture so tender that it jolts me. My breath stops, caught between the urge to lean into his warmth and the instinct to pull away.

“Draco?”

His name is a whisper that barely makes it past my lips. I can’t see his face, but I can feel the steady rhythm of his heart against my back.

I can feel his skin against me.

I can feel the warmth of his chest pressing against my back. And I can feel…

All thoughts stop.

He’s naked.

I can feel something hot and firm pressing against my lower back, and the thought makes me shiver. His arms tighten, not constricting, but firm. Is it a promise or a threat? I can’t tell.

“You’re shaking, Mercy.”

I am.

A shiver runs through me, but I don’t know if it’s because of the emotions that have grated me raw, or the anticipation.

His hold is steady, calming, but it’s still not enough to quiet the voices in my head. His lips press against the curve of my neck, a soft, lingering kiss that hits me like a sledgehammer. It’s a gentleness I didn’t expect from him, and it feels almost… odd?

I don’t know how to react or what to think.

Why is he doing this?

Why is he being so gentle?

Why am I letting him?

It doesn’t feel like Draco.

His lips brush against my ear, his voice a low rumble.

“What’s wrong, Mercy?”

What’s wrong?

I want to scream.

He’s holding me like I’m precious.

Like I matter.

Like he’s not Draco.

What’s happening?

“I don’t understand.”

He pushes his arms beneath me, and flips me over—so easily, like I weight nothing. His eyes, those deep, dark eyes are soft, like a moonlit lake. But even seeing the moon on the water, I know predators lurk in the forest at the edge.

I know it’s there, gnashing teeth strong enough to crack bones. I know its there, but the sound of the night is a lullaby, and I can’t pull myself away.

I can’t recognize the danger.

“What don’t you understand, Mercy?”

Everything.

I don’t understand anything.

Not my feelings, not the way he makes me feel, and not the way he’s looking at me right now, like I’m all that matters in the world.

“Why are you being so… gentle?”

“Because I can be,” he says, his thumb brushing my cheek. “Because you need me to be.”

His words send a shiver down my spine. They’re a promise as well as a threat. A double-edged sword. He’s telling me he can be gentle, but he doesn’t have to be. That he’s choosing this, for me, for now, but later, he can choose differently.

He will choose differently.

I’m torn.

I want to lean into him, to trust that he can be gentle, to let him shatter me, but another part of me is screaming to pull away, to run from him.

“I won’t hurt you, Mercy.” His voice is so soft, it doesn’t sound like him. “Not unless you want me to.”

Without a word, Draco scoops me up into his arms and rolls with me.

I’m straddling him again.

I’m straddling him, and he’s naked.

You should fight , a voice screams in my head. You should run, shouldn’t you?

But there’s another voice, a softer one.

What if, just for tonight, I let go? What if I surrender?

What if I let him?

What if I let him do what I begged him to do this morning?

His hands linger on my waist, his eyes never leaving mine.

I feel caged, trapped, but also… safe?

“What can I do?” he asks, reaching up to push a stray hair behind my ear. “How can I make you feel better?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and it’s the truth.

I don’t know what I want.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to want.

All I know is this, here, now.

Him, me, this room, this moment.

For now, that’s enough. That has to be enough.

“That’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to know right now. We have plenty of time. You’re going to be my wife. We can wait.”

“But you told me to beg. This morning, you said—”

“And you did,” he says, smiling up at me. “That’s enough.”

His eyes pin me down as effectively as his hands did this morning. There’s a strange sense of safety washing over me, and I don’t know how to feel about it.

How can I feel safe with a man like Draco?

A small smile plays on his lips, not cruel or mocking, but understanding.

“I don’t want to wait,” I say finally. “I want to forget. Make me forget, Draco.”

His hands find mine, fingers entwining, palms pressing together. It’s a simple touch, but it anchors me, keeps me from spiraling into the void.

“I’m giving you control,” he says. “You can do whatever you want. You pick the pace. You chose how fast or how slow.”

His lips find mine, a soft, tentative kiss that deepens as I respond. It’s a dance, a give and take, a push and pull.

He pulls away, and I groan.

