“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 folds, murmuring, “So damned wet, barely touched you.”

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.