Chapter 39
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
Darby
I wanted to say more, but my mouth wouldn’t shape the words.
Those kinds of confessions were far from professional. They tore down the wall between my head and my heart, and I wasn’t ready to be that vulnerable.
So I offered what I could.
Mercer swung off the motorcycle then helped me down. Before he could turn us toward the house, I fisted a hand in his shirt and dragged him in for a kiss. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I crushed my body against his, delaying the very thing I had asked for.
It wasn’t that I wanted to wait.
It was that I couldn’t bear to wait another second. Everything I couldn’t say, I showed, one swipe of my tongue and desperate brush of my hand at a time.
We stood there, touching, groping, and clinging.
Mercer’s face buried in the curve of my neck, sucking heat into my skin until I was blissfully ablaze.
His fingers crept up my spine until they cupped the back of my head, and I melted into him.
It felt like falling—perfect, weightless release—so trusting it should have terrified me.
But it didn’t.
When I finally landed, it was on my back in Mercer’s bed with him above me, carefully removing my clothes.
I arched, offering the laces of my dress and the bow of the apron. With a tug of his hand, the corset’s firm squeeze around my ribs relented, and I exhaled a grateful breath. After a bit more maneuvering, I was stripped down to stockings and panties, the thin fabric tented by my leaking cock.
Mercer hovered over me on all fours while he drank me in, gaze sweeping my bare body with a hunger that made my skin prickle.
Then he sat back and tugged off his tank top. The gym shorts followed.
Bending in, he kissed across my chest, paying special attention to my nipples and the jewelry there. While he nibbled and licked, I moaned, my tail swishing across the comforter and doing all the squirming I couldn’t.
“I love these tits, baby,” he murmured while mouthing over me. “Such a beautiful girl.”
My heart stuttered and so did my breath. I clutched the back of his head, guiding him lower as he dotted kisses over my belly and licked lines across my skin.
By the time he reached my groin, I was twitching with need. Since I was his first male partner, I expected him to be skittish around certain areas and more comfortable with the anatomy that wasn’t so different between a woman and a man. One hot, wet hole was as good as another, after all.
Because of that, I had to bite back a yelp when his mouth closed over the head of my cock through the satin of my underwear. More sucking and the glide of his tongue had my hips bucking and my fingers twisting in his hair.
“Mercy, honey,” I groaned. “You don’t have to. I know dick isn’t everyone’s favorite flavor…”
He licked again, soaking the fabric until it clung to me. Then he flattened his palm on my stomach and looked up from where he was framed obscenely between my legs.
“I think you’re delicious,” he murmured.
“Liar,” I huffed despite the smile pulling at my cheeks.
Mercer smiled too, then went back to work, using his teeth to tug down the waistband of my panties and expose me to the air.
The shock of cold had me gasping before his lips closed around me, encompassing my length with ease.
Slowly, he licked around my crown then along the vein at the bottom of my shaft. He explored and savored while I lay back, my head spinning and body sparking with rare sensation.
My role in the bedroom had always been set at the bottom. Below. Beneath.
I was there to take what I was given and then see myself out.
Like I’d told Mercer, no one paid a prostitute to come, and they didn’t pay us to cum either.
Most of the time, I enjoyed myself. I was able to scavenge pleasure in the midst of an act that had long ago turned mechanical.
But it was unselfish, what Mercer did now. Giving to me like he knew how much had been taken. Like he would give me everything if he could.
His hands slid down so he could brace on his elbows instead of his unreliable knee, and his palms cupped my ass, fingers digging in and guiding me up into him.
I didn’t mean to thrust, didn’t mean to rush, but I felt myself moving anyway.
Rising and falling in his grip, trying to treat him as gently as he did me.
Then he hollowed his cheeks and sucked, and it was a goddamn revelation.
I had no lines prepared for this—no dirty quips or polished, purring filth that could make any man blush.
Every sound that came out of me was unfiltered.
Little whines and bitten-off cries that Mercer answered with terrifying precision, plucking the perfect notes until I felt like I was singing for him.
My fingers tangled in his hair while my other hand roamed across my chest, pinching, rolling, and tugging at my nipples. Chasing this impossibly heady feeling, indulging myself in the freedom to take, and take, and take until I was full to bursting.
When Mercer finally pulled off me, we were both breathless. He looked up from between my thighs with his mouth spit-shiny and his eyes dark.
