Page 90 of Intent to Kill
APRIL 1991
It was a rare thing for Mercedes to spend uninterrupted time with Dorian anymore. The two nights and three days in Darton had felt like years, and it was like he was choking her with his presence.
When they were first together, before he had bored of her and had spent every second in her company, she was much better equipped to handle it. She’d been numb in those days, as dead as the lover who had left her behind.
She sighed when she reached her bedroom in the mansion again. Her safe haven. But soon Dorian followed her inside, so she willed herself to sit up a little straighter.
“I’ve got business to do. Don’t wait up,” Dorian said.
Thank fuck for that. He took a different pre-packed bag from his wardrobe. She didn’t bother to reply as she laid on the bed and kicked her shoes off.
He didn’t look back as he left the room in haste, but she knew what his overnight bags were for. It was a Monday night. A Shaundi night. He would not be home until well after dawn. Small mercies.
She heard a light tapping from her window and reluctantly sat upright. Curious at first, but not so much when she registered Adam standing at attention on the ledge. Of course, it was him. But he, too, seemed to want energy that she wasn’t willing to give. The face she put on for him was much harder to keep in place. To pretend that she didn’t still lo–
Nope. She wasn’t going there.
“What do you want?” She opened the window with a snap.
“Came to say hi.”
“At least you didn’t barge in this time, I suppose.” She shuffled away, turning back when he didn’t follow her inside.
“We got a big cash injection from Tia, I used it to buy some new guns. Do you wanna shoot them with me?”
She was wearing a tiny black dress and sporting a nasty scowl, hardly shooting attire. She glanced down at her clothes, warning him away with just a look.
“Get changed and come with me,” he hissed.
Slumping back down on the bed, she stared at the ceiling that was inlaid with flecks of gold too. Yeah, even the ceilings. Money really was nothing to some people. “Adam, I’m tired, I’ve had a big enough weekend as it is. I don’t feel like putting on a face for you, too.”
“You don’t have to put on a face for me.” She vaguely registered him jumping through the window like a cat and stalking over until his shadow covered her. “Unless you’re tryingthathard to hide how much you want me. In which case don’t bother. I already know.”
She lifted her head just enough to give him an incredulous look and see him chuckle in response.
Once he was done laughing at his own joke, he tugged on her hands and pulled her to sit upright, kneeling between her legs so that they could look eye to eye.
“Come on, a little fun might loosen you up a bit. You’re always too tense,” he smirked.
“You’re always just a little too relaxed,” she said.
He rolled her spite away with a laugh, hands still locked together and her weary eyes studying him.
“I’ve got a Beretta and an M19.’
Damn, he was temping her…thoseweresomething she’d always wanted to try...
She resisted at first, but he prodded her with a devilish grin, and though she combated acknowledging it, she couldn’t help but crack a smile of her own.
He nodded, and in a sweeping movement he lifted her off the bed, her feet nearly missing the ground as he told her, “Change, please.”
Like a gentleman he turned around while she changed. Which was odd, because obviously, he was no gentleman and had seen every part of her that a lover would. But when she was ready, he helped her out the window, down the trellis, and into the hedge maze and over the fence like teenagers sneaking out from their parents’ house. Teenagers who were too obsessed with just being together to see rhyme or reason or sense.
* * *
As they shuffled over the mounds of dirt in the old lot, with Adam covering Mercedes’s eyes with his hands, he wondered if he’d gone too far with his surprise. But then couldn’t bring himself to care. If he was going to be caught tomorrow, he’d always want his last moments to be with her.
“Adam, how far are you taking me?” she said, sounding excited rather than hesitant.
