Hold On by Kristen Ashley
“Small-town cop who thinks he knows it all but doesn’t know dick. I’ll confirm you don’t know dick since you sure as fuck do not know me,” he clipped.
That didn’t sound very FBI-like.
Then again, what did I know? I’d only met a couple of them and, thankfully, our associations were brief.
“Small-town cop in the ’burg rocked by Dennis Lowe’s lunacy, and we’ve seen a lot of assholes like you,” Merry returned. “You’re standing outside the home of a woman Lowe fucked with that you underestimated, ’cause I’m tellin’ you now, you’re actually lucky you’re dealin’ with me. If I let her loose on you, she’d grind you to nothing. And that woman is my woman. So do not stand outside my woman’s home and tell me what I don’t know. I know you. I can see right through you. And all I see is ugliness and greed.”
“This conversation is over,” Jones murmured, beginning to move down the walk.
“It’s about fuckin’ time,” Merry decreed.
Jones kept walking, but he looked over his shoulder to hurl, “Small-town cop, small mind, and too stupid to know it doesn’t make him smart to have the last word.”
To my shock, at that biting retort, Merry busted out laughing.
Then I got it.
Jones didn’t leave the last word to Merry. He took it. Which meant he’d called his own damned self stupid.
I grinned.
Merry stopped laughing and stood, arms still on his chest, watching Jones walk to his rental car at the curb.
I stayed inside the door as Merry and I both watched Jones get in it, start it up, and drive away.
Merry turned his head to watch it go down the street.
I kept waiting.
Then he dropped his head and shifted to move up the steps of my stoop toward me.
I opened the door and opened my mouth to share with him how totally awesome he was, but I didn’t get a word out before he lifted his head, looked at me and I saw the ice still in his eyes.
I held the door, unable to move until he put his hand on it and kept moving toward me, which meant I had to move out of his way.
The storm whispered then banged and Merry locked it.
Then he slammed my front door, and locked that.
But he slammed it, the unexpected noise sounding loud in my silent living room, making me jump then slowly, step by step, retreat.
He again turned eyes of blue ice to me.
“That happen to you a lot?” he asked.
His conversational tone didn’t fool me, so I kept retreating.
“Stop moving,” he ordered.
I stopped moving.
“That happen to you a lot, Cher?” he pushed.
I opened my mouth, but my movement was again slowed by his vibe filling the air so full, it weighed on me.
Suddenly, he leaned forward and roared, “That happen to you a lot?”
“Not so much anymore, Merry,” I answered.
“Not so much anymore,” he repeated after me.
“Sometimes,” I shared carefully.
“Ethan open the door to that shit?” he asked.
“No,” I answered and thankfully did not lie.
“They call?” he kept at me.
Slowly, I nodded but added verbally, “Not so much anymore with that either.”
“Then, they don’t get what they want ’cause you shut them down, they come to the door?”
“Yeah, but not so much,” I reiterated. “Not anymore. Swear, Merry.”
“Think they’re targeting the weak,” he stated.
“Maybe it starts like that, but if they make it to my door, I handle it and educate them different.”
“You handle it,” Merry again repeated after me.
“Merry,” I whispered.
At the sound of his name, suddenly and without warning, he charged me. Automatically, I retreated and had to do it fast, so I tripped over my feet. Thankfully, that happened in a strategic place, so when I started to fall back, my shoulders slammed against the wall instead of me landing on my ass.
I could make no further move because Merry was so close to me, he was fencing me in.
Even if he wasn’t, he grabbed my wrist, lifted my hand, and pressed it to the wall over my head.
I sucked in a sharp breath of surprise and held it, lifting my other hand toward his chest, not knowing if I intended to rest it there in an attempt to calm him or push it against him in an attempt to escape.
I wouldn’t find out because he caught that wrist too, and then both of them were pinned to the wall over my head.
“Is there an us?” he asked.
My breasts brushed his chest as I started breathing heavily.
“Goddamn it, Cher, is there an us?” he clipped.
“I want there to be.”
Fuck!
It came out because he was freaking me out.
Fuck!
“Then there’s an us,” he declared firmly.
Oh God.
He wanted that to be too.
That made me unimaginably happy.
And it scared the absolute fucking shit out of me.
“And there bein’ an us, Cher, that means you’re mine. Ethan’s mine. Are you followin’ me?”
“Merry—”
“Yes or no, you followin’ me?”
I swallowed and it hurt that mid-throat it hitched because I needed way more than my normal oxygen in that moment and shutting my mouth to swallow meant not sucking in air.
“Answer me, sweetheart,” he ordered.
“Yes, I’m followin’ you.”
He adjusted my wrists to hold them in one hand so he could rest his other hand at my upper chest, right at the base of my throat.
This did not mean he was calming down or about to let me go.
It meant something else.
I just didn’t know what.
Yet.
“You’re followin’ me, which means you get me, which means from now on, any asshole phones you, you tell me,” he commanded.
That was when it occurred to me that his motions were claiming.
Shit.
