Have Mercy: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance

by Shelley Ann Clark

  And then, once his belt was free, he brought it to her and handed it to her. And said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Jesus. She hadn’t anticipated that, hadn’t asked for that, but when he gave her the leather, warm from his skin, she gasped aloud. She held it up to her face, rubbed her cheek against it. Oh, what she could do with that strap. Her imagination dove right in, even as some sensible part of her brain said No. Not yet. Too much.

  She hesitated, and in the end, laid the belt down at her feet. She could use it. If she decided to.

  While Emme spontaneously combusted, Tom had moved back to his spot on the floor and stood with his hands behind his back again. His jeans, without the belt to hold them up, slid down his hips, giving Emme an even better view of that ridge of muscle that she so, so badly wanted to run her mouth along. She had to take a deep breath before she could resume anything close to command.

  “Now your jeans, please.”

  If Tom looked disappointed, it was only for the barest second before he flicked the button open.

  He lowered his zipper slowly, the sound of the teeth echoing in the quiet room. Emme felt light-headed, and it wasn’t just because she was holding her breath. By the time his fly gaped open, jeans sliding even lower, waistband of his boxer briefs visible, her hand had somehow found its way inside her own underwear, rubbing light circles around her clit.

  Tom moaned deep in his throat at the sight of her touching herself. “You want this?” Emme asked.

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  “Then you need to take your jeans off.”

  It took a monumental effort for Emme to pull her hand back onto the arm of the chair as Tom shoved his jeans to the floor. She could see the outline of his cock clearly through the clinging fabric of his underwear, a damp spot of pre-come darkening the front. His legs were strong and hair-covered; there was even something sexy about the arch of his bare feet.

  “All of it.” Emme forced the words out beyond her own arousal. “Take them off.”

  Once again, Tom surprised her. She thought he’d drop his briefs right there, maybe tease her a little by pulling them down slowly. Instead, he turned around in a parody of her earlier trick with her yoga pants, glancing at her over his shoulder, and bent over at the waist as he pushed them down.

  His ass was a work of art; round, firm, with two dimples at the top that Emme wanted to push her thumb into hard. And the thought of him purposefully mimicking her actions, teasing her, made her want to bite him, ride him, punish and reward him.

  “Stop playing,” she snapped. “I want to see your cock.”

  She couldn’t believe the words had come out of her mouth, and part of her wanted to take them back. They sounded so rude, so bossy, that surely he’d be turned off.

  But he wasn’t. He just turned around and faced her, let her look him over.

  His chest had been a wonder, his ass a work of beauty, but the whole of him put together, on display for her, made Emme into a throbbing ball of want. That tattoo above his heart and his muscled frame, his loose-limbed stance, and the proud jut of his gorgeous, glorious cock, all of it combined into the best gift anyone had ever given her. She wanted her hands on him, her mouth on him, him inside her, everything all at once.

  But there was one more thing she wanted even more. Some devil on her shoulder whispered the idea in her ear. She wasn’t brave enough for the belt, not yet, but this, this she could do.

  “Come here, sugar,” she said.

  Tom took a step toward her, but she stopped him with one raised hand. “No. On your hands and knees.”

  “You want me to crawl?”

  Oh, when he put it that way, she felt horrible for even thinking of it. Horrible, and powerful, and incredibly turned on. She almost took it back.

  But then, fucking hell, he smiled at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Just like that, with that one little smile, that one little word, he dropped to his hands and knees on the dirty hotel carpet.

  Tom knelt on the floor of Emme’s hotel room, completely naked, neck arched to look up at her.

  She sat in the room’s only chair, her hands on its arms, knees apart, in a pair of black underwear and a white T-shirt. She looked like a queen in a throne waiting for her subjects to bow in front of her, but he could see the damp fabric of her underpants, see her breasts rise and fall with her breath, and he knew that whatever they were doing, it turned her on as much as it turned him on.

