Chapter 25 #2
The new angle had me grinding harder and whining as my cock leaked precum onto Mercer’s stomach. He had me folded up and held tight, his arms around me and his legs bent behind me, turning his body into a throne fit for a queen.
He licked and nipped at my chest, and my tail looped through the air like a ribbon in the wind. I was barely contained, fingertips pressing bruises into his shoulders as I tried to hold on. My job wasn’t done until he was, but it was getting hard to remember who was supposed to be in control.
His hand spread across my backside, pinkie finger hooked around my tail while the others ventured lower.
They nestled against the side of his cock, and when I came down next, they entered me too.
My hole stretched around them, and the overwhelming fullness flooded my brain.
I stuttered then stopped, mouth agape in a silent cry as Mercer continued thrusting into me.
He arched up and used his grip on my tail to drag me back down, all while sucking mercilessly on my tits.
I clung to him, having given up on his shoulders to knot my fists in his hair. The top of it was just long enough to clutch, to pull, and to lever his head backward so I could bend in and steal his lips for a kiss.
The sound of his orgasm passed between us, a throaty groan I swallowed as I kissed him deeper. His cock pulsed inside me, crowded in alongside his fingers, and I had finally earned my reward.
I broke free and bowed back as a surge of pleasure ripped through me. My body went tight, thighs closing like a vise and hands locking in Mercer’s hair while cum spurted across the expanse of his chest.
For a second, everything went dark—like a night sky dusted with starlight—and I let it take me into a brief, shimmering oblivion. My fingers loosened and my muscles relaxed while Mercer reposed beneath me with his skin flushed and chest heaving.
When I could finally trust my legs to hold me, I eased off him and scooted toward the edge of the bed.
“Where are you going?” Mercer asked, voice rough and hazy with afterglow.
“Gotta clean you up,” I said as I pushed to my feet with the minimum amount of wobble. “Then I need to get to work.”
“What?” He sat up, braced on his elbows and blinking. “Isn’t it early yet?”
“A manager’s work is never done,” I replied, aiming for casual and missing by a mile. That antsy feeling from earlier had crept back in, and it crawled beneath my skin. I rounded the corner of the mattress while avoiding Mercer’s gaze. “I’ll get some tissues.”
“Darby?” he called after me, soft and almost wounded.
I left anyway.
In the bathroom, I tore a wad of toilet paper from the roll and wiped the lube out of my ass. Dropping it into the toilet, I grabbed another handful and reached for the door—then caught my reflection and froze.
I looked fine. Hair a little mussed, cheeks rosy, lips plump from kissing. Nothing that said wrecked. Nothing that said wanting.
But I felt both.
That damn crush weighed on me. It was hard to treat this like a job and Mercer like a client, but harder still to think it might be different. Scarier too.
I was good at sex, but relationships were a luxury I couldn’t afford.
I’d tried once. I sold myself a fairytale ending, and the balance came due with interest. I was still paying it off, one careful detachment at a time, and I imagined I always would be.
There wasn’t enough money in the world to clear that kind of debt.
I liked Mercer, and I believed he liked me.
For now.
But I’d played this game enough to know that once the prize was won, the thrill faded. Sugar daddies wined and dined me, emptied their pockets and promised me everything I asked for until they got what they wanted. Then they were done.
They left, and I went back to work like I intended to do now. And there I would keep busy until the next time someone came looking for somewhere to bury their dick.
Mercer would be the same. He would become merely a coworker. Someone I could rub shoulders with or shoot flirty glances, and eventually, he might want to fuck me again. And I would let him because he was good. Because I was good.
I smoothed my hair, wiped my chest where the memory of Mercer’s kisses lingered, and breathed through the tightness balling inside my ribs. Then I pasted on a smile and went out to face him.
He’d adjusted in the bed and now sat covered to his waist in the sheets and blanket. The milky white splatters of cum had already been mopped up, no doubt courtesy of the boxers I noticed wadded in a new spot on the floor.
I expected to find him blissed out, floaty, and far away. Instead he was painfully present, staring me down with eyes that had the slightest pinch. I wasn’t sure why until he spoke.
“Did I do something wrong?”
He shifted under the covers, and I couldn’t help but glance at his leg, the injured one. The difference in shape was subtle but unmistakable, and the realization hit like a belated blow.
His first time.
Not just with me. Not just with another man. His first time since.
Since the amputation. Since the divorce. Since everything that had taken him apart and pieced him back together differently.
Something in me, the part informed by empathy rather than fear, faltered.
The toilet paper crumpled in my hand as I crossed back to the bed. Mercer’s eyes tracked me until I perched on the edge of the mattress beside him. The sheets rustled as I reached out, brushing my fingertips over his shoulder then down his arm to rest on top of his hand.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said quietly. “You were… perfect, actually.”
His mouth bent into a frown. “You took off so fast. I thought—”
“Habit.” I gave a rueful smile. “I’m used to leaving before I get told to. You know the saying.”
He raised a brow.
I glanced at the tissue still clutched in my free hand. “You don’t pay a prostitute to come; you pay them to go.”
His head shook, stern and decisive. “You aren’t that to me. You’re not a slut or a whore either. Those are ugly words, and Darby?”
I cocked my head toward him, and he met my eyes before concluding quietly.
“You’re so very pretty.”
My throat closed around a dozen things I couldn’t say, and my whole body itched. I wanted to claw at myself, to tear away the vulnerable parts, but I knew that would only leave me more exposed.
“Please don’t do this,” I managed at last.
His frown deepened. “Do what?”
Don’t hurt me.
The plea screamed through my head, but my mouth wouldn’t shape it. I’d already asked him for enough.
In the strangling silence, he asked me instead, “Will you stay?”
I didn’t answer, but I felt my head nodding.
Setting the tissue on the bedside table, I slid under the covers beside him. He rolled onto his side so we faced each other, and the moment I was near enough, he looped an arm around and pulled me in.
He cradled me close, and the tension that had overtaken me gradually relaxed. I nestled in, warm and held and maybe a little bit loved.
Entangled as we were, I couldn’t help but feel him relax too. He exhaled a breath that must have emptied his lungs, and if I’d been able to see his face, I imagined he would have looked peaceful.
Still raw, still healing, but not alone in it.
And lying there, close enough to feel his heartbeat, I wasn’t either.