Have Mercy: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance

by Shelley Ann Clark

  “That’s very enlightened of you.”

  “Fuck that. It’s just fair.”

  If she were free from guilt, how would she tell the story? She’d been no innocent, and certainly no victim. She’d also been young, and she’d never had a boyfriend before, just a series of disappointing college hookups. It wasn’t an excuse, but Jared had seemed—untouchable. Safe. Okay to flirt with, because he was married and wouldn’t, couldn’t, flirt back. Except that he did, which had been the biggest disappointment of all, even worse than when he’d let her take the fall for him.

  Emme slid out of the booth. “Scoot over.”

  Tom shuffled closer to the wall as she pushed herself in beside him, resting her thigh against his, the length of their legs touching all the way down to the side of her foot, pressed along the side of his. He sucked in a breath as she invaded his space, crowding him just enough to make him tense.

  “I joined their North American tour almost right out of college,” she said. “I was twenty-three. I’d never really had a boyfriend before.”

  “Really?” Tom interrupted. “I’m sorry, but that’s surprising.”

  “This is going to sound arrogant, maybe, but none of the guys I’d met ever really seemed good enough. They were either afraid of me or they seemed like they wanted to control me, somehow. Lots of posturing, you know?”

  Tom’s brow furrowed as he thought. “That doesn’t sound arrogant. That sounds like you knew your own mind, even then. It takes most people a lot longer to reach that point.”

  God, he was sweet. So sweet that she wanted to push him and push him and push him. Emme rested a finger on his knee, tracing little circles as she talked. “So. I joined the tour, and you know how it is. You spend all your time surrounded by people, but it can be the loneliest place in the world.” Tom’s thigh muscle twitched as she edged her finger up along the ridge where his kneecap met muscle. “And Jared … when he and Christina sang together, they had this incredible chemistry, and I wanted to have something like that. I wanted someone to want me that way.”

  Something about telling Tom this story was making Emme feel hot and restless. She wanted him to want her, she wanted to make him hurt and yearn, and then she wanted to reward him for it, relieve him of it, make it all better.

  “So what happened?” Tom asked, his voice hoarse, as he leaned closer.

  Emme traced a larger figure eight on his knee, the design looping farther up his thigh with each pass. “I sang my fucking heart out, and he noticed. She noticed, too, but he noticed. And maybe, I …” Emme scraped her nails over the warm denim, scratching enough to hear the sound of her finger against the fabric. “Teased him. A little.”

  She felt a shudder run through Tom’s body. “How did you tease him?”

  Oh. That question made all sorts of firecrackers ignite under her skin. Tom’s breath, coming more heavily now, leaking through those words, made him sound wide-eyed and innocent and corruptible.

  Poor thing, because she wanted to corrupt him.

  “Well …” Emme slid her hand farther up his leg, felt his muscles twitch as he tried to hold still. “Little things, at first. Like …” The real story was sad and more than a little pathetic. She’d blushed like a fiend whenever Jared had spoken to her, closed her eyes because she couldn’t bear to watch his face when she sang, and hardly been able to work up the nerve to talk to him alone. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. She wasn’t Emily. She was Emme now, and Emme could get her lover worked up by telling a dirty story in a diner booth. She could make a man hot telling him about games she’d never really played.

  She shifted in the booth, her hip nudging against his. “I’d put a little extra sway in my hips when I walked by him. So he would imagine what I might look like under my clothes.” His thigh was hot under her hand as she traced a meandering path from the top of his leg to the inside seam of his jeans. “And if I happened to drop something while he stood behind me, and had to bend over to pick it up, well … sometimes I’d just … not wear anything under my dress.”

  Tom let out a sound that Emme thought might be a combination of a laugh and a groan. “Evil.”

  “Maybe. But not nearly as evil as the audio file I sent him. I let him think it was a new song, but it was me. Thinking of him. While I …”

  “Oh my God.” Tom’s face had turned a shade of red Emme had never seen before. “You really did that?”

