Chapter Fifteen Madelyn
It’s not easy to take a leap in the cold, sober moments of looking at your bank balance the same way it is when you’re safe in strong arms, coming like you never have in your life, being told you’re beautiful and perfect.
I don’t take back anything I said, of course, but I’m not kissing Mercer passionately in front of Zack and telling him to move on in, either.
I wait for him to call me on it. Get mad or impatient. Make it clear that if I’m not all in, neither is he, or his promise to help.
Why am I like that?
Oh, you know. Life. Eli. Broken hearts and divorce court.
Mercer never calls me anything but his love, his mate, and always in low whispers or private, stolen seconds where Zack can’t hear it. And then?
He just keeps being the same guy he was.
Swim lessons in the morning. Dinner prep at night.
Working his way through an ever-growing stack of recipes with Zack on his shoulders.
Bedtime stories for Zack. Movie nights with us on the couch, wrapped in his tentacles, his heavy weight soothing Zack to sleep and making me feel safe—and a little needy.
On Thursday night, he’s helping me put Zack’s presents at the table after he’s asleep, and he places something at my seat, too. “What’s this?”
“I stopped by Little Dragons today and got enrollment forms for the fall. I put down the registration fee and the fees for the first month. Happy giving-birth day.” He smiles and pats the large package wrapped in sparkling silver paper into place at Zack’s seat.
I can’t speak. I can’t do anything but blink for a moment.
Mercer looks at me, and his smile fades.
“Oh, if you’re not sure, they said we could get a refund until the last day of August. We can also roll it over for another month if we want to hold the spot, but then we’d have to pay an additional fee.
They were going to send an email to you tomorrow morning with the schedule, the tuition rates, all of that. ”
“You... You went to the preschool and registered him?”
“No, I paid the fees. I know you have to fill out the paperwork, and I’m sure it’s tedious.
I could help, but I imagine they want things like his pediatrician’s contact info, his allergies, etc.
Madelyn, did I cross a line? I thought..
. I honestly thought it was a nice gift to the woman I love, to thank her for giving birth to the son I love.
I know he’s not mine, by blood, but I hope that doesn’t much matter.
To him, or to you. It doesn’t matter at all to me. ”
I burst into tears, and Mercer hastily yanks the envelope away. “I’ll go back! I’ll go right now,” he promises, backing away.
“No! No, no. First, you should know that... That I’m hormonal, and I’m in love, and this is the first and only time someone has ever given me a present like this. This is the first time someone other than my immediate family has made me feel so good about being a mother, has made me feel so loved.”
“Oh. Well, that’s going to be an everyday thing from now on,” Mercer promises, gently putting the envelope down.
“The house is beautiful. You have a present, Zack has a heap of presents, and I’m speaking with an investment counselor on Monday.
My mother’s money has just been sitting in my account for two decades, maturing, and it’s time it was put to better use. ”
“Wait. Your mother’s money? I can’t spend that. You can’t spend that on me,” I say quickly.
“Yes, I can. I’m investing it—in stocks and high-yield CDs, I think, but then also in you.
You’re my family now—and you haven’t met them yet, Madelyn, but you have more family than you know, waiting to love you.
Janet, Calder, their boys... My goodness, Zack will be such a wonderful big cousin to them.
He’s the most caring little boy. We’ll go meet them this summer, won’t we? ”
I nod and sniff in. “I’m still a big sack of sore boobs and cramps, okay? But I’m sore, sniffly, crampy, and happy.”
Mercer stifles a giggle. “I don’t mean to laugh, my Madelyn, but you do sound like you’re harboring a cast of rejects from The Seven Dwarfs.”
I chuck a puff of dino-shaped confetti at him from its resting place on the table. “It’s a good thing you’re so lovable, Mercer.”
“Am I?” his voice slides into that low, sweet tone that sends tingles through me.
“You are. But you shouldn’t tonight. We shouldn’t. Everything is achy down there.”
“Would pleasuring not help that ache go away?” he asks, one eyebrow arched.
“Well, yeah, that’s what they say, but I never tried. Eli wanted nothing to do with PMS or ‘that time of the month.’”
“Doesn’t that mean you’re a healthy woman, in her sexual prime and capable of giving new life?”
“That’s exactly what it means.”
Mercer nods seriously, pauses, and then scoops me up. “Eli was an idiot. Remember that I don’t like hearing his name unless it’s to favorably compare my abilities to his?”
“Yours are always far superior,” I reassure with a kiss on his cheek.
