Текст книги "Hold On"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

Chapter Nine

Hangin’ in There

Cher

Wednesday Morning

I was in my living room, vacuuming, an activity that for some reason in a house with only a thirty-four-year-old woman and a ten-almost-eleven-year-old kid living in it, had to happen more than once a week.

As was my way, to take my mind off something that was not my favorite activity, not to mention it was right then officially a week (and a couple of hours) since I’d let loose on Merry, fucked up everything between us, and I hadn’t seen or heard from him at all, I had my music up loud.

I liked rock ‘n’ roll.

There was some guitar-twanging country that didn’t drive me up the wall.

But my personal little secret was that I was a diva queen.

I certainly had a gift with banging my head to some Quiet Riot.

But with my vacuum in my living room, I was a goddess ready for the Vegas stage, belting it out with the likes of Aretha, Tina, Whitney, Donna, Linda, Janet, and Cher (the other one, who could actually sing).

And at that precise moment, I was killing it, accompanying the fabulous Celine in her version of “River Deep Mountain High.”

The music was too loud with a dual purpose. First, I loved that song, and it needed to be loud so I could hear it over the vacuum. And second, it drowned out my voice so I could kid myself about the fact that I could accompany Celine without sounding like a howling cat who would make the real Celine take off running on her two-thousand-dollar Valentinos.

I was preparing to let go of the vacuum in order to have both my hands free to do the air bongos (something that any living being should do when Celine’s bongo guy lets loose on that track) when, suddenly, the sound cut out completely.

I looked to the receiver in my media center. Then my senses, no longer being interfered with by the brilliance of Celine, refocused and I whipped around.

Merry was standing by my coffee table, my remote in his hand, looking at me, mouth curled up in a smile, his tall, lean body shaking with silent laughter.

Fuck, I hadn’t locked the door after I came home from taking Ethan to school.

Fuck! How had I forgotten to lock the damned door when I came home from taking Ethan to school?

Fuck! He knew my diva secret!

Fuck, fuck, fuck! He’d heard me singing!

I turned off the vacuum.

“Celine?” Merry choked out.

I stared at him.

“You, my brown-eyed girl, who’d see Tommy Lee lookin’ at her rack and smack him across his face for bein’ forward, causin’ him to write a song that’d have millions of women throwin’ their panties at him, listens to Celine fuckin’ Dion?” he asked.

His brown-eyed girl?

Garrett Merrick’s brown-eyed girl?

Me?

Garrett Merrick, estranged from me because I’d been a foul-mouthed, overreacting crazy lady, was standing in my living room calling me his brown-eyed girl?

I kept staring at him.

Then I whispered, “You’re here.”

The humor fled from him completely, his handsome face turned beautiful, and he replied, “Got your text, baby.”

My insides convulsed.

My text?

Oh shit, had I somehow accidentally sent my text?

Before I could play my life in rewind to figure out how that might have occurred, Merry bent and tossed my remote to the coffee table and walked my way. When he got to me, he pulled the vacuum out of my hand, swung it aside, and got in my space, chin dipped into his neck to look down at me.

“Your apology was sweet.” He grinned a small grin. “Your brand of sweet, considerin’ you dropped the f-bomb twice givin’ it to me. And I appreciate it, Cherie.”

Cherie.

Not Cher.

Not the dreaded Cheryl.

He gave me back his Cherie.

A weird but not unpleasant warmth I’d never felt started to creep over me.

“I appreciate it, but you didn’t need to give it,” he went on, lifting his hand to cup my jaw and bending so his face was closer to mine. “I knew before I left that you were sorry.”

I stared into his blue eyes that were looking into mine, communicating amazing things.

Somehow, that text got sent and there he was, in my living room, accepting an apology I didn’t know I gave.

Here was another boon that life had thrown at me.

And before I could think better of it, I latched on ferociously.

“I overreacted,” I blurted on a whisper.

The pads of his fingers dug into my skin gently. “I get that.”

