Author's Note: There are no words for how long it has been since you've had an update, and I am so, so sorry. Life just got on top of me, I'm afraid! But your reviews brought me back!
And I have missed this story as well!
Plenty of Tommy in this one as part of my penitence. I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think!
Mercy's hammering heart stuttered and gasped inside of her, paling her skin and withering her lungs momentarily, before resuming its rib-shattering pace. Glass had scattered along Ada's luxury rug, glinting like embers in the lowlight of the lamps as it jumped. Some people screeched, animal-like, while others seemed to still and stare at the window.
In that time – that singular slow pause where everything hazed in front of her eyes – Tommy – Mr Shelby – his hands callused and warm against her throat and stomach, her insides still trying to become accustomed to his intimacy and attention even in the menagerie, he spun them swiftly, instinctively, so quickly that the movement barely registered and she was there – shielded between the hidden, narrow corner of the alcove and Mr Shelby's strong and dark frame.
She couldn't have seen past him if she'd wanted to (and her mind was so full, so empty, so busy and still that she wouldn't have known what she'd wanted if her life had depended on it) so she gazed up at him, pupils dilated and lips slightly parted, and his sharp, clever eyes – focused and predatory – flittered from her mouth to her gaze.
There was a high-pitched ringing in her ears, piercing through white noise, and she couldn't seem to hear anything else, anything with clarity, until he spoke, that rough, blistered voice nothing more than a calm murmur into the inches of air between their faces. She felt the words: a caress on her skin and a heated avalanche through the very centre of her.
"I'm not done with you, sweetheart." He traced her face with his icy gaze, a simmering vibration racketing between them still, static and unsettling and addictive, "Find Ada. Have her driver take you back to Arrow House tonight."
And with a definitive turn, collected and suave, he was gone.
In the end she didn't have to find Ada; the older woman had already shoved her way through panicking and escaping guests to latch onto a dazed Mercy's hand, tugging her decisively through the room, muttering about 'fucking Italians' and occasionally pausing to shout things like 'Oi! Watch it! That vase is a fucking family antique!' at her bumbling guests who – in their adrenaline – were taking little care of Ada's possessions.
The coolness of Ada's presence seemed to return Mercy's clarity – or some of it, at the very least – and Mercy made the executive decision upon the return of consciousness to her body not to explore whether the threat of a bullet to the head or Mr Shelby's whispered promises and declarations had caused her to sink beneath the level of sensibility. Having had such an eventful day she thought it fair to herself to allow a reprieve of over-analysis and the inevitable fluster that would follow.
Ada had been most furious that the party had been spoilt: with her brother, the Italians – Mercy wasn't in the right state to ask what involvement the nation had – with the world she'd been born into in general. "Tommy and his bloody business, bringing fucking bullets to my house. One night! That's all I fucking asked for! One night!"
Through Ada's rant, they'd made it to the bedroom, and Mercy slipped out of her dress, folding it haphazardly after she'd changed into her blouse and skirt again. There was relief as she unpinned her hair, letting the loose curls fall around her shoulders as the teeth of the grips unlatched from her scalp. The minute it tumbled freely she sighed and seemed to recapture an element of herself that had eluded her through the night.
"And now you're probably put off London, and me, for life!" Ada slumped on the bed, watching as Mercy finished packing up her beaten case, a disheartened sulk in her disposition that made Mercy see, clearly and for the first time, Ada's deep and heartfelt loneliness.
She supposed growing up with so many brothers might do that to a girl.
"I wouldn't go that far," Mercy comforted, not bothering to retie her hair or remove the darkness along her lips, latching up her case. She was tired; the adrenaline was abandoning her system with rapidity, leaving her vulnerable to an onslaught of exhaustion earned by her hectic day and poor night of sleep the evening previous, "Though dinner and the pictures next time, maybe?"
Ada grinned, jolting up with more energy than Mercy could begin to comprehend, "And no intrusive brothers to spoil all the fun. Fitzwilliam had taken quite a liking to you, you know, and James too, before Tommy came in and spoiled everything."
Laughing quietly, not disingenuously, Mercy hummed a little, shaking her head, "And neither of them next time, either. Besides, I'm not sure it counts as liking someone if you've never heard them speak."
She could be as startled and unprepared for Mr Shelby's advances as she liked, but at least his attentiveness, his 'questions', his needling, at least it suggested a desire to know something of her. Even if it was to use against her in the long run. Even if it was with the intent to empower himself further.
