by Lora Leigh
Ria followed silently, biting her tongue, holding back her temper as he did the same there. Fine, she understood the need; after all, if the Supremacists could get lucky enough to kill him, it would be a major feather in the murderer’s cap. Mercury was considered one of the best trackers and enforcers the Breeds possessed. That didn’t mean she had to like it.
Next he pulled a small electronic device from the utility belt at his side and began to go from room to room again. The receiver was one of Vanderale’s and the finest that could be found. So far, there had been no listening device developed that could evade its sensitive electronics. But she didn’t remember it being on the roster of equipment that had been sent to Sanctuary.
“How did you get the R72?” she asked, watching as he ran it along baseboards and around furniture.
“It arrived last month with half a dozen others by special courier from L. Vanderale.” He growled the name. It seemed Mercury had had a run-in with the first Leo around the same time Jonas had. “Which is why Jonas finds it so hard to believe he would consider cutting funding a month later.”
“I don’t make the decisions, I just follow them.” She shrugged.
“Hmm,” he murmured as he moved through the rest of the house before apparently having assured himself that it wasn’t bugged.
He tucked the small receiver back into the special pack attached to his belt before staring back at her, his gaze hooded, his appearance seeming more dangerous in the dim light of the house.
“I have work to do,” she finally sighed. “There are a few groceries in the kitchen and drinks in the fridge. Make yourself at home.”
She turned and headed toward her bedroom.
“You don’t eat dinner?”
Ria halted in the middle of the living room. What was that thread of emotion she heard in his voice? Was it even truly there?
Loneliness?
She turned back to him, seeing more than the man standing so still and silent, his head raised high, his shoulders thrown back. His expression was cool, almost bland, but something in his eyes raged. They were predatory, yet filled with a sadness that pricked at her own heart.
There was something in his eyes that she had always recognized within herself. A need, hunger that no amount of food could ever fill.
For her, it was simply for a place to belong. What it was for Mercury, she had no idea. She knew, though, that the longer she stayed here, the more she felt as though she didn’t want to leave as quickly as she’d thought she would.
Dammit. He was getting to her, and she did not like that.
“I usually shower first.” Actually, she usually ate a sandwich as she hunched over her computer and fought with the files she had stolen through the day. Did she even have anything for dinner? She thought fast.
“Why don’t you order something from the pizza place in town while I shower? I’ll watch for the delivery guy while you shower.”
Well, of course that couldn’t work; she knew it the minute his brows lowered.
“I’ll hurry and shower before he gets here,” he said a second later. “Pizza sounds good. What do you want on yours?” He headed for the phone.
“Everything and the kitchen sink.” She shrugged. “Just get what you like; I’ll eat pizza just about any way it comes.”
He nodded as he picked up the phone and punched in the numbers efficiently.
Damn, she was such a sucker. Turning on her heel, she stalked to the bedroom, wondering if she could have possibly made a bigger mistake. She had work to do; she didn’t have time to entertain a Breed grieving for a mate he would never have.
Who cared how lonely he was—it wasn’t as though she could do anything about it. The man was lonely for something that didn’t exist, for a mate that had died long ago. That wasn’t her problem and she couldn’t fix it. She would have if she could, but she couldn’t bring back the dead, as Dane often reminded her.
But she could wish . .
She was fucked.
Mercury made the vow the minute she stepped from her bedroom with all those nut brown waves of silky hair falling to the middle of her back. She was dressed in light gray cotton pants, pajama bottoms perhaps, or lounging pants, he thought he might have heard Merinus call them. Wide-legged and damned near shapeless. He hated them.
With it, she wore a thigh-long gray jersey, just as damned shapeless as the pants. God, he hoped she at least had sexy underwear. If she didn’t, he was going to buy her some. Lots of it. Red and black, sinful silk and lace.
“Would you please stop looking at me like that.” A flush covered her face again. It was almost innocent.
“Like what?” He actually hadn’t been aware that he was staring at her in any way unusual.
“As though you’re undressing me,” she retorted, stalking to the kitchen and pulling two beers from the fridge. “A month in your company and it’s a wonder I have any semblance of modesty at all.”
He grinned at her. “What color is your underwear?”
She stared back at him, her eyes rounded in shock, her expression outraged. “That is none of your business. Do I ask you about your underwear?”
He glanced down at the jeans he had changed into.
“No underwear. Sorry. We didn’t get into the habit of wearing those at the labs.”
She paused in the process of setting the beers on the table, as he crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
“TMI,” she finally muttered. “That’s just TMI.”
Too much information. He nodded. Okay, he understood that, Cassie Sinclair was always throwing that one out.
“Just in case you were wondering.” He grinned.
“Well, I wasn’t.”
