He shakes his head, lips brushing mine. “No one uses checkbooks anymore, Clover. Something else that needs teachin’.”
Twining my hands around his neck, I bring my lips against his in a kiss and speak against his mouth. “I’ll be a good student as long as you don’t turn into King Midas durin’ your shower.”
Unceremoniously, Mercer grabs my butt and pulls me against him as he deepens the kiss. My breath quickens and I can taste the fervor igniting between our bodies. His hands grip my backside more firmly and he caresses me before we break apart. His gaze is flicking over my face, my lips, my eyes, back to my lips. He bites his bottom lip and shakes his head. “Well my kiss didn’t turn you to gold, but I do have a firmer plan.” I grin, and back out of his grasp. Walking to the guest bathroom connected to a spare bedroom, I grab a towel out of the linen closet on our way.
Mercer cranks on the water and then glances over his shoulder. “You want to stay and watch?” The shower is large and enclosed in glass. There’s no privacy in this room until the bathroom fogs with heat and that won’t happen unless I close the door. The unfamiliar feeling of doing something wrong floods me, warning bells bouncing from one side of my mind to the other. This is a feeling I’d run from in the past—do anything in my power to avoid. Careful, Clover. Careful. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. The Wellsley name is on the line. Careful. My parents’ warnings flit through my mind and promptly vanish into a vapor. Now, I crave disobedience, I want it to inhabit my body and make me a slave to it.
“Would you mind?” I ask, tentatively taking a step toward the shower.
Mercer’s body tenses and his muscles ripple as he moves. A predator lying in wait. He pulls off his shirt and tosses it on the ground “It will be good for what I want to teach you after if you watch. Stay. Please.”
I nod, because words fail me in the moment. I’m so twisted up in the ache that it’s stolen my common sense. “Your body,” I say, swallowing hard as goosebumps skate up my neck, and down my arms. “I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted something more. It’s perfect.”
He presses his lips together, ignoring my worship. “Here’s the thing about my body,” Mercer says, tucking his thumbs into the waistband of his workout shorts and pulling them down in one movement. “It’s part of my job to look like this.”
Aside from wiping the drool dripping from my mouth, I raise one brow. “My daddy said the same thing.”
He chuckles. “Are you really talking about your daddy while staring at my dick?”
My gaze flits to his. “No, no. Of course not,” I say, rushing my words. “I get it. You have to pick up and put down heavy things. It’s just...” My words trail off as thoughts of ravaging his body with my bare hands, mouth…every single body part I own seeps into my mind.
Mercer shakes his head and enters the shower and starts washing his body. I speak louder so he can hear me under the pressure of the water. “You are fully naked, and I’ve never had a naked man inside my house. It goes against…everything. I’m nervous.”
Mercer rubs shampoo in his hair, scrubbing back and forth, a jagged movement so unlike the dainty strokes I use to clean my own hair. “Do you want me to put on clothes?” His eyes slide to the side—landing on mine.
“No!” I shout. “I prefer you this way, actually. It’s just taking some getting used to because you’re making me feel things just by being naked. You’re not even touching me. I’m looking at you and that’s enough. I didn’t know it was possible is all.”
“That’s what I was hoping for.”
“You knew it would happen? Is that how it is with all of your other women?”
Looking up to the shower spray, he rinses his hair while shaking his head. The water rolling over and down his body only adds to the appeal. He’s wet. I’m wet. My heart is hammering against my chest, egging me on. “Clover, there aren’t any other women. There haven’t been for a really long time. None that have ever mattered the way you do.”
“Forgive me, but when you look like that naked, it’s a crime there aren’t. You are practically illegal.”
He laughs and grabs a bottle of body wash, examines it, and flips it over to read the ingredients. Mercer dumps some in his palm and turns to face me. He runs his hands over his pecs and arms and then grips his perfectly sculpted, ram-rod hard shaft. His blue eyes lock on mine as water runs over his head, dripping off his long lashes and washing down the rest of his body.
I step forward again—for a better look, and because my libido is driving the movements instead of my well-trained brain. “Watch me,” he commands, arm bunching as he works his hand on himself. His eyelids are at half-mast as his hunger drives him on, into uncharted territory with me.