At the very least, he knew more about her than her choice of dress and shade of lipstick.
"If you'd have drunk that whisky you'd have felt chattier, I can guarantee it." Ada responded with amusement.
Mercy scoffed with a disbelieving smile, shrugging into her coat and untucking her hair as she did, "If I had drunk that whisky, I'd have been unconscious, I can guarantee that. Did you see the size of that thing?"
Mischievously, Ada grinned, reaching out and wrapping her arm around Mercy's free one, "Now this is more the conversation I expected we'd have, I just didn't think we'd be discussing drink portions."
Throwing her head back, Mercy laughed and hued an embarrassed pink, walking along with Ada until they reached her driver, who opened the car door and placed Mercy's case in the boot. The street was busy in the way cities always seemed to be, but if not for some scattered glass on the asphalt and the slight tremor in Mercy's hands, it would have been impossible to tell a shooting had occurred.
Mercy hadn't realised she had been scanning the area for Thomas Shelby until a heavy concoction of worry and disappointment, like lead, sank in her stomach upon not hearing his gritted voice, upon not feeling his predatory stare.
She decided not to explore that until later either.
Mercy had fallen asleep blissfully fast upon her return to Arrow House in the early morning. She'd been woken once by Charlie's cries at the rise of the sun, but had burrowed into the duvet with him and lulled them both back to slumber for a few more gifted hours, allowing Mercy the opportunity to escape her own tumultuous thoughts and keep her shadowy dreams of Thomas Shelby as entirely fictional, rather than the half-requiem state she had felt she'd drifted into the previous evening, captured and hidden in the depths of darkness in Ada's living room.
Still, Mercy was lethargic and tender the following day, and the dusting of summer rain along with her vulnerable state had her barricaded in the library past dinner time, Charlie snoozing softly in the bassinet in the corner as grey, smoky skies drizzled lazily, continuously against the window glass.
But she was antsy. Unable to focus on blotted letters that seemed to shift on the page each time she looked at the words, and then away, into the flickering fire that lighted the draughty space, and then back at the words once more.
Her treacherous thoughts intruded upon her each moment she managed to chase them away, and the imprint of Mr Shelby's roughened and warm hands on her skin burned deliciously and stubbornly, inescapably.
Torn apart by indecision, Mercy's stomach roiled and leapt in distress and excitement: it was idiotic and naïve to assume a relationship of any kind – sexual or romantic (though the latter didn't seem to be Mr Shelby's intention, his words from the night before humming through her bloodstream) – would end well, or even with any other outcome aside from her dismissal, or requirement to resign in humiliation once he was through with her.
And yet.
It was also idiotic and naïve to dismiss her attraction to her employer, to pretend she didn't warm and stir thrillingly under his attention, even if both the attention and her reaction frightened her as well. She thought it obvious that she must refuse him, must endeavor to so without angering or offending him, for fear of losing her employment without even the benefit of feeling the fullness of Mr Shelby's lips on hers…
It was obvious, and yet her skin prickled with an uncomfortable cold at the notion.
And so, like a swinging pendulum, she was drawn backward and forward, her thoughts and feelings at war, trying to rationalize something entirely irrationally. Trying to be responsible and adult while feeling girlish and almost wanton.
Was this the way her mother had felt? The thrill and fear of it all?
Was Mercy really willing to even entertain the risk, knowing how it had ended for her?
She had resolved herself once more, steeled her spine and shut down the guards of her mind and pages of her book at the same moment, shooting up from her spot determinedly, fortified in her decision to be done with the solitude of the library, only to turn and see the very subject of her every thought leaning back coolly against the end of the bookshelf to the side of her.
Mercy started, her hand pressing against her chest as if to recapture her heart, her eyes stilling on the cutting, suit-clad figure of her employer. How long had he been stood there, his icy eyes inspecting her turmoil? Mercy's voice was breathless as she spoke, "Mr Shelby. You scared me."
"I think we might have passed the formalities, Mercy." He smirked, slow and predatory, familiar and terrifying and beautiful. The firelight and grey shimmer from the hazy rain sharpened the harsh planes of his face, and Mercy's brain seemed to empty at the command of his presence as he remained stoic and calculating, 'Tommy' will do fine."
