Dancing With Danger

by Kerrigan Byrne

“I’m saving you from your own recklessness!”

  Mercy was certain the look in his eyes might have caused any number of men to tremble, to surrender. But she would not be cowed.

  And God help her, she refused to surrender.

  Not again.

  “Don’t be absurd,” she scoffed. “If anything, I’m saving you. I can’t believe you told Lord Longueville, one of the worst men alive, that you took his money. Do you know his enemies disappear in the night? He’s in league with the High Street Butchers! Not only will he be after you, but so will that rather dodgy fellow—Marco was it—that works for you. The Duchesse said they were baying for your blood. Not to mention the police are—”

  He lunged forward, as if to seize her, but at the last moment, he snatched his arms back, his fists clenched so tightly the creases turned white. “I wasn’t supposed to be saved tonight, you magnificent fool.”

  “What?”

  She’d seen those stark, savage hazel eyes turn every possible color depending on the light. His emotion. His intention.

  But never like this. Flashing with twin lightning bolts in the half dark. Then gathering with thunderous grey clouds.

  A storm approached, and it was about to break over them both.

  “You think I didn’t know exactly what I was doing?” He sliced the air between them with the flat of his hand. “I know that the Butchers and Lord Longueville are working together. I know they approached Marco, and that Marco failed to tell me, which means he’s already mounted a mutiny of the Fauves against me. The Fauves would have dumped my body at the bloody door of Buckingham Palace and Longueville and his Butchers would have strung me from Hangman’s Dock. Either way these streets were to be my grave tonight.”

  “Wait...” Everything inside her went unnaturally still. She stood in the eye of the storm, searching him for the truth. “You’re serious,” she realized with a jolt. “You were intending to perish tonight? To actually die? As in...not exist any longer?”

  She waited for him to deny it. Which he would, certainly. Any moment now.

  The expression on his face stole her hope before he even formulated a reply.

  “My plan calls for a martyr,” he explained in a tone devoid of emotion. “The Fauves still loyal to me will seek vengeance against Marco and his traitors. The Butchers will, no doubt, take advantage of the chaos and rise up to swallow the battling factions whole. The Blackheart of Ben More and Morley won’t allow for such pandemonium, and I’ve anonymously provided enough evidence to search Longueville’s estate, where they’ll find what they need to stretch his neck. And I’ll be goddamned if you’re here to be any part of it. There is a war coming, Mercy, and you need to get out before it starts.”

  She scowled at him. “You’re mad!”

  Threading fingers through his hair, he snarled, “What I am, is desperate.”

  “I meant you’re insane if you think I’m leaving you now. Someone has to keep you from killing yourself, you bleeding idiot.”

  He seemed to search the night for something, anything, to convince her. “What about the Duchesse and Mathilde? Who will crack the case after I am gone?”

  Crossing her arms, she raked him with her most imperious glare. “You’re going nowhere, Raphael Sauvageau, I’ll not allow it.”

  “You can’t stop me, Mercy. It’s already done,” he insisted.

  “That doesn’t mean it can’t be undone!”

  Seizing her, he bent so their eyes were close, his boring the reflection of the moon into her very soul with palpable agony. “You think I want this? It’s the only way out. The only way Gabriel lives. When my corpse is found, so too will be Gabriel’s mask. Dr. Conleith is hard at work this very evening, sorting out his injured face. The Fauves will assume we are both gone, and my brother can finally live with his new identity.”

  Titus was in on this? Did Nora know?

  “No.” She wrenched away, whirling so she didn’t have to face him. “I don’t accept this.”

  “Wouldn’t you give your life for your sister?”

  His question landed like a dagger in her back.

  “Of course, I would! But there has to be some other way. Can you not have a new identity as well?”

  “I’m too well known. I’ve too much money, infamy, and the men beneath me happen to be wealthy enough to search for ages, because as much as I’ve hated it, I’m damn good at what I do.”