The soft scent of a lie was easy to detect. His grin widened. Sometimes, he just loved being a Breed.
“Drink your beer and leave me alone. You’re really aggravating, do you know that? Didn’t Jonas tell me you were the quiet Breed?”
He arched his brow as he took the beer and deftly twisted the cap off.
“Well, I don’t exactly wonder about Jonas’s underwear,” he chuckled. “So there’s not a lot to talk about there.”
“Well, you can stop wondering about mine.” If her face could have gotten pinker, it did.
He sat down at the table, leaned back in his chair and stared back at her thoughtfully.
“You want me. I can smell it. Why deny it?”
“And you think wanting is all that matters?” she asked as she turned and moved to the cabinets for plates. “There’s more to life than just wanting, Mercury.”
She sat the plates on the table before facing him again, her expression earnest.
“Is wanting you so bad?”
No, wanting him was so bad, Ria thought to herself as she stared at him, amazed at the relaxed, sensual animal he had become, as though changing from the enforcer’s uniform into jeans and a T-shirt had somehow altered his entire personality.
“It depends on what the want is,” she sighed, then stared back at him intently. “Let’s be honest here. There’s not a chance of anything between us besides a one-night stand or a fly-by-night affair. I don’t want either of those.”
“You want love.” He nodded slowly, as though he could possibly understand that. “A commitment.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” She opened her own beer and took a quick drink. She needed something to settle her nerves.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Ria,” he answered softly. “But what makes you automatically think I’m not capable of caring for you? Not that I’m saying I do.” He suddenly frowned. “But I’m not incapable of it just because I’m a Breed.”
“No, because you’ve already mated. I’ve read your file, Mercury. Any other woman will always be second best,” Ria answered, keeping her voice soft, quiet. “I don’t do second best real well.”
As she met his gaze, his eyes darkened and narrowed, chilling in their appraisal.
“Mating is a chemical reaction
,” he snapped. “It doesn’t mean I’m dead or that my emotions were lobotomized.”
“No, it means sex will always be just that, sex.”
“And there’s something wrong with that?” he growled. He really growled. It wasn’t just a deeper tone as it was with some men, it was an actual rumble of sound, a rough, graveled scraping of his voice.
“It’s all according to your point of view.” She sipped at the beer again, using it to distract herself from the fierce frown on his face. “For me, sex has to mean more. I have to feel more than just arousal.” And she had been feeling more than just that, for this Breed, for far too many weeks now.
“You’ve never had a one-night stand?”
“Not by choice,” she retorted. “Look, this isn’t a debate. It’s my choice. I choose not to have sex with you. See why I didn’t want you here? Why I preferred a woman to stay with me rather than you? I knew you would harass me over this.”
“Harass you?” He came out of his seat, the relaxed facade dropping in the blink of an eye. “I have yet to harass you. I simply want answers.”
“Tell it to someone who will believe you.” She rolled her eyes at the declaration. “Come on, Merc. You want sex. And you don’t care what you have to do to get me in bed, you’ll do it. Forget how it might hurt me, or how it will affect how I do my job.” She stopped then, her eyes narrowing. “Or is that the point? Are you trying to influence my decision where the Breed funding is concerned?”
Anger snapped in his eyes and it wasn’t a comfortable sight. But neither was the heartache awaiting her. She needed to belong. She could never belong to this man because he had already lost that part of himself that could belong to a woman.
“Do I look like Jonas’s fucking gigolo?” he snarled.
Ria propped her hand on her hip as she set the beer down with a thump and faced him.
“Oh, just go ahead and pretend he’s not above it,” she charged. “It wouldn’t be the first time one of his enforcers has seduced a mark to get what Jonas wanted. He’s cold, calculating and manipulative. And he lets nothing and no one stand in the way of what he wants. Go ahead and deny it.”
Jonas is his father’s son, Dane liked to drawl in amusement. Jonas Wyatt was created from sperm collected from Leo before his escape from the labs a century before. From the reports she had read on the director of Breed affairs, he possibly had all of Leo’s worst traits. He was damned scary.
“I am not a goddamned puppet for Jonas Wyatt,” Mercury snarled. And damn if he didn’t do a good snarl.
He was pissed.
“Then why the sudden pressure to sleep with you? I’ve been here a month and you’re just now getting to the hot looks and the flirty little comments?”
“You wanted me to jump you the first day? Damn, wish I had known that, because all I could think about was bending you over that desk, shoving that damned shapeless skirt over your ass and watching my cock sink balls-deep into your hot little pussy.” His lips lifted in a snarl as he flashed his incisors at her. “Sorry, baby, thought you might need a small amount of time there to get to know me.”
The image was flashing through her head. Oh God, she would never be able to sit at that desk comfortably again.
