Chapter Seven
Tamsyn
Music was playing when she woke.
A man’s smooth voice crooned about something coming and going in waves, the freedom of falling.
Tamsyn drifted for a little while, floating on the lyrics, not quite ready to come back to reality. Lingering memories of abject humiliation, peeing herself and throwing up yet again on the carpet, were enough to keep her hunkered down in the quiet twilight between sleep and full consciousness.
When the song ended, she stirred, sighing contentedly.
Finally opening her eyes, she blinked in surprise as Merrick’s face filled her vision. The side of it, anyway. He slept beside her, on top of the covers, his features relaxed.
He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
One thick arm laid over his bare stomach and she was captivated by the difference in skin tones between the two; his forearm was a few shades darker than his belly, tanned by the sun over summer, at a guess. She loved the shades of his chest hair, some silver, some gray, with a scattering of darker ones leading down to his waistband.
There was nothing on his feet, she noted, and the button of his jeans was undone.
Would he mind if she touched him while he slept?
Sitting up slowly, Tamsyn reached out to pet his chest lightly, stroking the patch of hair covering his pectorals. It wasn’t as coarse as his beard, not as soft as the silver pelt on his head, but a strange combination of the two.
More than that, the muscles beneath were firm, defined, warm.
She ran a fingertip over his nipple, surprised when it reacted to her touch. Apparently, she was incapable of getting her own bud to respond, but his worked just fine. Toying with it, she discovered a profound delight in simply exploring him, tracing his muscles, skimming her fingers up and down warm skin.
Heavy, lazy heat gathered in her lower belly.
A different song was playing now, something with a slightly faster beat, and her fingers roamed over him to the rhythm. Up and down, side to side, drawing circles on his flesh. For a few minutes, she even amused herself by practicing writing his name and hers on his upper chest.
Curiosity finally got the better of her when she noticed the bulge behind his zipper swelling quickly. Did she dare touch that part of him?
No, it was wrong. Even though she’d had her hand on him before, it seemed wrong to do so when he was asleep.
What would she do if the tables were turned and he was the one stroking between her legs while she was sleeping? The thought immediately switched the ache in her belly to a throb, drawing wet heat to the very place she imagined his fingers sliding inside again.
Tamsyn rested her palm on his stomach, drawing a line along the skin where that trail of hair disappeared beneath the waistband.
Would he use his fingers again if she asked? It had been painful at first, her flesh stretching and burning around his finger, but by the end, the pleasure was beyond anything she’d felt before. There was something inside the pain she couldn’t figure out, like a string was tied around her throat, beckoning her to follow the sharp tugs of discomfort.
“Think you’re ready for it?”
She jumped when his voice rumbled, thick with sleep, startling her from her thoughts. Her gaze whipped up to his, anxiety rising so fast she felt sick until she saw the amusement on his face. Her fingers curled into his stomach lightly.
“It’s an easy question, little owl. You want to see what I’ve got, take it out.” His lips curved in a rueful smile. “Be warned it’s a case of be careful what you wish for, mind you.”
She frowned, her hand poised over the zipper.
“Ever seen a cock before?” he asked, and though the question was terse, his voice was the opposite. “Aside from the one you almost had in you not so long ago?”
Tamsyn wrinkled her nose, preferring not to remember that particular incident. She was relegating that to the vault of stuff she refused to think about, although it was getting pretty full. She shook her head slowly, because in all honesty, community men didn’t go around flashing their unmentionables at people; things like that led to the temptation of women, or so her father said, as if seeing a man’s tool would send every woman in the vicinity into a desperate sexual frenzy.
No, community men liked to hide their secrets until their wedding nights.
Merrick lifted his arms, stretching before folding his arms behind his head, appearing to be confident in himself. A study of his face told her he really wasn’t bothered whether she unzipped him or not, although… was that a whisper of worry in the green if she looked hard enough?
Testing them both, she pinched the metal tab between her fingers, pulling it down an inch while staring at him directly. She just got an easy shrug of his shoulders that did wonderful things to the rest of his muscles and a lopsided smirk.
