A Night Of Mercy Page 11

  I take his face in my hands. “Funny. I could say the same thing about you.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Parker

  Most of the time, Mercy’s eyes remind me of sapphires.

  Just now, they look like a hurricane. An ocean of blue, caught up in a rage of wind, lightning, and rain. A force so powerful it could easily rip right through me. Bring down every last one of my carefully constructed defenses. And all I want to do is rage right back, to dive right into those stormy depths, ride the wave until my lungs give out.

  God, this girl makes me feel so alive. So unbelievably insane. She sits like heaven in my arms and my muscles are strung tight, struggling to resist the urge I’ve been fighting since the second I laid eyes on her.

  The way she’s looking at me now, like I’m the only man she’s ever seen, or ever wants to see again— it makes me want to pound my chest with my fists and roar like a goddamn animal. A row of straight, pearly white teeth digs into her plump lower lip and I have to bite back a groan.

  How can a girl named Mercy possibly inflict this kind’ve torment? This ceaseless, unrelenting assault on everything I am?

  My whole life, I’ve put people in boxes. Compartmentalizing keeps my world neat and tidy, the way I like it. Friends stay in the friend box. Family in the family box. Professional acquaintances, romantic interests. You get the idea.

  But Mercy has taken up too much of me to fit in any one box. She’s everything, everywhere, all the time. My poor, logic-centered brain can’t make heads or tails of her. One minute she’s the innocent girl that calls to every one of my protective instincts. The next minute she’s a thunderstorm in my arms, drowning out that part of me I keep locked deep inside. She’s ripping me open, claws in my chest, dragging the demons out to fight them with her bare hands.

  And that, that right there, is the primary source of my conflict. If I let her tear me open, I don’t know if I can hold myself back. I don’t know if I can be gentle. And a girl like Mercy needs gentle. Doesn’t she?

  Here in my hot tub, she looks like some kind’ve mythical goddess living at the bottom of the sea. The pale blue glow of the underwater lights dances across the silky pearl of her skin. Her hair is tangled up in a bun on her head, with little wisps hanging down, sticking to her heat-pinked cheeks. The white lingerie sticks to her body like a second skin, highlighting the perfect shape of her curves.

  The bite of her fingernails scrapes down my shoulders and up to the nape of my neck. I can see the growing boldness in her eyes, cresting up into a clear moment of decision. Her gaze drops to my lips and my whole body responds.

  My pulse kicks up, my blood rises and my cock instantly hardens within the soaked cotton of my boxer shorts. She can feel it too and that only makes her braver.

  I catch the almost imperceptible tilt of her head as she begins to inch her mouth towards mine and without warning, panic tears through me.

  She’s young. She’s so, so young. The guilt I’ve been able to ignore for days surges back with a vengeance, forcing me into a final stand before I can give into total surrender.

  With a shuddering breath, I take her face in my hands, holding her still. “Mercy.”

  Mercy

  The slow burning fire that had roared to an inferno inside of me vanishes in a single instant. Trembling with overwhelming need, I stare at him. His eyes are molten, melted gold, but his face is a mask of resignation I can’t make sense of.

  Oh… oh my God. Is he stopping this? Now that I’m so desperate for him I can feel the promise of tears pricking at the backs of my eyes?

  Parker has rejected me before. On our first night together and then again, during my first visit to his office.

  But somehow, this rejection sinks into my gut with a particular viciousness. What was the point of tonight? I’m having fun for the first time in almost a year. I laughed and drank myself a bit tipsy. I watched a funny movie that didn’t feature Pixar characters.

  I was riding a high of weightlessness, free from guilt and obligation. I was just here, with him, alive. And now he’s pushing me away again?

  He hasn’t spoken in long minutes and I have to swallow past a lump in my throat. “Say something.”

  When all he does is shake his head, throat working as he swallows, I know. He’s rejecting me. Again.

  But why? I’ve never been ignorant of his attraction to me. I only recently started to consider the possibility that he might think I’m worth the trouble of acting on it. Clearly, I was wrong. After everything, he still sees me as a kid. A silly little girl in need of a helping hand.