I held his eyes and gave a careful shake of my head so I wouldn’t lose his hand on me. “No. Ethan and me…the way things have been…how our lives are…” My quiet voice dropped quieter. “I only ever get his mornings guaranteed.”

“I get that, honey,” he repeated. “I stepped over a line. It might not have been right how you communicated that, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t right to be angry.”

I gave another cautious shake of my head. “No, I was totally out of line being that ugly.”

“Cher, you love your kid and that’s your time. Lots of shit is goin’ down, not the least of which I was pushin’ at a time when I should have been goin’ gently. You’re you. You reacted like you and like the mother you are. It happened. It’s done. You apologized and I’ve admitted I didn’t play that right. We’re movin’ on.”

That was good. I wanted that. I wanted us to move on. I wanted the quiet understanding he was giving me. I didn’t want him to be angry. I wanted him back in my life.

I also wanted to explore where his manner was saying we were going.

But what I needed was to get him to understand completely.

“It was ugly and it might have been right why I did it,” I told him. “But it was also wrong. Ethan talked to me about it and he liked havin’ you around.” I saw a flare in his eyes I liked, but I didn’t take time to let it register deep. I had to get this done, so I powered forward. “He liked you two doin’ somethin’ together to look out for me. He gets that I look out for him all the time and he’s a good kid. He wants me to have that sometimes too. And he liked doin’ that with you for me.”

Merry didn’t say anything, but he did glide his thumb along my cheek to edge the bottom of my lip and then back.

That meant he actually did say something, and what he said was unbelievably sweet.

I fought pressing my lips together or leaning in and pressing everything to him.

It was difficult, not only with his touch but the soft way he was looking at me. Another something from Merry I’d never gotten from another man in my life. And I was glad. I was ecstatic. Because staring into his eyes, getting that from him, if I knew that kind of thing existed and I went for days, weeks, years not having it aimed at me, I didn’t know if I could keep breathing.

This feeling caused me again to blurt out more words.

“I texted you the next day.”

I lost the look as his brows drew together in confusion.

“I didn’t send it,” I told him quickly. “I erased it. But I apologized. I explained. Then I erased it all.”

The look came back, and in those mere seconds from losing it to getting it back again, I became a junkie, knowing down to my bones I’d do anything—any-fucking-thing—to get that look as often as I could aimed at me.

So I kept fucking talking.

“I texted you more. I told you I’m worried I’m not feedin’ my kid right. I told you I tried to get him to eat carrots. I told you that didn’t work.”

Humor mingled with that look in his eyes and, fuck me, that was even better.

“I told you other stuff too,” I shared. “I texted you all the time, without texting you.”

“Glad you finally hit the right button, sweetheart.”

I actually hadn’t.

Or I didn’t think I had.

I was about to explain that to him when a knock came at my door.

I looked that way, and unfortunately, Merry dropped his hand as he twisted to look too.

We were in a part of the living room where I couldn’t see what was in the diamond window, and although the front curtains were opened, our angle didn’t show my stoop.

But I knew who it was. A package had been delivered yesterday for my neighbor on the other side, Bettina. I’d put a note in her storm door. Bettina worked a job where she had occasion to have some weekdays off.

She was probably coming to collect.

“That’s Bettina, my neighbor,” I told Merry, and he looked back at me. “A package was delivered for her.”

I tipped my head to the door where a thin but long and wide box was resting against the wall.

Merry looked, then returned his attention to me.

Another knock came at the door.

“I should give it to her.”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Just be a sec,” I muttered, moving by him, eyes to the floor, my mind belatedly realizing that I hadn’t yet taken my shower that day.

My hair was good. My hair was always good. I had an expert hand with hair and knew the precise quality (but inexpensive) products to use that would make my hair look good, even if I didn’t wash it for a week.

However, I did not have any makeup on.

And I had on a pair of supremely faded jeans that I’d owned since about a year after I’d had Ethan. They were so worn in and beat-up, they had splits at both knees, some up the front of one thigh, and one at the back just under the left cheek of my ass.

