First, though, he wanted to deal with Simone. "Simone was a woman I was involved with years ago, but we went our separate ways because she wanted more than I could give her. I was – still am – involved with my job, and that takes me away from whoever I'm in a relationship with. And they never know when – or if – I'm going to come home – when I step out the door. It – it was more than she wanted to deal with, and I can absolutely understand that. I've stayed away from emotional entanglements since we broke up." He gave her an assessing look. "Am I right that you're not involved with anyone?"

She shook her head. "I'm not."

"Not since your ex?" he probed a bit further, not really knowing why – or wanting to.

Jenna looked embarrassed, although he had no idea why she would be. "Yeah." She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something and then backed off.

"What is it?"

"But –" Jenna bit her lip hesitantly.

"But what, honey?"

Damn his sexy-assed voice!

"You spanked her?" She asked without looking at him, but he didn't allow her to get away with it for long, bringing her gaze back to him as he answered.

'Yes, I did. It was something we both got a lot out of, and it was a big part of our relationship – in and out of bed – when I was home." He tilted his head a bit. "Does that idea intrigue you?"

Jenna licked her lips, not really knowing what to say. It was a part of herself she had never revealed to anyone, and, intellectually, she didn't think that it was a good idea to start with him.

But then, it might well be, because it was obviously something he was into.

"Don't think about it – just answer me. Did my spanking you get you wet?"

She couldn't answer him verbally, but nodded her head a bit.

Seconds later, she found herself beneath him.

But not without him wincing.

Jenna began to push on his chest. "No, I won't do this, if it's going to hurt you," she swore vehemently.

Catching her hands and stretching them above her head, he rumbled, "Do I need to tie you up the way I'd intended to originally?"

Her loudly caught breath was all he needed to hear.

Jenna had never realized that bandage material was so strong, but she found that out personally when he lashed her wrists to the bed. Cognizant of the fact that this might not be comfortable for her, he left them loose enough that, if she wanted to bother, she could work her way out.

His chin rested between her breasts as he spoke with utter softness. "I want you to relax and enjoy what I'm going to do to you. You've been working hard over the past few days, doing everything for me. Let me do a little something for you for a change, hmm?" He gave her a warm, gentle smile as her clothing began to disappear from her body – she knew not how – nor did she much care.

All she wanted was for him to continue to touch her. He seemed to know exactly how and where she was the most helplessly responsive, from her eager lips to the tips of her breasts, the small of her back and the inside of her ankles. Nowhere was safe from his intimate kisses.

Least of all, that particular area. When he had suckled at her toes, biting teasingly at her instep, he nibbled his way up the tender insides of her legs, the presence of his big body forcing her to open intimately to him.

But just when she thought he was going to ravish her, he lay there for the longest time, just looking at her – there.

Her body was literally weeping for him. It was one of the most beautiful sights he'd ever seen, and he didn't want to forget it or rush it, despite how his erection was drilling into the mattress. "You are very beautiful, Jenna, everywhere, but especially here," he said huskily, and she could feel his hot breath on her most intimate parts.

Not used to compliments – especially since her ex found nothing but fault with her physically and otherwise – she chuckled a bit in embarrassment, which earned her a stern glance from him.

"Are you questioning my tastes, little one?" he asked, his tone suggesting that might not be the most intelligent of ideas.

"I'm not little, Merck."

It was the first time she'd said his name, and the next time she did, he wanted her to be screaming it as she climaxed at his behest.

With his good hand, he flipped her effortlessly over onto her stomach, watching her stiffen in anticipation of a spanking.

And she wasn't wrong.

He began swatting her almost lazily, and with much less rigor than her first experience, warming her rear rather than searing it. "You are beautiful, Jenna, and it's too bad that you can't see that in yourself. You need a man who is going to tell you that, honestly and frequently, and who's going to thrash your bottom every time you try to tell him he's wrong."

"No!"

"Yes. You know I'm right. That's exactly what you need."

