Page 87 of Merciless

“I don’t care, Mav. Yes, I want to leave. I want to get out of his hellhole more than I can explain. But I’m not going until we find the answers we need. And to do that, you need me here. We need to work together. And if us being married helps with all of that, then I’m in. All fucking in, Mav.”

She slides her hands up my chest, wraps them around my neck, and crushes her body to mine.

My hands land on her waist, ready to gently push her back, but before I do, her lips press against mine in the sweetest kiss I’ve ever received.

My blood boils and my body screams at me to do something. To take what I’ve been craving from her for almost two fucking years.

My fingers grip her hips tighter, pulling her up against me, losing myself in the softness of her body.

I’m about to do it when a voice screams in my head, she’ll think you’re using her. She needs you to be better than this.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, doing what I should have done sooner and forcing her to take a step back.

Her expression is wrecked as she stares up at me in disbelief.

“You have four days to change your mind,” I tell her before walking out of the room and soon after, the house.

“Stupid motherfucker.” I grunt as I stare at myself in the photograph.

Even now, I know I did the right thing.

I wanted to shatter the opinion Alana had about men. I wanted to prove to her that her past experiences weren’t the kind of things that all men wanted.

She begged me, and pleaded for more. But I stood strong.

I wanted her for her, not for her body. Okay, yeah, I wanted that too. But I watched her cry herself to sleep at night, and listened to her scream when she should have been snoozing peacefully only minutes later. I listened to the few things she dared confess.

She was so young. So innocent. So perfect.

How could they have done that to her? Treated something so precious, so beautiful so badly.

She was so broken. Especially in those first few years. All I wanted to do was fix her. Show her how beautiful she was, and show her that she could be respected instead of tarnished.

She was everything to me.

Hell, she still is.

“Where are you?” I whisper into our empty house.

Closing my eyes, I send up a silent prayer, hoping that if there is something, someone, up there, they might just fucking answer me for once.

Tell me you haven’t run away. That you haven’t left me. Give me some kind of sign and I’ll fight harder than I ever have to get you back. I’ll give you everything you want, just walk back through that door and straight into my arms.

But nothing happens. There is no noise, no door slamming, no footsteps.

“FUCK,” I roar, flipping onto my back. Staring up at the ceiling.

I don’t know how to fix this.

I don’t know how to rescue her, protect her.

But what if she has run and she no longer needs you?

Needing to ignore my subconscious, I grab my cell and open up my camera roll, finding hundreds upon hundreds of photos of my wife.

Many she knows I took, but there are so many more that she’s no idea about.

I’ve almost deleted them so many times. Hating myself for my weakness.