“I want to taste more of you,” he rasped as he pushed himself upright.
My abandoned cock throbbed needfully, and I fumbled a hand around it to squeeze. “What do you…” I started, but he cut me off.
“Will you sit on my face?”
I blanched.
Mercer didn’t repeat himself. He just rolled to the side, crawled up toward the headboard, and stretched out on his back like his body was an offering.
His cock stood upright beneath his briefs, and the sight made a pitiful sound tear out of me. I wanted to ride him so badly I was already clenching, imagining the feeling of his thick shaft inside me. But my brain had snagged on his question, and now it was struggling to catch up.
“Mercy,” I said, trying for pragmatic but hearing how shy I sounded. “Have you ever eaten ass?”
He made a dubious face. “I’m pretty sure you told me it was a pussy.”
“Semantics.” I huffed. “Pussy sounds prettier.”
He lifted his head to look at me properly. “Has anyone ever eaten your pussy?”
My tongue darted across my lips, and my tail gave an involuntary twitch behind me. I shook my head.
“Will you let me?” Mercer asked.
I swallowed hard, trying to wrap my head around the idea and wondering why a tongue felt more intimate than a dick ever had.
But then it became clear.
When I was getting fucked, I was providing a service. Selling my body and being compensated accordingly. My value could be quantified in orgasms and hundred-dollar bills, but my own pleasure had no monetary value. No one paid for that.
I wasn’t sure when I decided to move, only that I felt myself peeling off my precum-soaked panties and tossing them over the edge of the bed. Then I crawled up the bed toward him.
Beside his chest, I sat back on my haunches, suddenly frozen. My hands hovered uselessly until I grabbed my tail and wrung it between my palms.
Mercer smiled and patted the mattress beside his head. “A throne fit for a queen,” he teased. “You can even kick your feet up.”
A laugh burst out of me—thin and nervous, absolutely wrecked by how badly I wanted this.
“I think not.” I tugged my tail closer to my chest. “Too comfy for me won’t be comfy at all for you. Where did you even get this idea?”
Mercer reached up, offering me his open hand.
“Please,” he murmured. “Let me love on you, baby.”
I exhaled slowly, let go of my tail, and nodded. Then I swung a leg over him, trembling all the way. He grasped my hips, easing me down then adjusting his grip to spread my ass cheeks wide.
And then—hovering above his chest, buzzing with fear and want—I whispered, “Okay. But go slow. I’ve never…” I swallowed. “Just go slow, Mercy.”
He did.
Agonizingly so.
The first stripe of spit slicked my crease and left my entrance twitching.
I grabbed fistfuls of the blanket on either side of him as he pressed in again, tongue and lips teasing my puckered skin.
It didn’t feel anything like a cock—no blunt push, no demanding stretch—just soft, nimble warmth coaxing me open.
Holding myself upright became difficult, then impossible, as he rimmed me. He sucked, slurped, and groaned into me in a way that started my cock leaking anew, smearing mess across his chest.
It spurred a brand-new symphony: whimpers chased by guttural sounds I barely recognized as my own. I was grateful for the bedsheets, because if I’d had a grip on Mercer’s hair, I might’ve torn it out.
My thoughts became sparks. Bursts of light and so much feeling that I couldn’t summon a single word.
Well, no… There was exactly one.
“Mercy.”
I breathed it over and over—half praise, half prayer for relief from the swell of pleasure stretching me thin from the inside out.
I leaned back, head lolling, eyes rolling, and tail spiraling around Mercer’s arm holding me steady while he devoured me.
I was lost to it. The movements. The sounds. The sense of adoration that was so… profound. The way he said I was. I was lost in all of it but still unnervingly present in my own body. Most of the time, it was easier to go away. To block out. To let go. But this I wanted to hang onto.
I clung to it with my tightest fists, knuckles blanching as I gripped the blanket. But even that grip that couldn’t keep me anchored when a jolt of euphoria shot through my body.
A cry tore from my throat, too loud in the quiet house, too big to contain.
My toes curled, muscles jumped, and my cock spurted across Mercer’s stomach, leaving a ribbon of creamy white fluid that pooled in the dip of his navel. He groaned, deep and rough, and I collapsed over him with my thighs still locked around his ribs.
