Have Mercy: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance by Shelley Ann Clark Read Free Book Online Page A

sexy.
    Maybe she found it just a
little
bit sexy.
    Tom finally answered. “I’m … I’m not really good at moderation,” he said. “When I get started with something, I tend to go overboard. It’s something I know about myself, so there’s a lot I just don’tlet myself do. But when you’re twelve and spending most of your time in a bar, and you want to grow up but don’t want to be a drunk …” He stubbed out the cigarette. “I’m just glad I knew not to start drinking. At least this’ll kill me slow.”
    Not good at moderation
. The thought, for some reason, oozed into Emme’s body like warm syrup. Of course he wasn’t; he’d told her before that he’d practiced until his fingers bled. What else would he do over and over again, given the chance?
    Tom looked vulnerable and a little lost sitting there under the Mississippi sun. His hair was mussed and sticking up in all directions; his shirt had come untucked in the back. He couldn’t seem to meet her eyes.
    He’s lonely
, she thought.
    Emme was, too. She’d been lonely on tour before; it was the oddest feeling, spending every waking moment with three other people, and every
other
waking moment in front of a hundred more, and still feeling like an island. It led to dangerous decisions. She knew that from experience.
    Her hand reached out, almost of its own accord, to trace the lines of his tattoo, when he suddenly chuckled. “Son of a bitch.”
    Emme drew her hand back, but it didn’t look like he was talking to her. Instead, he pointed. “Think that’s the culprit?”
    She followed the line of his arm with her gaze. She really didn’t want to look away from that masterpiece of sinew and muscle, but then she saw where he was pointing.
    An awkward, lumbering shape made its way off the grass and onto the asphalt of the road. It looked like a cross between a dinosaur and a possum, and it was in no hurry. It snuffled, shuffled, and crawled around the tires of the van.
    “There really is an armadillo,” she said, and the whole situation struck her as completely absurd. She was sitting on an embankment next to a deserted Mississippi road, sweaty hair stuck to the back of her neck, watching her damaged tour van filled with twenty thousand dollars’ worth of equipment, trying not to touch her new band member, all because of an animal that looked like a tiny dinosaur.
    The laughter started in her gut and bubbled up from there until it burst out of her. She laughed so hard she fell back onto the embankment, her T-shirt smudging in the grass. She laughed until tears ran down her face at the thought of that silly, scuttling creature having so much power and so little idea of it.

    Tom felt something inside himself unfurl at the sight of Emme laughing, her head thrown back, her body laid down in the grass. He wanted to burrow next to her until he shared her laughter, shared her breath, shared the tremble of her shoulders as her body shook. He even caved in to the temptation far enough to lean back, lying down in the grass on his side, so he could look at her.
    Once her fit of mirth had tapered off, she turned to face him, head propped on her arm, elbow in the grass. “Sorry.”
    Tom grinned back at her. The sight of her lounging on the ground next to him, the inward curve of her waist emphasized by her position, her breasts straining against the thin, damp fabric of her worn and sweaty T-shirt, was something beyond temptation. That fabric clung so closely to her skin that it managed to reveal and conceal in equally frustrating parts. He found himself wanting to lift up that shirt and nuzzle her belly, nip at the waistband of those magnificent tight jeans, maybe drag them down over her hips with his teeth.
    And even with her hair falling out of its ponytail as she lay flopped on the grass next to him, there was still something commanding in her eyes. He liked it, liked that she could somehow still be in charge even after a fit of the giggles worthy of a