“I’m watching,” I murmur so low I’m sure he can’t hear me. “I can’t not watch,” I say more to myself. This is a type of eroticism I didn’t know existed. Sure, people fall into bed together and play hide the mole, but this experience is something else altogether. Watching him is illicit, gripping, something I’ll never be able to clear from my mind.
“The grip. The pace?” he asks, tilting his head, eyes raking my body.
I nod. “Got it. Can I try now?”
“Not yet,” Mercer says, slowing his fist to a sloping drag across his flushed skin. “I’m getting carried away. Let me finish cleaning up and I’ll meet you in the bedroom. Looking at you.” His jaw works. “Just looking at you, too. It does things to me, Clover. We’re on the same page there.” He doesn’t do a good job of concealing the shock his confession causes and it drives home more truth.
“I have clothes on. I can’t possibly have the same effect on you, in there, hard, naked, watching me like that,” I say, suddenly feeling vastly exposed even though I’m clothed.
He ticks his head to the side. “My memory is good, and I’ve got a pretty vivid imagination.” Grabbing the bottle, he finishes washing his body, but I don’t leave like he asked of me, I don’t want to miss a second of viewing him like this. What if I never get the same opportunity again? Not exactly like this. Maybe something similar, but I want to take every experience Mercer will give me so I can use it as a comparison for the rest of my life. It’s sadistic and totally warranted. I was taught to compare myself to others to drive the hunger for success at all times. This is different, the hunger more of an ache that won’t be sated until I have everything.
He steps out of the shower, one powerful leg leading, and then the rest of his glistening body emerges.
“Everything just sort of stopped while I was looking at you,” I confess. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“I wanted you to watch. To see me hot for you.” Mercer grabs the white cotton on the hook and towels off his head and slides it over his body, a casual wiping. The scent of soap fills the air, warm and sweet. “I’m going to need you to finish what I started though,” he adds, not bothering to wrap the towel around his waist. He keeps it draped over his shoulder as he closes the distance between our bodies. My room is too far away, all the way across the house, so I lead him to the guest room attached to this bathroom. Recklessly, I disrobe as quickly as I can. He smirks as he watches me fumble with my bra. I nearly tip over as I, quite literally jump out of my panties. I’m panting, lips separated as breaths push through my dry mouth. My stomach tightens as Mercer’s face flashes thinly-veiled control and he trains his gaze on my bare flesh. To cause a man as strong and powerful as him to falter, makes me preen—gives me all the confidence I need to handle the testosterone seeping into my skin by proximity.
“Finish it,” Mercer orders, tipping his chin up to punctuate the command. Another dip in my stomach.
I don’t waste time with pleasantries or speaking, I’m too eager for a lesson in seduction. Kneeling, I wrap my hands around his steely rod and move my hand like he did, his warm skin searing my palm. Mercer groans as he clenches his teeth, an audible noise. He brings his hand down to close over my own and guides me into a steady pace.
“Like this,” I pr
oclaim, casting my eyes forward to his member. The veins rise dark and thick as a bead swells on the tip.
Mercer replies with a throaty noise. Through my lashes, I glance up to find his face twisted in pleasure. He removes his hand from mine, trusting me to keep going. Leaning in, I lick the tip of the chiseled helmet while moving my hand. It’s a tentative gesture, worshipping and questioning at the same time. I don’t wonder for long because when I wrap my lips around his shaft, his hands fist in my hair.
“Yes. Yes. Your mouth,” he says, sucking in a ragged breath as I try to figure out how to suck a dick and jack one off at the same time. It’s a messy, slippery job, but my spit helps my hand slide, and finding a rhythm becomes easier. I’d worry I was doing it wrong if Mercer wasn’t singing like a happy canary, in the form of muttered curse words with my name mixed in. My eyes water as his length slides down my throat, choking me, but in this foreign to me position, I feel a power I’ve never had my entire life. It makes little sense because I am power personified, but being with Mercer like this brings me something new, an authority over his body.
