Hold On (The 'Burg #6)(88)

I kept stroking.

Merry took one arm from around me, wrapped his hand around my neck, and moved his thumb along my throat, up, sweeping it over my jaw, up, across my cheek, then over my lips where he left it gliding, back and forth, back and forth. A gentler kind of claiming, even though there was nothing left of me to be claimed.

If he wanted me, I belonged to Garrett Merrick.

All of me.

We stayed this way a long time. No words.

But they weren’t needed. For once in my life, I hoped, I prayed, I dreamed that I was getting it right and this was what it seemed to be.

Without warning, but doing it gently, he slid out and rolled off, shifting me as he did so I was on my side.

He disengaged just as slowly, my legs automatically closing as they lost purchase on his hips.

He was at the side of the bed, through all this never losing eye contact with me. He lost it only when his gaze swept the length of me.

When it came back, he said quietly, “Don’t move.”

I nodded.

He got out of bed and walked to one of the three doors in the room.

The light went on inside it as he disappeared and I saw it was a bathroom.

He’d told me not to move, but with him gone, I realized I was in Garrett Merrick’s bedroom, so I took that opportunity to quickly look around.

From what I’d seen of the rest of his pad, I wasn’t surprised to see not much here either. Two nightstands. Two lamps on them. A tall, six-drawer dresser. A lamp on that. The bed.

On the nightstand that was right in front of me, there was change, crumpled receipts, a used pack of gum, a lighter, and not much else.

Looking over my shoulder to the other one and the dresser, there seemed to be more detritus of this type, an alarm clock, and not much else.

Except there were three trophies on his dresser, but not like they were on display. Like they’d been put there, pushed aside, or shifted when more room was needed. On the top of one was a man standing, rifle to his shoulder, eye to the sight. The top of another trophy that was not quite as tall (but still tall) had another man, same pose, but holding a handgun. The last one that was slightly shorter had a man on his stomach, his rifle aimed.

But that was it.

Just like the rest of his place. Functional and a lot of nothing else.

The one surprise was the furniture. Although there were no prints on the walls, no personality, the furniture in this room was really nice. Fabulous wood that was in a medium stain, not dark, not light. In the drawers on the dresser and nightstands, but in a far more spectacular way with the high headboard, the wood was set in a chevron design that was gorgeous, manly, but it was something I would not object to having for me.

The light went out in the bathroom and I lost interest in Merry’s furniture when I saw Merry making his way back to me.

Yes, the hair on his stomach that pointed to what was not right then a buried treasure (but not long ago it had been a treasure buried in me) was awe-inspiring.

The treasure it was pointed to was just awesome.

Garrett Merrick had a beautiful cock, even now as it was, semi-hard after making love to me.

The length was perhaps just above average.

It was the girth that meant everything.

I lost sight of it, sadly, when the room went dark.

I felt the bed move, the bedclothes being whipped around. That stopped when I found my ankle in Merry’s grip, and even in the dark, he made short work of unbuckling my sandal and sliding it off. He moved to the other one. That accomplished, the bed shifted again, then I found the covers over me about a half a second before I found myself wound up in Merry.

“Pains me to say this,” he started after he’d settled us how he wanted us (and, to make it clear, how I wanted it to be, maybe for eternity). “But I ain’t twenty anymore. You starin’ at my dick like that, sweetheart, after what we just had, you’re gonna have to give me some time.” He paused before he finished, “Least twenty, thirty minutes.”

I laughed softly as I pushed closer to Garrett Merrick in his bed, his naked body tied up in me.

He must have liked that because his arms tightened around me.

Suddenly, it all hit me with a power that made me wonder why it didn’t blow me to smithereens.

Garrett Merrick had spent more than two hundred dollars on a dinner with me. He’d told me he wanted to kiss me, knowing what me kissing him back would mean. He’d made love to me, made love to me, me.

Me.

Me.

Me.

Eye contact throughout. Saying my name when he came inside me.

And now we were in his bed, naked, and he was holding me and teasing me.

“That wasn’t f*cking, was it?” I blurted.

It seemed his body further solidified against mine for a moment before he relaxed and slid his hand up into my hair.

He knew I’d never had that.

He now knew he was the first who ever gave that to me.

“No, Cher,” he said gently. “That was nowhere near f*cking.”

Yes, straight up, burn it in my brain…

I could not f*ck this up.

I couldn’t.

He was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Not getting a goodness so good it was unreal after being stupid and getting knocked up by a junkie, the way I got Ethan.

A goodness I got because I earned it simply by being me.

Understanding that, as it seemed I was prone to do with Merry, I kept blurting.