  Emme shook her head. “No. Not really. But I might do something like that in the future. If you wanted.”

  Tom looked at her, blushing, grinning, and said, “That’s awesome. Hell yeah, I want,” and all she felt was pride, not shame.

  Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? In the end, she’d felt ashamed. Ashamed of her own actions, so deeply ashamed of what she’d wanted that she hadn’t even been able to defend herself for what she hadn’t even done. And then Jared had let her take the fall in the media, and no one had even asked her if it was true—not Dave, not her own mother. They’d all just assumed the worst of her. The only person who had bothered to find out the truth was sitting next to her at this table.

  But now Tom was looking at her like she was some kind of miracle, and her hand had found its way between his legs, and somehow her face was pressed against the side of his neck and she was rubbing her cheek against his scratchy two-day beard.

  Emme hadn’t intended to rest her head on Tom’s shoulder, or to snuggle up next to him in the booth. She’d planned to tease and tempt and torment him; she wasn’t sure when that impulse had given over to the need for full-body contact. When the country-pop song on the jukebox ended and Patsy Cline’s voice came over the speakers, she hummed along, feeling the vibration of her own voice shiver through Tom’s body and echo back into hers where they were pressed together.

  Tom thumped his hip against hers. “Scootch.”

  Emme climbed out of the booth and Tom followed, taking her hand. She wasn’t sure what he intended, at first, but when he pulled her close to him, she protested. “Bad dancer,” she reminded him.

  One big, warm hand clasped her waist, pulling her body into his until they stood hip to hip. “I’m strong enough to lead,” he whispered. “Relax.”

  She thought it would be hard to trust him but it wasn’t. She stopped thinking about her feet and instead leaned into him, face pressed into his neck, as he guided her. A change of pressure of his hand told her which direction to go; a slight pull and push had her turning under his arm. To her surprise, he caught her back against him without either of them missing a step.

  “See?” he said smugly. “Told you you’d just been dancing with the wrong guys.”

  “Shh,” she admonished. “Don’t talk. I’m trying to enjoy dancing with this really hot guy.”

  Tom smiled but didn’t answer, pulling her close enough to feel the hot length of his erection pressing against her lower belly. She loved feeling his arousal, a counterpoint to the slow sweetness of their dance together. She wanted something hot and hard and fierce from him but tempered by his sweetness. She wanted to draw it out of him, keep him safe in her hands, then push him until he gave in to her.

  As the last few notes of the song faded, she reached up, cupping the back of his neck with her hand. He bent down toward her with the slightest pressure of her hand against him, reading her cues perfectly. She skated her lips over his ear gently before whispering, “I am going to make you beg tonight.”

  The heat in Tom’s eyes when she pulled away from him raised goose bumps all over her body. “Please,” he said, and then he smiled.

  Chapter Seven

  Somehow, Emme managed not to touch him on the walk back to their hotel from the restaurant, focusing instead on the islands of light in the parking lot, the empty darkness of the interstate connector road, the whoosh of air-conditioning as the sliding doors to the lobby opened. She kept herself on the opposite side of the elevator for the trip up to her room.

  By the time her key card opened the lock, her min
d had created and discarded a thousand fantasies, enough to fill all the nights of a lifetime, and she could barely decide how to start.

  It was her own imaginings that undid her in the end. By the time that little green light flashed on the door handle, she could only think yes and now and finally. She had him backed against the door almost before it shut behind them.

  Tom’s mouth was soft against hers, his lips opening for her when she traced them with her tongue. His head thudded back against the door and she slid her hands up his neck, behind his head, holding him in place and protecting him from the hard wood of the door. Tom’s hands slid around her waist, pulling her closer to his body as she slid the edge of her teeth along his bottom lip.

  The scruff along Tom’s neck scratched at her tongue as Emme licked a path from his shoulder to a spot behind his ear that made him shudder. He gasped when she wound her fingers in his hair and tugged hard enough to pull his head back so she could kiss his Adam’s apple.

