Page 14 of The Cowboy's Friendly Wake-Up Call

"Don't tell me this is the part where the boy sees his friend in a dress for the first time and suddenly realizes she's a girl?"

Mercy smirks at me, making fun of my gawking until she sees the deadly serious look on my face as I close the distance between us.

"No, Mercy Jean, I've always known you were a girl."

Chapter Seven

Mercy

Lance's lips crash against mine.

The kiss is firm and commanding, and it feels so right that our tongues are tangling for several minutes before I dimly become aware that we've crossed a boundary-- and I don't want to go back.

"Lancer--" I reluctantly break my mouth away from his and gulp down air, trying to decide if I want to clear my head or not. "--you're kissing me."

Except, this time, it's me kissing him; insistently bringing our mouths back together and fitting my lips to his.

My hands are wrapped around his neck, hanging on for dear life and not about to let go.

"Fuck yeah, I am."

Lance steps impossibly closer to me, taking away the space that was left between us. I wobble on the heels I'm not used to wearing and fall back against the door behind me, taking Lance with me.

Now he's pressed against me, quickly adjusting his position to keep me from falling. With his knee pinning me on one side and his chest pressed to mine, I can feel his solid body against my much softer one.

His hands are big, and now one of them is gripping my hip roughly. Strong fingertips press into the back of my thigh, right under my ass, and pull me firmly against him.

I pretend not to notice the whimper that works its way out of my throat when I feel the steel-hard erection against my center.

"Tell me you want this, Mercy." Lance moves against me, grinding that thick rod against my mound, making me wish we didn't have the formal clothing blocking skin on skin contact. His voice is low, a gruff plea against my skin as he kisses along my throat.

While one hand continues to hold me in place against him, his other hand slides heavily up my side, palming my breast through the bodice of the gown all too briefly before circling my throat. Lance's thumb angles to push my chin upward, forcing me to meet his heated gaze.

"Do you want me, Mercy? Like this?"

His lips crush mine again and another hard press of his pelvis to mine makes it impossible to misinterpret his meaning.

The answer he swallows from me is a breathless, panting, desperate"hell yes."

We're too busy kissing again for me to get real words out, so I hope that running my hand between us and wrapping it around his hard cock through the thick fabric of his trousers is a clear enough answer.

The hand that was at my throat slips around to the back of my head. Lance's fingers slide through the carefully curled and pinned up-do that I practiced so many times to get it right for tonight. Bobby pins dislodge as Lance fists my hair and groans against my mouth.

This was already intense, but something about our unspoken agreement that we're on the same page here has things turning up a notch-- or seven.

There are way too many clothes involved for my liking, and Lance doesn't want to take his hands off my body so I can shove his jacket off his shoulders.

"Dammit, O'Leary, take this thing off." I curse at him as I wrestle his arms off me just long enough to send the fancy suit jacket tumbling to the floor.

"You too." Lance palms my breasts again with one hand over the satin bodice of my dress while his other hand fumbles with the tiny zipper that runs down the side under my arm.

"I'm not that easy." I giggle at his frustration when lowering the zipper doesn't send the whole thing falling to the floor.

"I know. I've been waiting for damn near twenty years now...how the fuck does this-- fuck it."

His patience with the hidden hook and eye closures sewn in above the zipper gives out and the body hangs loose on my torso after a quick tug.

"This is Singer's dress." I warn him, before he goes ripping through anything that I can't mend.

---