Have Mercy: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (14 page)

She needed a minute. She needed an
hour
. She rolled off the bed and padded, barefoot, into the bathroom.

“Emme?” she heard him calling for her from the bed, sounding lost and very young.

Something inside her constricted hard. Emme took a look at herself in the sickly yellow light of the bathroom mirror. Her lips were swollen, chin covered in pink beard rash, hair a tangled mess around her shoulders. She looked like she’d had one hell of a good time. She had planned to climb into the shower and stay there until Tom got the hint and left, but his voice calling out to her made her feel a sick sense of shame at the thought.

Instead, she grabbed a washcloth from the towel rack and ran it under the warm tap.

When she came back into the bedroom, Tom was lying on his side, knees drawn up to his chest, looking shivery and cold. She switched on the lamp on his side of the bed.

“Hey,” she said. Her voice came out softer than she’d meant it to. “Roll onto your back.”

Tom’s shivering stopped at the sound of her voice, and he unwound himself from the tight ball he’d made of his body. “Thought you were gonna leave me,” he slurred, sounding half asleep still.

Oh, hell. Emme ran the warm cloth over his chest and belly, watching his abdomen tense and relax as she cleaned him. He closed his eyes and made a little happy sound, his hand coming up to find her hip and rest there. Whatever nurturing instinct had taken over her made her think of little boys who had to do their homework in bars and grown men who watched over everyone but themselves, with no one to take care of them when they needed it.

“You need a drink of water, sugar?” she asked when she was done with the washcloth.

Tom nodded and scooted up higher on the bed, pulling a pillow over to rest behind his back. “Please. And if you don’t mind …”

Emme paused at the table, hand suspended while reaching for a glass.

“Could I just … hold you for a while?”

The edge of the room went from fuzzy to sharp, so sharp Tom felt like he’d put on glasses for the first time.

Emme sat on the bed next to him, naked, pink, all hair and curves and brown eyes, and handed him a glass of water. He took the glass from her, hands shaking like he’d drunk an entire pot of truck-stop coffee.

She watched him as he drank, her hand resting on his side. “Better?”

Better than he’d ever been in his
life
. He managed a nod and reached for her, getting an armful of warm softness. She was tense, though; she lay beside him stiffly, not curling her body around him the way he wanted, twirling a finger in his chest hair.

“Tom …,” she began, and she sounded sad and uncertain.

“That was
amazing
,” he interrupted. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say if it started in that tone of voice. “I haven’t felt like that since …”

She shifted beside him, her breasts brushing against his arm. “Since when?” Her eyebrows drew together in an adorably jealous frown.

Good
. He’d gotten her ire up. But he couldn’t seem to stop his mouth from opening and words from just falling out all over the place. “Since my last tattoo. Jesus.”

“Oh yeah? So, what, having sex with me is like being repeatedly stabbed with needles?”

“No. Yeah, kind of.” Tom took another long swallow of water, trying to clear the gravel from his throat. He got an arm underneath her side and dragged her a little closer. Better. How could his head be so foggy and clear at the same time? “The artist who did the piece on my chest. She was cute. And it took an hour, you know, with my shirt off and her basically straddling me, breathing on my skin, and it hurt. And by the time it was over, I had the biggest hard-on I’d had until … well, until I met you. And it felt so fucking good and bad at the same time. I’d never really thought something that hurt could feel
so good. Felt like this afterward.”

Emme made a little displeased sound, kind of a growl, and pulled a little on his chest hair. He liked that, a hint of possessiveness, jealousy. “This feels bad, now?” she asked.

“No, Jesus, no. I feel like I could, like, lift cars. Or maybe fall through the mattress and die.”

Emme laughed and rewarded him by burrowing into his side, her head on his shoulder. One of her legs crept up over one of his, smooth and round and warm, and twined with his thigh. “Yeah. I don’t really know what that was. I’ve never … I’ve never done anything like that before.”

Tom hesitated. “You’re very good at it, though.”

“You have, I take it?” Emme brushed her hand back and forth over his belly.

“Yeah. But it felt different. Not this good.” Her hand paused, so he started talking. “There was a woman who taught me some things. Like, the hands behind the back thing. And you seem to like being in charge. Thought you might like it.”

“I do. I like it a lot.”

“Good. When do we do it again?”

He was aiming for another laugh, but instead she pulled away. His side felt cold with the loss of her body against it.

That regret was back in her voice when she spoke and he hated it. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

Oh, no no no. That was what he’d been afraid of. He rolled onto his side to face her, brushed her hair back from her cheek where it was sticking. “Emme. Why?”

“To be honest?” She looked away from him, two red spots appearing high on her cheekbones. Her fingers plucked at the sheets, playing piano scales on an invisible keyboard. “I want to do it again. More than I can say. But I don’t know how we’re going to keep this secret.”

Tom hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t thought about much other than the fact that he was the luckiest bastard alive. But of course, with the kind of publicity she’d gotten in the past, she’d care.

He couldn’t promise that he’d behave himself in public; he wasn’t sure he could now. Surely every time he looked at her, he’d get a raging boner and everyone in the room would notice.

“Emme.” Her name even felt different in his mouth now. “I don’t think what happens between us needs to be anybody’s business but ours.” That was true enough, even if he wanted everyone to know, just so he could explode with pride.

Emme flashed him a little hint of a smile, the delicate pink inside of her lips showing. “Well.”

She ruffled his hair, then pushed it back down into place. “So I guess you should probably … go back to your room now.” She winced. “That sounds so rude, but we leave for Atlanta tomorrow and I don’t want Dave and Guillermo to knock on the door in the morning and …”

Something inside Tom sank a little at those words. He’d hoped he’d get to hold her all night, maybe wake up in the morning next to her all naked and snuggly and see what else they could do before they had to behave themselves in the van. But whatever the sacrifice was to get to have her again at all, he was willing to make it. “Okay,” he said.

