At His Mercy Read online

"Why were you on the road alone so late?" Donovan asked, shifting his hips to angle his cock deeper and causing the woman beneath him to squirm.

  "I was on my way to New Orleans. I didn't plan the flat. Now move. Up a bit. There." She ended her breathless instructions with a groan, then added a gruff, "Push harder."

  Keeping her pinned, he used his knees to widen the spread of her legs, nuzzled his face to her neck, ground against her until the friction steamed. Goddamn she was hot, her body, her response. Made him want to crawl inside her. Work her over until she couldn't move.

  "Are you running from? Or running to?" He buried his face in her hair that smelled of summer fruit. Berries, he thought, sliding a hand up her side to her breast where her nipple pouted.

  "Who says I'm running?" she asked, then gasped as he pinched and twisted.

  He moved down her body, sucked her nipple into his mouth, stayed there until he crossed the line from pleasure to pain and she begged him to stop.

  "I changed your tire, Lise." He bathed her bruised flesh with his tongue. "I helped pack your things back into your SUV." Her skin was so soft, her nipple tight, sweet. "No one travels for fun with everything they own."

  She gave a soft snort. "I own a lot more than that."

  He raised his head, looked down. In the room's golden light, her eyes appeared mossy, a green ring around pupils wide with arousal. "And you left it behind?"

  Frowning, she slapped him on the ass. "Is this really what you want to talk about? Now?"

  "Why not?" He lifted his hips, leaving only the head of his cock inside her. "We're as connected as two people can be, but I know nothing about you."

  "Here's something." This time she dug her fingers into the muscles of his backside. "I don't like sex used as a weapon."

  He waited, one heartbeat, two, then made up his mind, and instead of rolling away, he filled her, pushing into her until he had nothing left. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"

  "Aren't you? You want answers and are threatening to stop until you get them." She pushed up, gripping him, tugging him down with her, grinding against him until she had to draw breath. "I'm not here to share the story of my life any more than you're here to share yours."

  "Mine's pretty much part of the public domain."

  "Wayne said you don't like people knowing who you are. I think that makes us even."

  "No. It doesn't. I'm not hiding, Lise. And I'm sure not running away."

  She shoved at his shoulders, pushing him, adding physical distance to the emotional gulf opening between them. "Move."

  He remained on his knees, her thighs draped over his, her pussy glistening with moisture around the base of his cock. Gorgeous. Fiery and hurting intensely. He could see all of it. He didn't have to hear the words.

  She glowered. "Get off."

  He shook his head. "Not until you tell me what's wrong."

  "Get. Off." She said, struggling up from the mattress.

  He pushed into her, forced her down. "Look at me, Lise."

  Her gaze snapped to his, angry.

  "What did I tell you in the bar? I'm not going to hurt you. You say stop, I stop."

  Her chest continued to rise and fall, but she quickly gave up the fight, her eyes closing as the tension between them unwound.

  "That wasn't fair," she finally said, and he waited, his erection beginning to soften, and Lise desperate as she added, "No. Don't," fucking him slowly to keep him from slipping free.

  He gave up. She was hungry and willing, and he was being a dick. His need for answers could wait.

  He settled his full length over her, his elbows above her shoulders on the bed. His cock thickened, and she wiggled beneath him as if scratching an insistent itch.

  "Better?" he asked, and she nodded.

  "Much. But can we table the talk?"

  "Will you answer my questions later?" he asked, and when she stiffened, he rushed to add, "I'm curious, Lise. That's all. I'm not bargaining."

  She exhaled the deep breath she'd drawn in and nodded. Then she reached up to hold onto his wrists and began to move, her hips, her fingers, as she wound their hands together, her feet, as she slid her arched soles up and down his calves.

  Nice. So nice. But he kept silent. And until he could bear it no longer, he kept still. There was something here she needed, and he didn't want to keep her from finding it.

  She held his gaze, lifting to rub against him, lowering to put distance between them she just as quickly closed.