Watching his abs flex and retract as he breathes tells me before he says so. “I’m going to come. Get on the bed. Spread your legs.” There’s a half-second of pause, because it escalated, but I do as he says, keeping my strokes as even as I can as I back into the bed and sit on the edge. With my heels, I edge back knees bent and spread my legs. “How is this?” I ask, licking my lips, letting my spit covered hand fall from him.
He swallows hard, his hand replacing mine. “Seeing you open for me like this,” he growls. “Inside you. I want inside you.” Everything below my waist throbs in agreement. I drag a finger over my swollen clit and press down. Mercer shakes his head as he watches me with a laser focus. “Not yet.”
The melodic sound of his wet flesh as he strokes himself is what I imagine sex sounds like. What it will sound like when his thick shaft is pumping into me, the friction and fullness capturing me with pleasure. While I’m dreaming about him penetrating me, Mercer comes, a guttural noise lighting the air, his seed streaming in hot bursts across my stomach and against the soft part of my inner thigh.
“So close,” I pant out. “Mercer,” I say, after he collapses against me, his heavy dick laying on my stomach. It’s hot and wet and if I squirmed just a little, I think I could slip him inside me. “I really want you to take me. Right now.”
He lies down on top of me, transferring the cum to him, too. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for that?”
“To come on my stomach? Not very long, I’d imagine. When there are a hundred other places you could put it. Is that it then?” I prod, jutting my hips up to let him know I’m thirsty, needing attentions. “Or do you want to watch me?”
He nuzzles his face into my neck, rolling off me and onto his side. “A hundred places? Sorry, I got a little hung up on trying to think of more than five.” With one hand, he brushes a stray hair from my face, cupping my face, with the other hand, he snakes it down between my legs. “Oh,” I exclaim, jumping a bit at first contact.
“I don’t want to watch, darlin’, I want to do it for myself. I want everything. All of you.”
I nod furiously as his deft fingers move over my clit and a finger slides into my clenching wetness. “All of this for me,” he rasps, pressing a kiss on my neck while he works me into a frenzy. I lose control and it’s unexpected, but it’s just as it should be. Me writhing under his skill, him licking a trail of passion up my neck, to my ear, across my cheek to meet my mouth. When our lips collide, I come apart, my orgasm rolling over my body—a sedative and a siren. I can smell me while I taste him and feel his muscles asserting their control. He withdraws his finger and moves away from the kiss to position his face between my legs. Mercer gives me a crooked smile before kissing one inner thigh and then the other.
He licks a gratifying trail from my left thigh to my dripping center. I’m tender, still riding the waves of the deconstructed Clover Wellsley when he closes his mouth around my clit and sucks. Hard. I bend my knees and jerk at the shuddering, all over sensation. I call out his name, but he doesn’t halt the action, so instead of pulling away or pushing his head to the side, I trust him. He wraps his arms around my legs and pulls me onto his face, tongue driving into me. I don’t have control of my body. It’s electricity. Somehow, I feel disconnected from my body because of how many different sensations envelop me. My mind isn’t trying to talk me out of it, and I wouldn’t care if my parents walked into the room right now, I wouldn’t want him to stop.
He pops up, smiling, lips glistening with my essence. “I’m gonna put some fingers in this tight masterpiece. It might hurt a bit at first, try to relax.”
“Relax,” I call out, barely recognizing my lust-hazed voice. “How am I supposed to relax when your mouth is down there.”
“It’s a good place to be. Thanks for this,” Mercer drawls, dropping a kiss at my core. I shudder in pleasure. Casting his gaze on my face, he snakes one finger in, then a second. I close my eyes and whisper a plea for mercy to whoever is listening. Mercer chuckles when I raise my hips to get more friction.
“It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt at all,” I say.
He does something with his fingers inside me and a bolt of staggering sensations crawl all over my body—my insides turn to icy fire. Goosebumps prickle my skin and even though it’s a new feeling, it’s also earth-shattering, an epiphany. He crooks his fingers several more times, his mouth stationed on my clit, and an orgasm like one I’ve never felt before cascades through me. I buck my hips to get his fingers deeper as my legs tingle and body subtly shakes.