Bare feet. A seen-better-days cardie over a white tank. No jewelry. No perfume.

And Merry, looking awesome in one of his suits, was in my space, seeing me like this for the first time ever.

Shit.

I kept my eyes to the floor and only lifted them to aim my hand to the handle.

I opened the door and looked out, expecting to see Bettina, so I was surprised when it wasn’t.

It was a man of average height. He was decent looking. Dark hair salted with silver and just slightly receding. He also had a thick goatee that was more liberally salted with silver. He was wearing very nice, dark wash jeans, a button-up shirt that had been ironed, and an attractive, expensive-looking sports jacket.

He also was not standing outside my storm door.

He had the storm door open and was holding it that way.

In other words, he had clear passage to get into my house with nothing protecting me from this stranger.

Considering I had no clue who he was, and he could’ve easily knocked on the storm door and been heard, there was no reason he should’ve felt comfortable eliminating that barrier. Furthermore, a storm door was also a security door, that was, making me secure from someone like him.

Due to this, I felt annoyance mix with the confusion, which caused an edge to my voice when I asked, “Can I help you?”

He nodded. “Ms. Sheckle.”

My body snapped tight.

“I’m Walter Jones,” he went on to declare. “I’d hoped to—”

He didn’t get to telling me what he’d hoped, even though I knew what he’d fucking hoped, so he didn’t have to tell me shit.

This was because I lost my mind.

“Are you fucking shitting me?”

My voice was loud.

His face set. “Ms. Sheckle—”

“No,” I bit out, shaking my head. “Unh-unh. Man, when a woman does not take your calls, you need to get the hint no matter what reason you’re makin’ that call, and especially when you’re makin’ the calls you made to me, that you should leave it alone.”

“As I hope you heard in my voicemail message, I intend to compensate you for your time,” he told me swiftly. “I’m prepared to give you a thousand dollars to speak with me. If I could just come in—”

“Listen, asshole,” I shot back. “For me to talk to some goddamned stranger who’s lookin’ to make money off the shit Dennis Lowe piled on me, a thousand dollars won’t cut it. You could throw four fuckin’ zeroes at the end of that and it still wouldn’t cut it. Jesus, showin’ up at my door…” My voice, already loud, was rising. “What’s the matter with you?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but then his gaze darted over my shoulder, surprise hit his eyes and his body snapped alert.

I was so pissed, I didn’t feel it.

When Walter Jones did that, I felt it.

And it was not good.

What it was was me learning the intensely uncomfortable feeling of the vibe Garrett Merrick gave off when he was about to lose his motherfucking mind. When he was about to lose hold on his brand of messy that made the likes of Ryker look adjusted. When he was preparing to get covered in a pile of shit in an effort to dig someone he cares about out from under it.

Slowly, even though I should have gone faster—his mood was so extreme, it made me move like I was surrounded in molasses—I turned to him.

I felt the vibe, but the look on his face confirmed it.

In fascinated, terrified awe, I saw that his handsome features now appeared carved from marble, and his eyes were glinting, wintry shards of blue ice that I could fucking swear lowered the temperature around us by thirty degrees.

I stood immobile, terrified, not that he would harm me, but that he was about to do something that might bring harm to him, and yet I was so enthralled by the sheer menace he was exuding that was so far from the Merry I knew, it shook me and I couldn’t move.

Merry was immobile too, for one beat…two…three…four…all of these feeling like eternity, nothing about him changing until finally I saw a minute shift in his expression and he stepped forward.

I braced to block his way so he wouldn’t go apeshit on Walter Jones.

“Step off Ms. Rivers’s stoop,” he ordered, that smooth voice that hid the rough underneath a memory, his voice was vibrating with the rage he was not hiding.

“Sir—” Walter Jones started.

Merry shifted a hand, pulling back the dark blue suit jacket he was wearing to expose the butt of his gun in its holster at the side of his chest as well as the shiny badge clipped to his belt.

