Merciless: Arranged Marriage Romance

by Esme Devlin

He looks at me for a few moments, but then he finally nods and we leave the bathroom and head back to the table. I catch Lawrie’s eye and wave her over, but she’s deep in conversation with Jody and holds up two fingers. Not as a “fuck you”, more of a “two minutes”.

  “You sure you don’t want to just stay another hour? Then we can actually leave and not bother coming back?” He bends down, getting close to my ear so I can hear him over the noise.

  Another hour handcuffed to him.

  “Okay, fine.”

  We arrive outside Tommy’s house and my arm is aching from having to hold it in mid-air while he changed gears the whole drive. We offered Lawrie a lift home, but she seemed to be happy enough to stay with Jody. Ryan offered her to share his taxi since he lives down the road, so I said goodnight and gave her a look that told her not to be stupid. Another Mr Red Flag in the form of my arch enemy’s best friend is the last thing she needs.

  I climb over the car — trying to remain as ladylike as possible and failing miserably — and slide on to Tommy’s knee so we can both use the same door. I hope he gives Ryan hell in the morning. The joke was funny until I realized he was not bluffing about the whereabouts of the key.

  Hilarious.

  We trudge up his ridiculously long driveway and reach a courtyard, wings of the house sprawling around it at each side. Garage doors to the right of us and huge sash and case windows to the left. There are lights on in the house and it only adds to the magnificence of it. The courtyard glows with warm strategically placed spotlights, highlighting perfectly trimmed rose bushes, raised flower beds, and an ornately carved stone fountain that sits in the center.

  I’ve only ever been here once before — I’m sure I was around age nine or ten. I think it was actually a housewarming party, not long after they moved in, and my ten-year-old self wondered if this place had belonged to a king, or maybe a prince, hundreds of years ago. I’d never seen anywhere like it. Everything was gold or silver, or sparkled in the light. It made you scared to touch anything. I remember standing in the corner of a big room and being afraid to put my feet on the plush carpet in the middle of the floor, or touch the fabric-draped walls, in case I got them dirty and ended up in trouble.

  But the thing I remember the most was that I didn’t envy Tommy for his big house and his gold and silver things.

  I pitied him.

  There was no love in that house, and certainly nowhere to make mischief. And I told him that, or words to that effect, when he tried to make me feel small and insignificant in the kitchen.

  I told him that a street rat in a gutter and a street rat in a palace was still a street rat.

  God, I was a cow.

  We walk in to the entrance hall and it’s just how I remember it. It even smells the same, although I didn’t remember that until standing here right now. The dark hardwood flooring shines in the light of the chandelier and the whole place smells like marzipan. Although when I was ten, I thought it smelled like cherry Bakewell cakes. Same thing, really.

  “Do you want a drink?” He stops in the middle of the hall and pushes my hair back off my face. I’m nervous, and I must look it. The place makes me feel uneasy. This is Tommy’s castle, as much now as it was then, and I remember now why I never wanted to come back.

  It’s not mutual ground. It’s his ground.

  “Can we get these off first?” I ask him. Then, when they’re off, I’ll ask him to take me home. I have no desire to stay here any longer than I have to.

  He nods and I follow him up the grand double staircase that sits in the middle of the entrance hall. I walk into his bedroom, he flicks the light on and it’s like walking into the servant's quarters. While outside everything is marble, decadent, polished and gleaming in the light… inside Tommy’s room is stark. Bare. A double bed with a matte metal frame sits in the middle of a white wall. There is practically no furniture, a built-in wardrobe and a black chest of drawers in the corner with a lamp sat on top of it.

  I don’t know what I expected Tommy’s room to be like — although I have thought about it a few times recently. I guess I imagined a typical teenage boy's room… dark and full of clothes in piles, a PS4, and a week's worth of dirty cups on the dresser.

  What does he do in here?

  “I’m not in here much,” he says with a shrug, as if he was reading my thoughts.

  I nod, my eyes wandering over to his bed, specifically the pillow.

  I need to get away from him to clear out my thoughts. I’m still on edge from that little moment in the bathroom. I need to process that, and I can’t while I can smell every move he makes.

  I don’t know how to behave or how to act around him now. We’ve gone from hating each other to fucking each other to this weird place in between, this awkward tension that feels like walking on a razor's edge.

  On one side, I know I’m going to betray him. I’m going to run the first chance I get. And he thinks he’s getting through to me.

  On the other side, I know a part of me is warming to him, even though I have no idea how or why. It makes no logical sense. He’s teased me, humiliated me, taken every opportunity to twist the knife and yet I can’t deny just how fucking good it felt hearing that he wanted me.

  And so I stand on that razor, looking down at both sides and wondering which way I’m going to fall.

  And I know that if I don’t get away from him soon, the chances of me falling on the wrong side increase greatly in his favor. Every second I spend only inches away from him increases my heart rate, makes me feel flustered and vulnerable and weak. And that is just how he likes me.

  That’s his drug, watching me squirm.