“It’s your choice, little owl. I’m just laying here, perfectly willing to be taken advantage of if the mood strikes.” He groaned quietly when she eased the zipper down another inch; she felt his erection pushing against the barrier and wondered if it hurt the way she hurt when he put his fingers inside her. “Either you’re an expert tease or you’re gonna be brave.”
Brave wasn’t the word she’d use. She was curious about his anatomy, that was all. Sex was an integral part of the community, the driving force behind everything the elders did, yet it was only spoken about in whispers between the wives, passed down to the ladies-in-waiting when an opportunity presented itself.
Warnings usually—which husbands were cruel, which ones liked pain. Whether they were big or small in that department, whether they had a complex about it.
Over the years, it became a code.
A code taught to girls by their mothers before they were old enough to be traded, to be sucked into the system and ultimately discarded in favor of another, more satisfactory exchange.
Tamsyn tugged the zipper down as far as it would go, waiting expectantly for his cock to pop free. Her brow furrowed when nothing happened, then realized when he chuckled that he wore underwear beneath his jeans.
“Want me to take them off?”
She nodded once, firmly.
“All of them? Jeans and boxers?”
He was teasing her, the rat. But wasn’t it nice to reach the stage where he could tease her, and she could see the humor in it without anxiety gripping her spine in hard fists and twisting until she bowed to it?
Crossing her arms awkwardly over her chest, she gave him a baleful stare.
“All right, just checking.” Moving lazily, as though he had all the time in the world, Merrick unfolded his arms and reached down to hook his thumbs in the waistband of both garments. Lifting his hips, he paused. “Last chance to back away without shame, darlin’.”
Feeling more confident in herself, and in his reactions, she flicked her fingers at him. She loved that he used his facial muscles every bit as skillfully as he utilized the inflections in his voice. There was never a trace of violence in his expression, even when she frustrated him to the point where her father would’ve just backhanded her.
Merrick gave her room to explore herself, to learn who she was beneath the smothering tutelage of the community. It was a surprise to find she had a sense of humor, the desire to laugh—even if she didn’t let it out. He allowed her to feel impatience, to express herself with temper or uncertainty, to delve into the range of emotions she’d systematically been forced to suppress in order to become a wife .
Fabric bunched around the middle of his thighs as he settled back onto the bed, resuming his previous pose. Leaving that glorious body on full, unapologetic display.
For a moment, the fire in her died, leaving her cold and yes, not a little afraid.
She didn’t think the community women had developed a code word for Merrick.
The base of his cock was thick, rooted at his groin in a neatly trimmed base of darker hair flecked with his trademark silver. A heavy sac tucked his testicles close to his body; based on her father’s lectures, the size of Merrick’s balls indicated he was a virile man.
Jedidiah would recruit him to the fold in a heartbeat, declaring him as a babymaker .
One who never failed to increase the wealth of the community.
Shaking that off, Tamsyn bit her lip and followed the slightly curved shaft up, up, up to the brutally flared head. Too heavy to stand upright, it twitched against his lower abdomen, plump veins pulsing in time with his heartbeat. Fluid glistened from the deep notch in the tip, leaking onto his own skin.
She remembered what he’d said to her the day she’d made her first trade of her own accord, the day he’d mentioned finding where she came from and getting her back home. The day she’d swapped her lifeline on his hair for his hand.
Don’t know what spooked you so bad, darlin’, but if it happens again, all you gotta do is look in my eyes. You’ll find what you need.
Truth be told, she was spooked now. In her very limited experience, his cock was perfection, just like the rest of him, but she was struggling to figure out how something of that size and girth was meant to fit where it hurt to take two fingers.
She understood why he’d warned her.
Blowing out a long, slow, and controlled breath—which she took pride in—Tamsyn met his eyes, silently begging for him to give her what she needed. Because she didn’t know what she was asking for, what kind of reassurances she required from him to make the doubts go away.
Merrick smiled softly, his gaze mirroring the gentleness. “Spooked, little owl?”