  God, I’ve never felt so stupid.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I seethe through gritted teeth, trying and failing to stop the swell of tears in my eyes. The fact that Parker’s face has completely drained of color doesn’t even register to me as I twist out of his arms, clambering out of the hot tub in a series of graceless angry splashes.

  I hoist myself up onto the mosaic tile at the edge and shakily rise to my feet, the water slipping from my body and hitting the ground in a series of audible drops. Refusing to look at him, I wrap myself up in a plush white towel from a nearby bench and bend to retrieve my clothes.

  “Hey!” Parker is behind me as I stride across the rooftop terrace, leaving a trail of water as he runs to catch up with me, not even bothering to wrap himself in a towel.

  By the time I reach the elevator that will take me back down to the main level of his penthouse I’m shivering violently, but I don’t care. Ignoring the splats of his water-logged footsteps behind me, I punch the call button.

  Parker’s hands descend on my shoulders and turn me to face him. “Where are you going?”

  I lift my chin in defiance as I jerk out of his touch. “Home.”

  His frown deepens. “What’s your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem,” I lie, turning to slip through the doors of the newly arrived elevator car.

  Parker follows me, trailing so close I can smell the lingering traces of chlorine on his skin. “Then why are you leaving?”

  We’re facing one another now, and it takes a great deal of effort not to get lost in the scorch of his gaze. “Because sticking around means you’ll probably fuck with my head some more and I’m not feeling up to it.”

  By the time I’ve gotten the words out, we’ve arrived at the main floor and the elevator doors slide open with a cheerful ding. When I make to get off, Parker grabs me by the elbow and drags me back in before slapping a hand at one of the buttons on the control panel. The doors slip closed again but the car doesn’t move.

  “I’m fucking with your head?” He parrots the words back at me with a scowl.

  Damn, why does he have to look so unbelievably sexy when he’s all riled up? Water is dripping over the sculpted muscles of his chest as he heaves breath, nostrils flaring. His full lips are curled up in frustration and makes me feel wild.

  Somehow, I manage to reign myself in. “You catch on quick.”

  “How am I—”

  “It’s really simple, Parker. You either want me or you don’t.”

  Something fierce passes over his face as he growls at me. “This isn’t about whether or not I want you! Believe me, if it was as simple as that, I’d have been inside you before I even knew your name.” He huffs out a breath. “I’m so wrapped up in you I can’t see straight.”

  A small choked sound escapes me before I can fight it back. “Then why? Why jerk me around like this?”

  His face screws up on a wince. “I never meant to… I just… “

  The elevator suddenly feels much too small. I hit a button on the panel and when the doors opened, I rush out before he can stop me. In less than five seconds he’s on me again, taking me by the hand and pulling me back against him.

  “Do you think this is easy for me?” His teeth are clenched and his powerful body is taut with long suppressed tension. “You show up in my life out of nowhere, gorgeous and brilliant and absolutely fearless.
You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in my damn life and I can’t have you.”

  Everything I’ve kept locked inside of me for so long hits me at once. Fear and shame. Indignation and anger. Want and heat. Desperation and torment. All of it’s there, burning on the surface of my skin and I can’t keep it in any more. It hurts too much.

  Pushing up on my tiptoes, I get right in Parker’s face. “You mean you won’t have me.”

  “I can’t .” The words come out on a groan, even as he presses closer to me. “God, Mercy. The world I come from… it’s ruthless. Cutthroat. The thought of exposing you to it makes me sick.”

  “I’m not asking to be a part of that world,” I gasp. “I want… just once. Please.”

  He shakes his head. “No. I can’t. You can’t give yourself away for a one-night stand.”

  A growl of anger escapes me as I shove at his chest. “The hell I can’t!

  “Mercy.”

  “No. Listen to me.” I take a deep breath. “For the last year of my life, I’ve had no choices. No choice but to quit high school. No choice but to grow up a lot sooner than I should have.”

  I feel dizzy, out of control, the words coming out of me in a disorganized rush.

