I touched his face. The beard was rough against my palm, warm beneath my fingers. “If you’re going to watch me come apart, Mercer, you can damn well let me watch you too.”
He swallowed. I felt it under my hand.
“Hold on to me,” he said. “I’m not feeling very fucking noble.”
Then he pushed inside me by one slow inch and stopped.
The air left me in a thin, useless sound. My fingers tightened at the back of his neck. He stayed braced above me, arms locked, eyes on mine, his whole body rigid with the effort of not taking more than I gave.
Patience should not have looked that filthy.
“Nick,” I said, because apparently that was the only word my brain had retained.
His mouth tightened. “Tell me.”
“Move, damn you.”
“Bossy woman.”
“You noticed.”
His mouth parted on a rough breath, and something hot and vicious in me liked it.
He gave me another inch, slow enough to make me consider violence. My body opened for him with humiliating enthusiasm, and his breath left him through his teeth. His eyes didn’t move from mine.
I didn't look away, which gave me a front-row seat to every flicker of control he lost while pushing deeper inside me.
Begging had always seemed undignified. But when Nick Mercer moved another inch, I became open to new information.
“Don’t close your eyes,” he said. “I want to watch you lose that control you love so much.”
“I won’t,” I said.
Then I made the mistake of meaning it.
He moved slowly, his restraint too careful now, too costly to be control. Each careful retreat made my hands tighten. Each return dragged another sound from my throat: first a breath, then a curse, then his name in a voice I would deny under oath.
Unfortunately, Nick noticed everything.
Of course he did.
Nick knew exactly what he was doing with his hands, his mouth, the slow, filthy patience of his hips. Then I touched him gently, and his face changed.
My fingers slid into his hair and tightened, dragging his attention back where I wanted it.
“No,” I said.
His eyes opened.
“You don’t get to touch me like this and disappear into my neck.”
“I’m right here.”
“Then prove it.”
Need crossed his face before he could bury it, and I felt it everywhere he was still inside me.
I could have hurried him. My legs wanted to. My hips definitely wanted to. Every reckless part of me wanted him harder, deeper, fast enough to make this easier. The man was already inside me. Requiring eye contact seemed excessive.
