Page 53 of Mercenary

If Jaxson could see me now, holed up inside this bathroom, letting a goddamn virgin get the better of me.

Madelyn may never be mine.

But I’m going to fuck her. I’m going to take what she’s offered. I’m going to make her come while screaming my name. I’m going to give her something other than hurt to remember me by.

17

Madelyn

He exits the bathroom with wet hair, a relaxed demeanor, naked, and—oh sweet Heaven above—hung. Yet he brushes right by me like he doesn’t see me standing there at the foot of the bed, dressed in sexy lingerie and staring at him, uncertain and a bit breathless.

I watch, fascinated, as he pulls back the comforter and climbs into bed. Reclining back onto the pillows, he places his hands behind his head and, as my throat hitches at the sight of him, all muscle and raw, unleashed power, his eyes capture mine.

“Finish what you started.”

What I started. His words hang in the air like a passing cloud about to release its first light drops of rain. A precedent for what’s coming. And I simply stand there, watching him watching me. Trying to read him—and as usual, failing miserably.

He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t pat the mattress next to him. He doesn’t show me even the slightest encouragement. Or the slightest suggestion that what’s about to happen is going to be more than a fuck.

You want this. Your fantasy now cast in the overwhelmingly bright spotlight that is reality.

“Your move.”

“My move,” I whisper.

“To come and take what you want from me.” His biceps flex behind his head as he stretches, nonchalantly, waiting for me to decide. So confident.

So . . . dangerous.

Sex. Fucking. Is that all I want from him? It’s hard to say that’s even part of it, my inexperience with men being limited to Brendan. But getting involved more intimately with him, and I mean on a more heartfelt, loving level, is such a bad idea. He’s damaged goods. I can’t help him. I can’t fix him.

Yet I’m unable to give up on him.

What I can do is offer him pleasure. And afterward, maybe just maybe, something more will happen—he’ll open up and let me in.

I think about my first kiss. Our first kiss.

Yes, there’s hope for him.

For us.

His eyes narrow, and I look away, staring down at the sheer material. I don’t need a naughty nightie, what I need is a shot of tequila.

“Madelyn,” he says my name like a hoarse caress. “Don’t be shy now. Turn around. Then strip, slowly.”

I turn so my back is to him. Feeling slightly relieved until nerves set in.

“Do it.”

For some reason, his bossiness spurs me on. Maybe because it’s familiar to me. His surliness comforting me, confirming in some minute way that I know him better than I think.

I unbutton the front of the nightgown. Smooth the sheer material over my right shoulder and then my left. He’s quiet behind me so I go on instinct alone, wondering if the sight of my bared shoulders turns him on.

Curious, I glance back at him.

And what I read on his face knocks the wind out of me.

Gone is the hardness, the indifference I’ve grown accustomed to. What’s written there causes my equilibrium to shatter and me to be thrown off-balance. Desire. Blatant, pure, and undeniable. It’s like a match has been tossed into the space between us, the air igniting into this heady, blistering fireball of want.