Page 57 of Mercenary

Her sweet pussy the closest I’ll ever come to Heaven.

Her addicted to sex. A slave to the pleasure I work up within her.

Instead, what did I do? Tell her to go to sleep.

I’m not a nice guy. I was born with brutal hands and an empty heart. I don’t do love. Fuck, I wouldn’t recognize love even if someone carved my love-starved heart out of my chest and dished it out to me on a golden platter. Love means vulnerability.

So why I didn’t fuck her like the animal I am is a goddamn mystery.

The psychologist Hayden had on retainer would have a field day psychoanalyzing my fucked-up psyche. Shitty childhood, yep. Intimacy issues, well, fuck yeah. I don’t hate women. Aside from sex, I just never get involved.

The psychologist insists you hold a woman after screwing her. “An illusion of intimacy,” she said. Like putting bells and whistles on such a calculated act. But that’s not how I roll. I’m not boyfriend material. And I sure as hell am not a postcoital kind of guy.

But fuck, do I want her. More than any woman I’ve ever wanted. Something I’ve been struggling with for six hours, ten minutes, thirty-nine goddamned seconds. A goddamn test in patience.

I’m not waiting a second longer.

Sex, that’s all this will ever be.

I move toward her until my chest touches her back. Lightly, close enough where I’m able to wedge my swollen cock between her thighs, right up against her pussy.

I suck in a breath, immediately feeling it. Jesus, she’s wet.

Slowly, I flex my hips, rolling my length against her folds.

“Wake up, Madelyn,” I say, reaching around to fondle a breast. They are full and swollen, just the way I like them. A trigger point for my girl, too. Something I discovered last night when I got her in my bed. Little Red Hots, her nipples. Ready for my mouth.

I play with her. Scissoring a nipple between my fingers, taking the weight of her neglected tit in my palm and running my thumb over her skin. Sliding my erection back and forth against her pussy.

She moans but her hair’s fallen around her face, concealing her from me. “Number four?” she murmurs, huskily.

Hot damn. “Yeah.”

“About time.”

“I want . . .” I push my hand between her thighs and press a finger between her lips. Enough said.

She stiffens. I never considered what I’ll do if she says no.

Whatever it takes.

Yet with Madelyn, nothing is by the books. Fortunately, my indecision becomes pointless when my girl rolls back toward me and parts her thighs. “Will you be gentle?”

At this moment? No. Because the sight of her spread out before me . . . the scent of her arousal filling the air between us . . . brings out the baser, animalistic side of me. Urging me on, to fuck and fuck and fuck some more. So I keep my trap shut and roll away. The faster I get a condom on, the quicker I’m inside her, the better.

“You’re not headed back into the bathroom, are you?”

I remove the roll of condoms from my wallet, tear one free, and toss the rest onto the bed.

Her eyes widen. My answer loud and clear. Holding her gaze, I rip the foil open with my teeth. My erection sways with my movements, heavy and thick with blood.

“Is this number four? Or four, five, and six?” she asks with a nervous laugh.

Four. Just four. Enough to get her out of my system so I can move on.

“This can’t be easy for you. Someone with a lot of experience, with me . . .” she murmurs, sounding worried, anxious. About my goddamn feelings, when I’m seconds away from fucking her six ways to Sunday. Gentle? That’s gibberish in my dictionary. Madelyn’s too good, too pure, too undeniably innocent for the likes of me. “So inexperienced.”

Damn it, but I feel the need to give her something. “I like the idea.”