Have Mercy: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (9 page)

With lust-trembling hands, she applied her foundation, taking more time to blend it in than she really needed. Next came eyeliner. She had to take a few deep breaths before she could draw her signature cat’s-eye without worrying that she’d stab herself in the process. By the time she pulled out her lipstick and traced it around her slightly parted lips, she and Tom were panting in tandem.

The sound of a guitar tuning overhead should have broken the spell. It should have made her feel guilty. It should have made her embarrassed that surely, by now, Dave and Guillermo would have noticed that both of them were missing, and it wouldn’t take a genius to guess why.

Over their heads, bar patrons drank and danced and flirted and walked around in high-heeled shoes. Dave and Guillermo could decide to come downstairs and see what the hell was keeping them at any minute.

She turned away from the mirror, turned and actually faced Tom for the first time since he’d stepped into the room. “Come here.”

Her voice was huskier than usual, but he came all the same, stopping half an arm’s distance from her. She pulled her dress off the table and stepped into it, pulling the fabric up her body, sliding the straps up her arms and over her shoulders, watching Tom’s eyes all the while. She turned around again, presenting her back to him. “Zip me up.”

Without saying a word, Tom reached for her. His warm palm cupped the bare skin of her back, and they both gasped. She could feel the tremor in his hands as he slid the zipper up slowly, carefully, so careful not to catch her skin or hair in its teeth. His fingers brushed against the back of her neck as he hooked the fastener at the top of the zipper, making her shudder. With him standing behind her, she could see just how much bigger he was than she was, feel the calluses against her delicate skin. He
could make demands, he could take what he wanted, he could arm himself with scorn when he looked at her, but he didn’t. He only bent his dark head over her blonde one and opened his mouth against her neck, mouth warm and damp against her skin, and inhaled deeply.

He stepped back and dropped his hands to his sides, waiting for her to tell him what to do. There was no doubt in her mind anymore about whether she’d planned this as torture or reward; it was a test, and he’d passed it.

When Emme set her black heels on the floor and stepped into one, she stumbled a little, she was so overcome. Tom reached forward and took her arm, holding her steady as she slid her feet into the leather. With her heels on, she was tall enough to look him in the eye, so she faced him and did just that.

“God,” Tom muttered under his breath. His eyes closed and he leaned toward her, but he seemed to recall himself a split second later and pulled back. He ran his hand over his mouth and blinked.

Emme watched him as he tried to master himself, his obvious struggle both incredibly endearing and incredibly arousing. In a move she was beginning to recognize as his response to discomfort, he pulled out another cigarette. She waited for him to ask if she minded.

Tom surprised her. “Do you want one?”

“I shouldn’t,” she said, her voice clogged with emotion.

He nodded, looking at the floor. “Yeah. Disgusting habit, awful for your voice.”

“But I’m going to anyway.”

Tom’s head snapped up, and the small, hopeful smile that activated his dimples nearly did her in. “Yeah?” He placed the cigarette between his lips, flicked the lighter, and held the flame to the tip, inhaling slowly. “Some days I wish I’d never started,” he warned, and he passed the cigarette to her.

Their fingertips brushed as Emme slid the cigarette from his hand, in between her fingers. She ran her thumb over the filter, which was warm and damp like his mouth had been against her neck. She watched his face, the tensing of the muscles in his jaw, the peek of his tongue as he licked his lips, and she lifted the cigarette to her mouth.

Emme inhaled, filling her lungs with the same burning smoke that had filled his. She held her breath for a moment, feeling the swirl of smoke in her lungs, in her head, even in her sex. She could smell her own arousal, heavy and thick beneath her clothes, and the warm laundry scent of him. When she exhaled, smoke from her lips trailed across Tom’s cheek almost like a caress. She handed the
cigarette back to him, the filter stained red from her lipstick.

Tom brushed his thumb over her knuckles, one light touch, as he took the cigarette. When he raised it to his lips, his tongue flicked out against the red lipstick stain, and he moaned low as he inhaled. His brow wrinkled as if in pain as he breathed her scent, her mouth, the smoke, all of it. Emme held her breath with him, exhaled when he did.

Tom took one last drag, then offered her the cigarette again. Emme declined, and he stubbed it out. They stood in silence for a long moment. When Tom finally spoke, the words sounded like they’d been dragged from him.

“I want you,” he said. “God, I want you. More than I’ve ever wanted anything. But I don’t want you to regret it. I promise, I’ll stay away from your room at night no matter how hard you make it. But if you come to mine …” He took a breath. “If you want to come to mine, that is. If you want me.” He cleared his throat.

Emme took pity on him and spoke, reaching up and tracing his stubbly cheek with her thumb. “Shh. We have a show to play.” His stubble scratched against her palm as he turned his face into her hand. “Now go upstairs and finish the sound check, and worry about later when it comes.”

Tom wanted to crawl out of his skin.

Emme had scheduled breaks into their tour schedule; just a few days here and there to do laundry, rest her voice, sleep more than three hours in a night. It was humane of her, and rare for a band on tour, but she said she knew herself and knew what she needed, and sometimes, she needed to rest.

Tom didn’t
do
resting. He’d tried, many times before, to take days off, to enjoy watching TV and sleeping late. But there was always that niggling feeling in the back of his mind telling him that he had forgotten to do something important; that voice that compelled him to call his manager twice a day just to check in, to check and recheck his bank account balance or phone bill or to finally just give up and smoke half a pack of cigarettes just to have something to
do
.

