Page 26 of Rolling 75 (The Noire Brothers #1)

MERCY

H e captures my mouth, stealing my breath with the signature Ryker Noire unbridled passion that I suddenly realize my bones have always craved.

Our tongues tangle with a fervor, and something inside me snaps.

A desire clawing its way up from the depths of my being.

My hands cruise over every chiseled inch I can reach, frantic to feel the pieces I ignored—or denied myself—all these years.

“There’s my girl.”

His girl.

His praise floods me, a blanket of warmth decimating the chill I’ve been encased in for far too long. I don’t want to be cold again.

Just one night. Don’t get carried away.

“Stop thinking,” he demands, as if he can read my every thought.

In a flash, he has my wrists pinned above my head, and he’s nipping at my neck. I shimmy my legs to his waist, unable to resist the lure of friction against his steel length. A ravenous growl emanates from him, and pride surges through me that I did that.

The doors slide open, and he carries me out, slung around him like a voracious koala. “Hang on for me,” he coos as he sneaks us into the penthouse. “Stay quiet.”

I bury my face in his neck, and as strange as this encounter should feel, the spicy whiff of his cologne, the sureness of his embrace, and his delicate pets on my head set me at ease.

The click of his bedroom lock alerts me that we made it through the penthouse without notice.

He walks me straight to his closet, which is more like a massive dressing room full of suits, deposits me in a plush armchair, and clicks on the golden rope lighting.

After whipping off his jacket, he rolls up his sleeves to showcase some delicious forearm porn.

“Are you going to give me a fashion show?” I hate the quaver in my voice. My heart is pummeling my sternum so vigorously that it might just make a break for it.

“Other way around.” He winks and flashes his dimple at me, setting to work.

I’m grateful to know that he’s never had a woman in here. At least, that was always the rule, so I’ll go with it. The thought of him with someone else shouldn’t bother me. We’ve both been with plenty of other people, and I never let my mind dwell on that. But now … it’s all I can think about.

He stoops before me, his huge hands brushing over my bare thighs and his glacial blues swirling with things I doubt others ever get to see in them. “I left you here for one minute, and you’re already overthinking.”

“I’m trying …”

“Okay. You remember the rules?” He grins. It’s crooked and dazzling, and it flip-flops my stomach. “The climax contract.”

The sheer ridiculousness of that makes me laugh. “Yes, I remember.”

“Good girl,” he says, and the live wire between us crackles.

My gaze bounces all over his face as I memorize the subtle variances between friend Ryker and this one-night-climax benefactor and wonder what traits would overlap in a Venn diagram of the two. “We never even shook on it.”

“I’ll have you shaking in no time,” he promises, all suave and sexy. “Where are the toys you like?”

“In the top drawer of my nightstand, but they haven’t worked for me in a long—”

“They’ll work. But I have some, too, if we need them. Unopened,” he tacks on quickly, probably due to the alarmed leer I cast at him. “I’ll go get yours and check on Remy. You get out of that dress.” He rises to leave, but at the threshold, he turns back. “Don’t think, Merce.”

I’m grateful he’s checking on Remy, but maybe I should have.

The distraction of mom mode might have been good for me.

I’ve never been able to not think. The idea of turning my brain off is alluring.

I’m just not sure how, especially with my clothes off.

There are endless reminders of how my body will never be what it once was.

But I’m too revved up to back out, so while I’m still glued to the armchair, I take the baby step of removing my heels.

By the time I’m slipping off the second, Ryker is back.

“Remy is fast asleep, so no worries there.” After laying the vibrators on the floor, he saunters toward me, offering me a hand, so I stand to meet him.

He towers over me, lifting my chin. Dominating and gentle at once.

“As much as I loved you climbing me out there, we’re gonna take this slow. One step at a time. Okay?”

“Okay.” The word blasts out of me. Slow might kill me. “Can we turn off the lights?”

“No.” His lips brush against mine in a barely there kiss, one solely for reassurance. “Trust me.”

“It’s not that … I won’t be able to … not with my clothes off and the lights on.”

“You’ll come—naked, under the lights, and with me. And then that block that’s been preventing you from coming will be gone.” When I nod because that resonates with me, he presses further. “How about griffon for our safe word?”

