I didn’t bother telling him I wouldn’t be going. Especially since his parents were going to be there. That really was the last thing I wanted to do today.
“Mine’s bigger,” I whispered to Trance as I passed.
He snorted, but nonetheless followed me in.
“Tony, let’s do this. The reunion starts soon,” Trance said, ignoring me for the time being.
And that was how I realized that I wasn’t allowed to leave the state, because I was a suspect in the death of Faris Blue.
Chapter 17
Hard times will always reveal true friends. Why? Because those fuckers will be downing shots on the stool right next to you.
-Life Lesson
Mercy
“She’s told you this fifteen fucking times, Tony. Goddammit. How many more times does she have to tell you?” Trance asked, running his fingers through his hair roughly.
He was so cute, getting all defensive over me.
“Why are you still here, boyo?” Tony asked, sneering at him.
I just shook my head. They’d literally done this no less than five times now in the last hour.
I was really ready to get out of here. Not to mention that my baby that was the size of a lentil was somehow, miraculously, pressing on my bladder to the point of pain.
Needless to say, when Miller burst into the room a minute and forty seconds later, because, seriously, I was watching the clock while the two blockheads argued, I was more than happy to see him.
Except he didn’t look in the least bit happy to see me.
“Tony, you promised me you wouldn’t bother her,” Miller growled, turning his scowl on my captor.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I also agreed that if she came to me, like you said she wouldn’t, that I’d talk to her. Which she did, and I did. I’ve just got two more…”
“You’re done. Get up, Mercy. It’s time to go,” Miller said, stopping Tony’s explanation in its tracks.
“Hey!” Tony snapped. “I know you’re my friend and all, but this is a murder investing-”
“Now,” Miller growled.
I shrugged and stood, walking out the door, not waiting for Miller nor Tony to protest.
In fact, I ducked into the employee bathroom before either one could say a word.
Miller, obviously, didn’t see me enter the bathroom, because the moment I finally got to relieve myself, he was yelling the police station down.
“Mercy!” Miller bellowed loudly.
“I’m peeing!” I screamed at the door.
Goddamn. Couldn’t a woman pee by herself?
“You need to chill the fuck out, dude. I haven’t peed in four hours,” I muttered.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when he opened the door. The locked door. But I was.
He just barged in, and slammed the door shut behind him, billowing air like he’d run a mile at a dead spring.
“Jesus,” I said, turning my back on him as I yanked my pants over my ass. “What’s your freakin’ deal?”
I was still mad. Which was why I was being so mean.
I knew he was worried. Hell, I’d been worried about him, too. But he needed to back the fuck off. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his overprotective streak that verged on the brink of irrational.
“What the hell’s your problem with me? I just saved you,” he asked, stunned that I’d snapped at him.
I whipped around to face him. “My problem?”
He blinked. “That’s what I just asked, wasn’t it?”
I moved into his space. “My problem, mister,” I punctuated that word with a poke to his chest, leaning forward so my nose was level with his chin. Sure, I had to stand on my tippy toes, and I had to lean slightly on my finger that was poking into his chest for balance, but it was the threat that counted. “Is that you need to stop throwing your weight around. I’m not your pet project. I can’t be fixed by you babying me all the damn time.”
He blinked, brows furrowing in confusion. “Pet project?”
I nodded, poking him again. “Yeah, your pet project. The poor little girl that can’t take care of herself. The poor little woman who was raped in front of East fucking Texas. I don’t need you. I don’t need your pity, either.”
Okay, I was being harsh, I knew. I didn’t know his side of it, but what his parents had said earlier had made sense. Too much sense, in fact. A man like Miller couldn’t like me.
Not plain Mercy Diane Shepherd. The girl that had no curves, boobs, or bounties of any kind. I was plain Mercy. The girl who was raped. The girl who had more in common with a man than a woman.
I was the woman who burned if I was out in the sun too long, and could eat fifty donuts and have nothing to show for it but being more attractive to mosquitoes. I was the woman who walked in front of a crew of construction workers in my sexiest get-up, and never got a single freakin’ whistle.
His eyes caught on mine and he cornered me against the wall.
“Is this about what you saw yesterday?” He asked, taking his hand and running it down the side of my neck, then further down my side to settle on my hip.
“What I saw yesterday? Do you mean what I heard?” I asked in confusion.
He shook his head. “What do you mean what you heard? I was talking about what you saw when I beat the shit out of Faris.”
I blinked. “Uhh, no. I was talking about what I heard your parents say this morning.”
Confusion clouded his features. “I don’t remember hearing my parents say anything that upset you. In fact, I haven’t even seen my parents today. What did you hear that made you leave and disappear for hours? Which, might I add, scared the shit out of me.”
Since he looked so genuinely confused, I took pity on him.
Lips thinning in trepidation, I explained what I’d heard his mother and father talking about when I’d gone to breakfast that morning.
“I’m going to fucking kill them,” he said, pushing away from my body and throwing the door open.
