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Twelve Years Ago
Ian shoved the last duffel bag into the trunk of his car. He was supposed to wait until morning, to pack up the last of his stuff, but it was almost 1 AM. He might as well do something useful with his insomnia.
He started when someone stepped from the shadows near the garage. “Fuck, Mercy. You scared me.” He gave a quiet laugh.
She stood out of the light’s reach. It was August, one of the few months when it was warm enough at night for shorts and a T-shirt. There were times he wished she were just a few years older. Closer to his almost-eighteen, instead of his sister’s fifteen. Most of the time he was grateful it kept her off limits.
“I saw you moving around over here. I wanted to talk. Is that okay?” she said.
“Always.” Well, until tomorrow morning. Then he’d be driving across state lines for college. “What’s up?”
“You have to take me with you tomorrow. I have money for gas and enough to feed myself for a while. I’ve been saving up. I won’t tell anyone. I’ll be at the gas station. You can pick me up on your way out of town.”
Shit. She’d given this some thought. He closed the distance between them, so he could keep his voice low. “I can’t do that.”
She furrowed her brow. “Why not?”
“Besides the whole you’re a minor and it would be kidnapping aspect of the idea?”
“I can’t stay here.” A desperate edge crept into her whisper. “It’s devouring me.”
“You’re being melodramatic.” Despite his words, he felt bad for her. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to clash with his family the way she did with hers.
“And you don’t have to put on a dress and be paraded around in front of your family’s peers every Sunday morning.”
He gave her a dry smile. “I’ve done my share.”
“Please?” She grabbed his hand.
He kissed her on the forehead. “No. You’ve got this. Three years, and you’ll be out of here, too.” He pulled from her grasp and turned away.
“I hate you.” Her words landed against his back.
“I’m sorry, Mercy.”
“Fuck you. I hope college sucks.”
*
NOW
Ian wasn’t sure what to make of the vibes rolling off Mercy. It was as if she was perched on a ledge and could be pushed in either direction with a single breath. He didn’t like being uncertain about what to say next.
“We’ve talked a lot about me.” Her tone was even and neutral. “I’d like to hear more about you. Why did you leave me behind?”
He didn’t want to make light of that, but it seemed so long ago, and despite her reasons back then, the parting was childish. “You know why. Are you still upset?”
“Would you feel bad if I am?” Still no emotion reflected in her eyes. Her face was a blank mask.
“I’ve always felt bad, but I wouldn’t do it differently.”
Finally, the corners of her mouth tugged up, and a smile teased her eyes. “No. I’m not still upset. I hated you then, but I’m grateful now.”
“I didn’t expect that.”
She shook her head, then leaned it against his arm, on the back of the couch. “I know it was awkward with my dad today, but while he summons the timid girl in me, sticking it out made me stronger once I left.”
“Where did you go, anyway?”
“I noticed how quickly you turned this back on me.” She shifted her weight, to lean better against the couch, and tucked her legs under her.
Even in the faint light bouncing through the windows, combined with the flicker of the fireplace, she looked amazing. Seeing her curled up and comfortable short-circuited his thoughts in a way he didn’t expect. “I already know everything there is to know about me.”
“Do you?”
“You do a lot of that—counter my questions with your own.”
Her smile vanished, and her eyes went flat and dull. “Don’t you?” A smirk, and then a laugh slipped out, before she finished her question. “I’m being weird. I don’t know what’s up with that.” The weight of her head against his arm was warm and tempting.
“I like it.” He adjusted his position enough, to trail his fingers through her hair. He wasn’t sure where the impulse came from. Relief trickled inside, when she leaned into the gesture instead of pulling away. “Ask whatever you want, and we can talk about me,” he said.
She scrunched up her face for a moment. “Are you happy with your job? Are you glad you took over the family business?”
“That’s two questions.” He didn’t know why he was stalling. The answer was yes. Wasn’t it?
“It’s the same question. And it’s the second time you’ve avoided answering it.” She straightened in her seat. “I bummed around Europe and South America for a couple of years, then came back here, to work.”
“And met Andrew Newton somewhere along the way.” He didn’t think his change of subject fooled her, but he didn’t have an answer for himself, so he couldn’t give her one. The uncertainty nagged him more than not being able to read her earlier. He always had an idea what was going on in his head.
“Yes. And I helped him market his porn site.”
“I don’t know.” Ian hated those words. He never said them to anyone, even when they were true. He always had an answer.
Her expression softened, and she scooted closer, until her knees touched his leg. “Don’t know if you like your work?”
“There are parts of it I like, but I’m not sure I’m happy I took over the company.”
“So why did you do it?”
She had to go and ask the difficult questions. Then again, that had always been her. “What else was I going to do?”
“What you wanted, instead of what was expected of you.” She fiddled with a loose thread on the tear in her jeans. “You taught me that.”
“And you’ve never looked back?”
“Nope. Not really.”
He dragged a finger along her arm. She closed her eyes and parted her lips in a tiny sigh. Images skipped through his mind. Leaning in, to press his lips to hers. Sliding his hands up her sides and stripping her shirt off in the process. Vivid and intense, they refused to be ignored.