  This was the best kind of sex, head-to-toe contact, breath shared and labored, gazes fused. Lust thrummed with emotion, with the rush of skin-heating blood, with the synced beating of hearts.

  They rocked together, a perfect rhythm of male and female, his cock stroking into her pussy, her pussy tugging on his cock. She worked him, she fit him, she made him ache.

  The ride was slick, from her juices, from their sweat. Her legs hooked over his to hold him in place. Her hands roamed his back, her fingers digging into his flesh, her palms skating, her nails scratching, her fingertips tiptoeing down his spine.

  And then her breath hitched, and the sounds she'd been making grew frantic. Her upward thrusts increased in tempo, and he shoved back at each one until they were nothing but motion, up, down, up, down, the headboard knocking the wall to their beat.

  He watched her when she cried out, her eyes closing, her chin lifting. She thrashed beneath him, all limbs and tremors and tight milking grips. He waited … He waited …

  He couldn't wait anymore. He gave into the needs of his cock and exploded, a burst of sensation and semen that grabbed his balls and squeezed until his toes tingled.

  He shuddered, collapsed onto his elbows to keep from crushing Lise with his weight. When she mindlessly stroked the side of his face, he nearly fell asleep. And when he saw satisfaction play over her features, he knew he'd done his job well.

  But that didn't mean he was through getting what he wanted.

  Chapter Six

  Lise woke in the middle of the night. The soft glow from the lamp hanging in the room's corner allowed her to see that the other side of the bed was empty, but something told her she wasn't alone.

  She waited before turning over, listening, remembering, feeling a new rush of heat as the night came back. Feeling, too, less than sure of herself, and that surprised her.

  If she'd been alone the morning after the bar and Donovan's bedroom, she could relish the memories the rest of the way to New Orleans. But he was still here, there was music to face, and she knew he was waiting.

  She pushed up, glanced toward the corner with the lamp, found him in the large wing chair done up in a navy and red country plaid. He sat on the clothes he'd tossed there earlier, and he was as naked now as when he'd stripped them off.

  The lamp cast a pool of light over his shoulders, and his skin glowed as if sun-kissed, and strands of hair a nearly blue black caught the light and gleamed. His face was shadowed, though his eyes sparkled, and the stubble along his jaw gave definition to the hard lines of his face.

  She swallowed, taking in the breadth of his chest, the muscles there, the dark hair cropped close. His abs flexed as he breathed, and the arrow of hair trailing down his center drew her gaze lower where his thighs were spread wide.

  His penis rested on a thatch of dark hair, and as she stared it twitched and thickened. She wet her lips, returned her gaze to his. She didn't know how much of her story to tell him. Or if she owed him anything at all.

  They were ships passing in the night, and a few short hours from now she'd be gone, leaving him here, leaving a piece of herself with him. She wanted him to think of her fondly, yet found herself blurting out the truth.

  "I'm married."

  He'd been looking at her. He hadn't been moving. But it seemed as if he grew even more still, more focused. Or maybe it was the air in the room that quieted, allowing the heavy shift of tension to squeeze.

  "I see," he finally said.

  She shook her head. "No. You don
't. You can't. The marriage is over."

  "Officially?"

  In her mind, in her heart, yes. And for months. "The papers were being delivered to … him, to Mark, at the same time I was leaving Atlanta."

  Another minute passed. A second. A third followed. The vein at his temple throbbed, and his fingers made dents in the plush chair arms. "Did he know they were coming?"

  Did it matter? "He's a bit of a control freak. No. He's a major control freak. It wouldn't have worked if he'd known."

  "You needed to be gone when he got them."

  Nodding, she pulled the sheet to her waist. "It was the only way I had to get out of there."

  A new silence settled around them. Donovan took a moment, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers tightly laced. His eyes, when he looked at her, conveyed a frightening wealth of anger.

  And his voice, when it came, scraped her nerves with its painful calm.

  "Did he hurt you?"

  Tears welled and burned. Her eyes, her nose, her throat. "Physically, no."