  And it did turn him on. He should have felt stupid, kneeling and naked, dick bobbing out in front of him like some kind of ridiculous flag, but he felt amazing. Terrified and exhilarated all at once. Like he was at the top of a roller coaster and might, possibly, just let go and fly right off the track.

  He’d had long-term girlfriends, three of them, and all three had been women he’d tried to rescue from themselves. None of those women had made him want to throw himself at their feet and beg for mercy. Hell, he wouldn’t have trusted most of them to water his plants while he was out of town, much less issue commands he was expected to obey.

  But no one, not even Macy, the singer who’d given him two nights of lessons in submission, had radiated the kind of competence Emme did. No matter what happened, she could handle it. Hell, she probably had a color-coded binder full of spreadsheets of plans for him. That strength made it so easy to trust her, let her take over.

  He wasn’t even worried about doing this right, because he knew Emme would tell him if he was wrong. She’d tell him, and then she’d make him do it again until he got it right, just like she did when the band learned a new song.

  Fuck. Why was that thought so hot?

  Emme crooked a finger at him, and he crawled across the carpet. He could feel her eyes on the muscles of his shoulders as he went, as slowly as he could manage to give her a better show. He’d never been drunk, never been high, but surely the feeling was something like this: like time had slowed down and sped up at once, like it was Christmas morning and he’d won the lottery and gotten a fucking huge birthday cake all at the same time.

  And like his dick might explode if Emme so much as touched him.

  He stopped when he reached the edge of her chair. She looked so beautiful, so soft and feminine sitting there, but there was a spine of steel behind it, and he wanted to be inside her in every possible way: feel what she felt, know what she thought.

  “You look good kneeling at my feet, sugar,” she said, her voice huskier than usual. Her red-painted toes curled into the carpet, and fuck, the sound of that word in her voice, that sugar, so deceptively sweet-sounding and so wicked underneath, made him want to weep and beg and hold her until she pushed him away.

  “I’m always kneeling at your feet,” Tom said. “Even when I’m standing.” And God, it was true. He couldn’t even berate himself for saying it, because it was so true.

  Emme reached for him at that, winding her fingers in his hair. She pulled, but she also scratched gently at his scalp, petting him, and he closed his eyes and let her drag his head closer to her knees. There was something proprietary in her touch, something that made him want to give over to her and to trust that if he did, he would like the results.

  “Kiss me,” she commanded, and he did, running his lips along the inside of her knee, licking along the top of her thigh. Her skin tasted like expensive perfume, like some combination of vanilla and woods and sex. He imagined her dousing herself with it from an old-fashioned atomizer, some crystal bottle with a fringed bulb. Her leg was soft, and when he ran his tongue along the side of it, her skin bunched into goose bumps, so he did it some more.

  Emme slid farther down in the chair, moving her hips to the edge of the seat, and all the blood in Tom’s body pounded in his dick. “You want to fuck me?” she asked.

  Tom knew by now that the question wasn’t likely to mean that he’d get to. He was pretty sure he’d say yes and she’d give him some variation on no in response. But he didn’t care. He welcomed the torture.

  “Yes,” he said.


  Emme smiled and stroked her hand through his hair again, like she was trying to take the sting out of her next words. “I’m sorry. That’s not going to happen tonight.”

  How could frustration and disappointment feel so much like arousal? He couldn’t help himself; he thrust forward, his dick seeking contact with anything, anything, at those cruel words.

  “Get up, sweetheart.”

  Oh, he didn’t like the sound of that at all. That sounded like she might command him to put his clothes back on, leave her alone, not let him touch her ever again, and that might kill him. He inhaled a shaky breath and stood on rubber legs.

  “Go to the bed and get a pillow.” It was a command, all right, but it came out of her mouth in a sweet, slow drawl. “I don’t want you to hurt those pretty knees.”

  Tom had to stop himself from doing a fist-pump at that. He couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face, big and goofy-looking, most likely, but hell, he was buck-naked and pulling a pillow off the bed to kneel on the floor in front of her, so how could he look any sillier, really? And anyway, if that command meant what he thought it meant, there would be no keeping the smile off his mouth.