  “My mother has been dead for ten months now and I still haven’t figured out how to live without her. But my father is still here. He sees me every day.” A harsh sound of anguish rips out of my throat. “He watches me struggle, he watches as I give my life away bit by bit, picking up the pieces he left behind, and he doesn’t care.”

  Parker looks ready to put his fist through a wall, the fire in his eyes roaring to a fever pitch.

  “I’ve been sad for so long,” I say helplessly, ready to beg. “I’ve been numb and empty and so alone. For just a little while, I want to feel good. Please, help me feel something good.”

  Before I can blink, he’s slamming back against the wall, one hand like a vice on the back of my neck, the other fisting my towel where it covers me at the small of my back.

  “Mercy.”

  “It hurts…. everything hurts…all the time,” I say between heaving breaths. “Please, Parker. Make it better.”

  A loud gasp escapes me, just before his mouth descends on mine. He devours me, drinks me in, and takes me apart all at once. Lips slipping, teeth clashing, tongues stroking. The stubble at his jaw rubs a fire into my skin burning all the way through me until there’s nothing left but desperate, aching need. It’s like the first time he kissed me, in the restaurant, multiplied by a billion.

  He works my hair out it’s bun, letting it fall down to my back before grabbing a fistful and yanking my head to one side. He bites a trail up the sensitive skin of my neck and I moan, grabbing at his shoulders with frantic hands.

  “I’ll make it better sweetheart,” he growls in my ear. “I’ll make it so much fucking better.”

  My knees go weak and I slump against the wall. “Yes.”

  In a single movement, he rips the towel away and I’m bared to him, wearing nothing but drenched white lace. His large hands are shaking as he cups my breasts, thumbs stroking over my still covered nipples. Feeling brave, I make a grab for the bulge between his legs.

  My eyes go wide in shock when I feel the length of him within his boxers, so hard and so impossibly thick. With a hiss, he snatches my hand away and lifts me off my feet, wrapping my legs around his waist before carrying me through the dark penthouse.

  I’m greedy for him, pulling his hair, scratching his skin. I barely notice the sound of a door closing behind us. And then he’s laying me out on a bed— his bed— like I’m some treasured, priceless thing. His hand spreads out over the taut of my bare stomach and I try not to get caught up in how much of me it covers.

  “So beautiful,” he grits out, kneeling between my spread legs and hunching over to press hot, open-mouthed kisses in the valley between my breasts.

  My hands seek purchase in the soft linen of his duvet, my whole body twitching and trembling, desperate for something I don’t have a name for. “Oh my God.”

  I slowly manage to brace myself up, leaning back on my elbows, only to fall back down with a rush of breath when Parker runs the flat of his tongue up the center of my abdomen.

  “You taste so sweet, Mercy,” he says, biting a mark into the skin just above my belly button.

  “Please. Please. Please.” I have no idea what I’m asking for. I just don’t want him to stop.

  My bra comes off, and the chill in the air barely has time to pebble my flesh before Parker’s mouth is there, sucking the peak of my hard nipple into his mouth. I cry out, threading a hand into the hair at his nape.

  “You sure about this, sweet girl?” He says sometime later, lifting himself up and over me, hovering with his mouth less than an inch above mine. “Because I’m about to give you everything. I’m not gonna stop until I’m so deep inside you, you’ll feel me in your fucking bones.”

  My back arches involuntarily. “Yes. Do it. Oh—”

  He’s sliding down the length of me again, his thumbs hooking in the waistband of my panties, tugging them impatiently down my legs. I don’t even have time to register that I’m completely naked with a man for the first time in my life, before he’s kissing me everywhere.

  When he settles down with his head between my legs, I arch up, alarmed and unsure. “What are you— oh!”

  The warm, slick velvet of his mouth envelops me, his tongue running slow and heavy over all the neediest, achiest parts of me.

  “Tell me you want this,” Parker groans into the slick heat of my skin. “Tell me you’ve thought about this.”

  I nod, breathless and frantic, my eyes slamming shut as scorching heat twists low and deep between my hips. The most fervent of my wants and desires have been boiled down in my mind, so primitive and basic.