  He sees me looking at the pillow and he knows what I want but he makes no move to go and get it. So we stand there, in his empty bedroom, me staring at my freedom and him watching me watch it, knowing he’s the only one with the power to give it to me.

  And that’s when I truly realize how fucked I am.

  Chapter 17

  TOMMY

  She’s looking over at my bed like it holds the whole fucking world inside it.

  And I guess for her, it does.

  I could be the gentleman here. I could cross the room right now, with her on my heels, grab that key and give her what she wants.

  And then we’d go back to the uneasy silence that’s hung over us for the past two days. Her still hell-bent on leaving and me still hell-bent on convincing her she’s wrong. She’s mine, she always has been.

  And I’m not the gentleman.

  I’m the villain.

  And that’s the man she fell for, even if she doesn’t realize she’s fallen yet. Even if she needs a push or a pull.

  I’m good at pushing and pulling.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I tell her, pulling her around so she’s not staring at that fucking pillow anymore.

  She cocks her head and glances up at me. “What question was that?”

  “The one in the bathroom. I told you I’d give you everything you want. You said you wanted to get it yourself, and I asked you if you’d let me help you.”

  Her eyes drift away from my face and she focuses on the wall behind me. “I can’t give you an answer.”

  I study her features. Her lips painted brown and exaggerated so they’re bigger than normal. Her eyes darkened with makeup. Her hair, falling around her face in waves. The way her neck moves when she swallows. The black ink that covers her arms in… flowers? Cobwebs? Stuff that probably doesn’t even have any meaning to her other than it looks pretty. There is no one individual thing about her that makes her what she is. She’s just… too good for me.

  That used to be the thing that made me hate her, and now I think it’s the thing that draws me in the most.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know what you want in return,” she says, her eyes still fixed on the wall. I almost want to turn around and see what is so fucking interesting.

  “I would have thought that was obvious?”<
br />
  “Everything has a price, Tommy, and I want to know exactly what yours is. I’m not going to give you what I suspect you want. Even if we do go through with it, it would be on my terms. What are your terms?”

  She’s speaking like there is a real possibility of it actually happening. I pause for a second while I think. What do I want? I know what I’m supposed to want, what tradition dictates I should want… but what do I really want?

  “I want you to submit, but I want you to fight. I want to make you laugh while we’re fighting and make you cry while we’re fucking. I want you to fear me but I want you to love me, both of them at the same time. And I want to watch you grow up from the girl with the wild hair and the dirty knees, to the woman with the teeth so fucking sharp, that I’m the only man in the world who would dare go anywhere near them.”

  She lifts her eyes, and she looks at me now with a gaze so intense I think she can see into the depths of my soul.

  If she could, she’d see I’m not lying.

  That’s what I want. I no longer give a fuck if she wants to stay at home with babies or fly to the moon in a fucking space suit. I want to fight her and fuck her every single day. I want people to look at us and know that we’re built from the same shit, forged in fire together, the both of us exactly what the other one needs. People fear that because it’s unobtainable. It’s impenetrable. It’s stronger than diamonds.

  She’ll be my Queen of Diamonds, just like she was born to be.

  And me?

  I’ll be whatever the fuck she needs me to be. She just needs to submit.

  I don’t expect an answer from her… at least not the type of answer that would come from her mouth. Not right now. I don’t think she’s capable of saying what she needs.

  So instead, I kiss her.

  I kiss her like I meant every word I just told her, because I did.

  I kiss her while we both stumble over to the bed, and when I push her down on it, and while I search under the pillows for the key.

  And I only break the kiss to take the fucking handcuff off my wrist and attach it to the bedpost.

  “What are you doing?” she hisses. She hisses, but she’s still kissing me, she’s still trying to tug my shirt off with her one free hand.

  “I’m keeping you.” I grab a hold of her dress and slide it up over her hips, inching my body down until fabric turns to warm skin against my lips.

  This time, there’s no sand sticking to my hands or stones pressed into my knees.. This time, there aren’t goosebumps all over her skin from the cold wind whipping around us. This time, I’m not desperate to fuck the hate out of her, to punish her, to make a mess of her body.

  This time I intend to feast on every inch of her.

  Her back arches and she trembles as I brush further down with my mouth, and my fingers slip under the black lace fabric, sliding along her pussy. I’m desperate for a taste of her, and that’s something that’s never occurred to me before. It’s always been about what girls can do for me. But tonight, I only want to please her. I want to hear her moaning my name. I want to feel her shake and know I caused it.

  But it’s not just about making her feel good. I want to know what she tastes like. And I want to claim her as mine, with my hands, my cock, my tongue. Every last piece of her. Mine. Always. Even if she runs tomorrow, even if she runs five years from now.

  She’ll still be mine.

  She’ll still be the girl who wasn’t scared of me, even when my friends were. When everyone said don’t poke Tommy Heenan with the stick, she took the stick, snapped it over her leg and clenched her fists instead.

  Fuck sticks.

  And fuck Tommy Heenan.

  She can poke me all she wants now.

  She has a free pass.

  My tongue sinks into her and she cries out, her face turning into the pillows and her thighs clamping together around my head. I’m lost, swirling around her clit and fucking her hole, eating her like I’m going to hang in the morning, and she’s the last sweet thing I’ll ever taste.