  She left the admission at that, hoping it was enough. Thinking it should be easy to explain those tumultuous years to a stranger. But Donovan had stopped being a stranger, and baring her soul to him hurt in ways she couldn't have expected.

  He gave a single nod. "Are you okay? About all of it?"

  "About the marriage dissolving, yes. It was over a long time ago." She could admit it now. Then she'd been too blind, too naïve. "About the rest of it … I will be. Time will help. So will New Orleans, new friends, a new life."

  "What's in New Orleans?"

  Smiling, she wound the sheet into a knot she held between her breasts. "My brother. He owns a restaurant there and he's promised to put me to work in the kitchen."

  "You cook?" he asked, a brow arching as the suffocating mood broke away.

  "I do. Not professionally, though I'd put my food up against that of any chef any day. It was the one contribution I made to the marriage that Mark couldn't fault."

  "But he tried."

  "Oh, yeah." Boy, had he tried. "Our guests, most often his partners and their wives, told him he was insane. My dinner parties were always a hit."

  While she'd talked, he'd slouched back in the chair, relaxing as he'd listened. And she didn't know if he was even aware that his right hand had strayed to his cock.

  She watched as he touched himself, cupping his palm over his glans, tugging down on his growing erection. He stroked, fisting his shaft until it stood thick, the bead of moisture that oozed from the tip making up her mind.

  She left the bed, walked naked toward him, and dropped to her knees between his legs. She placed her hand over his, mimicking, learning, slid her other beneath his cock to his balls.

  He budged his hips forward, slumping on his spine and closing his eyes, giving her permission to do as she pleased.

  As she pleased meant licking away the moisture and teasing his slit with the tip of her tongue. As she pleased meant ringing her fingers beneath the ridge of his head and tonguing the underside seam.

  Groaning, he reached down to lift a lock of her hair and sift the strands between his fingers before tucking it behind her ear. And she held his gaze as she opened her mouth and took him fully inside.

  He was heavy and warm and a mouthful, the veins on his shaft distended, the skin of his glans stretched smooth. She sucked him and released him, then closed her lips around him and slid to the base of his shaft.

  He bobbed against the roof of her mouth, against the back of her throat, and she held him wrapped in one hand as she drew her pressed lips along his length in reverse. When he groaned, she repeated the process, stroking and squeezing and breathing him in.

  He smelled like sex, tasted like sex, clean and salty, a musky, earthy warmth. Arousal coiled in her belly, and she clenched her pussy in a rhythmic fucking motion that heightened her hunger.

  She wanted more, not of sex but of him, of Donovan True, and she released his cock, lifting it, licking her way down the underside of his shaft to his balls. She licked them, too, taking them gently into her mouth then letting them go and moving to his thighs, to his belly, rising to kiss her way up his chest and meeting his gaze as she did.

  She felt small, there on the floor on her knees, felt strangely submissive when he hadn't asked her to do a thing. And for all his size and strength, she knew she had the power here. He was at her mercy, and that aroused her more than anything at all.

  "What do you want?" she asked him, waiting, willing to do anything.

  He laughed, a humorless sound of greedy want, low and harsh and raw. "You give me a choice like that, you better be ready."

  Hands braced on his thighs, she leaned forward, caught one of his nipples between her teeth and tugged, swirling her tongue around and around, gouging the surrounding muscle with her chin, blowing on the dampness she'd left there.

  "Anything you want," she told him.

  That laugh again, though this time he cupped her face, his gaze fiery and more than a little bit fearsome. "Turn around. Hands and knees."

  She did his bidding, waited with her breath held as he sheathed his cock and positioned himself behind her. She wiggled against him and he slapped her on the ass, laughing a third time before testing her wetness with two fingers.

  "Feels like your more than ready," he said, one hand on her rump as his cock pierced her slit and slid inside to fill her. "Oh, yeah. So good. So, so good."

  He began to move, long pulls of his flesh from hers, exquisitely slow pushes as he drove himself deep. Her body sizzled, nerve endings singing louder with each stroke.

