Page 50 of Rolling 75 (The Noire Brothers #1)

I’m so sated, dizzy with the lingering high of whatever heavenly voyage his mouth imparted. I stretch my hand up to brush my fingertips over his handsome face. “Feels so good, but I don’t think I can come again.”

“You will, Merce.” His insistence is fierce, brooking no room for debate. “I told you I’d lavish you with pleasure and that I’d be here to stay. We’re just getting started.”

He illustrates that point by pulling out, flipping me onto my stomach, and flattening my chest on the bed. He slides a pillow beneath my hips, and with my ass in the air, he thrusts inside me.

I moan at how deep he hits, and his hand snakes around to tease my clit again, but he doesn’t employ the predictable circling. He pinches the sides, clamping them, and the bundle of nerves pulsates deliciously inside that vise grip, as if it could burst free like a firework. It steals my breath.

“Holy … oh my … Ryker.”

“You like that, Viper?”

It’s then that I realize he’s learning me, studying my reactions to see what I enjoy most, even though I already came and he hasn’t.

I’m not sure why that hits me so hard, rips me open and reminds me whose arms I’m in.

He’s shown me how much I mean to him in a million different ways, but he abstained for years, and still, he’s chasing my pleasure instead of his own.

Because what he needs most is to be certain I’m in this with him.

“So, so good. Maybe I could come like this, but I want to see your face. I need your eyes on mine.”

Everything slows. He shifts us—him against the headboard, me straddling his pelvis.

When he lowers me onto him, inch by glorious inch, we both hiss out in unison, and I memorize every crinkle of his eyes.

The way his dimple quickly flashes me and his lips part and his hands immediately roam, sailing through the valley of my breasts and docking on my scar.

“I’ve dreamed of you riding me, but this … Merce, you’re a vision. A goddamn masterpiece.”

His vibrant coloring of all the parts of me as something to be in awe of—whether the world would deem them unfortunate flaws or acceptable features—chips away at the steel fortress I erected around my heart.

This is the man who knows me best, and yet the shading of who I am hasn’t dulled with time or wear. It’s only grown more brilliant.

Rising to the balls of my feet, I grip his shoulders and bounce with a subtle swivel that has him so on edge and desperate to fly that a fresh wave of satisfaction surges through me.

While he tweaks my nipples and explores my curves, I keep drinking him in.

The bob of his Adam’s apple, his shallow breaths, the twinkle in those captivating blues.

His smooth golden-beige skin is littered with the streams of our luxurious dip, glimmering over his tattoos—works of art crafted by Jax and odes to us, to me, to our beginning and our future.

“I dreamed this too. You and me.” My confession emerges strained because this has all been a lot—fast and slow, a whirlwind at a snail’s pace. “I was afraid, but you’ve always been my fantasy.”

He fists my drenched hair, mouth crashing to mine with a soul-searing fusion, fingers squeezing my clit while I maintain my thigh-burning cadence. Heat builds and blooms in my abdomen, my core throbs, and my nerves sizzle with a frenzy. All of it declares the veracity of our claims.

I purr into his mouth, and he bites my lip.

“Those fucking sounds, baby. You’re killing me. So damn sexy. I feel like I’m hallucinating. Delusional.”

That makes me laugh. “Lack of sleep and alcohol bathing will do that.”

“It’s you, Mercy.” He growls those words, cradling my face with one hand while the other supports some of my weight and steadies my rhythm.

“I’m drunk on you. I can’t breathe without you, can’t see straight with you.

I certainly don’t deserve you. I’m not a good man, but I’ll be everything you need. Everything.”

It’s a plea and a promise, a vulnerable admission. He’s terrified I’ll abandon him, maybe not physically since we both know he’ll never let that happen. But emotionally. The pain and apprehension are products of my actions. His forgiveness may be present, but his fear is too.

“You already are, Ryker.” I drop to my knees, angling myself so I can grind my swollen clit against his pelvis, which instantly has me groaning. “You’re all I need.”

My arms curl around his neck, my chest pressed to his until we’re sealed to one another.

No me without him. Fire and frisson and a baptism of beginnings at every point of contact.

He rasps praises in my ear, cups my ass, and clutches me against him like he’s shielding me from everything beyond this room.

And as his mouth glides over me, it all zooms right back to that rapturous sanctuary.