He almost stumbled getting out of the bed. There was still that buzzing feeling pushing through him, the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet tingling, and his clothes were all over the floor. Emme sat on the bed watching, playing chords on the pillow, as he tripped into his underwear and T-shirt. By the time he pulled on his jeans, he couldn’t remember where he’d left his belt. He stood, barefoot, in the doorway, feeling like some vital part of his brain wasn’t firing the way it should.

Emme rescued and short-circuited him at the same time when she hopped off the bed, naked, and brought him his belt from the floor beside the chair. She slid her fingers across his as she handed the leather back to him, and his dick valiantly attempted to rise back to life.

She looked away first, though, sunset-pink color spreading over her chest and neck. “Good night, Tom.”

Atlanta loomed in front of Emme like a lone mountain amid a sea of flat plains. The city rose out of the kudzu-covered landscape, gleaming glass skyscrapers and shimmering urban heat contrasting with the wild green of the surrounding area. The city had always given Emme the impression that, for all its six-lane highways and gold-domed capitol, at any moment the kudzu might make a break for it, overrunning everything that stood in its path.

Atlanta was a sponsored stop, at least for the first two nights; SoundGap, an indie-music blog and podcast that played on public radio stations, had picked up the tab for part of their time there. Emme had worked hard to get the sponsorship, and it meant special performances, acoustic sets, and exclusive interviews. It meant exhaustion and personal questions. But it also meant a nicer hotel than any they’d stayed in the rest of the tour, and at least a little money she didn’t have to spend.

That morning, Tom had met her at the van with a huge coffee. Dave had glowered and Guillermo had rolled his eyes and snarked about her fancy coffee habit, but when Tom handed her the venti skim two-pump latte, something warm and sweet spread through her.

And then all of her warm sweet feelings had drained away when she asked Dave to play the latest edition of the podcast in the van, and she’d heard what the hosts had to say about her.

She’d watched the kudzu shapes out the window while she listened.

“So, best bets this week, Jed. What shows should our listeners go see?”

“Well, we’re hosting a show with Emme at the Alley on Saturday night at seven. Should be a great bet. If you don’t know her work—”

“Wait, Emme. She’s the one who broke up Indelible Lines, right? Backup singer who turned into a solo artist?”

Hellfire
. Emme gripped her coffee cup more tightly and watched a billboard fly by, disappearing under the steady green creep of the vines.

“Yeah, her solo work is really unlike anything else that’s come out this year. I know other critics have compared her to Dusty Springfield, but I think there’s an Americana element to her music that’s reminiscent of a modernist, stripped-down version of Patsy Cline.”

“And”—chuckle—“if nothing else, it should be a great show just to see if any fights break out
over her among her band members.”

“Right, or to guess which ones she’s writing her songs about.”

“That’s the thing with Emme’s music. Sometimes I have to wonder if she’s been such a big Internet sensation because of her talent, or if we’re all just watching this train to see when it will wreck.”

God
damn
, that hurt. She’d heard the phrase
punched in the gut
before and thought it was just a figure of speech. It wasn’t. Emme lost her breath for a moment at the shock of it.

“So! Possibly great music, or possibly a mental breakdown onstage! This Saturday. We’ll be producing an exclusive interview beforehand—”

“And she’s famously hard to interview, too, so tune in for that one!”

“And an exclusive SoundGap after-party at the Hotel M in Buckhead just for SoundGap contributors. Be at the show, and be there afterward to see if she throws a drink in anyone’s face.”

The fade-out music was “Walking Away.” Her song. Her song that, yes, she’d written about leaving behind Jared and the burning rubble of Indelible Lines.

“Turn it off,” she said. She could feel Tom’s eyes on her, could hear Guillermo turn around in the front seat to look at her.

“Fuck, Emme,” Guillermo began, but she couldn’t take sympathy. It would make her fall apart.

Instead, she held on to anger, the rising sensation of fury enough to almost cover up the sinking humiliation in the pit of her.

“Might have a mental breakdown onstage?” She wanted to tear something up, claw at someone’s eyes. Curl up in a ball and hide. “I have never, ever had anything close to a mental breakdown onstage.”

“You did cry that one time you sang ‘Walking Away,’ ” Dave said quietly from the front seat.

“Dude, not the time,” Guillermo said.

“Crying during an emotional song is not having a mental breakdown. And, if you’ll remember, my grandmother had died two weeks before that show.” Emme heard her voice shaking, felt the hot press of tears at the back of her nasal passages, and hated it. Hated herself for being weak.

“No one would say a damn word if you were a man,” Tom said. His voice wasn’t loud or particularly angry, but it was firm. Certain. “I’ve seen musicians who were so drunk they damn near fell off the stage. I’ve seen musicians who slept with five women from the audience every night, and had a wife and three kids at home. I’ve seen musicians get in fistfights with their band members
onstage. Completely unprofessional behavior. But no one ever said a goddamn thing about any of it, because they were men.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t
cry
,” Dave said, as if that explained everything.

“Clapton does,” Guillermo interjected.

“How is crying worse than being falling-down drunk?” Emme felt the tears recede and the wash of righteous rage. “And men write songs about women all the time, but nobody spends hours poring over their lyrics, trying to figure out who the subject is.”

“Except maybe ‘Layla,’ ” Guillermo added.

“Okay, except ‘Layla.’ But I’m not Eric Clapton. I don’t even have a label.” Emme expelled a breath that took sixteen tons of frustration with it. “Turn on some music, Dave. Something nice and pissed off-sounding.”