Chapter 29 #2
His attention dropped to my mouth, and his jaw set like he hated that I’d seen it. “You’d hate that,” he said.
“Try me.”
The challenge landed. His body answered first, a hard press of his hips that made my next breath useless. His gaze started to drop.
“No,” I whispered, pulling him down until his breath brushed my collarbone. “Don’t hide from me.”
His gaze snapped back to mine.
There he was, looking like a man who could face danger without blinking but considered being understood a personal attack.
I touched his face. The beard was rough against my palm, warm beneath my fingers. “If you’re going to watch me come apart, Mercer, you can damn well let me watch you too.”
He swallowed. I felt it under my hand.
“Hold on to me,” he said. “I’m not feeling very fucking noble.”
Then he pushed inside me by one slow inch and stopped.
The air left me in a thin, useless sound. My fingers tightened at the back of his neck. He stayed braced above me, arms locked, eyes on mine, his whole body rigid with the effort of not taking more than I gave.
Patience should not have looked that filthy.
“Nick,” I said, because apparently that was the only word my brain had retained.
His mouth tightened. “Tell me.”
“Move, damn you.”
“Bossy woman.”
“You noticed.”
His mouth parted on a rough breath, and something hot and vicious in me liked it.
He gave me another inch, slow enough to make me consider violence. My body opened for him with humiliating enthusiasm, and his breath left him through his teeth. His eyes didn’t move from mine.
I didn't look away, which gave me a front-row seat to every flicker of control he lost while pushing deeper inside me.
Begging had always seemed undignified. But when Nick Mercer moved another inch, I became open to new information.
“Don’t close your eyes,” he said. “I want to watch you lose that control you love so much.”
“I won’t,” I said.
Then I made the mistake of meaning it.
He moved slowly, his restraint too careful now, too costly to be control. Each careful retreat made my hands tighten. Each return dragged another sound from my throat: first a breath, then a curse, then his name in a voice I would deny under oath.
Unfortunately, Nick noticed everything.
Of course he did.
Nick knew exactly what he was doing with his hands, his mouth, the slow, filthy patience of his hips. Then I touched him gently, and his face changed.
My fingers slid into his hair and tightened, dragging his attention back where I wanted it.
“No,” I said.
His eyes opened.
“You don’t get to touch me like this and disappear into my neck.”
“I’m right here.”
“Then prove it.”
Need crossed his face before he could bury it, and I felt it everywhere he was still inside me.
I could have hurried him. My legs wanted to. My hips definitely wanted to. Every reckless part of me wanted him harder, deeper, fast enough to make this easier. The man was already inside me. Requiring eye contact seemed excessive.
I kept my hand on his face anyway.
“You sure about that?”
“Nick.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“Yes.”
He moved again, slow enough to be cruel and deep enough to make my nails bite into his shoulders. My back arched, and when his name escaped me, his hips drove in a fraction harder before he caught himself.
“Again,” he said, rough against my mouth.
The sound he made when he lost that inch of control was going to haunt me in broad daylight.
His forehead came down to mine. For a few breaths, neither of us moved except where we had to. His chest brushed mine. His arms trembled. My knees tightened against his hips. Every excuse I had left was lying dead somewhere near my borrowed T-shirt.
“Say something,” he said, his voice rough at my mouth. “I need you with me.”
Of course he would ask that now. My brain produced exactly nothing. My hips, unfortunately, had plenty to say.
I ran my thumb along his beard, felt the muscle in his jaw jump beneath it, and forced the words out before I could dress them up into something safer.
“You know exactly what to do with my body,” I said. “It’s the rest of me that’s making you panic.”
He went still, but the part of him buried inside me didn't soften, which made the silence infinitely more dangerous.
“Because I want all of it,” he said. “And wanting it means I have to stop pretending this ends cleanly when you leave.”
The cabin gave us nothing to hide behind. No radio. No lodge noise. No one needing him more than I did.
He stayed right there, exposed and furious about it.
My thighs tightened around his hips. My hand softened against his face. My pride took another humiliating step back.
Mostly, I hated that I meant it when I told him not to waste the night hiding from me.
“You hear me?” I asked.
His throat worked.
“Yes.”
“Good.” My voice came out thinner than I intended. “Because tomorrow is already coming, Nick. Don’t waste tonight hiding from me.”
“I’m trying,” he said.
“Try harder.”
The words hit him low—I felt the answer in his hips before I saw it in his face.
His control didn’t snap. Nick Mercer would probably keep standards while the walls gave out. But it changed. The distance in it burned off, leaving something rawer beneath. He lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me like he had run out of places to hide.
Oh.
Damn him.
I kissed him back.
His hips moved again, and this time the restraint stayed, but the retreat disappeared. He was still controlled, but no longer polite about it, and every thrust after that made my grip on him less civilized.
“That’s it. Fuck, Juliette. Take it.”
Each stroke pressed me deeper into the mattress, into the heat of him, until the lie of leaving unchanged had nowhere left to stand.
My breathing went ragged first. His followed, which felt like a victory I had earned with my entire body.
If he was going to undo me, I intended to take some of his control with me.
“Juliette,” he said against my mouth.
My name in his voice did damage in places I had no intention of discussing.
I tightened around him.
His breath broke. One hand left the mattress and caught my hip, then stopped there, gripping hard enough to tell me exactly what he was refusing himself.
Need looked different on Nick. Quieter. Worse.
The pleasure built by degrees, each stroke dragging it higher until my thighs started to shake.
“There you are,” he said, and that was what finished me.
I tried to swallow the sound rising in my throat. Nick heard it anyway. The man collected my worst tells like field data.
My hands locked on his shoulders. My body tightened beneath him, around him, through him.
The next breath broke him.
His hips drove deep, a rough sound tearing against my mouth, and for one savage second, I had him exactly where he had me.
Nick followed with a low curse against my mouth, his body going hard and still before the tremor moved through him.
“Juliette. Fuck.”
He stayed there, buried deep, breathing against me like even moving away required more of him than he had left.
Outside the cabin, the reserve held its breath. Somewhere distant, an engine turned over and faded. Inside, his chest rose hard against mine until the rhythm finally steadied.
His forehead rested against my temple. My hand stayed at the back of his neck.
Eventually, he lifted his head. His eyes were damp. Mine probably were too, which was inconvenient and therefore none of his business.
“Hey,” he said, rough and quiet.
A laugh almost broke loose. It came out as breath.
“Hey.”
His thumb moved once along my cheek.
The silence after that had weight.
"You leave at six-thirty," he said into the dark.
"I know."
"I'll take you to the vehicle."
I shifted, propping myself up on one arm to look at him. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.
“And in the morning?” I asked. “You’ll still watch me drive away?”
His silence answered before he could.
Eventually, sleep pulled me under before I could ask the question again.