  Her free hand comes down and grabs onto my hair while her hips rise, forcing me closer to her, and my cock is throbbing in my jeans at the way she just doesn’t give a fuck.

  She’s using me, humping my face like I’m only there to serve her and it’s driving me wild. She needs more. She needs to be fucked.

  I’m not going to make her beg this time, though.

  She’s already begging me.

  She doesn’t need to say it.

  I tug at my jeans and slide out of my boxers, only sitting up to undo the top two buttons on my shirt and rip it over my head.

  She spreads her legs wide for me, raising her other arm and holding on to the bed frame next to her cuffed one.

  She looks up at me, not saying a word but pleading nonetheless, and I feel like the luckiest damn bastard in the world.

  I feel like a king.

  Her king, which means a lot, considering she used to look at me like I wasn’t worth trampling over.

  I let my gaze wander over her body, drinking in the sight of her. I stop just where her dress starts and focus on the little tattoo there. I thought it was a phrase, something obvious like “love to live” or some shit... but now I can see it’s actually Roman numerals.

  I want to ask her what it means, but there’s time for that later, once I’ve shown her that I mean every word, and that this is right.

  We’re right… we always have been.

  She’s the only girl in the world who can match me.

  I slide her dress up over her head and it just hangs on her arm that’s still attached to the bed. Bending down, I kiss her little tattoo, whatever it means, while I unclip her bra and send that to the pile too.

  She’s writhing under me, her chest rising and falling. I feel her need in every fucking fiber of my body, and my cock feels like it’s about to explode.

  When I finally drive into her, the only thing I can think of is that she feels like home. A home built specifically for me, with hard walls I can’t destroy when I get angry, and familiar decor that brings to mind a million different memories every time I look at it.

  I don’t want to rip it down.

  I want to patch it up, fix it, and spend the rest of my days returning to it.

  And by the time her thighs squeeze around my hips and she moans my name into my ear… I know I’m fucked if she ever decides to evict me.

  “What does this mean?” I ask brushing my finger over her ribcage. I’m propped up on my elbow watching her as she tries to get back to sleep.

  “It’s a date,” she says lazily, looking at me through lowered eyelids.

  Faint sunlight creeps in around the edges of the closed blinds, the only indication that it’s morning. We spent the night fucking, alternating between hard and fast and lazy and sleepy, and I can’t even remember the sun coming up.

  It’s all a blur.

  “Your birthday? What, were you scared you’d forget it?”

  “24th of June, Two thou—.”

  “Your birthdays in…” I cut her off, but then I stop because I know what that date is. What I don’t know is why she’d get it tattooed on her ribs.

  My face must ask the question for me because she shrugs and turns her head to the side.

  24th of June. The day she pushed me on the dance floor. The day she kissed me and I thought she was disgusting. I was eight — girls were disgusting.

  I don’t want her to avoid the question I didn’t ask.

  “Look at me,” I tell her. I’m fucking naked, her legs wrapped around my thigh. The least she can do is look at me. “Why?”

  She pauses for a minute, as if deciding whether to let me in on a secret or not. “Because it was the day I learned that if I wanted anything in this world, I would need to take it myself. I didn’t know it at the time, but that day changed me, and it changed my life. It’s my own reminder that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

  Hmm. “You were already strong,”
I tell her. “And how do you know it changed your life? How do you know you wouldn’t have loved me if we’d met as just a boy and just a girl, and ended up back here… in this bed… on this day, anyway?”

  She looks at me like I’m strange, but I don’t see why. “I don’t think it works like that.”

  If it doesn’t work like that, then it means we’re always one choice away from completely changing the course of our lives. I think about that for a second, and all the potential lives I could have lived. All the choices I’ve made, all of those lives lost. I don’t believe it. I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe in the cards that are dealt to you at birth. “So you don’t believe in fate? You don’t believe that what’s meant for you, won’t go by you?”

  She bites down on her lip and lowers her eyes, looking out into the dimly lit room. “I don’t know what I believe anymore,” she says, then she turns over in bed away from me and sticks her arm under the pillow, curling up into a little ball.

  I lie back down beside her, tickling her back until her breathing gets heavy, and I let myself drift back to sleep too.

  Chapter 18

  MICHELLE

  I. Am. Confused.

  And I’ve had enough of it.

  I don’t want to see Tommy. I don’t want to hear Tommy. I don’t want to speak to Tommy.

  I had a plan, a good plan. Now I just need to see it through and stop letting my overwhelming urge to have sex with a man I detest get in the way of it.

  But I know I’m lying to myself when I say it’s just an urge to have sex.

  He got inside my head and pitched up there.

  His words, they had an effect on me. Just like when we were on the beach that night. He has me tempted to believe that one day, whatever this is, could be real. To the point that I don’t know if I’m dodging a bullet or losing the one person with the potential to know me better than anyone.

  Ten years of hating someone is a long time, but perhaps you can learn more in ten of hate than you can in one-hundred of indifference.