Page 40 of Taming the Beast (Fairy Tales of New York)

Kissing him. Sliding her hands over him. Pulling him back from the brink of despair and sending the images and the memories reeling away.

He kissed her back until his heart was pounding for an altogether different reason and the thing that was clawing away inside him had morphed into need.

He made a move to twist round and face her but she pushed him back. Her hands slipped beneath the waistband of his pants and pulled them down and then she was circling him with fingers, stroking and squeezing and then holding him steady as she bent her head.

“What are you doing?” he said, his voice harsh, every nerve ending in his body taut.

“Immersion therapy, I think they call it.”

“I don’t need therapy.” But he did, didn’t he, because while the existence of his wine cellar just about bordered on the OK, owning cars he daren’t drive wasn’t normal. It was a problem. One which Mercy seemed to want to solve. Maybe he should let her. He wasn’t doing all that well on his own. So if she thought she could help him by –

Christ.

Her mouth closed over him and took him into her wet velvety warmth and Seb shut his eyes as he struggled for breath, for sanity.

– By wrapping her fingers around him and taking him in her mouth then maybe he should let her.

God, he should definitely let her, he thought, all rational thought obliterated by her mouth, her tongue, her lips and her hands. Why hadn’t she done this before? Why had he always stopped her when she’d tried? Had he gone truly mad? He was in Heaven. He was in Hell. He didn’t know where he was.

“God, have mercy,” he mumbled as he felt the heady, powerful rush of imminent orgasm and wondered vaguely how he could stop it.

“You’re about to,” she said, lifting her head and deftly rolling a condom onto him, which just about did him in. “In a Mercedes no less. How cute is that?”

She was cute. She was amazing. And she shifted herself so that she sat astride him and sank onto him, absolutely, literally, breathtaking.

He fought for control, for some kind of grip on her but she held his arms down. And then she began to move, up and down, undulating against him, tossing her head back and groaning with pleasure and he tried to hold on, but it was impossible. He couldn’t. It was all just too much. His body, his mind, his senses couldn’t take the assault any longer.

He felt Mercy tense, shake, heard her cry out as she dropped her head to his shoulder and released her grip on him, and then he was pushing her down, holding her fast as he thrust up, and coming harder than he ever had in the most incredible ‘just sex’ of his life.

Chapter Nine

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“So how are things going with Seb?” Faith asked Mercy at the table in their booth at Sully’s on the second Thursday in December. “Not all that great by the gloomy, contemplative looks of you. Is everything OK?”

Mercy sighed. Now there was a question. Everything, she had the horrible sinking feeling, was very much not OK. “Not exactly,” she said, staring down into her half pint.

“What’s happened?” said Dawn.

Sunday morning had happened. That was what had happened, although after several days of thinking about it she knew now that she’d been well on her way to disaster before that. “Our ‘just sex’ arrangement is no longer working,” she said, looking up first at Dawn, then at Faith. “Not for me, anyway.”

“Oh,” said Dawn, her face falling.

“How come?” said Faith.

Dios, where to start…? “Well, firstly,” she said, “there’s my checklist.”

“What checklist?” said Faith.

“I thought that as our arrangement was supposed to be casual it might be sensible to have something against which I could gauge how things were going. In case I was getting more involved that I intended to.”

“Very sensible,” said Dawn approvingly.

“What’s on it?” asked Faith.

“Different scenarios,” said Mercy. “With multiple choice options. Like the ones in those magazines I used to smuggle into St. J’s. Such as – you have to go back to Mendoza tomorrow and you’re never going to see Seb again. Do you feel a) nothing b) mildly disappointed but you’ll get over it c) devastated? That kind of thing.”

“Clever,” said Dawn.

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