“Pervert,” she said accusingly, fighting for a defense against him. Against the fact that he had been, what was the antiquated term for it? Courting her?
“Pervert?” he growled. “That’s not perverted, sweetheart, but I can work on it if that’s what you want.”
Her teeth snapped together, her lips pressing into a thin line as she restrained the angry, passionate words rising to her mouth. She wanted to berate him. Wanted to assure him she wanted nothing to do with his mangy Breed hide. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the truth. And he could probably smell a lie anyway. God, she hated Breeds.
“Don’t put yourself out,” she finally forced out. “Better yet, try not to think about me at all. This is insane.”
“Insane is being so damned hard I’m about to bust through my uniform.” He swiped his hand through his hair before jerking his beer from the table and taking a healthy drink. “Insane is smelling that hot pussy wanting me and trying to ignore it. If you want me to back off, then maybe you better see what you can do about not getting aroused around me.”
She was mortified.
“I hate Breeds,” she muttered. “Do you know that? You and your sharp, damned noses. Just because I want to doesn’t mean I should. Hell, I want cheesecake but I know better. It goes right to my hips. Does that mean I have to eat it anyway?”
He stared back at her in disbelief. “You’re comparing me to cheesecake?” Offended male fury and outrage glittered in his eyes.
She huffed, “Well, the same principle applies.”
It wasn’t like it was offensive or anything. She loved cheesecake. Especially chocolate cheesecake.
“The hell it does.”
There was no chance to avoid him. No way to evade the arms that jerked her into his embrace, or the lips that suddenly covered hers.
But, oh man, could he kiss.
His lips on hers were like rough velvet, his tongue rasping over lips, pushing against them, seeking entrance as she whimpered beneath the onslaught. His hands moved from her back to her rear, cupping the curves there and lifting her to him, pulling her to her tiptoes as her hands clenched his shoulders to steady herself.
She was overwhelmed. That was all there was to it. A hungry little whimper broke from her throat as her lips parted for him, then his tongue was twining with hers, licking at her, sending erratic, erotic pulses of sensation straight between her thighs.
Now, this was a kiss. Until this, she had never been kissed. He ate at her mouth, consumed her, nipped at her, growled when her lips closed around his tongue and she suckled at it, allowing him to mimick the controlled thrusts of his hips against hers.
His cock was thick and hard, pressing into the juncture of her thighs as he bent to her, rolling his hips to press the heated length against her swollen clit as she fought to rein in her sudden, uncontrolled need.
His kiss, his touch made her ache. From her breasts to her sex, she ached with a need so imperative it was all she could do to keep from tearing at his clothes, demanding that he throw her over the table and take her now. Hard. Fast.
“Hey guys, pizza’s here. Are you going to share?”
Just as quickly as he had jerked her to him, Mercury was pushing her back, almost throwing her into the relative safety of the kitchen as he swung around, his gun clearing the holster at his powerful thigh.
“Whoa! Hold up there, big guy.” Lawe raised his hands, pizza box included, his ice blue eyes filled with amusement as he stared back at Mercury. “You didn’t answer the door for the pizza guy, so I did the honors and paid for it. I should at least get a taste, doncha think?”
Mercury cursed as Ria felt heat flame in her face. Great. Just great. Another Breed and another damned sensitive nose.
“Rule’s hungry too,” Lawe offered when no one spoke.
“Didn’t you two bring food?” Mercury snapped.
“You’d make us eat cold sandwiches while you eat pizza?” Lawe’s expression seemed to fall. “Man, that’s just cruel. What happened to camaraderie? Friendship? To share and share alike?” He wagged his brows toward Ria as she glared at him in return. “Do you have beer? I swear I smell beer.”
Mercury jammed the gun back into its holster as a growl vibrated from his chest and he turned back to Ria.
“This isn’t over,” he muttered. “Not by a long shot.”
The hell it wasn’t. As far as she was concerned, it was definitely over. It was over, or she was going to end up with more than a broken heart. And if she ended up with a broken heart, well, now that would just suck.
The beast crouched, snarling in frustration, torn between its hunger and its certainty that patience was needed. It couldn’t risk discovery yet. The man wasn’t ready to accept that the beast still lurked, that it hungered and
raged.
But the beast could wait. The chains of drugs no longer bound it. It no longer slept that nightmare sleep where there was no waking. Soon, the man would hunger, and he would need, and the beast knew that then it would be free.
Mercury paced the living room after Ria had retired to her bedroom. He could see the light beneath the door and knew she was up working. Though what a glorified clerk could be doing that took so much damned computer time, he wasn’t certain.
Clerk, his ass. She was nobody’s clerk. Exactly what she was he wasn’t certain, but she was more than a paper pusher.
She was too smart. Too quick. And too damned sexy.
