Have Mercy: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (17 page)

He let out a huff of a laugh. “You know I am.” He pressed against the side of her clit, then traced her folds with his fingers. “For you.”

Something about the way he said that “for you” shook her. She wanted to kiss him, wanted to
feel him breathe against her, wanted to taste his mouth, wanted to enclose him in her arms.
Later
. Instead, she met his gaze as he teased her entrance with a fingertip. “Better hurry. Get me there before she comes back with my drink.”

He turned a little in the booth, just enough so that he could get both his hands on her. If anyone walked by it would look like they were deep in conversation—more fodder for gossip, maybe, but nothing compared to what was really going on under the table. She opened her legs a little farther, giving him room to slide two fingers inside her as the other hand worked at her clit, rubbing in circles the way she had atop him the night before.

God, it felt so good, his big hands moving on her body, the utter and intense concentration on his face, eyebrows drawn into a frown as he chased the sensations through her. Her perception of the room sharpened around her; the gold flocking on the wallpaper glinting in the candlelight, the sound of a woman laughing so close to them Emme wondered if she could smell her arousal, the clink of a bottle against a tabletop. Tom’s breath came harsh and ragged in her ears, or maybe that was her own, because every muscle in her body had tightened and as long as he just kept rubbing
right there
 …

She had to bite her tongue and hold on to the table to keep from making a sound, but somehow she did as her sex pulsed around his fingers and pleasure contracted and expanded inside her.

Tom was gentle with her as she came down, easing his touch enough to draw her out without overwhelming her. He took such care with her, she felt ridiculous tears at the corners of her eyes.

She was still fluttering softly around his fingers when the waitress returned with her martini. “Thank you,” Emme murmured as she accepted her drink. Tom jumped when she set his club soda on the table, and Emme smiled at the depth of his concentration on her pleasure. She was the one who’d had the orgasm, but he looked as far gone as she felt.

The second the waitress was out of earshot, Tom let out a shuddering breath beside her. “God, Emme. I need to have you. I have to have you. Please, let me have you.”

Emme shook her head. “Good things come to those who wait,” she said. He slid his fingers out of her and she felt bereft at the sudden emptiness.

“Are your fingers wet?” she asked.

He rewarded her with a groan and a tight nod, his jaw clenched so hard she feared for his dental health. God, pushing him was so much
fun
.

“Unzip your jeans.”

His eyes snapped open at that order. “Here? Right now?”

Oh, no. Had she gone too far? But there was that flush over his cheekbones and his breathing had sped up. “If you want me to stop, tell me to stop,” she whispered.

He nodded but didn’t say anything. She felt his arm brush hers as he reached under the table, the shift and press of his thigh against hers as he moved.

“Okay,” Tom said, his voice barely more than a brush of breath against her cheek.

“Good, sugar.” Tom leaned into her body with the praise, nudging against her warmth. It felt so sweet, the way he nearly melted into her. “Now take your cock out.”

The buzz of power was back, her palms tingling, senses sharpening. She could feel Tom’s body responding beside her, his muscles tensing, feel the reverberation of his low hum in her own chest. “Did you do it?”

“Yeah,” he replied, and the picture in her mind of what was going on under the table nearly undid her. She reached for her martini and took a long sip, hand surprisingly steady on the glass.

“Jerk yourself off with those wet fingers.” She could not believe the orders that were coming out of her mouth, but she felt her own arousal skyrocket at the words.

“Emme,” he gasped, but she didn’t think it was a protest. Still, she wanted to be sure.

“You can tell me to stop,” she said again.

“No fucking way,” he replied, and Emme couldn’t stop her smile. She scooted a little closer to him, close enough to feel the rhythmic movement of his arm against her body, close enough to feel the hair on his neck stand up when she whispered in his ear.

“Are you holding it tight like you did last night?”

Tom nodded. A grunt escaped his lips, and she wanted to bite him, hard, where his neck and shoulder met. Instead, she whispered an order. “Slow down. Don’t let yourself come.”

Emme watched the bar as she felt Tom moving beside her. Anyone in the room could turn around and take a picture of them with their cell phone; she was sitting close enough to him. But even if they did, they’d still never know just how very, very bad she was being.