Three sharp, but not unbearable, swats fell in a row, and she could feel them almost as if he was spanking the front of her, instead!

"And you are little to me, so I don't expect you to correct me about that, either. Do you understand me?" he asked, firmly, but not angrily.

"Yes."

"Good."

His good hand wiggled and worked its way beneath her, then slowly began to claim the part of her that most wanted his attentions, two strong fingers opening lips that released a flow of honey over them, more generous than he'd ever experienced before.

Merck gasped. "Honey, you are so plump and ripe and wet right now, I am going to let your juices run down my chin and I'm going to lap up every drop of you before I let you go. You, my dear, most definitely need a firm hand on your rudder, and I am only too happy to provide such a service."

He lay atop her, and she sunk down into the old, soft mattress. But she couldn't escape that hand or those fingers, not that she really wanted to. His presence on top of her only heightened her desire. He played with her as if he knew that was what she had wanted all along, to feel a strong, male presence on her. Very shortly, in her, his digits lodged firmly within her, opening her to him and for him, drilling up into her and curling the tips of both to massage that particular spot that left her breathless.

Jenna heard him chuckle at her softly as he withdrew his sopping wet fingers to bring them, instead, to the little crowning jewel of her lady parts. Only he wasn't nearly as gentle and slow here, but rather quick and confident, manipulating it – adding his thumb to the mix to pinch that little bundle, tweaking it, tapping it, rubbing some in between, bringing her to a fever pitch and keeping her there by the sheer unpredictability of his motions.

When she got too close, he smacked with his other hand. He did it in such a manner that she was sure he thought of it as much less harsh than it should have been, because of his injury. It still had her yelping and trying to twitch her bottom away from its descent, not that she was able to – he had her by much more than the short hairs.

Eventually, when her bottom was a nice, even, glowing pink, and having proved to the both of them that she definitely did enjoy being spanked, he turned her over again, resuming his position between her legs, only this time he did more than just look.

He adjusted himself – and she ached with every painful grunt until he'd gotten himself where he wanted to be, so much so that he looked up and reassured her, "I'm fine, Jenna. Really, if I thought this was going to set me back in the least, I would not be doing it. But to the contrary, your little cunny is exactly what I need."

With that, he lowered his head, arranging her legs over his shoulders, spreading them even wider in the process. Then, after contemplating her for long enough to make Jenna raise her head to look at him, capturing the exact moment when his mouth claimed her privates and the dual sensual inputs were almost enough to make her cum right then and there.

He attacked her avidly, and with obvious, unabashedly loud enjoyment, rarely coming up for air – unlike her ex who rarely agreed to do this for her and did it so badly and complained about it so loudly that she eventually stopped asking him to do it, which of course was his aim.

Not that he didn't expect her to do the reverse for him, but reciprocation wasn't high on his list of priorities.

Merck acted as if he'd been walking through a hot, dry desert for years, and she was a cool, wet oasis. He loved her as if he was a woman, and this was the way he would want someone to pleasure him. Not one word of complaint – just the opposite. He often groaned in unison with her, finding and sticking to a rhythm – once he'd tested a few out – that earned him the loudest response from her.

He let go of the leg he'd been butterflying to bring his hand back into play, petting her entrance with those two bold fingers, double dipping them into her cream, then following her groove down towards her little pucker.

Jenna stiffened immediately and tried to get away from him, but he wouldn't let her. "Remember, relax. I'm not going to do anything you don't want or you're not into," he soothed, bringing his fingers back up to twist them into her, exposing her little jewel to even more loving from his lips and tongue, planting his fingers deep within her, stretching her and pulsing them quickly in and out of her.

"Muh – Muh – Merck!" Jenna keened, feeling that unbearable pressure, the relentless build up of sensation upon sensation and knowing that something in her was going to have to give very soon.

"That's it, honey. Don't hold back. Holding back is a spankable offense."

