He kept her right where she was and sat down on the end of the bed, his eyes locked with hers, one big hand cupping her cheek, the other at the curve of her waist. "I should be spanking you right now," he mentioned almost casually, although he looked and acted anything but.

She surprised the hell out of him, not by protesting vehemently – he expected that. Instead, her lips trembling, voice unsteady, she responded in a shaky whisper, "I know. I just – I just had to get out. Get away."

Voicing a fear, he asked, then held his breath. "From me?"

Jenna looked stricken at the thought. "No, no...from the...from the tension. From the situation." She looked him straight in the eye, vowing reverently, "Not you. Never you."

He saw the truth of what she was saying in her eyes. Merck sighed heavily. "Aw, Jenna, I'm so sorry to have dragged you into all of this. Especially the way I did –"

She silenced him with a kiss. "Please, don't talk any more. Just touch me like you're not going to leave me." Tears spilled down her face. "Please."

Dear God, she didn't need to beg him.

He reached for the hem of her shirt, pulling it up and over, knowing she was braless beneath. Her breasts were works of art; she had told him when they were sharing uncomfortably personal secrets in the dark of the night that she thought they were too big, but he had simply replied that they were perfect, and he had meant it. They were a handful, even for his big palms, firm and tipped with wonderfully generous nipples that he could spent his life suckling on.

But he didn't touch her at first, just undressed her, holding her hand to help her off his lap, then pulling her shorts and panties down, then off, and reclaiming her again, in the exact same position to twine his arms around her, holding her very close.

"Shouldn't you take your sweats off?" she asked almost shyly, sneaking looks up at him.

"Darlin'," he drawled, "if I take off my pants, this is going to be over much too soon. You are entirely too potent and powerful for me to be expected to control myself around you."

He was always saying things like that to her. He was very expressive about his desires, often telling her – in the middle of an otherwise mundane discussion – and in excruciating detail, just how much he wanted her, and what he was going to do to her when dinner was over or when he finished with his makeshift workout.

And he always made good on his promises.

She tried not to make comparisons – why, she wasn't quite sure – but Abel was nothing like him. In fact, Abel was his opposite. Merck – who had known her for much less than a week – and had already praised her more times than her ex ever had in the all the years they were together. Abel found fault in everything about her and didn't hesitate to let her know – loudly – how many deficits she had as far as he was concerned. Abel had hit her with his fists when he got angry. Merck spanked her, but somehow that didn't make her feel anything but attended to and looked after.

Merck seemed to revel in everything about her. Most especially, a submissive side that seemed to bloom within her, because of him and the way he treated her.

That alone made it very hard for her not to fall in love with him, and that battle was long since lost.

He leaned forward, kissing her passionately, and then making his way down her throat, stopping – as he had gotten into the habit of doing – at the tiny divot the tip of his knife had left, which was probably permanent. She didn't seem at all worried about it, she wasn't a vain kind of a woman – and it wasn't noticeable unless you knew to look for it – and he did.

"Sorry," he whispered repeatedly as he kissed that tiny wound repeatedly.

"Stop, Merck…"

"Shh," he said as he pressed his fingers to her lips. "I don't want to hear anything from you but moans and panting and keening, baby girl. No words. Not just now." He gave her a rakish grin. "Later, you can beg me for your release."

With that, he rearranged them – while displaying his strength in moving her as little as possible so that they were at the top of the bed and he could lean back against a couple of pillows, his long legs stretched out before him.

But she remained perched atop him, above a growing bulge that his sweats did nothing to conceal. Once he'd settled them, she found that she was unable to keep herself from rocking her hips against it, seeking stimulation of a bud that she continued to drag against that rough fabric. His mouth and tongue lingered at her collarbone, nibbled behind her ear, licked and then gently bit her shoulder, and finally settled, as she growled deep in the back of her throat. Tugging a tight, eager nipple into his mouth, alternately nipping less than gently then soothing the roughly handled area with his tongue, he drove her crazy with the alternate, contrary sensations.

