Mercy F*uck (12 page)

I never took full advantage and I always mourned its passing telling myself I’d do better next year.

When we arrive, I tip out the driver and nod at the gate attendant. Passing the pool that was closed, the main bar no one was in, and stepping onto the dock that was empty too, I was halfway to my slip when Axle scared the hell out of me by bringing me to a halt. I have no idea how he beat me here but it was time to take control back.

“How do you keep getting past security?” I ask snagging my arm out of his grip.

“If you’d put my name on your frequent fuck list, I wouldn’t have to bypass security.”

“Do you want me to hate you, horse fellator?”

“On the way over I figured out a way to avoid triggering my temper,” he grunts and out here on the water the sound carried. “How about giving me a list of places I can take you where I won’t run into your fuck buddies?”

“Can’t,” I shrug as if his words didn’t hurt but they struck true. “I failed long hand in high school.”

“Fuck you for making me feel this way,” he jabs my chest.

“Fuck you too,” I jab right back. “You don’t get to give me shit for what I’ve been doing for the last nine years. Especially when I wasn’t doing you. Like you’ve been a saint, Axle?”

“Yeah Drew, I was pretty close considering I was married for seven of them.”

I felt like he’d punched me in the gut. I was also pretty sure I even stumbled back too which was pathetic.

“Married? You were fucking married and you’re just telling me this now?”

“You never asked,” he says crossing his arms over his chest. “Didn’t love her. She wasn’t you. Divorced her ass and ran right into yours. I may not be a saint but unlike you, I don’t fuck for the sake of fucking.”

“Well I don’t marry for the sake of marrying!”

“You also don’t take your own advice and learn lessons either,” he says spewing his anger at me. “Like I don’t see what you’ve been doing, cock burglar. Treating men like mercy fucks hurts no one but you. You think it’s you using them? Wrong. It’s them using you. That’s not what you were to me, then or now. You can stand there and tell me you’re cool with just being pussy?”

Unable to stand there and listen, I turn away but he cuts me right back off. Standing on a dock made moving around him difficult but tossing him in the river would be easy. “You’re a bad ass, you’re hot. You have money and did good for yourself but even I can see you’re empty. Take work away and you have nothing. My wife was nothing like you. She was quiet, conservative and safe. A school teacher, third grade, loved kids. I thought safe was smart. It wasn’t, so I cut her loose. You wouldn’t like her. But you know what? When I told her I was done, she fought for me. She said she’d do anything to be what I needed. She wasn’t a fighter but she
fought
,” he sneers in my face. “You didn’t fight; you didn’t do shit. I offer up everything I am to you and you place another order for cement. All I ever wanted was a shot with you but you ran nine years ago and you haven’t bothered to stop.”

Refusing to cry in front of him, I held my ground but asked myself which hurt worse. Knowing Axle had been with one woman for years and not loving her? Or my sleeping around holding love for no one, not even myself.

“The girl I remember would have something to say,” he pushed knowing silence wasn’t my strong suit.

All I had was, “I keep telling you, I’m not the girl you remember.”

“You think finding your file was an accident?” he says grabbing me by the shoulders. “You think Foxy selling me his place was? My divorce? Because I don’t think it is, Drew. We have unfinished business, a second chance to get this right.”

“I was hurt enough the first time around,” I screech which was very unlike me.

“It was a fucking misunderstanding!”

“My heart doesn’t know that!” I shrill using both hands to shove him back. “It didn’t then, it doesn’t now! I know I’m just pussy! I don’t know any other way to be! So fuck you for marrying her when it should have been me!”

Covering my mouth with both hands because I couldn’t believe I said it, he whispered, “There’s my fighter,” and I lost it.

“No,” I say pushing away from him. “You don’t get to rail on me then, do this. I may give my body away but you gave your heart away. You have no right to judge me. No fucking right at all!”

“Think about my ex-wife walking up on us right now,” he says this softly but I reacted loudly. My intake of breath was so swift had he not been holding me I may have detonated. “You look ready to commit murder, Drew. So maybe consider how I feel seeing the shit I saw. Do not think for one fucking second, that I wouldn’t fix the hurt if you’d let me. I just told you I never gave my heart away, it’s still yours if you want it. Just fucking man up and take it.”

Dropping my head to his chest I simply, sighed.

I was too exhausted to do anything more. I knew bars and business, not second chances and forgiveness.

But for some weird reason, I wanted to.

Despite the risk, I wanted his unfinished business and that terrified me.

“I’m not her,” she whispered and it should bother me that she was hurting but it didn’t. Fuck, every day she hurt with something new and I was tired of it.

“Never asked you to be.”

“So there is a her,” she said wiping her eyes.

“No,” I say moving out of cling range. “Not anymore.”

“Tell me how to be like her and I’ll do it if that makes you happy.”

Getting in her face, I made it clear, “You can’t replace her.”

“But I’m your wife.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t have been.”

