Page 70 of The Secrets That Kill

Fuck that.

Ice hits me, and I shove him away.

“I’m not a baby.”

“Really? You fucked someone old enough to be your dad when you were pretty much a baby.”

I stare at him. Shock ricochets through me. And then I slap him.

My hand goes numb, and the reverberation sends a shockwave up my arm. It wasn’t super hard, but the fact I did it…

For a long minute, he takes me in. Then nods.

Mercer wraps his hand around my throat and pushes me into the cool tile. His expression is calm. But I can’t shake the feeling he’s angry, very,veryfucking angry.

“Don’t like me saying that, Ivy? But I thought you liked it? I thought you said you begged for it, that it was your fault? You can’t get angry if you were some grown-up siren in a kid’s body.” He leans closer, seething his words so that they’re like tiny flames scorching my cheeks. “It was Trenton, wasn’t it?”

My head’s spinning as his hand squeezes. Not tight enough to block my breath, but enough that I can’t move at all. “H-how?”

“Because, you stupid little Pollyanna, Jaxson hated him.” His glare practically burns a hole into me. “And one time I came over late. You didn’t see me, but I passed the front window and Trenton was there, ogling you. A little fourteen-year-old kid. And you looked scared as all fuck.”

I try and suck in air, but he squeezes a little harder.

“You get mad at me and not at that fuck?” He dips his head so it’s right against mine. “I don’t have to like you, Ivy, to tell you he’s the one who should feel shame, and even if you did go after him, he should have shut you down.”

Then he kisses me again, long and slow, and I push my tongue into his mouth, wanting whatever he has to give. I want him to take me now. His words aren’t freeing, and I don’t think they’re meant to be at all, but they spur something in me.

Is Mr. Trenton why I can’t keep away from Mercer? Do I crave what’s forbidden and taboo? Am I reallythatgirl?

But no, I don’t think he’s the reason. Because I wanted Mercer for the longest time. I never even think much about Jon Trenton anymore, I skitter over the toxic memories because it does shame me, the violation that I let happen. I hate that I liked when he made me come. And I was finally saved when one night Mom caught him touching me. Then he was over. Never showed his face at my house again.

Just a touch on my leg, and that was enough for Mom to pull the plug. Dad never knew, and all this happened when our family was in freefall. Guilt roils my gut. Just one more shame that I singlehandedly brought on comes crashing down.

Mercer breaks the kiss, fingers pressing into the bite mark on my throat. I can feel the deeper pain, and it spears me down into the moment, back to him and the shower.

“When you kiss me, you think ofme, Pollyanna.”

“Go to hell.”

“The brat is back.”

“You made me give you a blowjob in a club, then you left me alone for some random, disgusting men to touch.”

He goes still. “Did they put their hands on your tits, ass, or pussy?”

“No.” I frown. It was still humiliating and hugely demeaning.

“Good. Then you were fine.”

I look at him, the pull, the need that makes everything in my head and heart go haywire and crazy. The thing that makes me forget what he’s making me do, what I somehow want to do, is wrong. It has to be. It’s based on hate and blackmail.

I don’t even know a thing about him after he went to jail.

What I do know is I almost came when he shoved his cockso far down my throat it was like I could see God. That I wanted it. Him. That I got off on him degrading me like that. Touching me in public, making me perform for him. I got so lost in it that spotlights could have lit us up and I wouldn’t have noticed.

There’s something wrong with me, and I can’t pretend I’m doing this just for Elise.

But I’m not taking the risk of stopping this sick game. He won’t continue her treatments. We had an offer once, someone who claimed he knew Dad, someone who wanted to help. We’d never met him, and the money would have covered most of her treatments, probably all.

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