The waitress made another pass by their table and Emme caught her eye.

She thought Tom’s heart might stop when she paused at the entrance to their booth. “Y’all doing okay over here? Can I get you anything else?”

“Oh, I think we’re great,” Emme said. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling in wicked triumph. “Tom, how are you?”

She hadn’t told him to stop and so he hadn’t. She had no idea how much she needed that, to
have someone trust her, listen to her, do what she asked without argument, until it was given to her, and it made her feel like the most treasured woman in the world.

Tom’s voice was breathy when he spoke. “I’m great, thanks.” He even nodded like he was trying to convince the waitress of his sincerity.

She gave them a smile and left them alone, and Emme turned back to Tom, giddy and gleeful. “Does it feel good, stroking your cock where anyone could see?”

He honest-to-God whimpered in response. “Fuck, Emme, I’m going to make the biggest mess.”

“No you’re not.” She leaned close enough to smell him, that laundry-soap scent that smelled so clean and wholesome and made her want to devour him, dirty him up, make him sweat. “You’re going to stop, now, because I have plans for that cock and I want it to stay hard.” He liked that, too, when she objectified him, turned him into her own personal sex toy; his eyes slammed shut and his ears turned pink and his whole body turned toward her like he wanted to burrow inside her skin.

He deserved a reward, and she wanted to give him one. And it would certainly be no sacrifice on her part. She reached for her keycard, slid it to him under the table. “I’m going to finish this drink and you’re going to go up to my room and wait for me.”

She felt him adjusting his clothes under the table, quick, eager movements made awkward by anatomy. “I’m not sure I can stand up just yet,” he said.

Oh, that hesitance was so delicious. “You have three minutes to get yourself under control, sugar. If you can’t then I guess you’ll just have to walk out of here and show everyone in this bar that lovely thick cock in your jeans.” She shrugged. “Wouldn’t that be a pity?”

“Jesus
Christ
,” he said and ran his hand over his face almost in despair. Emme lost it for a moment and felt the joy in her belly bubble up into a giggle—an actual
giggle
. She nudged his shoulder with hers.

When he looked over at her, blue eyes impossibly bright, face flushed, dimples just barely visible under his scruff, she winked at him and said the words that she just couldn’t stop. “Having fun?”

“Yeah.” He reached for a lock of her hair, rubbed it between his fingers, and she felt the tug all over her body. Strange, how with everything else they’d just done, that touch felt so intimate.

She lifted her martini glass to her lips and concentrated on drinking without spilling on herself. “I guess you’ve got two minutes left to think about baseball.”

“I never was into sports.” Tom shrugged and grinned. “I try to remember Best Picture Oscar
winners.”

“Really? Does that work?”

“Only if the movies didn’t have any good sex scenes.”

She couldn’t stop her laugh then or the warm yearning that filled her chest. The impulse to hold him was so strong she wasn’t sure how she resisted it. Instead, she reached for his hand under the table and gave it a squeeze. There were all kinds of words floating in her head, words that scared her even more than whatever kind of game they were playing did. She tried to shut her mouth against them, but then he rubbed his thumb against the side of her hand and tilted his head shyly, and she couldn’t help it.

“You’re pretty great,” she said, and immediately felt like an idiot.

But it didn’t matter, because Tom just blushed and smiled, and said, “You’re pretty great yourself,” and they sat there looking at each other like stupid lovesick teenagers.

Emme couldn’t stand the weird expansive feeling in her chest any longer; she felt like she might float clean away. She tried to speak but had to clear her throat first.

“Time’s up, movie geek. I’ll meet you upstairs.”

Being alone in Emme’s room was like being surrounded by her. If Tom hadn’t been aching with lust, he could have spent days there alone unraveling her mysteries.

Even the air in the room smelled like her, like her perfume and fancy shampoo and whatever scent was embedded in her skin. Her clothes were strewn everywhere; scraps of lace and silk lay puddled amid jeans and T-shirts. A pair of painful-looking high heels lay on their side, nestled with a pair of flip-flops. He wanted to lie down in her bed, just to wrap himself in the same blankets that would touch her at night. If she’d had a diary, he probably would have read it, not to invade her privacy, but to look at her handwriting, commit it to memory, trace its lines and indentations on the page.

