Have Mercy: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (19 page)

There was something there, something in the tensing of his muscles when she did that, something in the fire in her veins that she wanted to explore, though the thought terrified her more than it aroused her at that moment. Emme let her hand drift around Tom’s side, reveling in the smooth tautness of his skin, before she glanced the back of her hand over his cock, and it was so blazingly hot that it nearly burned.

Emme inhaled at the same moment as Tom, their breaths hissing in together as she touched him. With her body spread over his, her arm wrapped around his middle, she felt connected, like her edges had fuzzed and faded and blended in with his until she wasn’t sure where she stopped and where he started.

“Tell me how it feels, sugar,” she said, suddenly needing to hear his voice, his words. How this felt to him.

His voice was muffled when he spoke. “Good,” he said.

Emme pulled away from him enough to run one hand down his back, fingers curled to score his skin gently with her nails. Not hard enough to even leave a mark, just enough to scratch; just enough that, when she squeezed his cock with her other hand, he gasped. “You can do better than that,” she said.

And then she dug her nails in harder, just as she slid her hand up and then down his cock.

A thrill of power shot straight through her body; Tom jerked under her hand, pre-come dampening the tip of his cock. “It feels amazing,” he breathed. “Harder. Please.”

Emme bit the bottom of her lip at that, trying to hold in a laugh—at his adorable eagerness, maybe, or just the giant bubble of emotion that was growing inside her chest that demanded some sort of release: laughter, tears, or even better …

A hard slap on the meatiest part of Tom’s ass.

His groaned, “Oh,
God
, Emme,” registered at the same time as the reverberations of the movement up her palm, her arm, through her whole body. He bucked back against her, but his hands didn’t leave the headboard, just as she’d ordered. It was a release of sorts, that smack opening a pressure valve that let out some of the overwhelming emotions swirling in her chest, even as it added to them.

“You don’t get to tell me how hard, sugar,” she said. She ran her hand over the place she’d struck. She hadn’t hit him hard; the shock of the sound had caused his reaction more than the pressure she’d used. “I do what I want, and you tell me how it feels.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and he turned and smiled at her, a quick flash of dimples letting her know that he knew just how devastating she found those words.

His face wasn’t the only place he had dimples. With his back exposed to her, she could see the twin indentations on either side of his vertebrae at the end of his spine. Caving to an impulse she’d had since she first saw them, she fitted her thumbs inside and pressed down hard, pulling him back against her hips as she did.

Her reward was his long, low groan. “Fuck, Emme,” he said in a voice that had been pulled from somewhere deep in him. He panted, and she watched the skin over his knuckles tighten as he gripped the headboard tighter.

Emme had to struggle for air herself. Everything about him was beautiful, vulnerable, lovely, and it wasn’t enough. She wanted to pull him inside her, climb into him, shed her skin and don his. Frightening feelings, intense feelings, the kind that were never, ever safe.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

Tom nodded and pressed his ass to her. “Yeah. But it hurts good.”

“You want more?”

“God yes.”

Her hand fell on his ass again, almost of its own accord. This time it landed a little harder, hard enough to raise a little pinkness to his skin. “You brought me your belt.”

“Yes.”

Emme ran her hand along his side, traced his cock with the backs of her fingers. He thrust closer to her hand, a moan escaping his mouth. “What did you imagine I’d do with it, sugar?”

“Whatever you wanted.”

Emme landed another slap, this time on the other side of his ass. “Not good enough.” She knew what she wanted, but she needed him to say it, ask for it, make her desires acceptable instead of scary.

And she wanted him to tell her, trust her enough to say what he was too shy to come right out and ask for.

“You could …” Tom groaned when she stroked his cock, her hand loose and gentle as she did. “God that feels amazing.”

Emme draped herself over his back, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades, and kept stroking. “Go on.”

Tom cleared his throat. A wash of pink was spreading up his shoulders, along the back of his neck. Emme could see the little hairs on the back of his neck raise with her breath. “You could tie me up with it. My hands. And then use me.”

“Hmm.” Emme pictured him for a moment, bound, erect, at her mercy. A sharp bite of heat ran through her at the thought. He’d be so beautiful that way. But she suspected that wasn’t all he wanted, so she did what she did best.