“Take…your hand…off Ms. Rivers’s door…and step…the fuck…off her goddamned stoop,” Merry growled.

I heard the storm door whisper, but it didn’t bang into place because Merry moved quickly and caught it with his hand.

I moved to go after him.

He stopped and cast the blue ice of his eyes down to me.

“You stay in here, baby.”

His tone was not gentle. It wasn’t soft. It was a hard order he expected to be obeyed.

And the addition of “baby” was not meant to soften that order.

It was a communication to Walter Jones of who I was to Merry.

Thinking my best move at that point was to do what I was told, I nodded.

Merry pushed through the door. It whispered again as it closed and I caught it before it banged. Then I stood on the other side of it to watch Merry prowl the three strides that took him to Walter Jones, who was standing at the foot of my stoop.

When he stopped, he pushed both sides of his suit jacket back to plant his hands on his hips, again exposing his badge and gun, but also expanding his frame so he bested Jones in height and in width.

“So you been in contact with Ms. Rivers about Dennis Lowe,” he stated unhappily.

“Can I ask your name, Detective?” Jones returned.

“It’s lieutenant…Lieutenant Garrett Merrick of the BPD. Now, confirm. You been in contact with Ms. Rivers about Dennis Lowe?”

“I’m an FBI profiler—” Jones started.

“I don’t give a fuck what you are,” Merry cut him off. “What I want right now is to be sure I’m gettin’ straight what’s goin’ on here. You been in contact with Ms. Rivers about Dennis Lowe. Yeah?”

“I’m writing a book—”

“I don’t give a fuck about that either.” Merry’s tone was deteriorating. “I asked you, you been in contact with Ms. Rivers about Dennis Lowe?”

“Obviously, I have,” Jones sniped in the face of Merry’s interrogation, his patience waning too.

“And she made it clear that she didn’t wanna speak to you,” Merry stated.

Oh shit.

I hadn’t actually done that.

“No, actually, she didn’t,” Jones spoke my thoughts. “Ms. Rivers didn’t take my calls.”

“No, actually, Ms. Rivers refused to take your calls, so she did make it clear that she didn’t wanna speak to you.”

That was a good twist.

And damned true.

“Lieutenant—”

“Then you found her address and showed in her door without notice.”

“Her insight into—”

“Right,” Merry bit out. “We’ll start with this, and it shocks me I have to share this with you, seein’ as you’re in law enforcement—”

Jones interrupted him through tight lips, “At the present time, I’m not with the FBI. I’m freelance.”

Not missing a beat, Merry stated, “Then it shocks me I have to share this with you, seein’ as you’re a former law enforcement officer, but you do not, under any circumstances outside havin’ a warrant or probable cause, open the goddamned door to a dwelling. I don’t give a fuck it’s the storm door or the fuckin’ front door. You don’t do it and you know it. Unless you think doin’ it’ll intimidate the occupant of the dwelling into givin’ you what you came to get.”

“It’s clear Ms. Rivers had some barriers to speaking to—”

Merry’s head tipped sharply to the side. “So you admit it was clear Ms. Rivers didn’t want to speak to you?”

Jones’s mouth set.

Merry kept going.

“I’ll continue. As a former officer of the law, you are very aware that Ms. Rivers made it clear to you that she doesn’t wish to communicate with you, so right now you’re committing the crime of harassment.”

“As a former officer of the law, I know that calling Ms. Rivers on the phone and knocking on her door hardly comes close to criminal harassment,” Jones retorted.

“As your intent was to discuss an episode in her life where she and her son were victimized by a serial killer, and you could infer from her refusal to take your calls that you were causing her alarm or even mental torment, this absolutely could be construed as criminal harassment. And I’ll note that in these parts, it absolutely would be construed that way. Not to mention a credible threat to her safety, even if that safety is a threat to her mental health. So it does come close to criminal harassment. Ignoring her clear communication that she did not wish contact from you, then showing at her door and essentially helping yourself to her property by opening that door, that could conceivably add trespassing and even menacing.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jones spat.