  When he knelt in front of her again, he reached up and stroked her knee with his fingertips, pressed a tiny kiss to her kneecap. She twisted her fingers in his hair again, brown eyes warm and liquid as she said:

  “I think you need to make me come, sugar. Prove that you’ll be worth it.” And then she leaned back and opened her thighs, and some tightly coiled spring inside Tom exploded open.

  Oh, thank God. He wanted to bury himself in her, consume her, be consumed by her. The thought of her smell, her taste surrounding him sounded like the best song he’d ever, ever played. Before he could stop the words, he heard himself say, “Thank you,” all breathless and horny.

  She almost giggled. He felt her body jump under his fingers as she rubbed her knee across his cheek. “You’re welcome. Pleasure’s mine, I hope.”

  Oh, he hoped so, too. He hoped so badly that his hands were shaking by the time he reached for the edges of her underwear. When he hooked his fingers into the material and slid it down over the pale soft roundness of her ass, he felt like he had the night of his audition with her—intimidated, thrilled to make music, and determined to make every note exactly right.

  Tom couldn’t keep his mouth from her skin. When Emme slid down in the chair to give him better access, he leaned forward, breathing against the inside of her leg. He watched the fine, downy hairs there lift in response, saw her moving restlessly, and it was the same as hitting a new rhythm he hadn’t imagined before in the middle of a song. “I love your legs,” he heard himself say, and his voice was as soft as the skin on the inside of her thighs.

  That earned him a little squirm, so he tried for more. The hollow in the back of her knee was a valley he discovered, explored with his tongue, and in return, he earned a quiet sigh. When he hummed against the nook where her thigh dipped into somewhere a little more interesting, she jerked so hard in the chair that she almost kneed him in the face.

  “Oh, sugar, I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “You okay?”

  He was more than okay. He gripped her legs a little harder just to hold himself in place. “God, I’m fine. You’re so soft.” And then when her smile took on a mean edge and she pulled his head closer to her center, his own breath was coming fast and heavy, the way it did onstage when the audience buzz was just the right amount to feed energy back into a song.

  By the time his mouth reached her pussy, Tom felt like he was drowning in Emme, and it was exactly the way he wanted to die. Her thighs trapped his head, her wetness coated his lips, and the feeling of her against his mouth surrounded him. Nothing in the world existed but the sensation of her clit against his tongue, the tension in her legs as he worked two fingers into her, the hot wet depth of her tightening around his fingers as he licked.

  She gave directions, and he followed them. He didn’t have to worry if she would come; she would make sure she did. “Just like that,” she told him when he traced a circle around her clit with his tongue. “So good, sugar. Now do it a little faster.” Then, after a moment: “Now suck, baby. God.” He felt himself dropping away from everything else in the world; he was nothing, just part of her body, designed to please her.

  He was part of her, too, when she started to unravel, when all that commanding presence dissolved into unadulterated greed for him. That velvet voice of hers moaned, her hands clutching at his hair, her hips lifting off the chair as she worked herself on his fingers and mouth. When he felt her clenching against his fingers, he pushed harder, rewarded by her hoarse cry as she came for what felt like hours, and it felt like his orgasm, his pleasure.

  He kissed her down from the high, nuzzling and licking, reluctant to pull his fingers from her body. He didn’t want to move away from her, but he did, finally, when she squirmed and pushed his head back. It felt like a loss, having to lean back, face wet from her, and rest on his haunches.

  She was naked from the waist down, face flushed, nearly boneless in the chair, her legs draped over his shoulders. She looked down at him, then nudged his shoulder with her foot. “Get on the bed.”

  Tom rose to his feet, feeling more than a little wobbly. The room was spinning, and he wasn’t sure if he could hold himself up. He took a deep breath, then offered her his hand, although, if he thought about it, it was more to steady himself than it was to help her.

  Emme needed a minute after the intensity of her orgasm, but Tom simply stood in front of her and helped her out of the chair. He looked absolutely wrecked, eyes glassy and dark, and he swayed on his feet as he leaned down to kiss her slowly and thoroughly. His mouth tasted like her.