The bathroom was even messier than the rest of the room. Bottles and jars of mysterious beauty products spilled out over the counter; hair-styling implements that looked more like torture devices lay tangled by their cords. He felt the most insane impulse to rub her face cream on his skin, just so he could smell like her.

She’d had a hard day and a long one. He didn’t think he’d ever forget the look on her face as she’d listened to that podcast in the van, hearing those two assholes insult her, the way she’d crumbled for a moment. It had shaken him to see her like that. He’d always thought of her as competent, capable. Not needy.

And yet, there was something appealing about her needing something that he could provide. Something comforting in the knowledge that he could make her smile. He wanted to do it again and again and again.

His eye fell on those sexy-as-hell heels on the floor. God, they were hot but they had to hurt. He could make her feel better.

Tom rummaged around in the bathroom until he found what he thought might be shower gel. It smelled like Emme, sultry and spicy. He tried to ignore the aching throb in his dick at the scent like one of Pavlov’s goddamn dogs.

When Emme knocked at the door, he barely heard it over the sound of the running water. She practically prowled into the room, all swaying ass and high heels, her eyes intent on his bare torso. That
look, that walk, the way she pushed her way inside his space, made him feel desired. Adored.

When the corners of her mouth turned up and she said, “Very nice,” gaze locked on his body, he lost it a little. He made a grab for her, pulled her to him, sloppy with lust and affection. She felt right in his arms, her head fitting against his shoulder like a puzzle piece. He held her for a moment, feeling her breasts press to his chest with her breath, before she wiggled and squirmed away.

“You’re getting my dress wet,” she protested.

He’d forgotten that his hands were still wet from the tap. “Sorry.” Heat crept up his face.

Emme grabbed his hand and kissed his knuckles, that tiny affectionate touch sending lightning flashes behind his eyes. “Guess I’ll just have to take it off, huh?”

She turned around and pulled her hair over one shoulder, exposing her zipper to him. Tom reached for it and pulled it down slowly, savoring every inch of skin he exposed as it slid down and her dress parted and sagged away from her body. She turned her head over one shoulder and smiled at him, looking so much like a 1950s pinup that he wondered if he’d died and gone to hornball heaven. “Good, sugar,” she said, and his body turned into hot molasses.

He reached for her again and she went willingly. “You can kiss me, now,” she said, that siren’s smile playing on her lips, and he did but not her mouth. Instead, he buried his face in the juncture of her neck and shoulder under her hair where her scent was strongest, his mouth open to drink the taste of her skin. She shivered and her skin pulled into goose bumps under his tongue, and he licked them, remembering how she’d asked him to lick her neck in the bar. Pleasing her was so easy. She asked, he gave.

He’d made plans for her in those minutes he’d had to himself so he forced himself to pull out of her orbit. He took her hand and led her to the chair beside the bed, feeling a little silly. “Your throne, my lady,” he said with a bow. On the inside he held his breath, hoping that she wouldn’t tell him to stop being a weirdo.

“Thank you, kind sir,” she replied with a grin, and he sighed in relief. She didn’t mind him being a giant dork. Good, because he’d never felt quite so free to just
play
.

She took a seat, crossing her legs in front of her. She leaned back, elbows on the armrests. Still wearing her heels, stockings, garter belt, and lace underwear, she met his gaze. The grin faded, replaced with pure imperiousness. She quirked an eyebrow at him and he lowered himself to the floor in front of her, heart pounding like a fucking bass drum, hands shaking. He made himself meet her eyes, no matter how much it made him tremble, as he reached for one of her feet and slowly dragged off her black
high-heeled shoe.

He set it on the carpet behind him, then lowered his face to her foot. She even had pretty toes, the nails painted red, her second toe a little longer than the first. He kissed the arch of her foot through the silk of her stocking, watching her face as he did. The moment his lips touched her, she closed her eyes, brows dragging down, and let out a whimper.