Through this, my leg hit
an end table and I adjusted. We cleared the couch, I shifted again too soon,
both my calves hit the coffee table, and my ass went down on it.
I looked up. Cell flat to
the table, I braced my hands to push up, but Merry was there, chin in his
throat, eyes on me, and when he spoke again, his mind was clearly on my
location.
“Tried to get your mouth
on me more than once when we tore at each other up last Friday, but I was in
the mood to use mine. Lookin’ forward to learnin’ what you can do with yours,
but like I said, baby, right now, don’t got the time.”
My only response that he
couldn’t twist was to glare at him, which was what I did.
“But got time before I go
for a kiss,” Merry informed me.
“Only kiss I’ll give you
is tellin’ you to kiss off,” I informed him.
“Who knew warm brown eyes
like the ones you got could spark that kind of fire,” he muttered as if he
wasn’t even talking to me.
“Step back,” I demanded.
“No,” he denied.
I continued to glare up
at him, then I realized I was not the kind of woman who sat on her ass, glaring
up at a man towering over her and pinning her in. So I stood, which put me
smack in Merry’s space, my breasts brushing against his abs and up his chest on
my way.
They kept brushing when
he didn’t move back, but I didn’t attempt escape, even to get away from the
shafts of electricity this all caused at my nipples, shafts that headed south.
I glared at him from
closer.
He stared into my eyes,
his gaze moving down to my mouth then back up as one side of his lips curved.
He was getting off on
this.
I didn’t get that and I
didn’t want to get that.
I wanted this done.
“In the mood to play,
Officer?” I whispered.
“Told you, sweetheart,
don’t got the time.”
I shook my head but held
his gaze. “Not what I mean. Single mom, all alone. Switch out her storms. Offer
info to help her out of a jam. Been a while since I was in the know about these
things, so tell me, what’s the price for all that? You mentioned a blowjob. You
got stamina, but I got talent. Balance that out, I’m thinkin’ it’ll take more
than the usual ten, fifteen minutes. We’ll give it twenty. So I can manage my
time, is there more?”
I wasn’t even done
talking before I learned his eyes could spark fire too.
I also learned he was in
the mood to play, that being, playing me at my own game.
And doing it better.
He dipped his face close,
his voice low. “Storms get me the blowjob, brown eyes. I get the intel you
need, that buys me sinkin’ deep in wet pussy.”
I felt my nipples get
harder at the same time something else happened to me that, if he was of a mind
to take his payoff right then, he’d get what he wanted.
I hid this reaction and
asked, “You want this all in one go, or you wanna spread payback out for a while?”
“Keep plenty of time
open, Cher. I intend to earn a fuckuva lot more and draw it out collecting.”
I nodded, still keeping a
lock on his eyes. “I get it. Girl like me, only payback expected for me to be
able to give.”
That didn’t get me fire.
That got me ice.
“I hear you talk down
about yourself one more time, Cher, shit will get extreme.”
That made me ice
over.
“Do not hand me that
crap, Merry. You come into my home and got no problem talkin’ about wet pussy
right to my face tells me the woman you know me to be.”
He dipped his face even
closer, to the point it felt like if I blinked, my lashes would sweep his in a
butterfly kiss.
“Do not hand me your shit,
Cher,” he growled. “That hang-up is yours, not mine. And how I know that is I
made you come just finger fuckin’ you and talkin’ dirty in your ear, and it was
the talk and not what my fingers were doin’ that took you there. I like that, a
woman who can let go and let me give her that without gettin’ uptight and
closin’ down on me. You liked it too, a fuckuva lot more than
me. So don’t stand there handin’ me your shit when I know you’re wet for me now
and I haven’t fuckin’ touched you.”
I refused to reply to
that because he was right and I had no intention of confirming that
information.
But it was then he hit me
with a verbal blow, the intensity of which, not in my whole shitty-ass life I’d
ever received.
“Christ, if I didn’t know
you were worth it, I’d walk out the door and this would be done—all we got,
over.”
I could stand.
I could stare.
But I couldn’t breathe.
Merry could.
He could also speak.
“Hope like fuck no one
takes off with those storms while I’m gone. You think they will, move ’em into
garage and leave the key under the mat. I’m switchin’ ’em out, Cher. I come
back tonight and they’re done, I’ll find you, and I won’t be collectin’. I’ll
be dishin’ it out, but you won’t get it until you beg for it and do that shit
for a really long time.”
His words were lost on
me.
I continued to stand.
I continued to stare.
But my lungs had started
burning.
If I didn’t know you were
worth it…
“When’s Ethan’s next
sleepover?” Merry bit out.
“Friday,” I whispered.
“But his friend’s comin’ here.”
“Fuck,” Merry clipped.
“Find a time, babe. You don’t, payback’ll stack up and I’ll have to take
personal days and hole up in a hotel with you for a week. And there’s not a
doubt that stick-up-her-ass church lady your ex tied his shit to won’t
appreciate you bein’ gone from your kid for a weeklong fuckathon.”
That was kind of funny as
well as hot.
I still said nothing.
Merry fell silent and
stared at me.
Then he dealt the second
biggest verbal blow I’d ever received in my life.
“Christ, you’re pretty,
even standin’ there plotting my murder.”
After that, he lifted a
hand, grabbed me gentle but firm at my neck, yanked me up so my mouth hit his
hard but brief, then he let me go.
“Later, babe,” he said,
strolling to my door. He stopped in it, turned to me, and bid his farewell by
saying, “You touch those storms only to put them in the garage.”
He closed the door on
that.
I stood where he left me.
If I didn’t know you were
worth it…
What was I worth?
What was I worth to
Merry?