  That gentle, sweet kiss combined with the filthiness of what they’d just done to shatter something inside her. The way he’d smiled and said, “yes ma’am” when she ordered him to crawl to her—God, it was like he could read her mind, and had found some slightly horrifying fantasy lurking in the dark of her brain that she’d never even known she had.

  And now he lay back on her bed, arms crossed behind his head, biceps bunched and beautiful thick cock waiting for her, his face glazed with her wetness.

  She had no idea what she’d done to be handed this man, but she was willing to take what she could.

  Already her brain was starting to switch back on, humming regret and shame in the background. She pulled off her T-shirt quickly, hoping to silence it. When she unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor, Tom’s breathing hitched. “You are so fucking beautiful.”

  Emme couldn’t keep the skeptical expression off her face, even though she heard no false sincerity in his tone. It was a habit, that reaction, one that she’d cultivated to make herself seem less threatening. Not a pretty thing to admit, but it was true, and she was beginning to realize it.

  “You don’t believe me?” Tom propped himself up on his elbow. “You get up on that stage every night, and everyone in the room worships you.”

  Emme moved closer to the bed, closer to Tom, and he ran a hand down the side of her hip, warm and callused and perfect. “You open your mouth to sing, and everyone in the world wants to fuck you, or be fucked by you, or just … I don’t know, smell your hair and hope you’ll let them. You should own that like you do onstage. You’re a goddess.” His words slurred a little, and she would have thought he was drunk if she had ever seen him drink. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from confessing to her.

  Something shattered inside her chest at that. No man had ever thought so highly of her, and hearing it said aloud was completely terrifying. And hearing it said aloud from a talented sweetheart who also happened to kiss like sin and have a body she wanted to grab with both hands and her nails was more than she could bear.

  Emme pushed Tom over onto his back and crawled over his body. There was no way she deserved him, but hell yes, she was going to take him.

  She opened her mouth over his and kissed him lightl
y, rubbing their lips together. He tasted like coffee and cigarettes and she knew she shouldn’t like that combination but she did. Tom turned his head away from her and gathered her hair in his hand, smoothing it over her shoulder. He’s smelling my hair, she realized. And she was definitely letting him.

  “You’re so sweet,” she said, right before she bit his bottom lip.

  Tom groaned and his whole body jerked underneath her. “Emme,” he breathed. Just that, just her name, twice, three times, like a plea or a prayer.

  Emme pulled away, backing away from the melting feeling inside her. Too much. Too soon. She had to put some distance between their bodies. “Show me,” she whispered.

  Tom looked at her, eyebrow raised in question, confusion written on his face.

  “Show me how you touch yourself. I want to watch.”

  She tried to turn him into a beautiful object, a gorgeous man with an equally lovely body, a hard cock, a pair of strong hands with long fingers and densely muscled forearms. But that tattoo kept getting in the way, reminding her of the look in his eyes when he talked about making music, and she kept picturing him, hands working over the neck of his bass as he played, thrusting in time to the music, and all the pieces of him kept coalescing back into a whole that she wanted. She wanted to do things like kiss the tender skin on the underside of his chin, the little spot where no stubble grew. She wanted to melt on top of him and pull him inside her and never let him go. She wanted to say stupid, stupid words that she shut her mouth against.

  Tom closed his eyes as if the request might send him over the edge. He took a deep breath, then trailed his hand down his chest, over his belly. He detoured down the indentation that led from his hip to the top of his thigh, and without thinking, Emme bent over him and chased his fingers with her tongue.

  Tom groaned, and Emme pulled back to watch. He reached for her, though, and she gasped when he slid his fingers between her legs, rubbing and dipping inside, gathering her moisture to spread on his cock. Tom closed his eyes, concentrating on the sensation of his hand around his cock, wet from her arousal. She watched him tighten his grip, much tighter than she would have held him, stroking up and down slowly but forcefully. “Good,” she said, unable to stop the praise. “Do it like I’m not watching.”