“Okay, Merry.” I thought it sensible in his current mood to agree.
His hand at the base of my throat slid down, and suddenly, I wasn’t uncertain about the situation.
Well, not true. My head still was, but my body was having a different reaction.
“They come to the door, you do not lose your mind on them. I’m not close, you shut the door in their face and call me immediately.”
“Okay, Merry,” I repeated.
His hand kept going down.
“You don’t look after yourself. That’s not your job anymore, Cher. You leave that to me.”
Oh God, God, God, my eyes were burning even as the backs of my knees were tingling.
“Cher,” he prompted harshly.
“Okay, honey.”
“You don’t go it alone, not anymore, not in anything, with assholes like that guy or anybody who tries to get to you, ’cause while we ride this out, you don’t need that fortress. You don’t need it because you got me,” he declared.
I nodded, at that moment, his words penetrating, I was unable to speak.
His hand had slid between my breasts, down my belly, and his fingers shoved into the top of my jeans when he stated, “No one fucks with you, Cher. Not ever. But they sure as fuck do not show at your door and fuck with you.”
Without my permission, my eyes fell to his mouth as I whispered in agreement, “No one fucks with me.”
He undid the button on my jeans.
I drew in a soft, audible breath.
“Baby,” he called.
My eyes drifted up to his the exact moment his hand shoved inside my jeans then my panties and his middle finger hit my clit.
Oh yes, Merry was claiming.
My lips parted, a gust of breath whispering through as my eyes floated closed.
He pressed his middle finger back, gliding it through the slick fol
I tried to open my eyes but only got the lids up halfway before his finger moved again to my clit and started rolling.
Good.
So, so good.
“Oh God,” I breathed.
“Gave you time, Cherie. You needed it,” he whispered, his finger working magic. “You texting me sayin’ you’re sorry you fucked us up, tellin’ me you want us unfucked, tellin’ me you want to take a chance with me, that mean you done takin’ that time?”
I hadn’t intended to text.
I didn’t even know if I did text.
But I couldn’t think of that with what he was doing to me.
All I could do was confirm, “I’m done takin’ that time.”
He slid his finger back and filled me.
I bit my lip, my teeth gliding along the flesh as I pushed against his hold on my wrists so I could touch him while he was touching me.
“Be a good girl, baby,” he urged, and my lids lifted a centimeter as a whimper escaped me.
He did a slow circle inside me.
“You gonna be a good girl, Cherie?”
“Yes,” I panted.
He changed the rotation and shared, “Good girls get good things.”
I wanted good things generally, but specifically, right in that moment, I wanted them from Merry.
“Merry, need more, baby,” I whispered.
“How do you get what you need?”
He’d taught me that in bed when we were drunk but delicious fucking.
I tried to focus on him and gave him what I was taught. “Please, Merry.”
“That’s a good girl,” he murmured, sliding his finger out and going back to my clit, giving me what I needed.
My hips jerked, pressed, working with him as I moaned, “Yes.”
“Just so we’re clear, good girls get good things, Cher. Bad girls get punished.”
I was so going to be bad with Merry.
But right then, I was so far gone, I had to stick with good.
“Harder, Merry,” I breathed.
“How you get that?”
“Please,” I pleaded.
His mouth brushed mine. Then his tongue slid across my lower lip. I went for more and he pulled away, but he rolled harder with his finger, so I pressed my head to the wall.
“Yeah, honey,” I encouraged breathlessly.
“Work that,” he growled.
I worked it, rolling with him, helping him take me there, breathing erratically, my nipples hard and aching, brushing incessantly against his chest. I felt his mouth at my ear, sucking my lobe between his lips, his tongue touching the tip.
So little.
So much.
“Merry,” I gasped, my hips now moving desperately, my nipples no longer brushing because he’d pushed into me, my breasts now pressed against the hard wall of his chest. I felt the edge of his teeth skim down the taut flesh of my neck and that was it. “Merry!”
Not even close to in control, my head snapped back into the wall before dropping forward to hit his shoulder and my body tensed from wrists to toes. His finger kept at my clit and I drew in repeated soft breaths in quick succession as I experienced the sweet release.
I started trembling as it took its wondrous time coursing through me. I turned my head and pushed my forehead into his neck, barely noticing his hand release my wrists. My arms floated down to round his shoulders and hold on as he reduced the pressure at my clit but kept rolling, guiding me through the last pulses of the brilliant orgasm he gave me. And as if he could feel it drift away, when it did, he cupped me.
I held on loosely, unable to latch on, my body like a rag doll. Luckily, Merry had shifted an arm around my back to keep me steady as I fought to even my breathing.
Merry didn’t help with that as he gently slid his hand from my jeans, shifted slightly, just enough to get his hand between us, and I watched up close, my head still in his neck, his chin dipping down, as he slid his middle finger, wet with me, between his lips.
I spasmed in his arms.
He felt my reaction, and I knew this when he drew my finger out and his lips curved up in a sexy, cocky grin. He retraced his path between us with his hand, then obliterated any space by wrapping his arm around me, drawing me tight to him with both arms and turning his head.