  She could feel him getting closer, and wished her knees didn’t go weak at his proximity.

  “The world is only getting smaller, Mercy, and I would be found eventually. I have contacts in every port. I’ve either swindled or smuggled for half the known world, and to truly go into hiding, we’d have to find some place off a map, where the only thing to do is make our own swill and buggar local livestock. I’m not going to live like that. And I don’t want that for my brother. He’s already suffered enough. And...”

  He broke off and they were both silent as footsteps plodded by. Someone opened a door to the next room and rustled around in it before heading back the other way, muttering about apron straps and extra mending.

  “And what?” Mercy demanded when they were again safely alone.

  “I’ve lived enough for two lifetimes.”

  “No, you haven’t. No!” She shoved at him. “I’ll not allow it, you selfish bastard.”

  “Calm down, someone will hear you.” He gently encircled her shoulders with soothing fingers, but she jerked away.

  “I will not calm down!” She paced a few feet toward the bare walls and then spun back to him “Why did you kiss me then, if you were just going to do this? Why make love to me? Why the devil would you make me...make me care for you?”

  His features collapsed then. Broke open like a shattered glass. “I kissed you, Mercy, because I knew your taste would be better than any last meal I could devise. I made love to you because I am a selfish bastard, and I wanted a glimpse of what heaven would be like before I join the ranks of the damned. I thought you knew better than to care. That you understood I don’t deserve it.”

  Mercy didn’t realize what was welling inside of her until her hand flung out and struck him on the cheek.

  God, that was satisfying.

  The pain.

  The blank look of shock on the beautiful bastard’s face.

  Heat swirled inside her. A conflagration of rage fed by helplessness and...and something else. Something so profound and breathtaking it threatened to turn her to ash.

  She wanted to scream at the idea of his loss. His death. This vital, tender, brilliant villain. This man who would dismantle his father’s tainted legacy for the love of his brother.

  Who would give his life.

  She slapped him again. Harder this time. Apparently unable to control herself at the tragic thought of his demise.

  His head flinched ever so slightly to the side, but he said nothing. Did nothing. Took her fury on the chin while those bleak, abysmal, exquisite eyes threatened to destroy her with the agony she read in their depths.

  She pulled her hand back once more, the sting from her previous strike having yet to fade. Words tumbled into her throat, but she couldn’t seem to speak them. Not to the face of the man who was the specter of every wicked dream she’d dared to remember.

  The answer to every question she’d not known to ask.

  The only reason she’d consider abandoning her vow to remain alone.

  That thought stole her breath as she stared at him in mute wonder.

  He’d the body of a man, and the soul of a beast. An animal’s primitive instinct. And it summoned something so ancient and powerful from the deepest parts of her. Something needful and violent, carnal and famished. He teased and tantalized her. Amused and antagonized her.

  And the entire time he was planning his own death.

  She had meant to slap him again, she really had. To strike the very idea out of his head.

  It was impossible to discern who lunged first.

  His muscle
s twitched, hers responded, or the other way around, it wasn’t relevant in the end.

  When their bodies crashed together like waves finding their own shore, all that mattered was that their lips finally met. Savored. Punished. Pleaded.

  Devoured. Consumed.

  Her fingers bracketed the rough skin of his jaw, a lovely tactile dichotomy to the smoothness of his lips.

  Like silk and sand.

  The kiss did not douse the flames of fury within her, merely fed them, fanned them, sent the heat licking its way over her flesh until it landed deep inside her womb.

  Her snarl of demand somehow escaped as a whimper of need.

  She was dimly aware of a sense of weightlessness and a rush of air before she found herself pinned on her back to a mattress.

  Above her, Raphael’s teeth bared and his eyes glinted with a dangerous hunger. He caught her wrists and effortlessly held them in one large hand, securing them above her head.