My chest heaved against his as I alternated shuddering breaths and shivers of aftershock while the room blurred.
“Fuck,” Mercer said, followed by another groan.
Slowly, I worked my way off him, but the lows of exhaustion and highs of release made for a potent cocktail. My limbs were slow to respond, everything sluggish but still staticky, sending goosebumps up my neck and down my arms.
After an awkward effort, I collapsed onto the bed and stared up at the circle of light the bedside lamp cast against the ceiling.
Mercer settled beside me, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm before tugging me in and kissing my forehead, my cheekbones, and the corner of my jaw.
He brushed my hair back and smoothed down the length of my tail, every touch as gentle as the hush settling over the room.
I curled against him, resting my head on his shoulder and flinging one leg over his. Mercer dragged his hand down my side, his blunt nails scraping and sending shivers through me.
His earlier words nudged at me again, calling to mind every perfect, impossible thing he’d said. They resonated in the way he looked at me now. The way he made me feel wanted and just as welcome as he claimed I made him feel. That was why I’d come here. Why I’d brought my ragtag family to his door.
If I could trust Mercer with them, I could trust him with anything.
“You really do, don’t you?” I whispered, less a question and more a statement of fact.
Without hesitation, Mercer replied, “I really do.”
I snaked an arm across his chest, not minding the smear of cum, I just needed to hold him.
It hit me suddenly why this had never happened before.
Why it felt so unreal. This was the kind of moment people like me didn’t get.
The game I played was never for keeps. It was a fantasy, and lasting love was a sweet, stupid pipe dream, always slipping away.
Because at the end of the day, I was a body for hire.
If Mercer didn’t see that or didn’t realize it, then I didn’t want to be the one to point it out. But I had to ask.
“And it’s not a problem for you? What I do?” I hesitated, voice quieting. “What I’ve done?”
Mercer kissed my temple. “This is how I’ve always known you,” he said. “And I love you like this. Why would I want you to change?”
A low, aching sound slipped out, and I buried my face in his shoulder, letting his warmth seep into all the cold, doubting corners inside me.
There was more. Things I’d never let myself consider.
I’d only recently been given options and opportunities to think about what I wanted instead of what was required of me.
My life had always been determined by others.
First by my mother with all the best intentions, then by Maslow with all the worst. I couldn’t recall a time that my own thoughts, desires, or dreams had ever factored into the equation.
I wanted to be a mother. I knew that. But what else?
Still a whore? A professional? Forever?
Was that all I’d ever be?
“I think…” My throat tightened, putting a strain on my words. “I think I may want to change a few things.” I lifted my head enough to meet Mercer’s rich, brown eyes. “Be less of Luxe and more of me.”
His features softened. “I’ll love him too,” he said. “If that’s what you need. For as long as you need it.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He kissed me again, right in the center of my forehead, and lingered like he was sealing a promise. When he pulled back, his gaze flicked downward, taking in the mess on both our stomachs. His mouth curved in a smile.
“Let me get something to clean this up before it dries,” he murmured.
He pushed off the bed, and I rolled my head toward him only to find his cock jutting out from his body, straining against his briefs.
My thighs pressed together as a fresh spark of desire licked through me.
He was starting toward the bathroom door when I called after him. “Mercy, do you still have that lube I brought?”
Mercer bent over the bed and braced his hand beside me. The mattress dipped under his weight. “What for?”
I met his gaze and held it. “Because I want you to fuck me.”
His brows arched, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he glanced over my nude body with the same starved look as before.
He wanted me.
He loved me.
Every broken and beautiful part.
But he wavered, mulling it over until his raised brows pinched and he puffed out a breath. “Aren’t you tired?” he asked. “Your eyes are so heavy.”
“It may not be the rodeo,” I said with a smirk. “But I can still ride you, honey. You gave me what I needed. Now it’s my turn.”
He shook his head. “It’s not a job. This isn’t, and I’m not. You are never obligated…”
I pushed a finger to his lips, silencing him so I could echo back the request he’d made of me. “Just let me love on you, baby.”
If he’d stood there any longer, I’d have dragged my limp ass over to him and turned his cock into a lollipop, Zephyr-style, but my plea proved enough to spur him into action, and he took off toward the bathroom in a rush.
And I eased onto my back in his bed, smiling at nothing and feeling as held in that moment as if I were still in his arms.