I ran and jumped on his back, wrapping my arms around his throat.
It didn’t stop him in the slightest. He kept walking as if an extra hundred and ten pounds hadn’t just been added to his weight.
He didn’t have far to go, however.
In fact, once he made it out of the police station, he walked five doors down, and threw the door open to a blacked out door with plate glass windows surrounding the doorframe.
The first thing to hit me was the smell of alcohol and old wood.
The second thing was the way the low red lights made Miller look like he was a super alien. A super, pissed off, muscular alien bent on revenge, ready to conquer earth to avenge the honor of his woman.
Okay, I was over exaggerating, but I was also panicking.
His parents were sitting at the bar, his father on serving side and his mother on a stool at the very end.
“We need to talk,” Miller growled to the two.
I immediately let go of Miller’s neck, but he caught me with both hands firmly planted on my ass, keeping me in place as he walked closer and closer to his stunned parents.
I ducked my head, and prayed that it’d be over soon.
***
Miller
“Honey,” my mother said as she glanced across the room at Mercy, who happened to be playing with the jukebox, pointing out which songs she liked to Foster and Trance. “I never meant what I said to be hurtful. I was just curious.”
I put both of my hands to my forehead, and rubbed vigorously with the heels of my hands. “If I’m happy, you should be happy for me. None of your opinions matter here. She’s mine and I’m hers. Nothing you can say or do will change that.”
My mother looked down at her hands. “That was never my intention with my concern for you. I was upset that it came on so sudden. There was never any other reason for it other than hearing that she was pregnant, which made me curious. I’m happy for you. I’m happy fo
r her. She seems like a very nice young lady.”
I sighed. “I know, mom. Just…give her a chance. And you probably should go apologize.”
“Nobody has time for that, son. We have to be at the reunion in less than an hour,” my father tried to intervene.
“No, Micah. It’s okay. I’ll go talk to her, and you can go get dressed with your brothers,” my mother said, standing and making her way to Mercy.
Once she got there, she sent Trance and Foster to us before sequestering Mercy into the very corner of my father’s bar.
“Your mother made us shirts,” Foster said once he got to within speaking distance.
I grimaced. “What do they say, dad?”
My father didn’t bother to hold back his disgust. “Just don’t read it, and you won’t know how bad it is.”
My eyes studied Mercy’s face, making sure my mom wasn’t saying anything that upset her before I headed to the back room of the bar where my mom was storing our shirts.
The first thing I saw when I arrived in there was neon yellow.
The second thing I saw was the saying and I nearly turned around and left.
I would’ve, too, had my father not stopped me from moving more than an inch.
My father was nearly the same size as Trance, which was a shade smaller than me.
He had the same bulk that the rest of us had. The same cleft chin, and the same square jaw.
The only difference between us was that my father had a few more wrinkles and laugh lines, as well as hair that was on the verge of being gray.
The same disgusted look on his face as he gazed at the pieces of shit we were expected to wear.
“I’m not wearing that,” Trance said without preamble.
My father scoffed. “Of course you are. If I have to, you have to. That’s the end of that.”
My father, although he’d been retired from the Marines for going on three years now, still acted like he was the man in charge, even when he wasn’t. What he needed to learn was that he wasn’t the only boss in town anymore.
***
“I can’t fucking believe we’re wearing this shirt,” Foster hissed as he took in the family reunion.
Trance’s wife started to laugh.
“I think they’re kind of cute,” Viddy teased her husband playfully, smoothing her hand over the shirt lovingly.
Trance caught her hand and raised it to plant a kiss on it before dropping it and throwing his arm around her shoulder. “Of course you’d think that. You’re also not wearing one. Why is that?”
Viddy pursed her lips. “It was too tight, so I let Mercy wear it.”
My gaze turned to my Mercy, who was carrying on with my mother over by the food table.
The two were laughing, pointing at my grandmother’s hat that was bigger than some of the one’s the Queen of England wore.
One of the many kids that’d been running around had hung a plastic snake from one of the back swirls of feathers, and the woman was talking so animatedly that the snake was swinging back and forth with her enthusiasm.
“You’re lying. That’d fit you. You just wanted her to wear it,” Trance said softly, giving Viddy’s head a kiss.
A well of thankfulness bubbled inside of me at Viddy’s welcoming hand, and I was excited to see how the two interacted. Especially since they were going to have babies together. Not that Trance knew that, yet.
Viddy shrugged. “I wanted her to feel like she belonged. Plus, you never let me go more than three feet from you; I’m pretty sure they’ll know I belong.”
Trance shrugged. “You’re really missing out with these ‘Team Spurlock’ shirts. I can’t believe she made these such obnoxious colors. Mine doesn’t even fit.”
“Umm,” Viddy smiled widely. “That’s ‘cause I told your mom you were a large.”
Trance shook his head, laughing slightly. “You’re such a shit.”
“Heads up!” Foster yelled from across the room.