  He descended on her then, a low growl erupting from him as he dragged his mouth everywhere. Her jaw, her neck, the angle of her clavicle before returning to her lips to start a different trail.

  Vibrations of heat and hunger shook her to her very bones as a terrific heaviness gathered in her loins. She found herself astonished that a kiss might convey more than words. She felt the unrequited need, the loveless lifetime of desolation.

  He was not gentle as he’d been the night before. The tender, skillful lover had been replaced by this savage, cruel beast. He used his teeth, nipping at tender skin and then smoothing it over with the hot velvet of his tongue.

  Even though he was heavy enough to crush her, some fervency rose within her, telling her she’d never get close enough. Not matter how deep he went.

  She opened her legs, intent upon locking her ankles around his back, clinging to him like the pathetic barnacle he’d made of her. She pressed up against him, grinding at the turgid barrel of his erection through the damnable barrier of their clothing.

  His brutal sound was her only warning before she found herself shoved face down on the mattress. Rough hands pulled her hips up and back, and the whisper of fabric foreshadowed the crisp air hitting the warm skin of her upper thighs as he shoved her skirts above her back.

  Her drawers gave nothing but a sigh of protest as he ripped them, and the raw sound he made as his fingers found the backs of her garters released a flood of desire from the very core of her.

  He split her with his finger, testing the flesh already slick and eager.

  Willing.

  Her fingers twisted in the rough wool blanket beneath her, she arched her back toward a sudden, intense onslaught of need.

  His hand gripped her bare hip and after a few jerking motions, he was there. The blunt head of his cock kissing the folds guarding her sex.

  He stilled then, his grip on the flesh of her hip bruising as the only sound in the night was the rasp of his panting breaths.

  “Damn you,” he finally snarled. “Damn you for...”

  For what?

  She never had the chance to ask.

  He drove inside her with one searing, merciless thrust. Penetrating not just her body, but searing her very soul.

  There was a momentary sharp pain as flesh still tender from the previous night struggled to contain him once again.

  Biting her lip, Mercy forced herself not to gasp, because she wanted this. Needed it. Craved the violence of this storm between them. She threw her head back and pressed her body toward him. Taking him impossibly deeper. Until the bones of his hips met the soft flesh of her ass.

  With a low, appreciative sound, he set a rhythm as relentless as he was. His cock parting her, filling her, injecting her with currents of lightning-quick pleasure as he drove so deep, she thought at times he caressed her womb.

  She could feel his heartbeat inside of her as her intimate muscles gripped and goaded him with lugubrious tension, unwilling to release him each time he withdrew.

  He gripped her dress, holding it like the reins of a horse as he drove deep and hard, bucking her forward with the force of his thrusts. He held her captive as he undid her completely.

  Mercy said his name. Then she screamed it.

  Bending over her, his hand reached around and covered her mouth.

  She could taste her own slick desire on his skin, and she bit into the rough pads of his fingers as he crippled her with release. Relentless spasms uncoiled within her, thundering through her veins with such astounding force she couldn’t help but bear down against the overwhelming bliss.

  An inhuman sound tore from him, then another, as his impressive muscles locked into a jerking tempo.

  His cock swelled impossibly larger inside of her the moment before a rushing jet of warmth bathed her womb, heightening her own climax until stars danced in her periphery, threatening to steal her consciousness.

  And why not? He was a consummate thief, after all.

  She’d never offered him her heart.

  But he’d taken it all the same.

  Chapter 15

  Damn her.

  Damn her for making him feel more alive than he ever had, on the night he was supposed to die. For teaching him what hope felt like. For making him wonder what a future might be.

  Damn her for changing everything. His plans. His mind.

  His heart.

  What was happening? He’d been a man of absolute resolve and relentless, one-minded orientation until this whirlwind of a woman touched down in his life.

  She challenged everything he’d known to be true.

  It was more impossible between them now than it had ever been. His machinations were a runaway train charging down a steep mountain.