“I disagree,” Merry returned. “But you want a second opinion, be happy to call Lieutenant Colton and see how he feels about this shit you’re pullin’.”

Jones tried to check it but couldn’t quite hide the fact he’d reared back.

That meant either Colt had already told him to go fuck himself (which was probably not the case, Colt would have warned me) or Colt’s reputation had preceded him, considering the number of people before Jones he’d told to go fuck themselves.

Merry didn’t miss Jones’s reaction.

“I see. You think you’re targeting the weak,” he whispered disturbingly.

“As an officer of the law,” Jones fired back, “you are aware that the study of the criminal mind is essential to understanding it, so that future incidences can either be avoided or the perpetrator can be tracked and caught before he or she causes too much damage.”

“So,” Merry took his hands off his hips and folded his arms on his chest, “you’re writin’ a criminology textbook?”

“No,” Jones bit off. “I have a contract with a traditional publisher.”

“Which means you’re cashin’ in on your FBI trainin’ to make money off of misery,” Merry deduced.

At that, Jones thankfully decided he was done.

I knew this when he stepped away from Merry and muttered, “I see that I’ll need to find alternative avenues to understanding Lowe’s psyche.”

“How’s this? The man was jacked,” Merry told him.

At these words, Jones’s face screwed up in a weird way that didn’t seem right to me.

But Merry wasn’t done talking, and as he kept going, Jones’s face shifted back to annoyance before I could figure it out.

“And that shit was textbook. There wasn’t anything new there, and you’ve got to have studied him so you know that’s the straight up truth. What you intend to do is not a service to the community, man. Be honest with yourself. And you fuck with people’s lives that they pieced together after that maniac ripped them apart, be honest with them that you’re doin’ this for cash in your pocket, book tours, and in hopes of seein’ your name on a film credit.”

That took Jones from annoyed and frustrated to pissed.

“Small-town cop who thinks he knows it all but doesn’t know dick. I’ll confirm you don’t know dick since you sure as fuck do not know me,” he clipped.

That didn’t sound very FBI-like.

Then again, what did I know? I’d only met a couple of them and, thankfully, our associations were brief.

“Small-town cop in the ’burg rocked by Dennis Lowe’s lunacy, and we’ve seen a lot of assholes like you,” Merry returned. “You’re standing outside the home of a woman Lowe fucked with that you underestimated, ’cause I’m tellin’ you now, you’re actually lucky you’re dealin’ with me. If I let her loose on you, she’d grind you to nothing. And that woman is my woman. So do not stand outside my woman’s home and tell me what I don’t know. I know you. I can see right through you. And all I see is ugliness and greed.”

“This conversation is over,” Jones murmured, beginning to move down the walk.

“It’s about fuckin’ time,” Merry decreed.

Jones kept walking, but he looked over his shoulder to hurl, “Small-town cop, small mind, and too stupid to know it doesn’t make him smart to have the last word.”

To my shock, at that biting retort, Merry busted out laughing.

Then I got it.

Jones didn’t leave the last word to Merry. He took it. Which meant he’d called his own damned self stupid.

I grinned.

Merry stopped laughing and stood, arms still on his chest, watching Jones walk to his rental car at the curb.

I stayed inside the door as Merry and I both watched Jones get in it, start it up, and drive away.

Merry turned his head to watch it go down the street.

I kept waiting.

Then he dropped his head and shifted to move up the steps of my stoop toward me.

I opened the door and opened my mouth to share with him how totally awesome he was, but I didn’t get a word out before he lifted his head, looked at me and I saw the ice still in his eyes.

I held the door, unable to move until he put his hand on it and kept moving toward me, which meant I had to move out of his way.

The storm whispered then banged and Merry locked it.

Then he slammed my front door, and locked that.

But he slammed it, the unexpected noise sounding loud in my silent living room, making me jump then slowly, step by step, retreat.