Oh yes, she didn’t know what she needed, but he comprehended her in ways she’d never fathom. She was an open book in his eyes, free for him to read whenever he chose, yet in the recesses of her mind, she was just a sentence. A single, lonely sentence that couldn’t figure out how to expand into a paragraph, a page, flourish into that book.
“I told you it would hurt,” he said in a low, calm tone. “We need to talk about that later. For now, all you need to understand is that this—” he lifted his chin toward the erection flexing in subtle little jerks, “—is flesh and blood. My flesh and blood. It’s part of me, darlin’. I control it. Would I ever harm you?”
She shook her head adamantly, trusting he wouldn’t.
“There’s no reason to be spooked then, is there? I’ll never force you to do something that I know will harm you. I’ll never make you take more pain than you can truly handle. Hell, if you don’t want sex with me at all, there are ways to make a relationship work around it.”
She instantly pulled a face of disgust. Love for her was all-encompassing; once she fell, she was all-in. When her love was abused, she cut herself off completely. She’d learned that lesson the hard way with her father—she’d loved him with everything she had as a child, not realizing what kind of monster he was beneath the surface.
Her mother’s death and her subsequent descent into the education of a community wife changed a whole lot about the way she felt about her father.
Love was strong, loyal, eternal, but so was the hate it evolved into when provoked.
“Darlin’, I’m spread out here like an all-you-can-eat-buffet. Hands behind my head, just waiting.” He grinned wickedly at her. “Touch. Play. Explore. I ain’t gonna complain.”
Even with his permission, she still hesitated.
“Alternatively, you can just stare at it. Bet I could come with those pretty eyes watching me without touching my cock.” A small frown tugged his eyebrows down. “Anyone ever explain what happens when a man comes, little owl?”
What was there to explain? Evidently, a man pushed his cock into a woman, pumped it in and out a few times, and—if she interpreted the glimpses of what she saw in the orgy correctly—grunted, yelled, or groaned as if he was dying and collapsed on the woman.
It seemed like a simple process, all in all.
Making a baby seemed as though it should be an event with more pomp and circumstance, but who was she to criticize nature?
Ignoring the silly question, she reached out and skimmed her fingertips down the outside of his shaft, tracing the outline of a cord beneath his skin. It jerked at her touch but didn’t do anything untoward, so she got a bit braver and wrapped her fingers around him.
Merrick grunted, subtly raising his hips.
Oh, he felt so warm. Even though her fingers couldn’t quite circle his girth, especially when she dragged them down to the root of him, it wasn’t his size she was thinking of, but that warmth and the silkiness of his skin. She’d never thought of herself as a tactile person, but he felt wonderful .
With the free rein he’d given her, Tamsyn took advantage and explored. She caressed him from root to tip, studying the smear of fluid on her fingertips. A lap of her tongue gave her the first taste of him; her nose wrinkled before she could stop it.
Oh. Ick .
A strangled, gut-deep laugh brought her attention away from the salty, musky flavor she hadn’t been prepared for to the man whose cock produced… some kind of lubricant? A deterrent to stop predators eating it? “Darlin’, don’t need to ask if you like how I taste. Scientists monitoring volcanoes just picked up the wave of disgust you emitted.”
Had she offended him? She supposed her reaction was pretty disrespectful to his lubricant. Worrying her lip between her teeth, she decided to make amends. Shaking her head in a don’t be ridiculous manner, she bent her head and licked the head of his cock with the flat of her tongue, drowning her tastebuds in that less-than-appealing substance.
“Ho-ly fuck .” Merrick’s biceps popped as his thighs went rigid. “Okay, little owl. Exploring time is over. You ain’t ready for a mouthful of cum, and I’m about to give you one.” He reared up into a sitting position. “I feel like a goddamn teenager.”
Tamsyn slapped her hand on his chest, scowling at him. He didn’t budge when she gave him a gentle shove, so she deepened the severity of her glower.
“Okay, okay.” Laughing, he held his hands up before lying flat again.
Did he know he’d laughed more this afternoon than he had since she’d met him?