“This time,” he growls. “This time is yours, but next time? I get to fuck you as hard and rough as I want.”

I barely manage to jerk a nod before his mouth finds mine again.

Tonight, I just want to feel.

I want to feel all of him.

And I’m taking what he’s giving me.

I pull away, gasping for air.

“I want you,” I whisper against his lips.

He nods once, pulling back just enough to meet my eyes again.

“Then you have to take it.”

And I do.

Reaching between us, I grab him, feeling the weight of him in my palm.

It’s big, and it’s hard but somehow soft at the side time.

“Is it going to hurt?” I ask.

He pulls his eyes away, and I can see the hurt in them.

“It only hurts the first time,” he says. “But I can be gentle.”

Lifting onto my knees, I pull my panties to the side and struggle to put enough room between us that I can push him against that part of me—the part of me that aches and throbs, desperate to be touched.

To be filled.

I can feel his skin sliding against mine, and I moan without thinking.

I can feel the him pressing against my entrance, and I gasp.

It’s so bad, but it feels so good.

But it’s not bad, not anymore.

Right?

He’s going to be my husband. This is right. This is as right as it will ever be.

I push down slowly, teasingly slow, and I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out.

It hurts, but it feels good.

It’s exquisite pain, and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted.

He’s stretching me open, filling me up.

I’m his.

His hands find my hips, holding me steady.

It feels so good.

Too good?

I can’t tell anymore.

My body tightens around him, and he growls deep in his throat.

I feel like I’m being split in two, but I don’t want it to stop.

It feels so right.

I push down more, my thighs shaking when they finally meet his hips, and I sit on his lap like a princess on a throne.

I took it.

I took it all.

“Fuck,” he groans. “You’re so tight.”

It feels like I am, but somehow I’m not.

It feels like we fit together like puzzle pieces, like he was made for me.

“I-I want you to take me,” I say. “I want you to f-fuck me, Draco. Please?”

“I don’t know if I can be gentle,” he growls. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I shake my head.

“I don’t want you to be. Hurt me. I don’t care.”

I don’t have to ask him twice.

He flips us, still inside me, and I end up on my back underneath him.

A moment later, he starts moving.

Slow at first, so slow I think I’ll scream.

And then he speeds up, pushing deeper, harder, faster.

His hips meeting mine over and over again.

I grip his shoulders tightly, my head thrown back as I cry out.

I feel it all.

The burn.

The sting.

The ache.

The stretching inside of me.

The thickness of him filling me to the brim.

But there’s something else too, something I can’t quite place.

It’s a feeling that washes over me in wave after wave—a sense of belonging, of being wanted, of being cherished and loved in ways I never have been before.

I know this is wrong, but right now?

Right now, it feels so good.

It feels right.

He leans down and whispers in my ear again, his lips brushing against my skin when he speaks.

“Mine,” he growls, his thrusts becoming more ferocious, more demanding. “This pussy is mine. Do you understand?”

I do.

I understand because I feel it too. I don’t want anyone else to touch me like this.

Ever.

Only Draco.

His hips slam into mine, his mouth finding my neck and sucking hard.

Tears burn at the corners of my eyes, and I can feel myself getting close.

The world spins around me, but Draco is still here.

His hands find mine again, lacing our fingers together.

I’ll never forget this moment as long as I live.

Never.

I come apart beneath him, screaming his name as he fucks me.

Hard.

Hard enough that it hurts, but I feel like I need the pain to make me whole.

It feels like he’s turning me inside out, pushing, pulling, twisting.

He’s taking every single part of me, and I take it because I begged for it.

Because I think I might die if he tells me no ever again.

And then he explodes into me with a growl that echoes off the walls of the room—his body shuddering as he empties himself into me, his fingers digging into my hips just enough to leave bruises for tomorrow.

But I don’t care.

Tomorrow doesn’t matter because tonight, everything is about us.

Draco and me and this bed and this moment where nothing else matters but us being together is the only reality that matters.

When everyone else walks away and leaves me because I don’t fit into the box they built for me anymore, I know he will still be there.

He will be mine, and I will be his, and no one else will ever matter again.