The name swam in the empty recesses of her mind, icy hot and too unbearable to the fragility of her flitting thoughts. Shaking her head slowly, Mercy tugged her eyes away, only to magnetise uncertainly, almost coyly back to Mr Shelby, gripping her book tightly in hand, "I'm not sure that's the best idea, Mr Shelby."
"Are you tendering your resignation?" He blinked slowly, said the words with a semblance of boredom from beneath lazy-hanging lids, neither person moving as the air bowed under a thickening, warming tension brewing in words spoken and unsaid.
Mercy's voice caught in surprise, and she shook her head jerkily, stuttering to assert her adamant reply, "I – no."
Mr Shelby pressed on, swallowing her body and soul with his captivating inspection of her, and thunder seemed to roil and stir in the space separating them, a warning of the cutting lightning she knew her employer was harnessing, ready to strike upon her, "Do you call all men that proposition you by their surname?" Mercy's mouth parted, and she could feel the pink imbue her cheeks, and Tommy watched, enthralled, as her little red tongue darted out to comfort her parched lips, tracing the embarrassed movement of her lowering gaze, "No need to be modest, Mercy – you're a beautiful woman; I'm sure men make the fact they want to fuck you very clear, very often."
Remembering the feel of her thudding heart against his chest, the taste of the skin along her neck beneath him, thrumming with her flitting pulse, the rapture of being pressed against her only hours before made Tommy's eyes darken. They shadowed further with the memory of the other men that had preyed upon her, and a cold strike of anger and possession forced the imperceptible tightening of his jaw.
Mercy didn't bother to deny or contradict his statement; one argument at a time was plenty when facing a man like Mr Shelby. If there were any other men like him. So she conceded instead with amusement and some teasing deference, "Most men aren't quite as direct as you, Mr Shelby."
The corner of his mouth lifted, and nervous warmth spread through her as he insisted with slow surety, "Tommy."
"I'm your employee." Mercy pushed back, unwilling to give ground, hesitant to open the gates that would surely lead only to trouble. But his name lingered on the tip of her tongue, mouthwatering and sinful, and she feared swallowing it back down would only trail that temptation through her entirely.
Tommy wasn't accustomed to being refused, and while 'Mr Shelby' rolling from between her perfect berry lips still shot fire through him, he was determined to hear the rasp of her voice wrap around the sound of his name, to hear her gasp and stutter it as he overwhelmed her, "Then do as you're told."
Mercy shifted, running a cool hand over the warming skin at the base of her throat as she admitted a difficulty, made tougher by the unwavering pierce of his blue eyes, "It feels very intimate, to call you by your first name."
"Intimate." Tommy echoed, deceptively soft, eyebrows raised and reveling in the idea of the word. Intimate happened to be precisely what he was looking for.
Mercy nodded decisively, shifting her gaze upwards as she reminded him of their official dynamic, unwilling to see either the amusement or indifference in the beauty of his face, "And inappropriate."
"Inappropriate." He intonated lightly, stating and questioning in soft intimidation. She wished it didn't affect her the way it always seemed to.
Swallowing the dryness of her throat down, she asserted with a single nod, "Yes."
For the first time in the conversation, Tommy moved, standing straighter and stalking slowly, deliberately toward her, his encroaching presence bleeding into every inch of air around her, pricking at her skin with heat and delicious insistence. His hands found their way into his pockets, and he loomed, tall and broad and dangerous, "Perhaps that's why you'll be calling me 'Tommy' then, because it's intimate and inappropriate." He insisted, lifting his brow to dominate with clarity, "And because I said so."
Mercy didn't say his name, and she didn't refute him either. She simply met his eyes with a spark of mirth and nerve, satisfying and tantalizing Tommy further in tangent, a roaring and dark need that had been kindled long ago sparking brightly as she commented with pointed amusement, "Oppressive."
"Aye." Tommy agreed, smirking in dominance and victory, before he stated matter-of-factly, "Polly is hosting a party here; a charity ball for one of her projects. Next Friday." He let the information hang between them, gave her time to catch up to the change in pace, enjoying her shift in stance and newly found caution. Her expression cinched and cleared, her whisky eyes alive and enrapturing in the flickering light of the fire, "There'll be a dress in your room."
Tommy gazed openly at the beauty of her uncertainty, "I'm attending the ball?"
