Page 32 of Mercy
I run out to the waiting cab, so I can pick up my car, and go home. Leaving Liam like this feels wrong but it’s something I must do. It hurt when he wouldn’t even speak to me after Nash expressed his feelings for me, I had never felt so unimportant in my life. As far as he was concerned, we couldn’t be together because of Nash, I understood that. But to not even be willing to speak to me? Even at work, he wouldn’t say a word to me. Everything had to be communicated through nurses or other social work staff. I can handle being spanked, hell I can even handle the belt that he has threatened, but to punish me by shutting me out completely, isn’t something I can deal with. Why was I even being punished at all? It’s not my fault that Nash decided to reveal his feelings for me. I’m like a kid’s toy at a yard sale. He doesn’t want me, but when he notices someone else’s eye on me, I’m his and no one else can have me.
The truth is, I’m not interested in Dr. Jacobs. He’s handsome, but I don’tfeelthings for him like I do with Liam. I let him touch and kiss me because I needed to feel alive for a moment. I wanted to picture Liam as his lips grazed my neck. But his mouth didn’t feel like Liam’s, his sounds were not the same, and it didn’t work. When Liam appeared and told me to come with him, it was like some force beyond my control. My body obeyed even though my mind knew better. He has some sort of gravitational pull when it comes to my body. It doesn’t matter what my brain tells me, my body, it obeys.
I hand the driver money for my fare and cross the empty parking lot. Sliding into my vehicle, I try to turn my emotions off as I drive home, but it’s a failed attempt. I can’t stop thinking about the way he touched me last night and the words he came so close to saying. The words would have never meant a thing because they aren’t the truth. He loves fucking me perhaps, but he doesn't loveme. I wish the last three months never happened and he did love me, wishing doesn’t make it so.
After the short drive to my apartment, I park and walk up to the third floor. I dig my keys out and walk to my door and stop abruptly. Liam stands in front of my door with his arms folded across his chest.
My heart pounds as I swallow hard. I don’t have to guess why he’s here; I already know.
“I thought you might call, but showing up at my door? How do you even know where I live?”
He arches his eyebrow through a narrowed glare. “Then you don’t know me very well. I have a friend in IT,” he says through a clenched jaw.
“Can you move so I can get into my apartment? In fact, go home Liam.”
He moves to the side so I can unlock my door, but it’s clear as day he’s not going anywhere.
I move inside, and he follows me, closing the door behind him.
“Liam, why are you here?”
“You said goodbye,” he says and then swallows hard, his body tense, his gaze darts around the room as if he can’t look at me.
“Liam, I meant what I said, we can’t be together.”
He paces back and forth as he rubs the stubble on his jawline.
“Can you sit down? You’re making me nervous.”
For a moment, he stops and stares at me as if he can read every thought and emotion I’m going through. It’s unnerving when he looks at me this way.
He sits on the couch, his muscular legs spread, elbows on his knees. “If I have to sit, so do you,” he whispers.
I nod, sitting beside him, but leaving space between us.
“Liam,” he pops his face to the side and gazes at me, “we can’t be-”
“No! Mercy, no,” he shakes his head, as if he can shake my words away. I mean these words, and it doesn’t matter if he accepts it.
He pushes me down on the couch as he straddles me, his face less than an inch from mine.
“Baby girl, I’m sorry I hurt you. I fucked up. I didn’t have experience falling in love with my son's best friend, someone that he also loves. There’s no guidebook for that. I’ve never really been in love; I know that now. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I could forget you, but I can’t. Please don’t ask me to.”
He presses his lips to mine with a tenderness I didn’t know he was capable of. He gently slides his tongue against mine before his kiss turns wild and desperate. Sliding one hand in my hair, he groans into my mouth as I wrap my arms around his neck and stroke the back of his hair.
What the hell am I doing? I’m sending him mixed signals. I meant what I said. I turn my face to the side, “Liam, get off me.”
He does, with a wide-eyed expression on his face. “I’m not letting you go again. I can’t. I won’t. I love you, baby girl. I can’t let you go, not for anything.”
“As always with you, what I want doesn’t matter,” I say as I sit up.
He laughs, but it’s not sincere, it's born out of frustration.
“You do want me,” he says with a serious expression. “I bet you’re soaking wet.”
“No. My body wants you, but my mind says otherwise.”
“What about your heart?”