  But when Tom cupped her ass in his broad hands, pulling her close enough to feel his erection grinding against her, she pulled back.

  She’d said she was going to make him beg, and he seemed to like that idea almost as much as she did. She tugged at his hair one last time and stepped away from him.

  He didn’t follow. He’s showing me what he wants. The realization hit her so hard she almost stumbled. He wouldn’t just tolerate her being in charge. He wanted it.

  Tom’s chest rose and fell rapidly, his eyes lust-glazed and heavy-lidded. His hair stood out in all directions from where she’d had her hands in it. He slumped against the door, his hands resting against it without her even having to tell him to keep them there. Nice. She hadn’t ever really thought about wanting that before, but now she did. Him obeying her. Him doing what she asked. And instead of being a bossy bitch because of it, him loving it as much as she did.

  Fuck. She felt like someone had just handed her a triple-chocolate brownie covered in ice cream, and she was going to eat every last bite.

  Emme backed up into the room, watching Tom watch her as she stopped beside the chair.

  “Do you want to see me naked?” she asked.

  Tom’s throat worked as he swallowed. “God, yes,” he said.

  Emme shrugged. “Too bad.”

  A dark flush spread over Tom’s cheekbones in response. His hips thrust forward like they did when he played his bass, like she imagined they would if she were bent over in front of him, before he caught himself and stopped.

  “I want to see you naked,” she said, dropping into the chair. “Start with your shirt, please.”

  Emme’s pulse beat hotly in her throat as she watched Tom step forward, away from the door. He didn’t drop his gaze, instead staring back at her with those razor-sharp blue eyes cutting through all her defenses. I can take what you give me, that look said. And although she didn’t doubt it, she raised one eyebrow in challenge.

  He started with the buttons closest to his neck, slowly pushing each one through the hole. He wore the sleeves of his plaid shirt rolled up to reveal his forearms, hair-dusted and thick, the tattoo a constant reminder of his tenacity and his strength. Emme crossed her legs, tightening her thigh muscles against her own slippery emptiness as he pulled the shirt off his shoulders and tossed it onto the floor.

  His faded band T-shirt underneath stretched across his chest. His body was thin, leanly muscled, and the shirt was old enough and thin enough that she could see the shadow of his chest hair through it. Tom smiled that little-boy-into-mischief smile at her as he paused with his hands on the hem of his T-shirt. “Should I keep going?”

  Emme bit her lip to keep from smiling back at him. “Maybe. I’d like to get a little more comfortable first.” She pulled her own hoodie off over her head, letting it land somewhere in the vicinity of the bed. She should be wearing her dress, her stockings, her heels, for this. At the very least, she knew she could tease him in return, make him pant and sweat and lose his mind a little before she gave him any relief. The sight of her in a white T-shirt over her sheer, black lace bra should do the trick.

  Emme was duly rewarded by the sight of Tom’s hands fluttering uselessly at his sides, his chest heaving as he tried to breathe. “Now,” she said, “you can keep going. T-shirt off, Tom.”

  The feeling of his name in her mouth was almost as good as the sight of a sliver of his belly as he lifted the hem of his shirt. He raised it slowly, revealing one intriguing inch at a time: the hair that ran from below his navel into his jeans; the contours of that gorgeous line of muscle that jutted sideways at his hip; the hint of his ribs beneath his skin. By the time she could see his other tattoo, a line of music above his heart, her heart was trying to escape from her chest and her underwear was completely soaked through.

  When his T-shirt joined his button-up on the floor, Emme had to move from her chair. “Stay there,” she warned. “Don’t move.”

  Tom nodded, but she could see—see—his erection jerk behind his jeans at the order. He even put his hands together behind his back and oh, God, that just sent her.

  He was telling her that he was hers to command, that he wouldn’t move if she didn’t tell him to. God, he was placing a lot of trust in her hands, but he was teaching her at the same time. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed.

