Page 96 of The Secrets That Kill

When Mercer walks back to me, he puts the bottle and other box down on a coffee table and pours a glass of dark amber liquid. The scent is smoky, with a hint of fruit and spice. He takes a sip and closes his eyes. “I knew it. Like you.”

He sits and motions for me to straddle him. Then he feeds me a sip of the liquid.

The taste is opulent, dark chocolate, refreshingly sweet, and with a hint of complex vanilla and the roundness of dried fruit. It’s also strong and it lights a fire down to my belly.

A good fire. Like when he touches me, makes me come.

“Cuban,” he says, “Máximo extra añejo rum. Expensive and a singular taste experience, like you, Pollyanna.”

His words are silk as they coil around me. “Expensive?”

“Yes.” Mercer offers a small uplift of his mouth that’s almost a smile. “As in worth every cent. That rare instance where some things are worth the price tag. Like my watch you stole.”

I glance at it, then at him. “There’s no cost attached to me.”

“There is, you know.” He tips the glass so a little of the alcohol dribbles on me, on my breast, and he follows the path with his lips and tongue.

“Ooh…”

Then he licks the other nipple and feeds me a little more of the liquid. “You’re greedy. But so am I. Lust is a worthwhile greed.”

“Mercer—Sir, what are we doing?”

He runs a finger over me from my breast to my slit, not easing the ache inside or the throb of need in my clit. It’s just a slow touch because he can.

“Playing.” He kisses the side of my throat and takes a sip ofthe rum. Then he nods to the table. “Reach behind you and get the other box.”

I stretch myself around him to grab it. The box is a matte gray, almost black and flat and light. He nods and I open it, immediately hit with the heady aroma of chocolate.

He plucks a dark square out and places it into my mouth.

“Oh. My. God,” I mumble.

Earthy and not overly sweet, it’s a burst of flavors on my tongue as it melts.

He takes the box, sets it down next to him, and hands me the glass of rum. Then he slides his hands beneath my hair and brings me up to him, kissing me, licking into my mouth, licking the chocolate.

I can’t move or breathe.

Everything else inside of me melts like the chocolate.

The shockingly intimate thing he’s doing, the sweetness of it. The taste of him and the rum and the chocolate all come together in something orgasmic, something that makes me want to curl into him and cry.

He breaks the kiss. “Delicious. Single origin chocolate.” He feeds me more rum, another bite from another square, and kisses me all over again.

This continues until I’m making sobbing noises, my entire body thrumming with electricity, a thing he keeps feeding. The world is just exquisite sensations and him. I’m only living for these kisses, for his touch.

I want him.

I need him.

“You make everything taste better,” he says softly as he kisses a trail down my throat, fingers still gentle in my hair.

I’m going out of my mind for him. It’s like something has changed, a shift into new territory. It’s sweet and intimate, and at the same time hot, wild. He doesn’t eventry and finger me or do anything now but kiss me, feed me a sip of the rum, a bite of the chocolate, and murmur praise in my ear.

My head is foggy with lust. I’m on the verge of needing to come. I need him to make me come. I need him to take me, do anything, anything at all.

But he stops. “You should go to bed, Ivy.”

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