He wanted to keep the conversation going, though. “What did you do after I left? The stuff you didn’t tell Liz.”
She met his gaze, an impish look on her face. “What makes you think I keep secrets from Liz?” Behind her, a log in the fireplace crackled as it split, and a flare of light danced through the room before dimming again.
He’d have to toss another one on soon. It was a good thing he’d refused to do the gas-powered replacement that required an electric switch. “Did you tell her you asked to go with me that night?”
Mercy shook her head. “Did you ever tell her how you... what were your words? Corrupted me?”
“I did say that, didn’t I? No, I never told her you were the first person who listened to my ramblings about thinking for yourself and questioning authority, if needed, and shunning indoctrination. That shit got me kicked off the baseball team in Chicago, you know.”
“I had no idea you played baseball in high school.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. He wasn’t sure where the intimate gestures came from, but they felt right, and she didn’t seem to mind. “I didn’t,” he said. “I tried out and made the JV team. First day of practice, the coach got on my case for something... I don’t remember what, now. I was wearing my socks wrong or something.”
She shivered and rubbed her arms, drawing a frown from him. He hadn’t realized how far the temperature had dropped. Nudging her to straighten, he pulled the throw from the back of the sofa. He prompted her to turn and tugged her into him. As she settled with her back to his chest, he pulled the throw over them both. “Better?” he asked.
“Much.” She rested more of her weight against him.
The faint floral scent of her shampoo seeped into his thoughts and fuzzed them. He’d never liked cuddling, but this was comfortable.
She pulled one of his arms more tightly around her. “What did you say to him that got you kicked off? I’m assuming that’s what happened.”
Right. Ian was telling a story. He rewound the last several seconds of conversation, until he could think clearly enough to pick up where he left off. “I was reading a lot of Marx at the time—Karl, not Groucho.”
“I figured.” She giggled.
“So I went off on this long-winded rant, about how he was only a baseball coach because the bats made him feel like more of a man. How we weren’t the subjects of some grand and mighty czar, and as collective, as a team, as a group who would be strongest if we supported each other, we should be allowed to wear our socks however we wanted.”
“I’d have kicked you off the baseball team, too.”
He rested his chin on her shoulder. “I think in the end, we were all happier that way.”
Silence fell between them, punctuated by the crackle of the fire. Her steady breathing pressed against him, and he felt her heartbeat, slow and even, lulling him toward peace.
“I made friends.” Her quiet words blended with the background noise. “Online, I mean. When I wasn’t working or in school, I joined a butt-load of couch-surfing communities and made contacts all over the world. The day I graduated, I rented a cheap-ass motel room and stayed there long enough to have my name legally changed and get a new passport and ID. I took all five hundred dollars I’d saved, bought a ticket to Brazil, and played it by ear from there.”
He knew part of this story. It wasn’t a secret Mercy had bummed around the world. He’d never heard any details. Hadn’t asked, and Liz never offered. “And you survived for the next three years on a couple hundred bucks.” He couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice.
“No.” She tilted her head back enough to look at him. “Sometimes I stayed on couches, sometimes I got cheap rooms. In between, I picked up work here and there. I washed dishes in Venezuela. I taught English in Portugal. And somewhere along the way, Andrew’s sites started making money, and he paid me to make sure that trend continued.”
“If I scan his archives, will I find pictures of you?”
She met his gaze. “Ian Thompson, are you asking if I ever did porn?”
“I guess technically I am.” It wasn’t what he meant to ask, but he was curious.
“He’s got pictures of me, but I never signed the release.”
A ping of jealousy rocked inside Ian, and he struggled to understand it. “I don’t know if I’m disappointed or relieved.”
“If you want to see me naked, you just have to ask.” She stretched her arms over her head, grinding her ass into his hardening cock. Her sweater pulled up, leaving his hand resting on her stomach, and she didn’t move to tug it back down when she was done.
“You’re obviously not making that offer to everyone, or I’d be able to find those pictures.”
“I’m not. But I yield for the right man.”
The way she kept adjusting herself in his lap, added to the not-so-subtle teasing, had him rock hard. His mind was already tripping ahead, over different ways to strip her down. “So... we keep giving into these one-offs until the week is up, and then we go our separate ways?”
“Keep giving in. This is twice.” She nudged his palm higher on her chest. “Yes, I’m keeping count. And yeah, that’s how it works. Besides, the first time was really more like intense making out.”
He chuckled. “I know. If you only put the tip in, it’s not really sex.”
“That’s what the girls at church told me.” Laughter danced in her words.
“I’m not stopping at the tip.” He skated his thumb over her bare skin. “And if you tell me yes, I’m going to make sure you stay warm until morning—or until the power comes back on. Whichever comes last.”
“I’ve always liked the way you think,” she said with a gasp, arching her back when he bushed the bottom of her breast. The tiny sounds she made, combined with her faint scent and the weight of her body against his, plowed through his restraint.
He yanked her shirt over her head and trailed his mouth along the back of her neck. “And I’m intrigued that it’s not easy to tell what you’re thinking.” He spoke against her skin. He had a feeling this was going to be a night he remembered for a long time, even after she went back to her life on the other side of the country.