She pushed.

“I could, but that’s not what you really want, is it?” she whispered, and then she hit him, hard, one hand landing on his ass with enough force to jar her palm at the same time she tightened her grip on his cock with her other hand, jerking.

“Oh,
fuck
, Emme, please
God
—” Every muscle in his body tensed beneath her. “I’m going to come, I can’t help it …”

“Help it,” she commanded.

Tom’s breath came jagged and hard. She felt him swallow, watched his hands shift on the headboard. “Beat me,” he said finally, once he’d gotten himself back under control. “Beat me with it. I want you to. I’ve dreamed about it. Thought about it.”

There it was, her desires, spoken aloud and granted permission by him. The edges of the room went liquid in her peripheral vision until Emme remembered to breathe. “Tell me your safe word.”

“Fender.” He didn’t hesitate, even as far gone as he was, aroused and trembling and never, ever moving from the position she’d put him in.

“You’ll say it. If you need to.” It was a command and a question.

Tom turned to face her. He let go of the headboard for a moment—just long enough to cup her face gently in his rough hand. “Trust me. I’ll say it if I need to. Let go.”

Emme thought of him leading her when they danced, how competent his body had felt moving against hers. She kissed him then, letting him hold her jaw. She pulled back and nuzzled into his shoulder before issuing orders again.

“Hold the headboard. Don’t move. And don’t come.”

His dick jerked at that order, and Emme had to smile. She wanted him to hold out; she wanted to be able to take him later. But if he couldn’t that was okay, too. She wanted his pleasure as much as her own, which she could honestly say was something she had
never
felt before.

Emme scooted down off the bed. Tom’s belt lay folded next to him, and she picked it up, running her fingers over the leather. She’d never done anything like this before; she wasn’t entirely sure how to do this without hurting him. She knew she’d stay away from the buckle end, but other than that, she was at a loss.

Emme folded the belt over, holding the buckle end in her hand. She flicked her wrist and the leather slapped against itself with a satisfying noise. Tom’s whole body twitched at the sound.

There was only one way to find out if the pressure was right. Emme had never been interested in pain herself, but if she was willing to inflict it on Tom, she supposed she needed to know what she was doing. She held out her inner arm and aimed the belt at the tender skin there.

Even with the satisfying
crack
, the pressure was more of a sting or a slap than real pain. It faded to an amazing sort of burn, one that she wasn’t sure she’d enjoy if Tom weren’t writhing naked on her bed. She waited to make sure nothing worse followed. Her arm turned pink and a tiny stripe formed where she’d struck it; she’d have to make sure not to hit too hard then.

The thought of marking up Tom’s skin, though … she had to bite her bottom lip to keep in a
moan.

Emme felt that top-of-the-rollercoaster stomach drop that she seemed to have so often around Tom. She raised her arm and let go.

When the leather slapped against his skin, Tom’s entire body reacted. He hissed in a breath at the same time that his muscles jumped, ropey and tight against his bones. He rocked forward, then back toward Emme but he left his knees on the bed and his hands on the headboard.

A wave of heat slammed through her at the sight. Emme felt like she’d been standing knee-deep in the ocean and suddenly tumbled ass-over-teakettle onto the shore. She struck again, this time on the other side.

It was like playing a new instrument for the first time; the few strokes, tentative and frightening, loaded with the fear of the sound emerging differently than she heard it in her head. But she’d always been a fast learner, and before long the song had changed, taking on a melody and rhythm of its own. She lost herself in it, the steady burn in her shoulder, the sweaty cadence of Tom’s body as the belt fell, and fell, and fell. Wrapped in the moment, the sound of his voice as he spoke, harsh grunts of
God
and
more
and
please
the bass line above the drumbeat of the leather, the rush of her own breath, the sound of her pumping blood, the melody and harmony twining above them.

Even as lost as she was, when she saw the raised pink lines begin to form on Tom’s skin, she stopped. Learning any new instrument required practice, and she hated the thought of souring the song before she knew what she was doing. And besides, she couldn’t bear to keep her hands from him any longer.

