I don’t take my eyes from hers as she continues with the pants, bouncing on one foot, daggers cutting me through as she holds my gaze and strips them off, balls them up, and throws the ill-fitting pants at me too.

“Satisfied?” she asks, straightening to stand at her full height. Not covering herself.

Unable to stop my gaze from sweeping over her, I swallow, taking in all that skin, the scraps of lace barely covering full breasts, the slit of her sex. I push my hands into my pockets, clenching them into fists, nails digging into my palms. My jaw tightens as I remind myself who she is. Remind myself that this little monster needs me to remain in control. To not be undone by the sight of her nearly naked.

I drag my gaze slowly back up to hers and see that her hands, too, are clenched and her cheeks flushed with color.

“Continue,” I say, my voice thick.

Her mouth opens, her short breaths audible as she gazes from me to Miriam and back. “I think it’s enough. I think my brother—”

“Miriam,” I say, neither moving nor taking my eyes from Mercedes.

Miriam moves into action, striding toward Mercedes in three quick steps. Mercedes gasps, clearly not expecting this, and when the older woman raises her arms to strip the rest of her clothes, Mercedes grips her wrists hard. She’s stronger than I realized. But Miriam is as strong and as determined. It’s why I chose her.

“Don’t you fucking dare touch me! Get the hell away from me!”

There’s a brief struggle. Mercedes shoves Miriam and runs, but Miriam is quick to steady herself and move toward her target.

Mercedes glances frantically around, her hand closing over the base of a heavy lamp. She falters then. I wonder if she’s remembering the event that led her here, that has her in this predicament. The murder of the courtesan. The very violent scene she left behind.

She squeezes her eyes shut, and I put a hand up to halt Miriam as I watch her, the already puffy skin around her eyes growing wet. She’s been crying. Hell. She looks like she’s been crying forever.

With a violent shake of her head, she opens her eyes, glaring at me. “Call her off!”

“Continue, and I will,” I tell her calmly, hardening myself against the wounded creature that calls to the protector inside me.

“I hate you,” she says, a shudder to her voice as she releases the lamp and reaches behind her to unhook her bra and strips it off. She drops it to the floor, then pushes her panties down, kicking both away. “I fucking hate you.”

She bares pretty, full breasts, nipples tight and her sex shaved to reveal the pretty slit. The latter makes me stop. Has any other man seen her like this? There was Jackson Van der Smit. Did he—?