He again turned eyes of blue ice to me.

“That happen to you a lot?” he asked.

His conversational tone didn’t fool me, so I kept retreating.

“Stop moving,” he ordered.

I stopped moving.

“That happen to you a lot, Cher?” he pushed.

I opened my mouth, but my movement was again slowed by his vibe filling the air so full, it weighed on me.

Suddenly, he leaned forward and roared, “That happen to you a lot?”

“Not so much anymore, Merry,” I answered.

“Not so much anymore,” he repeated after me.

“Sometimes,” I shared carefully.

“Ethan open the door to that shit?” he asked.

“No,” I answered and thankfully did not lie.

“They call?” he kept at me.

Slowly, I nodded but added verbally, “Not so much anymore with that either.”

“Then, they don’t get what they want ’cause you shut them down, they come to the door?”

“Yeah, but not so much,” I reiterated. “Not anymore. Swear, Merry.”

“Think they’re targeting the weak,” he stated.

“Maybe it starts like that, but if they make it to my door, I handle it and educate them different.”

“You handle it,” Merry again repeated after me.

“Merry,” I whispered.

At the sound of his name, suddenly and without warning, he charged me. Automatically, I retreated and had to do it fast, so I tripped over my feet. Thankfully, that happened in a strategic place, so when I started to fall back, my shoulders slammed against the wall instead of me landing on my ass.

I could make no further move because Merry was so close to me, he was fencing me in.

Even if he wasn’t, he grabbed my wrist, lifted my hand, and pressed it to the wall over my head.

I sucked in a sharp breath of surprise and held it, lifting my other hand toward his chest, not knowing if I intended to rest it there in an attempt to calm him or push it against him in an attempt to escape.

I wouldn’t find out because he caught that wrist too, and then both of them were pinned to the wall over my head.

“Is there an us?” he asked.

My breasts brushed his chest as I started breathing heavily.

“Goddamn it, Cher, is there an us?” he clipped.

“I want there to be.”

Fuck!

It came out because he was freaking me out.

Fuck!

“Then there’s an us,” he declared firmly.

Oh God.

He wanted that to be too.

That made me unimaginably happy.

And it scared the absolute fucking shit out of me.

“And there bein’ an us, Cher, that means you’re mine. Ethan’s mine. Are you followin’ me?”

“Merry—”

“Yes or no, you followin’ me?”

I swallowed and it hurt that mid-throat it hitched because I needed way more than my normal oxygen in that moment and shutting my mouth to swallow meant not sucking in air.

“Answer me, sweetheart,” he ordered.

“Yes, I’m followin’ you.”

He adjusted my wrists to hold them in one hand so he could rest his other hand at my upper chest, right at the base of my throat.

This did not mean he was calming down or about to let me go.

It meant something else.

I just didn’t know what.

Yet.

“You’re followin’ me, which means you get me, which means from now on, any asshole phones you, you tell me,” he commanded.

That was when it occurred to me that his motions were claiming.

Shit.

“Okay, Merry.” I thought it sensible in his current mood to agree.

His hand at the base of my throat slid down, and suddenly, I wasn’t uncertain about the situation.

Well, not true. My head still was, but my body was having a different reaction.

“They come to the door, you do not lose your mind on them. I’m not close, you shut the door in their face and call me immediately.”

“Okay, Merry,” I repeated.

His hand kept going down.

“You don’t look after yourself. That’s not your job anymore, Cher. You leave that to me.”

Oh God, God, God, my eyes were burning even as the backs of my knees were tingling.

“Cher,” he prompted harshly.

“Okay, honey.”

“You don’t go it alone, not anymore, not in anything, with assholes like that guy or anybody who tries to get to you, ’cause while we ride this out, you don’t need that fortress. You don’t need it because you got me,” he declared.

I nodded, at that moment, his words penetrating, I was unable to speak.

