If only she could have known Merc back then. Whatever he was in the real world, here he was quiet strength, and this Merc would have paid the stories around her and her family no mind. He would have held her hand and walked beside her, no matter the stares and whispers that followed them.
His face in moonlight was a study of planes and shadows. Her mother would have said he had a strong face, with a strong chin. That was one thing her mama always disliked – men with weak chins.
Strange, remembering Mama now. It had been such a long time since Amana thought of her. Unlucky in love, that’s what the old women talked of while playing Go, smoke thick in the air, fingertips yellowed and fingers gnarled. Good girl, but so unlucky. Maybe if she listened more, she wouldn’t be stuck with those babies.
She pulled Nakoa away, the words absorbed and the damage done.
Listening to those women, she vowed she’d never have babies without being married. She’d never give them a reason to talk about her, in those half-pitying/half-delighted scandal tones. Her babies would have a daddy who loved them, who would never leave them. Her babies would ride on their daddy’s shoulders, and he would take them to ice cream shops, all the while telling them don’t tell your mother. A daddy who would protect them from every bad thing this world could surprise their family with – and that was a lot of bad things.
Merc had wide shoulders and gentle hands, and a bearing that proclaimed he could take down any enemy.
She closed her eyes and pressed tighter.
“Hey, what’s this?” He lifted her face with gentle fingertips underneath her chin. There was a crease between his eyebrows, his mouth turned down, and when he ghosted his thumb underneath her eye, only then did she feel the wetness.
“Bad day today.”
“Anything I can do?”
Merc had wide shoulders and gentle hands, and she had only one chance to feel them, even if only in a dream. With that desire strong in her mind, her soul, she said, “You can take me home.”
As her meaning sank into him, his gaze grew heated, molten, and he wrapped those large hands around her waist and picked her up, laying her against his chest, holding her weight steady and showing how strong he was. Her arms encircled his neck, but she made no other move. She trusted him to hold her safe.
The scenery dissolved until they were now in a hotel, basic and boring but clean. That was all that registered before he lowered his head to place his lips on hers, asking without words to be let inside. She complied, eager to again experience this hard, hot side of him. The gentleness was still there underneath everything, but with her permission he grew aggressive, demanding, moving forward with a strong sweep of his tongue and using his mouth to open her wider.
While they kissed, Amana pushed his shirt up, pulling at the offending fabric of the t-shirt. She broke away, turning her attention to getting him undressed. Desperation clawed inside her, demanding she experience everything possible in these few last hours. “I want this off,” she breathed, and if she had the strength, she would have ripped it from his body.
He went back a step, but only one, as her hands grabbed at the bare skin of exposed waist and refused to let him go any further. In swift movement, the t-shirt was gone, and the long, lean, muscled lines of his torso were on display.
First she took him in with her eyes, and then she let her fingers help with the exploration. The skin on his chest was the same gorgeous shade of brown as his arms, and though her fingers itched to pull at his pants to see if that shade was universal, the lure of his tattoos won the temporary war for her attention.
Four black lines curled around each side of his waist, twisting around the muscles in his chest and stomach as if placed to highlight each firm stretch. Underneath her fingertips, the tattooed skin was velvet, lush and luxurious with the slightest roughness, a roughness that only highlighted the decadence of feeling.
Amana circled around him. His back was even more covered by tattoos, as the thick black lines curled over his shoulders and down his spine in addition to circling his torso. From the way the tattoos looked against the waist of his jeans, there was no doubt they were drawn even farther down his body.
She pressed herself against him, reveling in the feel of the skin against her as well as the sharp intake of breath. Her fingers clenched against the denim of the jeans. “These need to go as well.”
His head shifted so he could speak back to her. “Are you going to return the favor?”
“I’m going to do many things, but the first thing I need is to see how much of your body these tattoos cover and trace every inch of it with my tongue.”
The answer was a groan and a deep breath, and in moments his jeans and underwear pooled around his legs, where he kicked them off and stood before her, his back still to her, naked.