Have Mercy: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance

by Shelley Ann Clark

  “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.”

  Chapter Ten

  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 sli
d 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.

  Emme uncrossed her legs, her toes flexing beneath his chin. Tom reached for her other foot, pressed a kiss to the line where her shoe met the tiny bones in the top of her foot, and drew it off and away. The leather shushed against her stockings as he did, and she sighed from above him. He nuzzled the bones of her ankle, so delicate and knobby, so much smaller than his hand.

  Tom followed the line of the seam of her stocking, tracing it with his tongue. He licked over her calf muscle, which flexed under his mouth as she tensed her foot; paused and nibbled at the hollow behind her knee, where she rewarded his efforts with a tiny noise from the back of her throat; and bit at the inside of her thigh before licking away the sting. Kneeling in front of her felt so right. The knowledge that he could make her feel good, give her pleasure, swelled inside his chest until he thought he would burst from it.

  He reached up her thighs to the place where her garters attached to the top of her stockings. Her skin was so soft and warm under his fingers, her scent growing stronger with her arousal. There were a few things in his life he was proud of, but he couldn’t think of any that topped making this woman happy. He unhooked her stocking from the garter belt and rolled it down her leg, following the path back down with his mouth, kissing and tasting. His stubble tugged at the silk as he pulled it down.

  By the time he’d repeated the process with the second stocking, Emme was panting and his cock felt like it might just push itself free of his jeans. The words she said were the sweetest he’d ever fucking heard:

  “God, Tom. You’re so good.”

  He tried to swallow his heart back down into his chest where it belonged instead of somewhere in the back of his throat where it lodged itself. “Your feet hurt,” he said, inanely.

  “What?”

  Jesus, he sounded like a complete tool. “Your feet. Those shoes. They’ve gotta hurt.”

  Emme wiggled her foot, making a circle with her ankle. She flexed her toes. “Yeah. They do.” She sounded surprised by the realization. “How’d you know?”

  Because you’re the center of my world now. Because I watch you all the time. Because I want to take away everything that hurts you and give you everything that feels good. Tom shrugged. “They don’t look very comfortable.” He stood, muscles creaking after kneeling so long. “C’mere. Wouldn’t it feel nice to soak them for a while?” He held out his hand to her and she took it, her fingers cool and small in his.

  Emme was strangely quiet as she followed him into the bathroom, where he’d run the water warm and soapy. He grabbed a towel off the rack and folded it into a cushion for her on the edge of the tub, then tossed another one on the floor for himself. “Here,” he said as he helped her step over the side. “Sit here. Put your feet in.”

  The water had been hot when he ran it; now it was just on the other side of warm. The bubbles were still foamy, floating on the surface, smelling of her shower gel. Tom knelt beside her on his towel, wetting his hands in the bathwater. The position, his hands in the water, made him think of bedtime prayers. Church services.

  He lifted her foot and massaged, starting at the base of her heel, thumbs pressing in firmly as he rubbed the soap over her instep. The bones of her foot felt delicate under his hands, the skin softer than it should be, easier to tear. He lost himself in the slippery slide of soap over wet skin, massaging muscles and gentling his touch around the knobby bones. She let out a moan above him and he looked up to see her eyes closed, brow furrowed with pleasure-pain.

  Tom had grown up hearing about foot-washing Baptists, his dad’s term for anyone who supported the blue laws that kept bars closed on Sundays. In his father’s mouth those words had meant a religious zealot, someone who thought fun should be a sin. He’d heard, though he had no idea if it was true, that the term came from a religious group that literally washed each other’s feet as a sign of devotion. He’d only ever known the term to be said with derision.

  Kneeling on the towel in the light of a hotel bathroom, his arms wet up to his elbows, Emme’s foot cradled in his hand, Tom felt something akin to grace. Foot-washing was a symbol of service to others, wasn’t it? Something personal, intimate, a kind of submission to another that filled him with light and heat.

  Although he doubted the foot-washers had rampant hard-ons when they did it.

  “Feel good?” he asked, just for the excuse to check on her, talk to her, hear her speak.

  “Mmm. Keep going,” she said, her voice husky and raw.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he told her because he knew she liked it, and because he liked it, too, that little badge of respect he could give her that no one else did. That she deserved.

  He switched to her other foot, giving it the same attention, awash himself in sensation. In the small, quiet room, the sound of water trickling, the warmth of the steam around him, he floated, wrapped in a gauze net of desire and longing.

  He rinsed the soap from her feet, water sluicing down over her ankles, running off her toes, splashing all over his jeans as he did. His knees were beginning to ache from contact with the tile floor, even through the towel. The water running off of her body and onto his was a baptism, washing him in the river of Emme, drowning him in her scent and essence.

  He turned her around on the edge of the tub and pulled her feet onto the towel, where he dried them carefully, running the towel between each of her toes, around her ankles, up the backs of her calves. When he looked back up at her face, her eyes were soft, bright, lips parted.

  He wanted to drink from her skin. He was reborn with a new purpose—to please her any way he could. He’d made her happy; he’d made her moan. He could praise her with sex, but it wasn’t the only thing he could give her, and pride expanded his chest at that thought.

  She reached for him, pulled him close to her, curling her fingers in his hair, petting, scratching. Her touch shimmered through his body, comforting and arousing at once. Her mouth was gentle on his at first, her lips tender and sweet, but a
s she pulled him closer and his wet jeans made contact with the soft skin of her belly, she kissed him harder, forcing his mouth open to take her tongue, walking him backward until his ass hit the edge of the sink.

  When she pulled away, they were both breathing heavily. Tom’s chest heaved with effort, pushing his skin against her breasts with each breath.

  “We need a word,” Emme said. She rubbed her cheek against the fur on his chest, her skin soft against his crisp hair.

  Tom’s brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. “You want to talk?”

  “No.” She bit at his side, just below his armpit, and he hissed at the tickling pain. “We need a word for you. For when you need me to stop.”

  “A safe word?” He’d always associated that sort of thing with latex suits, weird-looking equipment, and dudes who wore eyeliner.

  Emme shuddered against him. “You have no idea what I want to do to you,” she whispered. “I need to know you can tell me if it’s too much.”

  He thought about how she always asked him if he wanted her to stop, how almost frightened she’d looked earlier in the bar when she’d asked him, twice. He trusted her absolutely, but it looked like maybe Emme didn’t completely trust herself.

  “Fender,” he said, finally, the first word that came to mind that he couldn’t imagine himself saying during sex.

  Emme grinned. “Like the amp or like the car part?”

  “Like the amp.”

  She reached up and pulled his head down to hers, her small hand exerting just enough pressure on the back of his neck for him to know what she wanted. He leaned over, eyes drifting closed as he waited for her kiss.

  She surprised him, of course. She always did. She spoke, her mouth moving against his, lips brushing, pulling away, touching again as he breathed in her breath. “Take off your clothes. Lie facedown on the bed. Leave your belt next to you.”

  His dick practically jumped at the order. He wanted to hug her, pull her close, feel her whole body against his, but she stepped away, looking fierce and warlike and untouchable, so he left the bathroom and did as she asked.