Page 36 of Mercenary
“Relax,” he tells me without looking at me. “I just want to clean off and sober up. That’s all. But I’m warning you, I’m not some chump you can toy with.”
He abruptly turns and catches me red-handed, checking him out. He gives me a hard, indecipherable look.
I nervously drop my eyes. Whoa. Bad move.
He’s sporting an erection. And I can’t seem to tear my eyes off of it. He’s huge. Thick and straight. With a tip as smooth as a baby’s bottom. And growing larger, harder, with my every bated breath.
Is a man’s penis supposed to be this beautiful? My experience with sex consists of a few quickie hand jobs with Brendan, my ten-stroke wonder. Short, sweet, and fast to act, just like the man himself.
So unlike the man before me.
I bite my lower lip. Wondering how someone as hung as him could possibly fit inside me. Would he bring me pleasure or pain?
“A shower. Nothing more.”
He steps forward, and I back step. Nothing more. Nothing more. One step, two steps, three, and we’re inside the shower. Reaching past me, he turns on the faucet.
A cold blast of water rains down on us.
“Motherfucker,” he curses, quickly reaching to adjust the faucet handle.
I fight to hold back my nervous laughter but fail. It feels good to do so, rid myself of the tension I’ve been carrying around since Cabo.
He scowls down at me, not touching me yet the heat from his body warming me in places where the water can’t reach.
There’s something erotic in being the one clothed with him standing naked as a jaybird before me. Like my tiny two-piece bikini provides me with the upper hand, armor against him in his raw, bare state. Silly thinking, given his lax manner. He’s comfortable in his own skin. How many women has he been intimate with to make him so?
A lot.
I never expected to be turned on by the cut of a man’s body, especially by the overly defined V shape beginning from his hip bones down to his groin. I’m tempted to run a finger along its shape, reach out and touch the fine blond hair cradling his hardness. A natural blond. So fair for a man who is darkness personified.
My laughter dies off.
“You done?”
I jump, hastily lifting my eyes to his face.
For a few moments, we stare at each other. I’m shocked how unaffected he seems at first glance. Like he’s not in tune with how I’ve been eyeballing him. Thinking about fitting him inside of me. His jaw’s tight. His pupils dark. Yet his arousal—swelling to life before my prying, thou-shall-not-look eyes—gives him away. Nope. He’s tuned in, and tuned up. Not at all unaffected like he’d like me to believe.
He runs a finger across the back of my neck then shows the black smudges coating the tip. “You’re covered in dirt.” He pinches his fingers together and rubs them away while I can only stare.
Punching the lever of the shampoo container fixed to the wall, he fills his palms with a lemony-scented liquid. I jump when he touches me but immediately relax as his hands skim across my forearms, lathering soap over my skin and washing away the blood caked there. He steps back to study my body, then crouches down to gently lather my calves, rinse them free of blood as well.
His touch is light, gentle.
He stands and fills his hands with more soap. This time, he weaves his fingers through my hair, untangling the knots as he pulls the soap through. Tenderly. Almost . . . intimately. Treating me the way a lover does his woman.
Not that I have any experience with raw, rather intense intimacy.
I stand still and let him work his magic, studying his expressionless face for any telling reaction. No softening. No hardening. Nothing that’ll clue me in to what he’s thinking.
He avoids my gaze, focusing on the task he’s set for himself.
I let him, groaning low in my throat as I spend several lovely minutes basking in both the feeling of being clean and his gentle touch. Until I find myself drawn to him—literally. He’s coiled my long locks around his hand, forcing me to shift closer. With his free hand, he angles my head sideways and then lifts my hair off my shoulders and away from my face. For what seems like an eternity, we stand there like that. I’m conscious of how he hovers over me, how water reflects off his cheek and sprinkles onto my sensitive jawline. A salve warmed by his body before drizzling across my tender, bruised skin.
I shift on my feet as he runs his thumb over the path, lightly dragging it over the delicate skin. Caressing me with the same digits that caused what are now probably some pretty nasty black-and-blue marks.
“You bruise easily.”