Like Rüppell’s griffon vulture.

Fitting since I feel high right now. “That works.”

“Good. If you need to stop, you’ll say griffon . Otherwise, you need to do as you’re told.” He reaches around my back and lowers my zipper—the brief skim of his touch inciting goose bumps to erupt like wildfire—but then he steps away. “Take it off.”

There’s something so off-balance about him standing before me in his suit, telling me to strip. But again, with his eyes on me, I’m emboldened to push through. So, I hold my breath and allow the crepe fabric to slink down my body and melt into the floor.

He bites his fist, his blues glossy with what I mistake for anger, until he hisses, “Jesus, baby. You’re spectacular.”

I glance down at my stomach, noting that the scar extending between my breastbone and my belly button from the emergency splenectomy is as visible as ever, but when I peer back at Ryker, all I see is genuine awe. My breath hitches. No one has ever looked at me with such reverence. Not even before .

“Keep going,” he orders, his voice hoarse. “Bra and panties.”

Suddenly eager for his reaction, I unclasp my bra and ruck down my panties without hesitation. Before the garments even touch the floor, he showers me with more veneration.

“Fuck.” The thirst in his sultry embers and the bulge in his pants shout how authentic that gravelly reception is. “You. Are. Stunning. So much more ravishing than I ever imagined.”

“You imagined?” I ask, my mind playing that over with the pros and cons that could stem from his answer.

“Of course.” He hauls me against him and nestles his face in my hair with a shuddered exhale. “A lot. You were phenomenal in my mind, Merce, but this … I can’t catch my breath.”

How can he look at me and not see the ugliness of all that was lost?

“Hey,” he whispers, reading my thoughts again, “none of that.”

Without warning, his fingers thrust inside me, pumping in and out and curling to hit that elusive G-spot that has been long neglected. In thirty-four years, no one has found it. Until now. Until him.

An unbidden moan springs from my lips, and he studies my face for a beat before his mouth is on my breast, sucking on my nipple and grazing his teeth over it while I squirm and buck my hips, desperate for more.

He pays homage to the other one and then drops to his knees, kissing every inch of my scar in a seductive perusal of my trail of shards.

With his tongue’s caress, the cutting sting is distant.

“Don’t stop,” I plead, closing my eyes and unabashedly grinding into his hand as his mouth descends lower, soft kisses on my inner thighs, his scruff teasing my clit, his breath tickling my heated flesh.

“Just getting started, baby,” he mumbles between languid licks of my pussy. “But we are going to change things up.”

“Change? I’m so close.” I open my eyes and gawk at him.

This formidable man, a god to so many, who was always just mine— my best friend, my support, my lifeline—is on his knees for me. My fingers comb through his thick hair. My eyes latch on to his. For a split second, I’m not broken. I’m … his . And now I can’t catch my breath.

“Go sit in front of the mirror,” he directs, effectively dousing me with cold water.

“What?” I gasp. “No … I—”

“You agreed to obey without question,” he reminds me from his knelt stance. “Go. There’s a pillow.”

My focus darts to the mirrored wall, which will be impossible to ignore, and the pillow and blanket he dropped there. He planned this. That’s why we’re in the closet.

He stands and nudges me toward it—okay, drags me toward it. “We’re going to face it together.”

Maybe that’s only in reference to the mirror, but it feels like more. Facing the scars. The pain. That godforsaken night when I begged to die and didn’t get my wish.

The night he broke too.

Against every impulse to bolt coursing through me, I sit on the pillow, and he lowers himself behind me, his long legs spread wide to bracket my enfolded body.

His hand clamps onto my inner calf, unfurling my leg and planting my foot outside of his knee.

He repeats with the other leg and moves my hands to rest on his thighs, so I’m fully open.

Then he forces my chin up. Still, I avert my gaze.

“Look.” His free hand splays over my stomach, the tip of his thumb brushing the underside of my breast and his long, slender pinkie nearly reaching the apex of my thighs. “Open your eyes and see how beautiful you are, Mercy.”

My eyes lock on to his in the mirror, my naked form an out-of-focus backdrop, and he seems to accept that. Those blues aren’t any easier of a focal point though. They’re fevered with heat and emotion. It makes me ache.