Wanting to accent those even further, and knowing a good deal about what she liked already, he reached behind her and pulled the scrunchie out of her hair, adoring the way that it flowed and waved down her beautiful bare back. But he didn't let it just lie there. He couldn't. It called out for him to use it in a way that would bring them both closer to the edge.

Merck took hold of the end of that silken swathe and began twisting it, wrapping it up in itself, making it easier to control, thus controlling her, as he twined his big arm up in it, leaving his hand to grasp it closest to her scalp. Pulling gently, but inexorably, and giving her no choice but to arch her neck first and then her entire back, forcing her, as she was, to present him with even more and better access to those luscious breasts, as well as even more interesting parts south.

"Put your hands behind you, honey, brace them on my legs and arch your back as much as you can while you spread your legs. That's it," he encouraged, making her leave herself even more vulnerable to him and his inquisitive fingers and mouth.

He took his time with her, bringing her along slowly, luxuriating in everything about her – the smooth, pale, soft skin, the quiet gasps that became much less, so as he continued to explore her, the way she tried to arch her hips when his fingers found her there but refused to actually touch her.

"Tsk," he scolded, and she immediately moved herself away from him. "You don't decide when I touch you, do you, Jenna?" he chided, knowing it would make her blush and fully expecting an answer that would heighten that lovely color.

"No, Merck."

"That's right, my girl. Who's the only one who can decide that for you, hmm?" He deliberately made it just that much harder for her to answer him by leaning forward to swat her behind.

"Uh – oh – no! You are. You are, Merck," came her tremulous, breathless reply.

"That's right, baby girl. You stay still. I'll do all the work."

He made her wait for her impudence, a long moment during which he took in everything she was, the unbelievably sensual tableau that she presented to him, feeling more blessed than he ever had in his life by the trust she was brave enough to place in him so that they could be together like this.

Then, when he could stand it no longer and his fingers were literally aching to delve into her secrets, he released the tight rein he'd held on himself, although not on her. The fingers of his free, strong right hand cupped her for a scant second before the tips of them parted those soft, swollen folds, feeling the honeyed evidence of her desire for him flowing over them as he sank two of them deep within her. Watching and listening closely to her, he felt her reactions as if they were full on strokes of his aching dick. "Oh, my sweet girl, you are so wet!"

She hoped he didn't expect her to respond intelligibly, because she was already well beyond that, into a realm she'd only ever been to with him, where nothing existed for her but him and what he was doing to her or saying to her or demanding of her. Jenna had never let herself go as completely as she had with him, but – despite their rough beginning, or because of it, perhaps – she had discovered an innate trust of him that defied the cautious nature she had cultivated since she and Abel had parted company.

She had given herself the freedom to submit to him completely, and he had met that responsibility – met that trust and vulnerability on her part – with a confident, quiet, powerful strength that only reaffirmed what she felt about him, always looking to her pleasure, her comfort and her safety first, well before his own, every time.

"I'm going to make you cum, Jenna, and you're going to let me. But it's just the first of many, I promise you."

His thumb found her as his fingers continued to fuck her, harder and faster, while the roughened pad of his thumb barely teased itself over her, making her cry out in frustration. Desperately wanting to move herself against him, but knowing he wouldn't hesitate in the least to interrupt these delicious proceedings to put her over his lap, reducing her to tears and well beyond to impress upon her the lesson that he must truly despair of her ever learning – that of obedience. After what seemed like an eternity of that sensual torture, she could stand no more. This man reduced her to begging, when no one else ever could, and in ways that no one else ever would again, she was quite sure.

She knew he had prohibited her from speaking, but he had said she could beg him for release. "Merck! Please, please!"

She couldn't see it, but she could see his lazy smile in her mind as he drawled, "Tell me what you want, beauty; and I'll see what I can do."

It amused him that she was sometimes reluctant to ask for that which she so desperately – so obviously – wanted, which was precisely why he required her to do it. "No, oh, please, Merck!"