He smirked, wondered at his own enjoyment of her, at the unwavering nature of it, at the niggling insistence to watch expressions form from her features, to hear the nerve and wit buried beneath her caution. Caution he wanted to rip away, tear through, shred and destroy. Always satisfied by her, and so unsatisfied that it wasn't enough. "Yes, Cinderella. Your glass slippers will be tailored to fit, and your pumpkin carriage will be leased until midnight."
Mercy didn't have the presence of mind in her surprise to appreciate the teasing, mocking cleverness of his response, sputtering with embarrassing ineloquence in comparison, "I – but – is Charlie going? Will I be there to mind him?" In all her time at Arrow House, Mercy had never been summoned to an event such as this; Charlie had always been shielded away from any public gathering after all and so, by proxy, had she.
The thought of an official party, of rubbing shoulders with rich benefactors, with businessmen, criminals possibly… She was unconvinced it was a task she was suited to.
Mr Shelby stated simply, with simple dominance and simple instruction, and no simple way to maneuver around, "Margaret will look after Charlie. You will attend the party as a guest."
"Because the last one we were both at together ended so well?" The words spilled from Mercy before she could stop them, mirth and disbelief spearing them into the tension.
It was the wrong and right response: wrong, as it invited Mr Shelby to close the distance between them, close enough that she had to look up to meet his gaze, close enough to smell the distinct scent of gunpowder and cigarettes and masculinity; right, because it provoked something more akin to a smile than the victory of a smirk.
Tommy didn't move to touch her, letting his words wrap themselves around her instead, impress upon her, though the temptation to grip her, feel her body yield to him, to taste her clawed at him, monstrous and needy. "I recall enjoying it before the interruption."
Mercy barely breathed, stilling to capture her wavering stubbornness, memories of the way he touched her, spoke to her, forming devils in her mind that met with ghostly dreams of the past weeks to create visions of strong hands on her trembling skin, making her almost wild with the thought of his lips on her, over her, speaking to and kissing her in turn. She cleared her throat and stepped back, diverting her attention away from the man lording over her. "I don't imagine Ada's forgiven you for the state of her living room quite yet. Or forgiven Italy, for that matter."
Tommy allowed her to move, smirking and hunting her with his eyes as she flitted closer to the fireplace, practically tasting her chaos and enjoying every turn of it, "Is that right?"
"Mhmm." She allowed herself time to find words, shooting a quick look over her shoulder back to him, placing her book down on the mantelpiece as she forced her eyes away from the cutting, handsome figure of him and back to the fire, commenting with practiced ease, "Between her and the man with the gun, I wasn't sure you'd make it back to Arrow House unscathed."
Tommy held a silence, and in it Mercy read the demand that she should turn to him, to finish what they'd started. It came from him and from within her, and she fought it as long as she could, longer than Tommy expected or cared for, missing her attention, and yet enjoying her stubbornness all the same. When she finally did look to him, flickering, fire-cast shadows painting her face in a darkness the monsters inside of him celebrated, he held her still with his gaze, almost punishing her nerve, before asserting, "Yes you were. I told you we weren't done."
So he had. In the melee that had followed, and the scorching memory that preceded it, Mercy had almost forgotten that near-threat. She forced a smile, trying to diffuse at least an ounce of the oh-so heavy tension in the room, stating with lighthearted sarcasm, "I suppose I should be honoured to be part of your incentive."
"I'm not looking to make you feel honoured." He rasped, and she suppressed with more might than she'd care to admit the tremor forming in fingers that wanted to reach out and touch, to trace over the razor cheekbones, to be cut and left bleeding by him.
Tempted by the thought, she half-whispered, "Then what are you looking to make me feel, Mr Shelby?" It earned her a predacious look in return, dark and stirring, and she felt all moisture leave her mouth.
"Intimate." He stepped closer to her, and her heart knocked so loudly against her ribs she was sure he'd hear it, "Inappropriate." Another step. "Begging for me to touch you." He leant forward to whisper the words in her ear, and she felt helpless, her eyes half-closed of their own volition, long, pretty lashes casting shade over the slope of her cheekbones, an invitation burning at the back of her throat, aching to be permitted past her unwilling lips.
He watched her inner-turmoil with sadistic satisfaction, appreciating the rapidity in the rise and fall of her chest, moving his eyes over the innocence and beauty he wanted to know in every detail, that he wanted to own.
"I hope you're looking forward to the ball, Cinderella. I know I am."
And he left her there, left her again, tense and out of her depth, and choking on her own desire; half-dreading their next encounter, and half-wishing he hadn't walked away and left her there.