He flexed his shoulders, fighting to relax the tension tearing through him. It was an uncomfortable sensation, prickles of awareness that tightened his muscles and left his flesh with an odd sensitivity.
He wanted her touch.
He could remember the feel of her hands in his hair as he kissed her, tugging at the strands as those hot little moans came from her throat. He wanted to feel her palms on his naked flesh, her lips at his throat, his neck. He wanted her with a hunger that was beginning to make him crazy.
He was pacing the damned living room like a caged animal, feeling the walls closing in on him, and freedom lurked just behind Ria’s bedroom door. It wasn’t outside where he could run, where he could be free in the darkness of the night. No, freedom beckoned in the other room, in a bed too big for one small woman, his body taking hers until she was screaming for mercy.
It was those screams of pleasure he needed to hear. Ached to hear.
He paused in the middle of the room, realizing with a sense of shock that small growls were vibrating from his chest. Predatory, primal, guttural sounds. Sounds Mercury wasn’t completely comfortable hearing. He growled when he chose, and he had not chosen to let the sound free.
He shook his head, fighting back a sense of imbalance and a nearly overwhelming urge to force that locked bedroom door open and take her. To bend her over the bed, bare her pretty ass and just take her.
He shook the image clear of his head as he found himself taking a determined, forceful stride toward that door. He had never, at any time, done anything so irrational. He wasn’t going to start now.
She was just a woman. There were dozens of women, Breed and non-Breed, that he could have with no more than a snap of his fingers. Women who would smile, who would gasp and cry out for him as he moved into their luscious bodies. He didn’t need Ria. He just wanted her.
Wanting was not the same as needing.
Or so he tried to convince himself as he stalked to the front door and flung it open before stepping into the shadowed recess of the porch and the darkness of night.
He inhaled forcefully, pushing back whatever primal demand was making him so irrational. He checked his tongue against his teeth again. Nope, no swollen glands. No hormonal fluid tormenting his tongue and his lusts. Not that he had expected it.
He restrained his disappointment. With each passing year more Breeds mated, and found a sense of peace and balance in this freedom they had found. A balance Mercury knew wasn’t meant to be his.
His mate had died long ago. He was alone.
He leaned against a heavy post and stared into the black velvet night and the forest surrounding Ria’s rented cabin and remembered the bleak years before the Breed rescues. Not that his captivity had been as hard as some of the others’. The scientists at the South American labs he had been created within had ruled with cooler heads. There were strict guidelines, but the Breeds weren’t tortured just to see how much they could endure.
They had been trained from birth. They had been cuddled at odd times as babes by their caretakers, but each day of their lives, even as infants, contained lessons in being Breeds. For Mercury, it had been a life of almost complete isolation from other Breeds, though. His training had been more exacting, his body and his mind pushed harder. And he strove to succeed, because success meant time with the small pride he shared those labs with. It meant a chance to see one small Lioness who smiled back at him shyly and made his heart race.
As they grew older, they were trained harshly, but not horrifically. And yet Mercury couldn’t remember a day of his life when he didn’t dream of freedom. Of running with the wind, of testing himself against his own goals. Of a day when he wouldn’t be required to kill on demand, but only in self-defense.
And he remembered Alaiya. Strong, confident, the young Lioness had been filled with life, and he had loved her. With all a young man’s passion and a warrior’s soul, he had loved her.
He had rarely spoken to her. Had never touched her. Yet he remembered the day the scientists had found the strange hormone in his semen and saliva, and the confusion it had garnered. From him as well as from the scientists. And he remembered when Alaiya had died.
The animalistic core of his psyche had never been far beneath the surface, but when he learned of her death, he lost what little control he had managed to learn. The drugs they kept in his system to try to restrain the feral rage of his beast were powerless against the flood of animalistic adrenaline that washed through him that day.
He hadn’t even touched her. He hadn’t kissed her. But the thought of her death nearly drove him mad.
Mercury shook his head at the thought. It seemed impossible that he was destined to live his life alone because a woman he had never touched, never held, had died.
In ways, though, perhaps he was better off. The worst thing a Breed could have was a weakness. A mate, a child, were the epitome of weakness. Their loss could destroy a man’s soul, but it could rupture a Breed’s sanity. And Mercury vowed long ago to always maintain his sanity.
He wanted Ria. Wanted her like he had never wanted another woman in his life, even Alaiya. But there was no chance of her getting close to his soul. Ever.
CHAPTER 5
Ria came to a bleary-eyed stop the next morning as she opened her bedroom door and met with a sight she couldn’t have expected, no matter the circumstances. Rather than sleeping in the spare bedroom, Mercury was propped against the wall beside her bedroom door, his drowsy gaze holding hers as he came to his feet.