His hand had slid between my breasts, down my belly, and his fingers shoved into the top of my jeans when he stated, “No one fucks with you, Cher. Not ever. But they sure as fuck do not show at your door and fuck with you.”

Without my permission, my eyes fell to his mouth as I whispered in agreement, “No one fucks with me.”

He undid the button on my jeans.

I drew in a soft, audible breath.

“Baby,” he called.

My eyes drifted up to his the exact moment his hand shoved inside my jeans then my panties and his middle finger hit my clit.

Oh yes, Merry was claiming.

My lips parted, a gust of breath whispering through as my eyes floated closed.

He pressed his middle finger back, gliding it through the slick folds, murmuring, “So damned wet, barely touched you.”

I tried to open my eyes but only got the lids up halfway before his finger moved again to my clit and started rolling.

Good.

So, so good.

“Oh God,” I breathed.

“Gave you time, Cherie. You needed it,” he whispered, his finger working magic. “You texting me sayin’ you’re sorry you fucked us up, tellin’ me you want us unfucked, tellin’ me you want to take a chance with me, that mean you done takin’ that time?”

I hadn’t intended to text.

I didn’t even know if I did text.

But I couldn’t think of that with what he was doing to me.

All I could do was confirm, “I’m done takin’ that time.”

He slid his finger back and filled me.

I bit my lip, my teeth gliding along the flesh as I pushed against his hold on my wrists so I could touch him while he was touching me.

“Be a good girl, baby,” he urged, and my lids lifted a centimeter as a whimper escaped me.

He did a slow circle inside me.

“You gonna be a good girl, Cherie?”

“Yes,” I panted.

He changed the rotation and shared, “Good girls get good things.”

I wanted good things generally, but specifically, right in that moment, I wanted them from Merry.

“Merry, need more, baby,” I whispered.

“How do you get what you need?”

He’d taught me that in bed when we were drunk but delicious fucking.

I tried to focus on him and gave him what I was taught. “Please, Merry.”

“That’s a good girl,” he murmured, sliding his finger out and going back to my clit, giving me what I needed.

My hips jerked, pressed, working with him as I moaned, “Yes.”

“Just so we’re clear, good girls get good things, Cher. Bad girls get punished.”

I was so going to be bad with Merry.

But right then, I was so far gone, I had to stick with good.

“Harder, Merry,” I breathed.

“How you get that?”

“Please,” I pleaded.

His mouth brushed mine. Then his tongue slid across my lower lip. I went for more and he pulled away, but he rolled harder with his finger, so I pressed my head to the wall.

“Yeah, honey,” I encouraged breathlessly.

“Work that,” he growled.

I worked it, rolling with him, helping him take me there, breathing erratically, my nipples hard and aching, brushing incessantly against his chest. I felt his mouth at my ear, sucking my lobe between his lips, his tongue touching the tip.

So little.

So much.

“Merry,” I gasped, my hips now moving desperately, my nipples no longer brushing because he’d pushed into me, my breasts now pressed against the hard wall of his chest. I felt the edge of his teeth skim down the taut flesh of my neck and that was it. “Merry!”

Not even close to in control, my head snapped back into the wall before dropping forward to hit his shoulder and my body tensed from wrists to toes. His finger kept at my clit and I drew in repeated soft breaths in quick succession as I experienced the sweet release.

I started trembling as it took its wondrous time coursing through me. I turned my head and pushed my forehead into his neck, barely noticing his hand release my wrists. My arms floated down to round his shoulders and hold on as he reduced the pressure at my clit but kept rolling, guiding me through the last pulses of the brilliant orgasm he gave me. And as if he could feel it drift away, when it did, he cupped me.

I held on loosely, unable to latch on, my body like a rag doll. Luckily, Merry had shifted an arm around my back to keep me steady as I fought to even my breathing.

Merry didn’t help with that as he gently slid his hand from my jeans, shifted slightly, just enough to get his hand between us, and I watched up close, my head still in his neck, his chin dipping down, as he slid his middle finger, wet with me, between his lips.