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I’ll get awkward because eye contact isn’t my favourite thing. I’d rather watch than be looked at.
Listening is more my thing. People reveal a lot when they talk, even if they aren’t blurting secrets.
I have the patience of a saint, so fuck you, little demon.
He’s a fucking brat, but he’s the easiest person I’ve ever held eye contact with, and I don’t know what that means.
“I’d rather make you scream; help you claw your way to the top. You’ll need an attitude adjustment to get there, but I don’t mind using your own tools against you.” I grab his stool and pull it closer to me. “I won’t fuck you unless you’re begging for it, and we both know your pride won’t let you beg. Guess we’re at an impasse.”
My eyes burn, and my fight-or-flight instinct is all fucked up because they both think survival is on this floor. At this man’s feet.
Don’t forget me. Don’t ignore me. See me for who I am and notice me because I’m worthy. Look through the bullshit and accept all my broken. Someone. Please. See me.
Feisty little hoodlum on the streets, lingerie wearing badass in the sheets. Literal perfection.
“I don’t cuddle,” I say, backing up towards him. Backing up so far that my ass hits his groin and my back hits his chest. “I hate cuddling.” “Okay,” he says, half asleep. I back up a little more because… “I’ll be your wall, Mercer.”
“You should come with a warning label. Little Demon: All. The. Hazards. All of them. I’m sewing it in all your clothes.”
“Don’t believe him, man. He sucks at kitchen utensils. If he ever threatens you with a dagger, run for your life, but kitchen products are generally a safe threat.”
“I can be the demon you need me to be. Now fuck me.”
A warmth spreads through me, and I can’t decide if it’s a feeling of absolute pleasure, like this is exactly what I’ve been craving my entire life, or if it’s a sense of rightness, like Mercer is mine and he was always meant to be mine.
He’s offering himself up as mine—mine to have, to use, to worship, to punish, to praise. Just mine. I’ve never seen a person more worthy of all my attention.
“Call me a demon,” he rasps, lust dripping from his voice. “My demon. Mine.” “Mm, yes.”
right now, I want him to know he’s fucking cherished.
Turns out, murders aren’t for me. Murderers, on the other hand, have a sex appeal I had not been expecting.
“Oh, I want him to notice. I want him to know that while he neglected you, I accepted you. That he wasn’t strong enough to handle someone as fucking incredible as you, but I’m strong enough to embrace you. I want him to know that his fuck ups are my rewards. You, Mercer, are mine, and I want him to know it. I caught your relationship slip-up.”
“Tell me how to dominate you while never making you feel like you’re less than me. I want you to rise to the top of whatever you see for yourself in life. You’ve been beaten down since you were a kid, and I refuse to do that to you. Tell me the right way to give you what you need without ever making you feel worthless.”
I think it’s his love and attention that has this new version of me clawing to the surface, fighting tooth and nail to break free so I can become someone who accepts his love and knows how to love him back.
“I respect you,” he tells me, making me whimper. “But I will fucking use you like you want to be used. I can do both. Understand?”
“You’re going to ruin my life,” Blake says with a smile on his face. “And make it fucking fun. You’re going to be my brat when you want to be, my partner all the time, and my good little boy when you need to be reminded how fucking important you are.
You know what I’m going to be for you?” I shake my head, crying again. Desperate to know what he’s going to be for me. Wondering if he’s as psychotic as I am, falling this hard this soon. “Everything. Yours. You fucking own me, Mercer. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Blake?” “Yeah, baby.” “Thanks for… seeing me.” He smiles at me, still sweaty and exhausted. “I’ll never stop looking, Mercer.”
Blake helped me live, and I’ll greet death grateful that I got him in any small capacity. I got to be his little demon.
In this fragment of time, grid-locked into an instance where one or all of us dies, I know with absolute certainty that I’m in love with Mercer Bentley.
If this story doesn’t end with me killing Will Palmerston, I will flip my shit. Actually, if this story doesn’t end with Mercer taking his fucking power back and knocking his father down to the gutters where he belongs before I kill him, I will flip my shit even more.
Mercer intrigued me with lacy lingerie and a smoking grilled cheese sandwich, and now I’m a fucking goner. “Aaron?” I say after clicking into his channel.
I hate needing him so much, and I can’t fully recall when he became my safety zone, but my world might literally end if he moves too far away from me.
“Losing you isn’t an option for me anymore.”
“Remember how I said I wanted to make you scream as you clawed your way to the top?” he asks, massaging my scalp. “This is our starting point. Me and you, Mercer. Wherever the fuck you wanna go in life, no matter who you are or who you want to be, it’s me and you.”
“Look at me.” He tugs on my hair and tilts my chin. His blue eyes meet mine, and with absolute conviction, he says, “There are no buts to the way I feel about you. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Fuck knows how you did it, little demon, but you did.” His lips move against mine, kissing and confessing together. “Did what?” “Made me yours.”
He climbs back in and pulls me against his chest. “You snore.” “No. I wouldn’t do that.” “Well, you do.” “No.”
“Housekeeper?” Blake asks, walking down the hall without a shirt on. As much as I love the view, I’m fucking seething. That body is mine to look at and mine alone. The dagger flies right by his head and sticks into the ridiculous photo of a bunch of piano keys on his wall. He doesn’t even flinch, but he sure as shit smirks deeper. “Morning, demon.”
“I didn’t beg.” “Just like you don’t snore?” “Exactly like that.”
“Well, you aren’t fucking me yet, so it’s clearly not all I wanted.” He glares. “And you better thank whatever devil you pray to that the pizza landed upright. I would have been a two-time murderer for that alone.”
He’s the epitome of a little demon, from the way his amber eyes hold all the fires of hell, to the way every move is calculated to manipulate.
feel Mercer tugging on the back of my shirt, trying not to get in my way, but being clingy because that’s who he is. A boy with abandonment issues and a fear of being alone. I smooth a hand over his hair, showing him he isn’t bothering me.
“Nothing, not your fucking family or the fate of the universe, will keep me from you. Do you hear me, Mercer? You’re my little demon, and I will never leave you alone.”
“But?” He licks his lips, meeting my eyes with his. “There are no buts. Not about this, and not about the way I feel for you. No buts, baby.”
That asshole became my safe place. He’s my wall, the lock on my door, the only person who sees me and loves me because of it.
I’ve never been in love before, and if this is how intense it is, call me a fucking goner, because there’s no coming back from this.
he doesn’t even have to pull me down. I go on my own, kissing him like he’s the only sustenance I need to survive.
“Fuck me like there are no buts, Blake.” Fuck me like you love me.
“You saw me.” He swallows audibly. “And loved me anyway.”
“You told me not to make you weepy,” I tease. His eyes water a little. “Make me weepy. I only said that because you’re bound to be an ugly crier and I was trying to be modest because I’m not.” “Modesty isn’t a good look on you, baby.”
“I fucking love you.” I kiss him. “Love me harder,” he demands.
“I’m not in my uppity city boy phase right now.” I hang the outfit on the wall hook and start stripping. “No, you’re just in your attention whore, twinky little brat phase,” she calls me out.
“It’s, I mean, I bought it forever ago, but I never… and when you said you liked… I just, you know? Like it was meant… to be? Because we’re both… and I want you to feel like it’s yours as much as… fucking hell.” He takes a deep breath, and I watch his whole show instead of the apartment. He straightens his back and composes himself. “I bought it. Never moved in. Will you fucking live here with me, you satanic little demon?”