I lifted mine marginally, catching his eyes, which didn’t have even a hint of ice, before my eyes closed when his mouth took mine and he kissed me.
There was a vague taste of me on his lips, but the rest of it was Merry and I knew instantly, with a heady feeling, he would not give even a little control of that kiss to me.
It was wet, long, thorough, soft, and sweet.
He gave what he just gave, so that was all for Merry.
And it was a beginning that even me, who’d managed to read a lot of important things wrong in my life, couldn’t miss.
When he released my lips, he stayed close, drawing his nose along the side of mine, our positions meaning our eyes had difficulty meeting.
But we managed it.
“How you doin’?” he asked quietly.
That made me want to laugh, the question was so damned crazy.
I was limp in his arms.
Hell, I was in his arms.
How did he think I was doing?
“I’m hangin’ in there.”
He found humor in my response too; I saw it light his gaze.
It sobered as he murmured, “My brown-eyed girl.”
I sobered too, that feeling hitting my eyes again as I whispered, “Merry.”
If I meant to say more (which I didn’t know if I did or didn’t), I couldn’t when he gave me a fierce squeeze.
“Means a lot, you takin’ a shot at this with me.”
Oh God.
I had to give it to him.
I had to.
I couldn’t fuck this up again. Not for him. Not for me.
“Means a lot to me too.”
His sober eyes warmed.
“Like your boy, Cherie. Wanna get a chance to get to know him better when the time is right for you. But that’s gonna wait. Right now, wanna know when you’re next day off is ’cause just you and me are goin’ to Swank’s.”
And it came again. Something I’d never had. Something I’d never felt. Something incredible given to me by Merry.
This time it was him asking me on our first date and telling me that date would be at Swank’s, a fashionable, expensive restaurant in Indy.
This meant not a bullshit date.
This was a big-time, whole hog, in your face, this means something to me, we’re gonna ride it out but we’re gonna start that ride right date.
“Swank’s?” I whispered.
“You got a nice dress?”
I didn’t have one good enough for Swank’s. But I’d steal one if I had to.
“Yes,” I lied.
He smiled.
Oh God.
“Night off, babe,” he prompted.
“Feb doubled me up. This week, Thursday and Friday.”
“I’ll get us in Swank’s tomorrow.”
Oh God.
He wasn’t messing around.
“I’m scared.”
There I was again with the blurting.
His smile died, but his arms got tighter. “I know.”
We stared at each other without either of us saying more.
This lasted a long time and it was time I didn’t want to end, standing in my living room in Garrett Merrick’s arms.
It seemed, since he didn’t move, he agreed with me.
But life was life, so eventually we’d have to let go of that moment.
And, not surprisingly, it was Merry who was the one who had the strength to do it.
“Wish we had time to talk shit out right now, but I gotta get back to work.”
“Right,” I said, making a move to pull away.
He didn’t let me go, so I stopped and focused on him.
“For planning, you gotta know, Cherie, that you owe me.”
I felt my eyes narrow in confusion. “I what?”
“Owe me, baby, and when we work out that debt, I’ll want more than your hand down my pants.”
My legs got wobbly.
“Right,” I said again, this time breathy.
One side of his lips curled up and it was again cocky. “I’ll get you home to your boy after Swank’s, but just sayin’, whoever’s lookin’ after him’s gotta know you’re gonna have a late night.”
My still-sensitive clit gave a throb that was of a strength and enjoyableness I preferred to focus on, so I just nodded.
He kept the cocky grin as he watched me do it.
He apparently had enough time to continue looking smug and not let me go and go to work, which I started to find annoying.
“Would you like me to send a thank you note for my orgasm, or would me providing that gratitude verbally right now suffice?” I asked touchily.
“Prefer your gratitude to come in a different form than both, so I’ll just wait until tomorrow.”
I rolled my eyes.
He gave me another squeeze, and when my eyes got back to him, I saw he was out-and-out smiling.
“Call you to let you know when I’m picking you up,” he told me.
“Okay, Merry.”
He bent, touched his mouth to mine, gave me another squeeze, and then, to my despair that I hid totally, he let me go.
I stood where I was and watched him go.
He unlocked the front door, opened it, unlocked the storm door and had his hand on the handle before he looked back at me.
“We got a lot to talk about, Cher. We’ll get that shit outta the way tomorrow at Swank’s. But I don’t want you dreading it, because, honest as fuck, we’re gonna get through it and we’re gonna get past it. I won’t make you promises again that I can’t keep. Swear that, babe. So when I promise right now that I know where my head is at with you and I want us both to give this the best shot we can give it, you can believe that.”
God, Merry.
“You gonna give this the best shot you can give, sweetheart?” he asked when I said nothing.
I nodded.
He took in my nod, smiled a small smile, but pushed, “Promise me.”
I wanted to hesitate. I wanted to think about it. I was scared out of my mind.
But in that moment, I did not want to give any of that to Merry.