He sounded truly regretful. "I'm sorry, baby, but you know the rules. You have to ask me, politely, for your pleasure, or I won't give it."

Damn him! He knew just how much saying that kind of thing made her blush – whether it ought to or ought not, at her age, when other, dirtier things did not. She didn't know quite what it was, but forcing her to do it turned her on to no end, as hard as it was for her to comply.

She was actively contributing to her own sensual torture!

And she was taking so long that he made as if to withdraw his hand altogether, saying, "All right then, I guess you don't really –"

"No! Please! Don't stop! Please, don't stop." She came dangerously close to committing a cardinal sin and removing one of her hands from his legs to try to stop him from removing his hand from between hers, but she caught herself. Just barely.

His hand was there, but it was just cupping her, not moving in the least. Not even petting her a little bit, and she growled at the loss, and the tremendous, unfulfilled ache.

"It seems to me that a woman who nursed a man, she thought at the time was an outlaw, back to health ought to be able to say what she wants him to do to her. Don't you think?"

His softly posed question hung there in the sex-heavy air between them for a long moment.

Then, corralling what remained of her wits about herself, Jenna said what she knew she had to, to get what she wanted, "Merck, would you please make me cum?" Exactly the way she knew he wanted her to.

He was smiling again, the bastard – that self-satisfied grin was plastered across his gorgeous face – she didn't need to see him, to know it for a fact. "Well, of course, my darlin'. You know how hard it makes me to watch you writhe helplessly on the tips of my fingers while you scream your lungs out."

His fingers claimed her as they had while he spoke, that big thumb settling more firmly over her than it had been. Mere seconds later, she found herself amidst that mindless, primitive state he brought her to so easily, so joyfully, letting her hair go but keeping his hand on her back. Knowing she needed his support as he continued to call his tune, and she continued to respond to it with everything she was, not holding anything back, buffeted relentlessly from one orgasm to the next until he sensed, somehow, that more would not be better for her.

Merck withdrew from her with the utmost gentleness, knowing that, when he fucked her like that with his fingers, it hurt her a bit when he withdrew. He did it slowly, and only after she'd come down some, feeling her loosen her vice-like grip on him and easing himself out of her with nary a whimper from those panting lips..Then he pulled her up from where she had sprawled herself over his legs, not to mount her immediately as most men probably would have, but to roll them onto their sides to that he could hold her, his rampant desire between them, as yet unfulfilled.

But she couldn't let him stay that way for long, despite how wonderful it felt to have him hold her and rock her within those strong arms, clamped to his chest, her cheek resting on a lightly hairy, rock hard pec.

After a very short time, she lifted her head to kiss him, whispering his name against his lips in supplication.

He gave her a bone-breaking tight hug and stopped her when she would have opened herself to him by hooking her top leg over his. Instead, he turned her around, so that he tucked his throbbing front against her ample bottom. Guiding her leg back and himself into her, at the same time, with a low, growling grunt of pure satisfaction, he buried his cock within her and his face into her hair as he began a brutal rhythm not necessarily designed to get her off. It surprised him wonderfully when it did. That had him hooking his arms under hers, his fingertips, some of which were still wearing her particular personal scent, over her collarbone to prevent her from moving away from his tremendous thrusts. Fucking her powerfully, deeply, to the core of the both of them, until they each shouted their release and collapsed, his arms remaining wrapped around her, holding her still as he shrank from her body.

They were quiet in the descending darkness, having not left a light on, listening to the loons' mournful calls from the pond below. Eventually, he shifted them both lazily, refusing to let her move to her own side of the bed, but keeping her caught to his side.

She felt, rather than saw him put his arm over his eyes, and, after a long while of no movement and no talking, thought that he might have surrendered to sleep, and she wasn't far from that herself.

Eventually, though, he lifted his arm, bringing his hand to cup her cheek as he kissed the top of her head.