Even worse than the agitated restlessness of forced inactivity were the dreams. It had only been two days since their encounter in the green room, but somehow Tom had dreamed three weeks’ worth of dreams in those two nights. He’d stayed up nearly all night in the hotel in Tuscaloosa, hoping against hope that she would come to his room. He’d even opened his hotel room door once and looked up and down the hallway, thinking he heard someone there. And, just like a kid waiting for Santa, he found no one.

When he finally fell asleep, his dreams had started as memories of that night with different endings: Emme bent over the table in that basement room, ordering him to fuck her from behind; Emme smoking one of his cigarettes, calm as could be, and telling him to masturbate for her while she watched, unmoved; Emme making him watch as she slid up her skirt and touched herself, leaving him wanting, aching.

Tom had only had one other partner who had made him feel that way, a blues singer on tour who’d come through his bar for two nights. He’d never been big on one-night stands, but he’d called her “ma’am” and apparently she’d realized something about him, or at least suspected. For the intense two days that she’d been in town, he had let himself belong to her, follow her orders, accept her affection and give her pleasure. They hadn’t experimented with pain, but by the time she left, he’d wanted to.

But then she was gone, and there weren’t any other women around that he could trust enough to
take him safely where he wanted to go. Until Emme. He’d trust her with anything.

Thank God he had a room to himself, because he hadn’t masturbated so much since junior high.

But even that had its limit, and so Tom was stuck drinking badly burned coffee left over twelve hours later from the free breakfast buffet and watching his clothes tumble around in the hotel’s washing machines.

The buzzing of his cell phone was almost a relief when it came.

Unknown numbers usually meant bad news, but Tom had learned from long experience that leaving the call unanswered would only lead to more trouble down the line.

The recorded voice was no comfort, either. “This is a courtesy call from Louisville Bank regarding suspicious activity on your debit account.”

Damn it
. He took a deep breath. It could just be that he’d been traveling. Sometimes that confused his bank, although he’d called them before he left. Or, if he was honest with himself, he could acknowledge that it could be Katie.

He had left her with his spare debit card in case of some kind of emergency—the roof leaking, or his car getting a flat tire, or the HVAC unit going on the fritz again. He’d worried about doing it even as he’d done it, knowing he was taking a risk, but unable to stand the thought of something going wrong while he was away and Katie unable to take care of it.

Tom picked up his Styrofoam coffee cup and left his laundry in the washer. Outside, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling as he called the phone number the recorded voice had given him.

By the time he hung up, two more cigarettes were gone from his pack and he was shaking with anger. In the past two days, someone had withdrawn a thousand dollars from his bank account at ATMs throughout the city, and Tom had a pretty good idea of who that someone might be.

Katie didn’t answer when he called, of course. She never did when she knew she was in trouble. He didn’t have much hope she’d return his call, but he left a message anyway.

Then he dumped his cigarettes into the trash can outside the hotel’s front door and went back inside.

There was something bothering Tom.

Emme could feel his discomfort like a physical ailment, almost as if it were contagious. Her
own shoulders crept up toward her ears just watching him. He sat with her and Dave and Guillermo as they played rummy in the hotel lobby, but he had to be reminded when his turn came. He checked his phone obsessively, pulling it out of his pocket every five minutes and staring at the screen as if he could make it ring. His fingers couldn’t be still—he fiddled and tapped and lifted them to his mouth and back down before seeming to realize that he wasn’t smoking. If he stayed this upset,
she
would need a massage.

Emme felt the strangest urge to rest the cool back of her hand against his forehead like a mother with a sick child.

When Tom’s phone actually rang, all four of them jumped. Tom was out the door before she could hear him answer.

Dave threw down his cards. “I’m calling it a night.”

Guillermo looked at Emme, then nodded in Tom’s direction. “Is he okay?”

Emme shrugged. “I don’t know. Give him his space, guys.”

Guillermo packed up the cards while she pretended to straighten the table back up. The part of her that believed that Tom deserved his space warred with the part of her that knew he’d probably had more than his share of handling problems on his own.

The bossy, nosy part of her won out, in the end. The minute Dave and Guillermo headed back to their rooms, she was out the front door.

Tom was leaning against the wall near the front door, one arm wrapped around his middle. “Okay, then, show me a receipt for the repairs,” he was saying. “Because I’m sorry, but this sounds a little suspicious, especially since you only called
after
I had your debit card cut off.”

There were shadows under his eyes, and his jaw was so tense it looked like he could shatter it by grinding his teeth.

Emme held back, the automatic door behind her opening and then closing again, opening and then closing as she tried to decide whether to move closer to him.

The night was dark, the light from the parking lot and the lobby making oddly shaped yellow patches on the sidewalk. Emme waited until Tom said, “Trust has to be earned, Katie,” voice weary, and then she just couldn’t stand it any longer. She stepped forward into the light, the sliding doors closing behind her.

Tom looked up and caught her eye. “I have to go,” he said into his phone. He slid it into his pocket and closed his eyes, running a hand over his own forehead.

“Rough night?”

“I picked a bad day to quit smoking.”

“You quit?”

One side of Tom’s mouth kicked up into an almost-smile that broke Emme’s heart. “I decided it was time to quit doing things that hurt me. But I’m not so sure it’s going to take. Right now I feel like telling everyone in this hotel to suck my grandmother’s dick.”

Emme’s laugh startled both of them. “That bad, huh?”

Tom nodded. The despair had started to fade from his eyes. Or maybe that was just a trick of the light. “That bad.”

Emme moved closer, then a little closer, until she was leaning on the wall next to him, close enough to feel the warmth of his body seep through her clothes. She felt him relax as she bumped her shoulder into his arm. “You know what helps?”