“Let’s see how I stack up in providing pain relief.”
Mercer curls over me as I lie flat on my back, his tentacles making a net that holds me in a slow, massaging grip.
I turn my head from his long kisses to see the way they writhe, inch by inch, up my arms. Across my breasts.
Between my thighs. Every motion is mesmerizing, hypnotizing every spot he touches until the world is sleepy and the tension flees out of my muscles.
“Nice and easy. Nice and deep,” Mercer murmurs between adoring kisses along my collarbone, working a tender tentacle into my aching center.
“So good. So good,” I moan, letting out a sigh. “But it’s not fair. You’re doing all the work.”
“I’m taking away your pain. If you really want to take the tension out of me, all you have to do is lie there and let me in,” Mercer murmurs, nuzzling my ear.
In answer, I wiggle my leg and shake off one tentacle’s loving grip, and tuck my leg pointedly over it, pulling Mercer towards me. Deeper.
“I’ve been letting you in all month. All week. Come in. Stay,” I urge, and my hips arch and play to welcome the curved cock into my depths.
Mercer works his way in with longing sounds exiting his lips. His cock nestles home and holds, and two of his tentacles make a sandwich around it—one comes to rest on my clit, the other slides between my cheeks and teases the puckered flesh hiding there.
“Oh, Mercer. Oh, wow,” I close my eyes as the sensations overwhelm me. It’s like two tongues, licking and sucking, teasing in perfect unison—and then he starts to move, hips dropping more deeply to mine.
“It feels... Incredible. Like there are three of you. My God.” I groan as the tentacles “lick” in unison and Mercer’s ridges rub along the sensitive flesh of my upper wall, stroking my clit and all the most tantalizing spots from the inside out.
“You feel incredible,” he praises, pushing forward and burying the last ridge inside of me, almost like a wedge that seals me around his thick hardness.
Once he’s snug inside, Mercer rocks, holding himself above me and looking down with a satisfied smile.
“You stretched right around me this time. Swallowed me up.”
It could be the fact that I’m a little touchy lately that makes me ask, “Are you saying I’m loose?”
Mercer looks stunned, then shakes his head. “You aren’t. You’re so snug and sweet around me.”
I squeeze experimentally, and there’s barely any space to move. I give a whimper of pleasure as my walls rebound, deliciously stretched and filled.
“I’m going to guess that the colossal idiot feared childbirth would ‘ruin’ you?”
“How’d you guess?” I sigh.
Mercer squares his massive shoulders, hands gripping my hips.
He draws back slowly, letting me feel the caress of every ridge, then pushes back in with the same controlled force, making me dizzy with want as the ridges tease between my clit and all the deep, unexplored spots that I’m discovering, thanks to him.
“Even if bringing a baby into the world somehow ‘ruined’ this area for that bastard, it wouldn’t for me.
Pencils aren’t the same width as cucumbers. ”
For a second, I’m not sure I heard that right.
Did Mercer just make a joking insult about my ex’s dick? It wasn’t anything to complain about, that’s for sure, but compared to Mercer? “Like a scooter compared to a limousine,” I add.
“Guppy to whale?”
“Mm, no, guppy to kraken,” I purr, giggling. “Do you know you’re perfect?”
Mercer’s eyes light up. “Because of my size?”
“No. Yes. Because of the size of your heart. You know how to be serious and help, and when to be silly and make me laugh at things I used to hold onto, things that have been festering for years. Insults I could never ‘disprove’ because I was too afraid to find love again.”
“Perhaps you’ve found it?” Mercer hints.
My throat feels tight around the three little words that I know he deserves. I pull him in for a long kiss, smiling into his eyes. “I know I have.”
Mercer groans, pressed close to me, and I hold onto him, keeping his chest smothered to mine, feeling the weight of him trapping me.
The maddening stimulation continues against my clit and between my cheeks, and his cock finds a rhythm that makes me moan on every thrust. As they pick up speed, it just becomes one long, breathless wail.
“I want to fill you again,” Mercer whispers. “Is it still safe?”
“Mmhm. Fuck, yes, Mercer. Fill me, fill every inch.” I clench down as my orgasm hits, making everything inside spasm and shake, and when he feels me exploding around him, his cock does that mind-blowing fluttering jolt, and hot, thick spurts add to our juices.
He fucks me through his own release, uneven rhythms staggered by his ejaculations.
“Mm. My mate,” Mercer sighs, collapsing on top of me, still buried deep. His tentacles slink away, down the sides of the mattress.
“My Mercer.”