Page 96 of Merciless
“You’re doing a lot of whimpering for someone who isn’t meant to be enjoying this,” he counters.
“Who said I shouldn’t be enjoying watching you on your knees for me.”
“You’re a prisoner, little dove. Everything should be torture.”
“In that case, you’re really killing me with kindness right now.”
“How many times have you imagined Mav doing something like this?” he asks absently as he continues working.
“You’re assuming this isn’t a daily thing for us.”
His eyes shoot up in warning.
“Okay fine,” I huff in irritation. “So I imagine something similar daily at least.”
“I find it hard to believe that you didn’t snap his self-control long before now,” he tells me.
“Maybe he's just not as big of a whore as you.”
JD barks out a laugh, not the least bit offended by my comment.
“Not what I remember from back in the day. Mav was as bad as the rest of us. What changed?”
Tears flood my eyes as I think about all the times he’s turned me down over the years. It’s never a blatant no; instead, he’s become the master of diversion. Changing the subject, suddenly needing to go out or make a phone call.
“Did it? I can only tell you what didn’t happen under our roof. I’ve no idea what he did elsewhere,” I confess, my cheeks heating the second the words roll off my tongue.
“You’re kidding?” JD asks.
I shrug. “Why would I be? He has needs and I wasn’t fulfilling them. He had to be getting his kicks elsewhere, right?”
“Like you were?” I tense at his question and immediately try to remove my leg from his grip, but his fingers lock around my ankle like a vise.
“JD,” I growl, still trying to free my leg.
“Dove,” he counters, his eyes lifting from the razor to mine. The second we collide my mouth runs away with itself.
“I didn’t sleep with anyone else by choice. The only man I wanted was him.”
“So why do it?”
My teeth grind. “You don’t need me to tell you what a manipulative bastard Victor is, you’re more than aware.”
He studies me for a beat. “So he has something over you?” he surmises, but when he doesn’t get any kind of reaction out of me, he tries again. “No, that’s not right. You don’t care enough to protect your name. He has something over someone you care about. Someone you love.”
I fight to keep my expression neutral, but Mav is my soft spot. Victor knows it and JD is on the brink of discovering it.
Shit. Shit.
“Victor has something over Mav, and you are doing whatever it takes to keep it quiet.”
“Please,” I whisper, shaking my head in an attempt to squash his assumption as tears burn red hot behind my eyes.
“If that’s true, Dove. You keeping your lips shut and extending your stay down here doesn’t put your husband in a very good position, does it?”
Fear snakes down my spine, my blood turning to ice.
“They all know you’re missing. How long until Victor needs his whore to take care of a job? How long until he pulls out the big guns to ensure you crawl your ass back to protect your husband?”