Evidently, he liked her tongue on him, right? So she should do that again—that was logical, wasn’t it? When something felt nice, or made him feel good enough to make his muscles strain, she needed to repeat it.
After all, he’d told her touch, play, explore.
Tamsyn imagined herself being worldly and wise in the ways of all things sexual. It was far from the truth, of course, but being able to envisage it gave her a little boost of confidence she sorely craved.
“Wait.” The quiet command in his voice stopped her hand an inch away from grasping his cock. His finger wagged up and down her body, gesturing to the shirt she wore. “Take it off, darlin’. And if you’ve got panties on under it, they can take a hike, too.”
She wasn’t wearing any, but he probably already knew that. He knew every damn thing about her routine, and at present, panties weren’t a part of it. After a brief battle with his shirt, she managed to escape the fabric and tossed it aside, aware her nipples were jutting in his direction.
“Mmmn.” His gaze darkened as it skimmed down her body, pausing at her breasts, then venturing down to land on the dark patch of curls decorating her mound. “We’re going to the club tonight, little owl. I’ve decided I want the taste of that pussy in my mouth all night. Turn around and straddle my chest.”
What?
“Right about here.” He patted the space between his pectorals and the base of his throat. “Don’t be shy, darlin’. Your pussy and I are gonna be well acquainted with each other before long.”
She clenched on emptiness, then dismissed the sensations his naughty voice evoked. How was she meant to straddle him without looking awkward and stupid, not to mention flashing her unmentionables in his face? That was a stupid question, she admonished herself sternly—he wanted her most private place to be on full display for him.
Still, the desire to please him was fierce. Shuffling on her knees, she ended up kneeling beside him, facing his feet. She just couldn’t bring herself to lift her leg and straddle him.
“Don’t keep a starving man waiting, darlin’.” Hands gripped her waist and hoisted her effortlessly onto his chest. Her hips complained as her legs parted wide to accommodate the width of his torso, then Merrick dragged her back to where he wanted her.
Color flooded her face.
Her calves were on either side of his head, her thighs spread wide enough she could feel air against the wetness between her legs. His hands were on her bottom now, massaging her cheeks, pulling them apart so not only was her pussy on display, the tiny back hole meant to be hidden from view was visible too.
“Fuck. Me. Sideways.” Merrick growled like a wild animal, his breath washing over her pussy and releasing a fresh rush of arousal. “Don’t care if you touch my cock or not, Tamsyn, but I’m gonna feast on this pussy like it’s my last goddamn meal. Utter fucking perfection.”
A strangled moan was her only response as his tongue swiped up from her clitoris to her asshole. Her hips hunched, but his hands stopped her from stealing his prize away.
The scrape of his beard against the soft, sensitive flesh contrasted with how gently he licked her, his tongue leisurely tracing every nook and cranny of her sex until her muscles turned to water. With a whimper, she slid forward onto his chest, her butt in the air and her cheek on his lower stomach.
“That’s it, little owl. Relax.”
She felt her pussy clench as his thumbs pried open her lips, exposing her entrance. A quiver ran through her, shooting up her spine to embrace her scalp when he blew a stream of warm air directly at the unprotected flesh within and ignited a furious need.
“Never seen such a beautiful cunt, Tamsyn. Pretty plump labia, all pink and soft.” Merrick licked into her, his tongue breaching the rim and delving deep with a groan. “So small, so tight. Wet and juicy like a peach, but the taste…” Another groan, more animalistic this time. “Fuck, you’re addictive. I want to drink you dry, little owl. Make you come again and again until I’m drowning in this fucking essence.”
Gasping soundlessly, she clutched at the sheets with her injured hand, anchoring herself as his mouth covered her, his tongue fluttering and dipping inside her. There were so many sensations coursing through her, it was easy to ride them where thoughts didn’t matter.
Warm, wet heat from his mouth.
Hot pressure from his tongue.
The scrape and prickle of his beard.
The rasp of his thumbs on her flesh.
Even the rise and fall of his chest beneath her stomach made her insides melt and leak onto that questing tongue until it felt like everything she was belonged to him.