Wrapping my arms around her, I mimic her sigh and hold her a little tighter. Drew running from me changed both of us. From the first time, I walked into the bar off campus and saw this long haired, stacked, spit fire serving drinks with a sexy smile and chip on her shoulder, I knew I loved her. The love I had for her could never be transferred to another but her taking off killed me. So a year later when I met Carrie, a girl who didn’t drink, cared nothing about cars or music but took an interest in me, I went for it. Needing something, anything, to take my mind off the loss of Drew, I even married her for no other reason than to belong to someone. For too many years I punished her for not being the woman in my arms. I married her to punish myself too. Bottom line was, Carrie needed a man to treat her gently, protect her, and I did the opposite. I refused to be who she needed me to be. Because I couldn’t have who I wanted, I made the woman who wanted me suffer needlessly. What I did to Carrie will haunt me almost as much as what two stupid words out of my mouth did to Drew. The hurt that she kept close ran deeper than I had realized. The woman in my arms wasn’t just battling being hurt, she was also scared.

Protect her, convince her, be patien
t…

“Drew,” I whisper into her hair. “Finding you wasn’t an accident. I’m begging you, let me back in.”

“Okay,” she says leaning into my chest.

Tilting her chin up, I kiss her soft lips and tell her, “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

Taking my hand, she slips her fingers between mine and squeezes. Then giving me a tug, together we made our way to her boat. “One more thing,” I say pulling her to a stop.

“What?”

“Can you cut out the nicknames?”

With a wink and a chuckle, she says, “I make no promises, boo boo.”

Satisfied with that, for now, we hadn’t gone three more steps when an explosion rocked the dock with the percussion sending us both sailing into the water. Surfacing with a roar, I immediately began yelling her name.

It was dark, she was tiny and the panic was unlike anything I’d ever felt in my life. When she came up sputtering, I was able to breathe again. Pulling her with me, we swim toward the section of the dock that somehow hadn’t been destroyed. With Drew holding onto the pole and my body caging hers in, we watch her Regal burn.

“Well,” she announced brightly. “I think someone’s trying to kill me.”

“Only you would make a joke right now,” I groan then sober up. “Come on,” I say pulling her from the pole to swim toward the front of the dock. “For now let’s let whoever tried think they succeeded.”

Coughing on some nasty water, I haul her up and when she wraps her arms around my neck and said, “You wouldn’t blow up my boat just to get me back to your place, would you?” I laughed hard and then swallowed water myself.

Scaling the wall and pulling her over, we were both exhausted but I could hear sirens which meant we had to go. Sitting around being asked questions we couldn’t answer was not appealing. Plus, I needed to buy us some time so I could fucking think. The problem was, my God damn heart was in my throat. All the what ifs were literally choking me.

Taking her the same way I used to sneak in, she falls into the Impala and I do the same. When it was clear to take off, I hauled ass. Once we were a safe distance away, I took her hand, kissed the top and said, “If it wasn’t for the boat, what would it have took to get you to come home with me?”

Glancing my way, she grins and says, “Asking. I’m easy like that.”

Wet, cold and wore out I checked my neighborhood before pulling the Impala into the garage. Attempting to be chivalrous was a waste of time because she groaned she was cold and forced her way into my house. Following her through the back door, she freezes and I follow her gaze. “Your wife really liked pink,” she says with wide eyes. “A lot.”

“Ex-wife,” I say coming up behind her and resting my hands on her hips. “And I rarely came home much.”

“What’s her name?”

“Carrie.”

“Carrie Rhodes,” she said placing her hands over mine. “I bet she was very pretty.”

“She wasn’t you, Drew.”

“Obviously,” she says leaning into me. “The only pink in my place is pepto.”

“Hey,” I say turning her to face me. “Don’t over think this, okay? Everything in this house is mine, it’s all new and it’s all me. Well, minus the paint. I hate painting. I had no part in that shit.”

“Can I say something?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I might be glad you found my file,” she says moving my hands and placing them over her heart. “But seeing proof of your marriage, even if not loving her is true, is killing me right now. You even have flowers…”

“Drew…”

“Let me finish,” she demands. “So I understand that seeing proof of my…past, would upset you too. I won’t throw your past in your face if you return the favor.” When I opened my mouth she placed her hand over it and said, “And, I understand this will be a bigger concession for you than it is for me, but going forward the last nine years don’t matter, they can’t.”

“How big of a concession are we talking about?”

“Big,” she mumbles looking anywhere but at me.

“How big, Drew?”

“Nine years is a long time,” she stalls. “Even if I only had sex once a year that’s still…”

“I’ve been with two women,” I growl taking her chin in my hand. “You and Carrie, that’s it.”

“Nooo,” she says laughing loud and breaking the tension. “I was your first?”

“Yeah smart ass, you were.”

“But you were so good!”

Pleased by that, I couldn’t help but grin. Our first time may not have been awkward but I didn’t last long. To make it up to her I’d made her come three times and still felt like a champ to this day. “Not that you had much to compare it to but, thanks.”

“You may not see this as a compliment but no man has ever made me feel even a fraction of what you did that night. And believe me, I tried to forget but… I couldn’t.”

“No shit?”

“I wouldn’t lie about that.”

“Not even a fraction,” I growl then nip her lip. “We gonna make up for lost time, Drew?”

When she blanched, I held her tighter. “Well?” I push again. “Are we?”

She was in the process of shutting me out when I walked her into my living room, tore her wet top off and attempted to get her bra thing off. “The fuck is this thing?” I ask appalled when it wouldn’t budge.