She dropped Tom’s belt onto the nightstand. Her shoulder ached. That need to get closer, as close as possible, swept inside her again, and she shimmied out of her bra and underwear. She needed to feel his skin pressed against hers, take in the pattern of lines on his back and ass, absorb his pain and arousal and everything else about him.

“You can let go now,” she said, and her voice shook. So did her knees as she clambered up next to him, running her hand lightly over the stripes she’d made.

It was like she’d let a leopard out of its cage; he turned and grabbed her around the waist, pushing her down onto the bed and kissing her hungrily. She couldn’t mind, though, because she wanted to consume him just as much. Their tongues tangled, teeth knocking together inelegantly. The weight of his body atop hers was sweet, warm and hard and perfect. Emme slid her fingers up through his hair and tugged, pulling his head back, running the edge of her teeth along the side of his neck.

She wanted to bite down, tear his skin. Instead she nipped, then kissed, and pushed Tom over onto his back.

He moaned when his ass hit the sheets, and Emme immediately pulled back. “Too much?” She imagined tender skin, red now, pressed into the hotel bed, and although the thought turned her on, there was a little nub of shame behind it, that she would enjoy something that might actually hurt him.

“No. Good. It feels like you’re still hurting me.” Tom squirmed against the bed as he reached for her. “I didn’t want you to stop.”

Emme hadn’t really wanted to stop, either, but until she knew more about what she was doing, she didn’t want to risk harming him. “We’ll learn,” she promised, and the possibility those words conjured up—nights together, days together, enough time to make mistakes and figure things out and learn each other’s bodies—filled her with sweetness. It pressed against her until she had no choice, really, but to drape herself over Tom and kiss him while her hands shook and he wrapped his arms around her.

He said her name each time she pulled away for breath, a prayer, a mantra.

The sweetness grew claws, sharpened her desire. Tom’s erection pressed into her belly, hot and live, his hands roving over her back. His brows were drawn down, but his eyes were open, blue and sharp and watching her with wonder. Emme ground her sex slowly against his taut abdomen, tormenting him and torturing herself. Tom gasped and reached for her shoulders; from the tightly leashed tension in his muscles, she could tell that he was trying not to pull her against him, push her onto him. That kind of restraint took strength; the more she discovered about him, the more strength she found.

This strong man with his tight muscles and tattoos, his disreputable scruff, was willing to hold himself back and follow her commands. He could overpower her if he wanted; he could take her against her will, he could use her and then scorn her and call her a whore, but he wouldn’t. He let her lead, let her have his trust, let her have the control she needed so desperately.

She wanted him inside her in every way she could have him.

Emme scooted to the edge of the bed and yanked open the nightstand drawer. The box of condoms she’d bought in Tuscaloosa was still wrapped in plastic, and it confounded her lust-clumsy fingers.

Tom reached over her and took the box, ripping it open and sending foil packets flying in every direction. She laughed then at the ridiculousness of it all, the intensity of her feelings juxtaposed with
the inability to act on them, at Tom’s adorably befuddled look as he scrambled to grab one of the condoms, at how silly the whole idea was, of being naked and panting and yearning together, and just how unselfconscious she felt, even knowing all of that.

“I have to ask.” Tom had finally managed to push the rest of them off the bed and tear one of the packets open. “How long have you had these? Did you plan this for tonight?”

Emme shook her head. “I bought them in Tuscaloosa.”

Tom groaned as he sheathed himself. “You mean we could have been doing this for a week now?”

“I had to be certain you were ready,” Emme said. She bit her lip, leaned forward so that her hair fell around his face. “Are you ready?”

Tom pushed his hand through her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “You are the biggest tease on the planet.” He thrust up toward her, then stopped himself, hand tightening in her hair. “I love it.”

That word did strange and shivery things to Emme’s insides.

It scared her how much she liked hearing it in Tom’s mouth, how much the longing she felt for him hurt.

She cupped his face in her hands as she sank down onto him. She went slowly because she was so swollen and aroused that it took her a moment to open, soften, unfold for his girth, but also because she had teased herself for so long that this moment had come to mean something, a bridge to cross that hid mysteries on the opposite bank.