“I’m gonna …”

“Tell me,” he growls as his hips piston and his scruff grazes my cheek.

“Come with me,” I manage just before my body prepares for takeoff. “Fill me up. Make me yours.”

And as the final syllable tumbles from my lips, I soar into euphoric oblivion, every sensation amplified from the last one.

Clouds and stars and shakes and tremors.

My screamed whimper tears through the quiet room, so I bite down on his shoulder as he takes flight with me, and his grunts harmonize with my now-muted moan. We’re a heap of boneless limbs and panting breaths. Thrashing hearts and tangled stories. Severed anguish and hope restored.

And sticky flesh, ripe with a floral stench.

After a few idle beats, we rouse from our blissed-out stupor.

“Shower,” he mutters against my temple with a kiss before carrying me into the bathroom.

We’re spent and satiated and absolutely exhausted, so when the hot water blasts on from the rainfall showerhead and multiple jets, we step inside and let it swallow us, easing our aching muscles and weary minds.

Ryker has my shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in here, obviously thinking of everything.

And he washes me, pulling all the pins out of my matted hair, working the lather into my scalp, rinsing, and following with the conditioner.

When he gets to the body wash, I squirt a dollop of his into my palm, inhaling the fragrance of wood and leather and cloves as I return the favor, both of us scrubbing every nook and cranny of each other so we don’t reek like fermented grapes and a night at a brothel.

It’s a simple act, both of us too warn out to turn it sexy. But it cocoons me in the cushion of another spiritual journey. I’ve been in hiding for years—from danger, from him, from myself—barely brave enough to stare at my own reflection.

Tonight, he’s bathed me in luxury and fucked me senseless, swept his mouth over my most sensitive places and scrubbed me clean, joined me in my prison and welcomed me into his haven.

All after reminding me to dance and proving he could catch me.

I feel resurrected.

He wraps me in a fluffy towel, ties one around his waist, and disappears, only to return wearing pajama pants and holding a T-shirt for me.

After drying me off, he lotions me and slips the shirt over my head.

He lends me a toothbrush, and we both brush our teeth.

He combs and blows my hair dry. And I stand, mesmerized.

Healed by his pampering hands and the expression of contentment on his face.

I haven’t been fussed over this way since I was a child.

Finally, after he feeds me painkillers and makes me drink an entire glass of water, we crawl into bed. The wet towels are thrown in a hamper, the comforter whipped back for us to slide beneath the sheets, his arms and legs engulfing me.

It’s tranquil and comforting and how it should have always been.

But after a few minutes in the serenity of his embrace, the quietude is deafening.

The anvil of anxiety sits on my chest like an elephant that refuses to vacate.

My gorgeous engagement ring burns into my finger, and my thoughts are loud and berating.

What if I shatter when I wake up? What if I can’t be who he needs in this role? What if I’m never okay for more than a fleeting day?

I know he probably doesn’t care about some of that. I know Ryker will take me as I am. But I care. And so I deflect because if I don’t, the shattering will come before my eyes close.

“Did you know that champagne has been proven to prevent memory loss and even delay Alzheimer’s and dementia? Maybe bathing in three hundred bottles has given us a whole extra year of lucidity. Which is good because … well, can you imagine what this night will sound like when—”

“Dear fuck.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, a laugh racking through his chest so vehemently that the whole bed shakes from it.

“When I was giving Gentry the instructions for tonight, a conversation eerily close to this one struck me like a premonition. You somehow relating this to the goddamn nursing home.”

The fact that he knew where I was headed before I finished my sentence has me joining him in laughter.

“You can’t invalidate this. It’s a worthwhile concern.

Picture it. There I am, eating my Jell-O in peace, when a sweet young aide thinks she’ll make small talk to pass the time.

She says she heard that I’d attended one of the La Lune Noire Prohibition Balls and wants to know what it was like. ”

He grips my chin, his stern icy blues searing into mine. “Do not fucking talk like you don’t have teeth in your mouth when you lay out this absurd scenario.”

I smile, flashing my pearly whites. “Have I done that before?”

“When you told me I could be your fucking wingman in the old folks’ home.”

My hands smack over my face, and I stifle the laughter that’s still flowing freely. “Oh, shoot. Well, knowing how you’ve been pining for me, that was rude. But also, how the hell did I entice you to fall for me with that sexy move?”