Eric's hand presses further into my back leading me into his small, almost completely untouched kitchen. Without warning his hands are on my hips and he lifts me up in a swift movement onto his counter. Leaning over me he turns the faucet on and lets the water run, grabbing one of my hands he slides it under the hot water and I hiss as the hot water bites my wrist.
"What happened to your thumb?" he asks moving my hand in his. I just sigh and look up at him, "Like I said, I did whatever it took to get out of there," for a second I think I see a glimpse of admiration in his ice cold eyes then he presses his forehead to mine lightly, "I hope you know you are the most badass girl I've ever met," his voice is husky and I feel his minty breathe against my lips.
The air around us seems to be frozen but at the same time heated and before I know what I'm doing I grab his face with both my hands and crash my lips to his. He reacts immediately by kissing me harder than I've ever been kissed before, then his hands find their way under my thighs and he hoists me up so my legs cling around his waist to keep me from falling.
If anyone would've told me a week ago I would be here straddling Eric in his apartment with my lips on his I would've sent them over to Erudite for mental help. Yet here I was. My arms snake around his neck and press my body closer to his as his hands slide up my thighs pressing me closer to him.
The only time I pull back is for air and I feel like I just flew up to cloud 9 then came crashing down again. Our eyes lock and a small smile crawls onto his face making him appear to be almost kind looking.
"Well," he says between breathes, "I wasn't exactly expecting that."
"Oh please," I huff out as my chest heaves for air, "You started it."
That seems to set him off again because once I take one last breathe his lips move towards mine and our lips seem to gravitate towards each other like magnets. Moving my hand up to his hair my fingers entangle themsleves in his surprisingly soft hair which causes him to press my back to the refrigerator making goosebumps rise on my arms, whether they were from the cold metal pressed to my back or the gentle kisses trailing down my neck I don't really know.
Suddenly there's a knock on the door causing Eric's head to jerk upwards and his pierced eyebrows to draw inwards in confusion. Walking me back to the counter he places me gently on the counter again and pushes his lips against mine for a little longer than a second just to pull back and get the door.
"Is Mercer here?" a voice asks that I recognize as Max.
"Yeah why?" Eric's voice is deep and threatening once again.
"We have a few questions to ask her about Nate," there's silence for a moment before Max's and Eric's footsteps make their way into the kitchen.
"Mercer!" Max says with a small smile that turns into a look of confusion once his eyes scope my body. The first thing his eyes land on is my neck which is no doubt red, then my lips which I can feel swell, his head turns to Eric who keeps his eyes trained on me, his face giving nothing away while mine is most likely beat red. Biting my lip at the memory of what we were doing just a minute earlier I glance at Eric who smirks a little to my humiliation.
For a second I forget Max is in the room until he addresses my wrists which are even redder now that I had washed them under hot water.
"I would like you to tell us everything that happened, is that clear?" Max says his voice laced with a small threat and I watch as Eric's eyes shoot darts at him.
I know I have nothing to hide, so I watch as Eric leans against the fridge and Max crosses his arms. And just like that, I tell them everything.
By the end of it Eric left. I wasn't exactly surprised because once I got to the point where Nate said we could leave together and ditch Dauntless Eric was practically fuming, I'm almost glad he left because I wouldn't want to see how he gets his anger out.
Max stood still the whole time, analyzing me, testing to see if I was telling the truth. Clearly he believed me because by the end of my story he nodded and said, "Nate will receive his punishment," and before I could ask what it was he was out the door and ready to get it over with. So here I am, alone, sitting on Eric's kitchen counter with blood oozing from my thumb again. Well crap.
Hopping off the counter with a sigh I walk on over to the bathroom in Eric's bedroom, assuming he'd rather have my blood in his bathroom sink rather than kitchen I run the water in there. Moving my hands over my wrists I wash all the dried up blood off, I had to scratch some of it off which reopened it a few times but finally I could see my battered and beaten skin instead of the red crust that covered my wrists.
Now what to do about my thumb. Quickly washing off the rest of the blood that coated my hand I took some toiled paper and dabbed at my torn up thumb gently. Damn I was dumb for trying to unlock a stupid door with my nail. Crouching down I hesitantly opened up the cupboards feeling incredibly invasive by going through them. To my surprise the only thing I saw was the normal bathroom essentials, my eyes travel to the first-aid kit and I quickly grab it pulling out a Band-Aid I gently cover my now swollen and sensitive thumb.
I quickly put everything back exactly the way it was, knowing that every time I come in here everything is in the exact same spot as if untouched.
"Mercer?" I hear Eric's voice boom throughout the apartment and for a minute feel guilty for just helping myself.
"Mercer?" now he's in his room.
"Uh yeah?" I slide out of the bathroom and drink in his appearance, he's slightly sweaty and his knuckles are split open and bleeding.
"What happened?" I breathe out and stalk towards him taking his large hand in my two smaller ones.
"Nate, well I was ordered to take care of him," he looks into my eyes as if waiting for a reaction. All I do is nod slightly and examine his split knuckles before lightly tugging on his hand to come into the bathroom.
Grabbing the first aid kit that I conveniently left out I open it up and pull out some wrap. I take his hand and wash them under the warm water, I graze his upper knuckles that he no doubt beat the crap out of Nate with, the same way he grazed my knuckles when he first taught me how to hit.
"Jeez Mercer you have no idea how worried I was about you," Eric sighs rubbing his eyes with his free hand.
"How did you know that I didn't leave, I mean he said he left a note saying we ran away," I ask while dabbing his knuckles with a towel.
"I saw the way you were looking at him in the simulation, I knew that you would never just drop everything and leave with him," his voice is on edge as if he doubted his own words for a second.
"Did anyone else think that? Or just you?" I ask as I take the soft cloth and wrap it around his knuckles.
"Your three little friends, Louis, Sasha, and Bailey believed me, but no one important enough to send out a search party so I had Matt take over the trainer while I looked around the compound for you," he finishes explaining just as I wrap up his last hand.
As I finish he slides his fingers in between mine and grabs some of the wrap, taking care of my wrists just as I took care of his knuckles. After he's done that his hands find their way onto my hips and slide down to my thighs, hoisting me up onto the counter again, his hands now firmly on my waist. His nose grazes against mine as energy pumps throughout my body, "You know I've waited a long time for this," he mumbles into the crook of neck and kisses it gently. The air catches in my throat at this, he's waited a long time for me.
My thighs hug his hips tightly despite me being on the counter and I find the only thing in my view are the block tattoos on his neck. Turning my head to meet his eyes I feel his lips caress mine and the same electricity that I felt before was soon there and I began to feel addicted to it.
Sliding my arms around his neck and twisting my hands in his hair I begin to become accustomed to his masculine scent and indestructible build. His hands stay in respectable places, not pushing my limits to much and I found myself moaning into the kiss as our bodies were pressed tightly together.
Slowly pulling apart our chests heaved in sync and I was still shorter than him even when I was on the counter.
"You know I should," I gasp, "probably get back," another breathe, "to training if I don't want to fall to far behind." I watch his eyes roam my eyes then my face before finally settling on my lips, "I think you can have one vacation day," his lips grazed mine as he speaks.
"Eric, people will wonder where I am. I don't exactly think my peers will like it if I'm well, doing this with our instructor," his mouth spreads into a smile as I say that.
"They can always suck it up can't they," he sighs and pulls me closer if that is even possible.
"You just don't give up do you?" I retort with a sly smile.
"Not when it comes to you princess," with those last words I smash my lips to his and get lost in the feeling of him once again.