Mercer’s mouth stays warm, covering me as he withdraws his fingers slowly. I’m a heaving heap of quivering flesh, unable to move, and the sole thought I’m capable of is that I want him to do that to me for the rest of my life. I need it like I’ve needed oxygen and designer dresses. I need Mercer Ballentine to be mine completely.
“How in God’s name am I supposed to recover from that?”
He wipes his mouth on his arm, while crawling up my body. “You’re not supposed to recover from it, you’re supposed to revel in it.”
“And after I revel?” His face cuts my view of the vaulted ceiling. How is he even more beautiful than he was an hour ago? Why is my heart pounding like this? His gaze cuts through the surface and sees the real me. I feel it. Like he’s reaching inside and willing these emotions to the surface. “What then?” I ask, my voice tripping.
“Well, it’s simple really,” Mercer says, raising one questioning brow. “You fall for me.”
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pull him down so his eyes are nearer. I tip up my chin and whisper one word. “Done.”
I don’t need to hear him reciprocate, his dadgum smile tells me more than words could. He’s finished falling and I’m the one catching up.
Chapter Ten
___________________________________
Clover
I CAN HEAR Mercer’s welcome home parade ending on the other side of town, the band blaring, from my place on this portable stage in the center of town square. Today’s festival has been a success, but as Mama predicted, I am the main attraction. My parents had my auction for charity while Mercer’s parade was ending so he wouldn’t be able to be here right away. They’re keen and crafty. I can’t blame them, or anyone who thinks I’ve lost my mind, because it feels maybe I have. I broke Mercer’s daddy’s truck when he was giving me head in the cab two days ago. The orgasm was strong, and he was making these throaty, feral noises that turn me into a maniac. I kicked the gear shift in a fit of pleasure and it broke clean off. I’m not sure how Mercer explained it to his daddy, but Mr. Ballentine looked at me funny when I saw him at DR last night.
Even Tannie couldn’t keep this auction from happening. She offers a weak smile from the side of the stage where everyone is gathering, waiting for my daddy to come out and do the honor of selling his daughter. I pouted for the three hours it took to get pri
mped and fussed over like an F.F.A. animal. I’m wearing the dress my mama selected, a pink confection covered in brightly colored oranges. Some have stems attached and others just seem to be rolling around on their own accord. I would have picked it out for myself on a different occasion, now it’s been tainted, and I’ll probably never wear it again. Even if I don’t want to be here, don’t want to date another man, I’m already on Clover Wellsley autopilot. My wide pageant grin is perfection, and my shoulders are proud and back. I don’t think I’ll ever kick the habit of putting my best face forward, even when it’s a detriment.
Clasping my hands behind my back, I smile and nod as those gathered make eye contact. They study me. Wait for me to falter. I can pick out the suitors straight away, heck I even recognize some of them from my time on the dating circuit. Seersucker suits, slicked-back hair, and golden Rolex watches appoint their wrists. It’s the summer uniform of the rich and infamous. Like, what Patrick Bateman would look like if he spent the summer in the Hamptons instead of murdering people for fun. Another habit I haven’t kicked, wanting their eyes on me, craving the attention that others seek. Even as I think it, I know I really only want Mercer’s attentions. All of them. All of the time. I’m antsy right now, shifting from one foot to the other, because I haven’t seen him since early this morning when he was sneaking off my property, a pair of my lace panties stuffed in his pocket.
My dad parts the crowd, his commanding demeanor startling and awing Greenton residents and visitors alike. He grabs the microphone sitting on a chair next to Tannie, without even glancing at me. “How about the parade for Mercer Ballentine?” he booms, stance wide, the light blue and white checked pants breaking on his shoe at the perfect degree. The crowd cheers, and my father’s eyes light. “A real hometown hero. I’m happy to welcome him home.” Like any skilled politician, he’s using this as an opportunity to campaign. “My lovely wife, Mrs. Wellsley, organized it from top to bottom.” More cheers, applause, and catcalls break out. I shift again, sweat breaking out behind my knees. The attention will turn to me soon.
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