That was all she needed to hear in that deep, dark voice of his. Jenna felt every muscle in her body tense for a long, unbearable moment. Then she screamed his name as a tidal wave of orgasms, one after the other, slammed her, He refused to allow her to avoid it, coaxing and guiding and pulling her through until she collapsed beneath him, even though he could still feel her contracting in his mouth.

"More, baby?" he asked, lapping his tongue over her from top to bottom as if he was a particularly fastidious cat.

"Oh, fuck me, no," she breathed, barely able to get even the one-syllable words out of her mouth.

"Your wish is my command," he grinned, levering himself up and over her, leaning on both hands but much more on his stronger side, catching her legs up over his shoulders again, only this time it wasn't his fingers invading her.

Unbelievably, they proved to be a poor substitute for the real thing.

He was a big man, well endowed, almost too much so, for someone who had not done this in a while. But he was infinitely patient, and she was just about as ready for him as she could get, regardless.

Dear God, she was almost there again, just from his first penetration!

"You sound close, baby, are you?"

Damn, the man noticed everything!

All she could do was nod.

"Mmm. You may cum at will, Jenna. I'll keep you going as long as I can."

He would delay his own pleasure in favor of hers? Who was he?

And he did.

It got him off to get a woman off as much as possible, to feel her spasming around him and knowing that he was making her do that. So he held off until his body would no longer have it.

"I'm sorry but I've got to – I've got to –" He hammered himself into her the last couple of strokes, fucking her hard, then bellowing his pleasure to an almost deafening extent, his big body shaking and shuddering above her before he rolled off and onto his good side, breath bellowing out of him in great puffs.

Jenna could barely register that he had apologized to her for not being able to forestall his own orgasm any longer as they were fucking. What man did that? Certainly none in her previous experience.

As soon as he could manage to corral his muscles into obedience, Merck reached up and released her loosely held arms, pulling the ribbon-like threads of the bandages away from her wrists so that she was completely freed.

After that short bout of coherency on his part, each lost in their own thoughts, they lay there, on their backs, separately for a while, both still panting loudly and trying to catch their breath.

Finally, Jenna said what was on her mind. "Dear God, when you can do that, how the fuck did Simone ever let you go?"

Merck laughed. "We never had a problem in the bedroom. It was the rest of the relationship that she wasn't happy with, and, as I said, I understand completely – now. I didn't really then. I didn't much try to. I was – and still am, to a certain extent – a workaholic. She wanted a guy with a nine-to-five job and a house and babies, eventually..." Merck turned a bit towards her, reaching out to play with a strand of her wavy blonde hair, the end of which curled around his finger as if it never wanted to let go. "Was that why you two got married? The whole home, hearth, and kids thing?"

Jenna shrugged. "I don't think either of us really thought about why we got married. We just...did. It seemed to be the thing to do; everyone else around us was, so we did it." She paused for a moment, seeming to Merck to be gathering her thoughts, then she said, her voice with a faraway tinge to it, "And there was a baby, once, but I miscarried, and the doctors told me I probably wouldn't be able to get pregnant again, afterwards."

He didn't know why that story hit him so hard, but it did. She'd been such a good caretaker to him, bringing him – someone she didn't know and who she thought meant her harm – through a dangerous fever, that he just had a gut feeling, she would have made a terrific mom.

Snarky and sarcastic on occasion, but definitely loving, if she could find it in her heart to see to a man who had terrified her as he had.

Before he could even tell whether she was crying, he pulled her into his arms, surrounding her with himself and holding her tightly, not knowing what to say, but wanting to provide whatever meager comfort he could.

As horrified as she was to be crying in front of him, she couldn't stop the words from pouring out of her mouth. "Abel, my ex, never said anything to me about the baby at all. It was as if she had never been. He never held me, never cried with me…"

And here he was, a man who had known her for less than a week, the majority of which he'd been unconscious, and she could feel his own tears seeping into her scalp as he massaged his big hand up and down her back and murmured wordlessly comforting nothings.