And his calmly put, seemingly innocuous question, when he asked it, struck much more terror into her heart than when he'd threatened her with his knife.

"Do you want to know when I'm going to leave?"

She wondered silently, unbidden, what the other choice was, and he was entirely too quick to provide it

"Or do you just want me to disappear?"

Jenna almost couldn't swallow, it was so hard to think of what he was speaking about at last. "I-I..." She truly didn't know. Both were equally devastating, equally unacceptable to her.

"Do you want me to decide for you?" he asked, when she hadn't answered him.

"No, no, please. I want to know." She so didn't, but it would be an even worse torture not to have had the chance to say goodbye.

"All right then. I'm going to leave tomorrow just after sunset. I should leave tonight, but… He paused and cleared his throat. "I- I want one more day with you."

She cried herself to sleep in his arms as he held and rocked her, doing his best to soothe her, but knowing – because of how inconsolable he felt himself about it – that there was nothing he could say or do that would really help, except that which he couldn't. He couldn't stay here any longer. Every day, every hour, every minute that he hung around – because he wanted and needed to have her – put her in grave danger.

He should have been strong enough – for her – to have left in the middle of the night, but he wasn't anywhere near strong enough to do that to either of them.

Unfortunately for the both of them.

---

Now that he had determined just when he was leaving, he was even more greedy for her than he had been, waking her up multiple times in the night to have her, to pleasure her. She greeted the dawn with another of her full-throated screams as he availed himself of her feminine delicacies for the fourth or fifth time – he'd lost count.

"You should sleep," he whispered into her ear as he cuddled her against him.

Her now perpetually wet eyes skittered to his, then away quickly. "I'll sleep when you're –" She couldn't bring herself to say, "gone," because that was much too close to 'dead.' "Not here anymore," was her flat, tight answer.

She ate breakfast from her lofty position, sitting nude on his lap, hand fed by him what she'd made for them that she'd learned was a favorite of his –biscuits with sausage gravy, eggs and home fries. He ate most of it, but he made sure she got a good-sized portion, not allowing her to refuse what he presented to her, on pain of a spanking.

Jenna knew she was clinging to him like a limpet, but she didn't know what else to do. She couldn't bear for him to be out of her sight until he absolutely had to be. Luckily, he seemed to feel the same way, at least he didn't make any complaint about her constantly touching him, leaning against him and kissing him.

Hell, she wanted to throw herself at his feet and beg him to let her come with him, which she already knew he wouldn't consider. The other alternative was to beg him to have someone contact her if he was injured or if he made it, although she knew he didn't think he was going to live through whatever it was that he thought he had to do.

But she couldn't bring herself to ask him that, figuring she knew the answer to that, too. He'd said it himself when he'd talked to her about Simone. She had wanted more than he felt he could give, and Jenna was finding herself in much the same situation. She wasn't about to ask him for something he obviously felt he couldn't give.

Besides, she reminded herself. He lived in the city. She couldn't imagine how much he would hate it out here, and she knew she would feel the same way about living in Boston.

It was best for the both of them if they parted this evening, as he'd planned.

Then she'd be alone to cry herself into an early grave.

Unbeknownst to her, though, he was feeling at least as torn as she was, perhaps more. Merck was conflicted about his feelings for her when they weren't being intimate, and every protective instinct he owned was rebelling against what his heart clearly wanted and his every possessive instinct was clamoring for him to stay. Permanently.

But he knew the reality of it much better than she did – knew the perils she faced right now that were purely on his head.

And he hadn't been lying when he'd said that he was married to his job, either, and he couldn't bear the idea of giving her short shrift, or that she might be in any kind of further danger because of him, and he couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't be.

All in all, he knew that his original idea was right – that he should leave her here, where she was relatively happy and could live a safe and quiet life, uncomplicated by all of the shit he'd already dragged into it and could potentially add to if they were to continue whatever this was between them.

But it was going to kill him to leave her.

He only hoped he had the strength to do what he had to do when the time came.