  Chased by an avalanche.

  There was no stopping it.

  Time was of the essence, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to bloody withdraw from the velvet warmth of her body, even long after the earth-shattering climax had passed.

  How could he leave the world she inhabited? It’d somehow become impossible. Unthinkable.

  Because she cared. She’d admitted it with those lustrous blue eyes gone dark with anger tempered only by desire. Anger precipitated by the pain of his loss.

  Other than his brother, he couldn’t think of another person alive that would mourn him.

  Until Mercy.

  She was the one to pull away and detach, bringing him plummeting back to reality with a jarring crash.

  She rolled to her back and he turned away, righting himself as he allowed her the privacy to do the same.

  “Well, I hope that settles things,” she said after a moment of rustling fabric, her crisp tone rasping over the afterglow of satisfied lust.

  He wished he felt the same.

  Things were more unsettled than ever.

  And his need for her would never be satisfied. Not if he lived another hundred years.

  Gathering his fortitude, he turned back to her in time to see that she’d tidied herself with her ruined undergarments and stood, balling them up in her grasp.

  “These are for the rubbish.” She set about looking for a bin. Finding one, she dropped them inside before catching her reflection in the mirror and smoothing her hair back into place.

  Was there ever a woman more precious? This force of nature in a petite, golden package. His fierce vixen. Not merely gorgeous but adventurous. Stimulating. Magnificent.

  He was used to making a stir wherever he went, but if she were ever to throw off the mantle of civility thrust upon her by her family, by society, her rank...

  She’d eclipse him with a brilliance to shame the sun.

  He’d never wanted anything more than to witness such a thing.

  Sweet Christ, they’d never even taken off their masks.

  And now she’d be moving around the earth with those flimsy garters holding up her sheer stockings and no drawers.

  The very idea was enough to make him ready to have her again.

  Mayhem erupted beneath them. Cries and whistles sc
reeched over the sounds of doors splintering open and the clatter of wagons thundering up the drive.

  “What the bloody devil?” He raced to the door and opened it, glancing down the hall to see if the ruckus had reached their deserted corner of the manse.

  A few footsteps thundered down the narrow stairs, but only the skirts of frightened maids appeared before they dashed by.

  “Oh, dear.”

  Closing the door, he turned to the woman who’d uttered the words, with slow, deliberate movements.

  She offered him a smile of chagrin. “That...sounds like Morley and his men.”

  Raphael hurled a few choice French curses into the night, and she held her hands up as if to block them from landing on her.

  “Before you get angry with me, I wasn’t the one who summoned the police. That was Felicity. She did it without my consent and, believe you me, no one was more cross about that than I. But in the end, it’s a good thing because—”

  “Felicity?” He advanced toward her, his heart thundering in his ears. “Tell me she’s not downstairs in that.”

  Mercy shook her head. “As soon as we realized what you were about—and how many dangerous men were here—I sent her to meet Morley. He’d surely have made certain she was safe.”

  “Good.” He seized her, planted a quick, hard kiss to her bruised lips. “I’ll clear you a path to him, but you must stay here.”

  “And you must be joking.” She wrenched away from him and strode toward the door. “I’m not hiding up here when the Duchesse is caught up in the bedlam.”

  He caught her elbow. “Any number of those men are not above taking hostages to escape the police. There are innocent people threaded throughout a labyrinth of warring factions. And, as you said, most of them are out for my blood. How am I supposed to concentrate on the task at hand if you’re in danger?”

  “I’m not harmless, I’ll have you know.” Her jaw thrust forward as she reached into her sleeve and produced an impressive-looking knife. “Do you really think I’d trust a suicidal gangster to set things to right? Not bloody likely, I’ll take my chances down there, thank you.”

  “But—”

  She gave her golden curls a saucy toss. “No one knows of our...connection. So if someone comes for your throat, I’ll simply step aside and let them have at you, and it’d be what you deserve.”