  “Say it. Please, sweet girl.” He gasps on a rasping breath. “I need to hear that this is what you want.”

  “Yes.” The word chokes out of me in a voice I don’t recognize. “Do it. God, just do it.”

  His growl is harsh and loud, and I feel it in the center of my chest. My hips spasm in an unpracticed, chaotic rhythm, searching for release against the push and pull of his skilled mouth. Those full, pouty lips close around some secret part of me and it feels like I’m about to shoot up off the bed and through the ceiling.

  He melts me, licks me back together, gathers me in his mouth and all I can do is pant, quiver and whimper at every flat-tongued stroke.

  “Come for me.” Parker’s voice hits me like an avalanche. “Come in my mouth.”

  My body obeys the command without hesitation and the orgasm rocks through me like an electric shock, sending pulses up my spine and ripping a series of horribly desperate cries from my lips.

  I feel the rumble of Parker’s satisfaction against my core as I continue to convulse in a series of long, wracking spasms.

  The next few minutes are a blur, hazed in the glow of intense pleasure. Parker’s mouth, gliding over every inch of my skin. His voice, low and gruff, as he tugs at the lobe of my ear.

  “How am I supposed to get enough of you, huh?” His chest hitches beneath my searching hands. “I’ll never get enough. Never.”

  He’s leaning over me then, reaching into the drawer of his bedside table. The crinkle of foil fills the silence. Once he’s reared over me again, he tears the packet open with his teeth, his eyes searching mine with earnest.

  “This can stop whenever you want, Mercy,” he says. “The minute you say the word, I swear to God I’ll stop.”

  Distressed, I shake my head. “No! Please don’t.”

  I run my hands over his biceps, delighting in all that deliciously hard muscle, relishing in the feel of all that power braced over me.

  “I won’t. I won’t stop.” He kisses me hard once, twice, and then once more. His lips somehow gentle and demanding all at once. “Unless you tell me to. You’re in charge here, sweet girl. If it’s too much, tell me.”

  “I wil
l!” I promise, near frantic with need. “Please, just do it.”

  Hunching over, he drops his mouth down to the swell of my breasts, sucking and teasing me into a frenzy before settling his hips at the apex of my thighs. That first press of steely hardness into the emptiest, most desperate part of me has my eyes rolling back in my head.

  “More,” I gasp.

  Parker’s forehead nuzzles hard against mine. “Slow. Slow. Slow and gentle.”

  I make a wretched sound of protest. “No. I want it all. Hard. Fast.”

  Despite my desperate pleas, he eases into me with a slow, agonized groan. “Fuck.”

  My nails bury themselves in the heated flesh of his bare ass, clawing at him, trying to bring him deeper inside. “Make me feel. Please. Just make me feel.”

  His hard body shudders above me before he thrusts himself deep, and the faint sting of pain isn’t enough to keep me from relishing in the sensation of exquisite fullness. My whole body roars to life, my heart hammering against my chest in a furious pounding rhythm that makes my breath come short.

  Parker’s eyes lock on mine as he eases out of me, and back in again. “Shit. You feel so damn perfect. What do you need, sweet girl? Tell me how to make you feel good.”

  My head thrashes from side to side, my body quaking under the hard drive of his hips. “Take me. Use me. Just—”

  He sinks back inside me and my words cut off on an ecstatic groan. His body sets an easy, yet firm rhythm, his flesh rolling into mine, hitting me right where I need it most, again and again until hot, white light flashes in the corner of my eyes.

  For a few brief moments, I’m not Mercy Chase. I’m not an overwhelmed older sister or an abandoned daughter. There isn’t any guilt, or pain, or anger. There’s just me and Parker and a rush of pleasure so intense it feels like fire in my veins.

  The ache in my chest, the one that’s been there for so long I’ve forgotten what it’s like not to feel it, rises and rises and finally bursts out of me, letting all the hurt go with it. Tears leak down my temples, the euphoria of all that release too much to bear. Parker leans forward and licks up each salty drop.