  For half a second, she wondered what other woman had taught him to do this, and hated that woman fiercely. Then she got over it, sent her thanks to that former partner for the lessons, and opened her eyes to look at him.

  His torso was a buffet of warm skin and silky fur and muscle stretched over bone, and Emme wanted to gorge herself on it. The scruff on his face and neck joined the hair on his chest, thicker at the top and narrowing down along his belly to a thin line. She knew he was strong, had seen him lift equipment before, but had no idea that his shoulders would be quite so rounded, his abs quite so defined.

  “You work out?”

  Tom blushed gratifyingly. “When I can’t sleep. When I want some really amazing woman who won’t let me have her.”

  “Deprivation does a body good.”

  Tom groaned at that, or maybe he groaned because she put her hands on him as she said it, running them over the divot of his collarbone, down the length of his arms, cupping and kneading as she went. She stepped forward and nuzzled her face into the hair on his chest, breathing in his sunny laundry soap smell where it was strongest.

  She ran her finger along the tattoo over his heart, tracing the notes, unable to stop herself from humming the tune—the opening to “It Hurts Me Too.” Oh, she wanted to know what that was all about, but that was a question for later. Instead, her thumbs found the ridge of muscle along his sides as she licked his nipple, and she smiled against his skin at his sharp intake of breath and the hard shudder that ran through him.

  “You like that?” she asked, her breath feathering through his chest hair.

  She felt his murmured “Mmm” vibrate against her face, so she did it again.

  He felt so good against her, so real and warm and solid and willing, and she’d told him her truth and he hadn’t backed away. She took a deep breath before she spoke again, feeling her breath on his skin, the warmth of his body radiating into hers. “Is this okay?”

  “Yeah,” Tom’s voice came out sounding broken.

  “I mean …” Emme tipped her head back to look at him, really look. “If I tell you what to do. Is it okay?” She couldn’t help herself, then; she rested her hand against his cheek, rubbing her thumb over his jaw. He felt so big and masculine compared to her, but she was so afraid of hurting him, scaring him. Scaring herself.

  Tom slipped his hands up, tangling them in her hair, his calluses scratchy against her cheeks. His gaze was serious. “Don’t be polite,” he said. “Don’t be nice. I don’t want polite or nice.” He bent down to her, nuzzling under her hair, brushing his lips softly against the skin behind her ear. “I want you. How you are.”

  The words and the tiny shooting sparks sent up b
y his mouth on her neck, his breath in her ear, gave her the courage she needed and an unexpected rush of tenderness. “Good,” she said, right before she tightened her grip in his hair, pulling his head back.

  “Now,” she said, surprised at how breathless her own voice sounded, “I’m going to sit back down and watch you take off your belt. But first …”

  Emme turned around, tossing a glance at Tom over her shoulder. His eyes snapped straight to her ass in her yoga pants, and she grinned. She hooked her fingers in the waistband and pushed, bending over at the waist as she did. She heard his tortured groan as she gave a little wiggle, working the stretchy material down over her hips, leaving her lace boy shorts on.

  He could probably see how wet her underwear was. He could probably smell her. She could drive him completely insane, but she knew he’d stay right where he stood until she told him to move.

  She kicked the pants away and stood, then seated herself on the chair again, legs slightly parted. She leaned back when she saw Tom’s eyes slip between her thighs. “Belt, sugar.”

  Tom shook his head as if to clear it, and Emme had to stifle a laugh. She was tempted to tell him, My eyes are up here, but that would ruin the fun of feeling his gaze like its own touch against her where she was soaked and needy.

  And anyway, her words were all stolen when he reached for the leather of his belt. His hands enclosed the end, pulling at the buckle, and it looked like it did when he played his bass, plucking at the strings. The clink of the metal against metal and the shush as the leather slithered free of his belt loops set something inside Emme on fire.