Page 9 of Begging for Mercy
If she thinks she can kill me,ha, fat fucking chance. But reverse-murder-schemes bore me. And “convincing me not to kill her,” as she allegedly declared her win condition, is equally as stupid.
I lower my lips to her ear and breathe in the scent of lavender on her pillow.
Someone has trouble sleeping at night.
“For me not to kill you, I want…” A shiver rolls down my spine, and I dig my knees into the mattress. My feet hang over the edge of the bed, the furniture just as inadequate as the woman beneath me. Hatred boils in my gut like lava. This is why I don’t get involved. Kane’s the one who handles our targets—I can’t handle interacting with them. I grow impatient and irritable, and they end up running away before we’ve closed the deal.
But Mercycan’trun away. Not if she wants to live.
Licking my lips, I hum against the shell of her ear. “You can’t have sex with Reaper.”
It’s perfect. Kane will tie himself in knots over this girl and try to fuck her two ways from Sunday. It’s how he attaches to people—his love language is physical touch. I can’t count how many times I’ve woken up to Kane smothering me in bed. It started when we were in the system as kids. Now that he’s agrown ass man, he’s rarely home at night, and we keep separate sleep schedules. But if the weather’s bad and either of us can’t sleep, we revert to old patterns and seek each other out for comfort.
All it takes is a crack of thunder to turn two men into babies.
I’d roll my eyes every goddamn day if I didn’t need him just as much as he needs me.
Mercy suddenly turns her face so that our eyes are locked. Her warm breath fans across my cheeks. “That’s like having a death wish. I know his reputation.” She finally struggles against me and tries to pull her wrists free. “He sleeps with anything with a pulse.” Her hips press into mine as she bends her knees, and I struggle to keep her pinned. “Why don’t you want me to have sex with him?”
The retortwhy does it matter?is on the tip of my tongue, but I hold it in. “This is how I win the game,” I say simply, huffing as she continues to writhe beneath me. “Stop fucking moving.”
It’s her turn to huff. “Get the fuck off of me, then.”
I jump off of her the moment I feel heat stirring deep in my gut. There’s no fucking way I’m entertainingthatreaction. “If Reaper fucks you in any way—anal, oral, vaginal, titty fuck?—”
“Jesus,” Mercy shouts, quickly sitting up and throwing a pillow at me. “Get the hell out of my room! I won’t sleep with him!”
“—or if you fuck him, I’ll be the one collecting your life, Kitten. Before the year ends.”
Her mouth pops open. “Kitten?”
The nickname slipped out on its own. I frown. “Mercy. Whatever.” Turning back towards the window, I push her desk to the side and throw one leg over the sill. “That’s my rule. Break it, and you die.” I jump down to the porch, and the wood splinters beneath my weight. I quickly hop onto the ground andpeer back up at the window just in time to find Mercy glaring at me.
“If I getyouto fuck me,” she shouts, disturbing a pair of birds hanging out on the rooftop, “thenIget to killyou!” Her skin is flushed bright pink, the sun’s rays painting her in warm brushstrokes that give her a new spark of life she didn’t have a moment ago.
I chuckle under my breath, but it’s short-lived. Kane appears from the back door of the house, a half-eaten cookie trapped between his fingers. “If youwhat?” He wipes a crumb from his upper lip and jumps off the porch in one huge leap. Turning on his heel, he nearly stumbles to look up at Mercy’s window. “Tell me it’s not true, Siren. You’d rather fuck him than me?” A flash of hurt in his baby blue eyes almost makes me feel bad.
Of course he’s more concerned about the sex than he is about the homicide.
I clap him on the shoulder. “It’s her win condition. Don’t worry about it. Never gonna happen.” I raise my hand high and flick Mercy off. “Deal, bitch.”
Let the game fucking begin.
Chapter 4
Mercy
There isn’tenough coffee in the world to scrub my mind of the last twelve hours.Not even.I don’t know how long I lay in bed after making it home from the cemetery, but it wasn’t enough. Washing Reaper’s blood off my face went about as well as it could have, and I left my clothes in the mud sink to soak out the blood and dirt.
My thoughts inevitably drift back to the man who climbed through my bedroom window.Skinny Jeans.What did Reaper call him?
Zane?
I chew on his name as I hover in front of the coffee pot and sip my third cup. Reaper’s infamous on campus, but I’ve never heard of him having a sidekick. Or a brother. I guess no one cares about Reaper’s backstory so long as he fucks like a god. But if I’m going to make him fall in love with me, I’ll need to learn more about who he is and what he likes. Sighing, I set down my mug and stare out the kitchen window at the gravestones crisscrossing through the property. Not only do they know where I live, but they trespassed to deliver a message.
They could kill me in my sleep if they really wanted to.
A headache brews in the back of my skull, and I quickly swallow the last of my coffee. Standing here isn’t going to solve anything. I need to think. Come up with a plan. Research. If the rumors are true, Reaper has been a part-time student at the college for the past five years. There has to be a record of him somewhere. A name. A picture.Something.