I looked up just in time to see a football a few feet from my face.
Reflexively, I caught it, and then launched it back at him like a missile.
Which my cousin immediately intercepted with a beer in one hand.
“Let the games begin!” Foster roared, then tackled Aiden to the ground.
Chapter 18
Abs are cool and all…but have you ever tried Olive Garden’s breadsticks?
-Mercy’s secret thoughts
Mercy
I opened my eyes to a wall of tattooed muscle.
Turning over to my back and stretching, I took in the bright neon lights of the Las Vegas strip.
I glanced at the clock, and groaned.
It was nearly six in the morning, and yet again, I was awake and starving.
It almost felt like déjà vu as I went through my morning routine, and came out of the bathroom. Except, this time, Miller was awake and leaning against the headboard; his legs were crossed, and the sheet was pulled up to around his hips.
I licked my lips as I took in the scene before me, “You’re awake.”
The statement had sounded breathless coming from my lips, and Miller’s sleepy eyes smiled, although his mouth didn’t.
“Come ‘ere,” he rasped in his sleep roughened voice, patting the bed beside him.
I went, getting to the end of the bed and crawling up onto it.
He whipped the sheet off, giving me an unhindered view of his flaccid cock that was lying against one of his thighs.
I crawled up his body, settling my ass over his lap, and pinning his cock between us.
The heated lips of my sex covered his, but he was focused on something else besides us, bringing my attention away from how good he felt skin to skin with me, and to the way his eyes were slightly worried.
He threw the sheet back over us, and wrapped it snugly around my shoulders before wrapping his arms around my body.
I laid my head down on his chest, tucking my arms between us as I did.
“I’m hungry,” I said softly.
He snorted. “You’re always hungry.”
I smiled against his chest. “True. I’m overly hungry today, though.”
“You said that yesterday at lunch and dinner. As well as that midnight snack from the bakery we passed on the way home from the family reunion,” he teased.
I pinched his side. “I’m sure it’s only going to get worse.”
His lips skimmed the top of my head. “My mom said that when she was pregnant with me, she gained fifty pounds because she was always so hungry.”
I winced. “Let’s hope that’s not the case. I don’t think my feet could manage an extra fifty pounds. I’m already so freakin’ tired, there’s no telling what that much weight added to it would do.”
“I need to tell you about Faris,” he said softly.
I blinked. “What about him? Did the police find anything out?”
“Yes,” he said. “I got a call from Tony while we were at the reunion. I just didn’t tell you.”
I swallowed. “Okay, what?”
He ran his fingers slowly through my hair.
“He was on our floor, I don’t know why, and that’s where you came in. Once you leave Silas, the security cameras can track you all the way down the elevator, and then to the bathroom where you disappear for twenty minutes,” he hesitated. “Faris followed you into the bathroom. You came out, and he didn’t.”
I blinked, absently encircling Miller’s nipple with my finger.
“The only thing saving you from being arrested right now is the fact that your clothes were clean, and you had no…residue… on you,” Miller said softly.
I stiffened and leaned up, looking at him. “Residue?”
He nodded. “Whatever happened, was pretty messy. Whomever did it, had to have left that room covered in it…or they stripped out of their clothes.”
My mouth opened and closed like a fish. “How was that not heard
? Or seen?”
Miller shook his head. “I went in there yesterday with another buddy on LVPD. The stalls are all like tiny rooms. Whatever happened to Faris was contained by the very far stall. The door was locked, too, so nobody even bothered to try that door until the cleaning lady came in later that day.”
“What does this mean for me?” I asked in worry, leaning forward until my hands were resting on his muscular chest.
He lifted his hands to cover the back of mine before he said, “Right now you’re just a person of interest, although all they have on you is circumstantial. You’re allowed to leave the city, but you have to come back if they have any questions.”
I heaved a relieved breath. “Good. That would’ve sucked having to stay in Las Vegas while everyone else went home.”
He leaned forward and captured me to his chest once again. “I wouldn’t have left you here alone.”
I threaded my arms around his neck, studying his face. The cleft in his chin. The blueness of his eyes.
Taking a deep, soothing breath, I broached the subject that was never really resolved yesterday.
“I don’t want to be your charity project. I want you to be with me because you want to be with me, and I’m sorry if I forced any of that on you unwillingly. You’re free to leave if and when you want to. I’ll never force you to stay with me,” I said softly, looking into his eyes as I said it.
His lips tightened. “I don’t know where you keep coming up with this bullshit,” he snapped, reversing our positions until he was settled deep between my thighs. “Does this feel like you’re just a charity project to me?”
He ground his humongous erection into me. One that hadn’t been there when I’d broached the subject.
Holy shit, he got hard really, really fast.
The head of his cock worked into the seam of my sex, working back and forth as he looked into my eyes.
When I didn’t reply, he leaned back and the head of his cock nudged at my entrance.
Then started pushing slowly forward.
My eyes opened wide in surprise.
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