Page 19 of Begging for Mercy
I can’t kill her outside of the game, or Kane will leave me.
So all I can do is push them into as many situations as possible to make her fall in love with himwithoutsleeping with him. Because if Kane gives her that piece of himself, it’s only a matter of time before he carves out his heart and puts it in her hands. I’ve seen this time and time again with each new target, and every year, it gets harder and harder for him to pull back right at the cliff’s edge, just before the fall.
And if Kane falls in love with Mercy, a woman who doesn’t deserve an ounce of his attention, it might be the one thing that finally breaks me.
Chapter 8
Mercy
For the firsttime in years, I wake up to the sound of an alarm. I struggle to move my body, and panic quickly sets in until I realize that I’m not trapped in a waking nightmare—Sam is in bed with me. The warm breath on the back of my neck and the arms wrapped tightly around my waist tell me that he stayed the night after I dozed off.
We weren’t cuddling when I fell asleep, but we sure as hell are now.
“Sam,” I murmur, grabbing his arms. “Wake up. Your phone?—”
He sighs into my hair. “Five more minutes.”
I squint at the ancient clock on my wall and struggle to read the numbers. “What time is it?”
“Seven.”
Seven?I slept all night?
“You had a good night,” Sam mumbles, easily reading my mind. “I kept your demons away.”
“Ha ha,” I reply dryly. But truthfully, I’m in shock. “I haven’t slept through the night in?—”
“Years,” he finishes for me, humming deep in the back of his throat. He finally reaches over the side of the bed and blindlyturns off his alarm. “I guess that means I’m your good luck charm. Who knew I could be so effective.”
I roll my eyes and crawl over him to get off the bed. If he’s going to stay the night more often, I’ll need to move my bed away from the wall so this doesn’t become a problem. My knee digs into his thigh, and he inhales sharply, grabbing my hips. Our eyes meet across the scant distance between us, and he makes a choked sound. “Let me help you.”
The words echo his sentiment from last night, and my face burns.
Sam offered to have pity sex with me so that I could lose my virginity.
“I’ve got it,” I insist, but he’s already rolling us over. The bed is too small for two grown adults, so what starts ashelprapidly turns into disaster. We slide over the edge of the mattress together and tumble onto the floor, bashing skulls and jamming elbows. I hiss through my teeth as a jolt of pain shoots up my arm, but it’s Sam who brunts the worst of it. I brace myself with an accidental jab to his crotch.
He wheezes in my ear and croaks like a frog, rasping something that sounds likeprobably deserved thatbefore flopping onto his back and throwing his forearm over his eyes.
“I’m so sorry!” I quickly sit up and hover over him, unsure how to help. “That was an accident!”
“It’s fine,” he swallows, setting his hand on my thigh. “I’m fine.” His phone blares again, this time with a powerful bass line. He sighs, grabs his phone from off the floor, and swipes to answer. “Yeah? I’m not home. Of course I’m coming to practice. Meet you there.” It’s one of the shortest conversations I’ve ever witnessed, but Sam scrubs a hand down his face and rolls up into a sitting position. “Water,” he murmurs, staring at the sunlight streaming through my window. Then he looks at me.“I’ve gotta go. Practice.” His smile is apologetic. “Can I drive you to campus?”
I run a hand through the tangles in my hair. “Um, yeah. That’d be great. Let me change…”
Sam helps me stand. “Great. I’ll see if your dad is up.” Before he leaves, he hovers in the doorway. “Hey, uh… about what I said last night?—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupt, not wanting to go down that path before I’ve had coffee. “We don’t have to talk about it.” At the sight of Sam visibly deflating, I quickly add, “I’ll let you know if I change my mind. Deal?”
A delicate blush blossoms across his cheeks, and he clears his throat. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
Sam’s late to practice, and consequently, I’m late to my morning studio class. I try to be quiet as I walk in, but the door creaks and alerts the class that I’ve finally arrived. Thankfully, everyone’s too busy painting the model posing in the center of the room to do more than throw me a quick glare before returning to their work. Our instructor, Mrs. Lebottowitz, raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. I’ve never been late in my entire college career, so this is new for both of us.
What’s worse is that someone is in my seat.
I walk around the classroom to take my spot by the arched bay windows and find a burly man making broad strokes on his canvas, the blocks of color pale enough that I almost miss them. Rather than follow instructions and color batch with a specific palette, he’s chosen to pair the lightest pastels with a deep indigo, creating a striking contrast that pulls the figure offthe page. I stare in awe as he switches brushes and paints a beautifully tapered line to delineate the model’s thigh.
Who the hell is this guy? I glance at Mrs. Lebottowitz to find that she’s staring too, but not at the painting—at the man. I force my gaze away and take the stool next to him, quickly shuffling around the room to grab my paints and supplies. It takes a few minutes to get in the zone, but once I’m there, the rest of the world falls away. I mix a deep magenta and pair it with a light peach, taking a page from my neighbor’s book and switching up the assignment. By the end of the first hour, my shoulders are screaming. I stretch my arms over my head and peek at the canvas beside me.