It was the first time she'd ever talked to anyone about the baby – none of her friends or family even knew there had ever been one, because she knew she really couldn't count on them for support, either. They all had their own lives, and she lived so far away and was so often incommunicado, and, married to a man who refused to acknowledge what had happened, she had truly realized at that point in her life that she only had herself to rely on.

She couldn't blame them. Her husband at the time – she laid every bit of blame at his feet, where it belonged.

It was really the first time she'd ever truly cried for the daughter she never had, sobbing all over him for a good long time, then, when she'd realized how uncomfortable she must've made him feel, bawling all over him – and him essentially a total stranger – Jenna began to apologize profusely.

"Stop."

"But…"

He didn't raise his voice, but he got his point across, nonetheless. "I said stop."

She looked up at him a bit warily, but remained silent.

"You don't have to stop crying, Jenna. Just don't apologize to me about it. I can't imagine how much it must hurt to lose a baby – born or unborn. And I'm so sorry that your ex was such a jerk to you about it. And a jerk in general, it seems to me, on very short acquaintance."

"Well," she sniffed. "I can't imagine that I'm that much of a prize to live with, either."

"Enough." Much more sharply. "Perhaps there were little things that bugged you about each other, but this kind of thing is something you come together over in your grief."

Jenna nodded. She didn't think Abel had felt any grief about the loss of their child. If pressed, she would have said that, if he felt anything, it was relief.

Merck didn't say anything more; he just held her until he could see that she'd cried most of it out. When she'd calmed, he tipped her chin and kissed her tenderly. "As much as I would love to continue to hold you, I need to change my bandages."

"I'll help," she volunteered.

"I can do it myself," he said. "Why don't you go get ready for bed, then we'll snuggle back here when we're done with our ablutions?"

She did as he asked, but when she returned in her nightgown, he was still struggling to apply the bandage to the wound in his back. So she did end up helping him with it, glad to see that it looked much better than it had – much less swollen and red and angry looking, and seemed to be on its way towards healing over, which she told him.

"Thank you, again," he said, when he was slathered with antibiotic cream and bundled up again.

"You're welcome."

He rolled onto his back and held his arms up to her.

But Jenna was feeling quite shy, all of a sudden. Her time alone in the bathroom had been full of long moments of self-recrimination and guilt. She'd told herself that falling in love with – and yes, she'd acknowledged to herself in a moment of stark clarity and rare self-introspection that she was, indeed, falling for him. Falling for a man who had treated her so badly at first, regardless of the provocation, and whom she'd known for all of fifteen minutes was probably not the right thing to do, regardless of how wonderful he was being to her now.

At least Abel had never threatened her with a knife.

But it was the truth, and, since the debacle with her ex, she had done her best to confront her feelings rather than running away from them.

"No, thank you," she said primly, as if he was offering her a cookie, "I think I'll sleep in the recliner, like I have been."

She turned away from him to head towards it, thinking she really should dig the twin bed in the other room out from under all of those books and sleep in there, but not before he whisked her into his arms – with only a slight grunt of pain – and carried her over to the bed, growling, "The hell you will. Only if you want to try to do so with an even sorer bottom than the one you already have."

"Merck, put me down – you'll hurt yourself even more than you already have and start bleeding again!" She wanted to struggle, but also didn't want to contribute to his pain, so she remained board stiff.

He only held her more tightly. "You're not going to sleep anywhere but in the bed with me."

"Please, no – it doesn't make sense for me to…"

He curled his strong arm so that her face was inches from his. "I'm not interested in doing the sensible thing, Jenna. I will do whatever is necessary to have you with me tonight." His words rumbled through every bit of her, leaving fires burning everywhere along their path.

"All right," she said ungraciously, knowing that if she fought him, she would lose. Not wanting to injure him further, she allowed him to tuck the both of them into bed, pulling her into the crook of his body and holding her there with his one good arm around her waist. And sometimes in her hair...and occasionally at her breasts, or stoking her cheeks until he could feel her fall asleep against him and knowing he'd just made the biggest mistake of his life.

But that he wouldn't – couldn't – have done anything differently.