Her good hand sought his cock, idly stroking the length of him from root to tip as her mind flicked from insane pleasure to guilt that she wasn’t giving back as good as she got.
It didn’t take long for her to work out that the faster she stimulated him, the quicker his tongue lashed against her pussy. Because it fascinated her in some dim recess of her brain, she experimented with him—how did he react when she moved her hand fast or slow? Did he like it when her fingers barely skimmed his shaft or was he a man who preferred a strong, firm grip pulling up and down on his cock? Was it painful or pleasurable if she twisted gently, if she used her nails lightly down the underside?
The thrust of a thick finger brought her head up with a silent cry. The burn was there, the stretch, but not as keenly as before. She was wetter than she’d ever been, arousal lubricating the penetration, but it was the continuing ministrations of his tongue that brought her so, so close to the edge.
She willed herself to find her voice, to say just one word to end the torment.
Please .
Instead, all that came out was a garbled jumble of sounds.
Another finger joined the first, prying her open. They curled against her upper wall, rubbing in firm circles as his thumb massaged her other hole lightly.
A vaguely concealed threat… or a promise?
Either way, it made her nervous. She already had questions over whether he would fit inside her in the traditional sense; logic said yes, with repercussions. Trying to distract him from the much smaller, tighter orifice, she stiffened her hand around him and dragged it to the base of his shaft, closing her mouth over the crown.
Merrick’s body lifted beneath her; she didn’t know what was more surprising—the buck of his chest as he felt her lips push down or the kick of his hips unexpectedly filling her mouth with smooth, warm, velvet-clad steel.
She felt her jaw expand to accommodate him, fighting the urge to panic and gag at the same time as her ability to breathe seemed to die. Part of her wanted to bite down in protest, but her tongue was already fluttering against his shaft, tasting salt and musk, exploring the cord running beneath his skin.
Pained, panicked whimpers rippled up her throat when something else tried to squeeze in next to the two digits already occupying her. “Mmmph!”
“Breathe, little owl.”
Oh, he was licking her again, the flat of his tongue gliding over wet flesh, circling her clit. When she clamped down on his curled fingers, she realized he was encouraging her to grind her hips down, to find her own pleasure.
To push past her limits and accept the new intrusion of her own accord.
It was a test. How far would she go to make him happy? How much pain could her body take before her mind vetoed it all, or transcended above it? She feared it because she’d been taught to honor obedience or face dire consequences—which her father gave her a taste of more than once.
Yet Merrick asked her to take it, to embrace it. All while offering her the promise of pleasure if she just trusted him to help her find her limits.
Trusting him with her heart was easy; it was already in his hands, lost to her.
Trusting him with her body, with the breakable pieces of her, was still up in the air.
His shaft throbbed in her mouth when she moaned, and that weird tang of salty musk became a flood. Tightening her lips around him as drool threatened to trickle down her chin, she swallowed instinctively, inadvertently sucking on his cock.
Merrick made a harsh hah sound, then patted her ass. “Might want to get your mouth off me, little owl.” His fingertips bit into her flesh when she shook her head; his hips jerked, sliding his length over the cradle of her tongue. “Darlin’, you got about ten seconds before you get the surprise of your life.”
One of them was trembling—she just didn’t know if it was him or her. Maybe it was both of them, because she felt as though there were fiery sparks tingling through her bloodstream with every breath, her body tensing and preparing for the inferno.
The veins against her tongue pulsed faster, matching the shallow rock of her hips. He was being more insistent now, easing that third finger deeper, determined to open her further.
He was her undoing.
As his fingers, all three of them, shoved into her, Tamsyn swore there would never be another who touched her this way, who would ever have power over her like this when she was naked and vulnerable.
She fractured, splintering apart with his name screaming through her thoughts and her sex crushing his digits. Bliss erupted from her core, consuming her from one heartbeat to the next.
“Ah fuck, little owl.”
