Another shrug. “So? That’s what people do. They walk places.”
“I think” – and there was the bravery again, because he could see she wasn’t at all sure about this – “you saw me with Carter and you got…jealous.”
He snorted. “Me? Jealous of that stupid kid? Ah, sweetheart–”
“Yes or no, you didn’t like him talking to me,” she said, her gaze sparkling up at him. Behind her, rain poured down the window, glimmering with golden streetlamp light.
He scowled. “I don’t like teenage boys. They’re only after one thing.”
A victorious smile set her face aglow. “That wouldn’t happen to be the thing you’re after, is it?”
“I’m not after – oh, Jesus Christ.” He caught her around the waist and dragged her the rest of the way to him. He couldn’t help it. Her gasp was breathy and aroused and delighted right before he ducked his head and captured her glossy mouth in a kiss.
Sin, Mercy reflected, came packaged according to severity, to color, to regret. There were those deep, red sins, all bloody and irretrievable, tasting of murder and betrayal, a hint of the satanic on the back of the tongue, tickling the throat with fire. His usual brand of sin, if he was honest.
Then there were the sinuous curves and loops of silvered, uncertain sin; the kind whose consequences were a dim shadow against the bright backdrop of the here-and-now. The kind with slow-eating jaws. A malignant sickness of a sin.
That’s what he was doing here. That was Ava offering her mouth to him and leaning into his touch while the rain sealed them into the warm lamplight and cut off the world of reprimands. He was warping her, as he sat down in the chair and pulled her down into his lap, felt all her warm places settle over him; felt her slender hands on his face as she opened her jaw and welcomed the pressure of his tongue. He was burning scars into her that she wouldn’t even notice until they were vivid and visible to the whole world.
But he didn’t stop. Because he couldn’t.
He watched, fascinated, as she pushed back, a hand on his chest, and stared up at him through the black fans of her lashes. Her hand moved, trailing down across his stomach, pausing as his abs leapt beneath it, then lower, as Ava slid from his knee with the grace of some fairytale creature and settled on the rug between his legs. Her fingernails ticking against his belt buckle was the most stimulating sound in his memory.
Some of her bravery ebbed, replaced with a wide-eyed, parted-lip pleading.
“Ava, what are you doing, baby?”
Her fingers at the button, at the zipper. That look again, half-hypnotized, full of warm longing. Raindrops in her hair.
“You’ll have to tell me what you like,” she said, cheeks pinking. “ ‘Cause I’m new at this.”
He cupped her face in one large, careful hand. “Yeah? Okay.” He smoothed his thumb across her cheek, felt the heat in it. “Just go slow, darlin’, and you’ll be alright.”
I’m here. I’ll check in later, read Ava’s text time-stamped fifteen minutes before. Maggie frowned at her phone and laid it alongside her plate, reaching for her fork. Her mother-Spidey-senses were all a-tinlge, but she had no proof. Nothing but suspicion and a better understanding of her daughter than she sometimes wished for.
She twirled spaghetti onto her fork and told her intuition to shut up. That didn’t make her a bad mother, did it?
“Where’s Ava?” Ghost asked as he came into the kitchen, damp and soap-smelling from the shower, his hair curling above his ears with little water droplets.
Maggie took a moment to appreciate the way her man looked in his old Allman Brothers t-shirt, then glanced back at her plate and said, “Spending the night with Leah. She just texted me that she got there okay.”
“Isn’t she supposed to be sulking around, feeling punished?” He sat in front of his plate and reached for the parm.
“She needs a pick-me-up. And it’s not like her grades will suffer for it.”
He made a sound of agreement. Then: “That kid she’s tutoring, he’s been by twice looking for her.” He snorted. “Little shit’s got it bad for her, I think.”
“Carter,” Maggie supplied the name. “He’s a sweet kid.”
“He’s not the kind of boy she needs to be dating. Thank God she’s not interested in that kinda thing yet.” His little smirk across the table said,Not like you, huh?
Maggie forced a smile.Oh, baby, if only you knew.
“Wait. Just wait, baby, wait.”
Ava gasped, again and again; she couldn’t catch her breath. She dug her nails into Mercy’s biceps and the light from the floor lamp filled her eyes, gilded his naked shape above her, glimmered on his tats, burned obsidian in his eyes. The pain: not as bad as before, but still breathtaking, the pressure, the invasion, still so intimate and overwhelming.
Mercy’s cock, deep inside; her body, struggling to accommodate.