  The braided rag rug on the hardwood floor padded her palms and knees, and as his rhythm increased, she dropped to her elbows, her forehead on her joined hands. He was rough, he was gentle. He pounded into her until she felt broken. He fucked her as if she were glass.

  Her skin buzzed with electricity. Her nipples scraped against the knots on the rug. Tension began to pulse in her core to the beat of Donovan's thrusts. She reached between her legs and tweaked her clit. He slipped his hand beneath hers and took over.

  "Come for me, baby. Let it go."

  She was so close, her whole lower body alive and on fire. His thumb teased her. His words, too. His cock brought her to the edge, but she wanted him to be the one to lose control.

  And so she pushed up onto her hands and used her hips to make it happen, grinding against him in a tight figure eight and stealing his breath along with his upper hand.

  "Lord, woman." He grunted as he thrust, both hands now on her hips, his fingers digging in and bruising her. "You're not playing fair."

  For a moment, that stopped her. She'd thought the same so many times when her ex had used sex to get his way. But that wasn't what was happening here. If she was using Donovan True for anything, it was only this.

  She wasn't hurting him, or mocking him. And as much as she was taking from him, he was taking from her the same. They were equals, each at the mercy of the other. This wasn't a game. It was pleasure, and wanting him to get his didn't have to be fair.

  Smiling discreetly, she savored the power she wielded, rocking into him until his will vanished and his cock became the center of his world. Nothing else mattered but his body and hers, his strokes and her matching thrusts.

  It couldn't last, this frenzy. They were both wild with need, each focused on the other. Neither one of them, she knew, wanted to burst until the other had done so. But it didn't happen that way, it couldn't have.

  They came together, his first ragged exhalation and sharply whispered, "Fuck," setting her off like tinder.

  She burst, sensation slamming into her and nearly taking her off the floor. She tossed back her head, cried out, shuddered as Donovan banged into her, furious and primal and all too soon spent.

  He pulled free and dropped to his hands beside her, looking over, his expression one of sated exhaustion, but one questioning what it was they'd just done.

  She couldn't give him an
answer. She was asking herself the same thing.

  Chapter Seven

  When Lise finally woke the next morning, reality wasted no time slapping fantasy down to size. She didn't mind so much that she'd overslept and missed breakfast, even though she was starving, but her car keys were nowhere to be found, and no one answered at The Swamp Pit when she called.

  If she left Donovan's room to hunt them down, she had no way back in, meaning she had to gather her belongings, triple check nothing was forgotten, and store everything across the hall until she could get into her SUV.

  Most likely Donovan had picked up her key ring with his by mistake when he'd left her alone this morning. He hadn't written her a note saying so, but she assumed she'd find him at the restaurant. He could've been outside when she called and not heard the phone. Or with a delivery driver. Or on the other line.

  Honestly, she didn't remember if she'd dropped the keys into her purse last night or not. And that wasn't like her. Nothing about this trip had been like her, but then she'd never run from an ex before. And on the heels of that realization came another.

  Getting to New Orleans couldn't wait. Divorcing Mark and starting over did not give her license to lose all common sense. But wasn't that exactly what she'd done? Been so anxious to flee that she'd trusted that his mechanic was taking care of her vehicle's maintenance?

  Yes, Donovan had determined that she'd run over a nail, but what if it hadn't been a tire but a hose? Something her naked eye wouldn't have noticed while packing up to go? And now she couldn't even find her keys and was stranded.

  She wasn't thinking straight. And the fact that the stranger she'd slept with was a celebrity author was nothing but dumb luck. She could just as easily have been rescued by a rapist.

  Great, she mused, pulling her room's door closed and heading down the hall to the B&B's lobby. She was going to scare herself into a nunnery before she even made it to New Orleans. Not exactly the new life she'd imagined.

  The lobby was empty when she reached it, though she could hear voices coming from the kitchen. Before she hunted down one of her hosts, she'd see if she'd left her keys in the ignition. Or dropped the ring while juggling her bags to the porch.