She moaned, feeling his cock kick in the confines of her mouth. The shaft swelled, the cord throbbing in hard, rhythmic jerks, and hot streams of creamy fluid coated her tongue, the back of her throat. Distracted by her own orgasm tearing her apart, she swallowed reflexively, choking a little when she couldn’t keep up with the source.
There was a space of time she lost track of, focused on the rapid clench-release of her inner muscles, the awesome high of soaring and the few moments where she floated at the pinnacle. When she crashed with a jarring moan, she realized blearily that Merrick’s cock had softened and slipped from her mouth.
His hands were on her butt again, gently kneading the flesh. “Back with me, darlin’? The way you drifted off, thought you might not come back to earth for a while.”
All she could muster was a grunt.
“Did I hurt you?”
“Nmph.”
“Scare you?”
She sighed contentedly and rubbed her cheek against his damp erection, unconcerned about what was smearing over her skin. Right now, she was warm, safe, comfortable, and getting a lovely butt massage. A nap was the next thing on her agenda; maybe a drink and a snack if she got the energy to crawl off Merrick’s body to find them.
He laughed and gave her right flank a stinging smack. “I know that cheek rub, little owl, and it means you’re about to fall asleep on me. Come on, sit up and get your bearings.”
She had her bearings just right, thank you.
“Unless you want to go a second round, one where my finger takes a detour past this very pretty rosebud,” he said, swiping his tongue through her pussy—which stung more than she expected—and using the tip to trace a circle around her rosebud , “then sit up and roll over.”
Aw, now she wasn’t feeling comfortable. Not after he’d drawn attention to the fact her unmentionables were still all up in his face. Grumbling under her breath, which basically consisted of a series of grunts in different tones, she decided to simply roll over instead of pushing her sex closer to that devilish mouth by sitting on it.
Sprawling, limp and sated, on the bed beside him, Tamsyn smiled at the ceiling.
Merrick sat up, took one look at her face, and laughed. “Here am I, worried you’re traumatized after your first blowjob, and you’re grinning like the cat who ate all the cream and wants more.” He patted her thigh. “Although I don’t think you’re keen on this kind of cream.”
Her eyes rolled balefully in his direction, but the smile remained. She really didn’t like the taste, but she’d made him happy, so she could tolerate it. Besides, even if she hated what his cock produced—and wasn’t that a surprise—she found she enjoyed the shape of him in her mouth, the texture of his cock, how he reacted to stimulation of a different kind.
“Proud of you, darlin’,” he told her gruffly. “Keeping me on my toes, that’s for damn sure, but you’re not what I was expecting.”
Just as the barb was about to strike, the hook-tipped point ready to bury itself in her heart at the thought of not being what he wanted or needed, he gave her that half-smile she adored. “Be exactly who you are, Tamsyn. I love meeting all these sides of you, and the more you’re settling in, those sides are making themselves known.”
A giddy foolishness swam to the surface as he left the bed; she almost hugged herself and rolled around with happiness. Thankfully, she managed to contain her joy as he shrugged on a black dressing robe he picked up from a chair and glanced at the clock.
“I’ll get you a drink and something light to eat, then it’s time to get up and have a shower, little owl.” The belt tightened around his waist, shrouding that perfect body in dark fabric. “We’ll go for dinner at the restaurant again, then I need to meet someone in the club. Once I’m done, I think it’ll be good for you to take a look around, get a feel for the place. Meet some new people.”
No, that didn’t sound like a smart idea at all. Going for a meal was okay, but out into the club? What if people remembered the crazy woman with the broken wrist who almost got herself accidentally fucked in an orgy?
There would be stares and whispers, a whole lot of embarrassment, and then she’d ruin Merrick’s night by crying like a baby and running all the way back to the cabin to hide under the covers.
As much as she hated the thought of going, she couldn’t say no. One night of blushing and feeling awkward was nothing compared to what Merrick put up with when it came to her, was it? When she weighed everything up from the moment she met him until now, she figured she’d put him through ten kinds of hell, cramped his social life, and taken more than she’d given in return.
So instead of shaking her head, she just smiled as though it was something to enjoy.
*