by Lucy King
Mercy’s eyes widened for a moment. “I don’t want to gloat.”
“No?”
“Why would I gloat when you’ve made Zelda so very happy?” She looked at him, her eyes shining in a way that suddenly concerned him deeply. “It may not seem like it right now, Seb, but whatever your reasons, you’ve done a good thing.”
Seb shifted in the chair and frowned. Yes. Well. Time would tell. It was a start anyway, although who knew where it was going to head. He’d been on his own for years and he was perfectly content with that, so happy families was never going to be his thing. But maybe he and Zel could get to a stage where they could at least converse without one of them stalking off. For the sake of the Foundation if nothing else.
“We’ll see,” he muttered.
“You’re not as devoid of emotion as you like to make out, are you?” she said, something in her voice, coupled with that look in her eyes, now switching his senses to high alert.
Why was she looking at him like that? he wondered, alarm beginning to wind through him. Sort of dreamily. Soppily. As if she was proud of him or something. Whatever it was, she ought to stop it. He didn’t want her admiration and he didn’t want her to be proud. He didn’t want her to be anything. Just because he’d acknowledged his many mistakes with regards to Zelda, it didn’t mean he’d changed in any other respect. He hadn’t, and he had no intention of doing so.
“Don’t make me into something I’m not, Mercedes,” he warned.
“I’m not. But you went to see Zel before too, didn’t you? When she was in rehab.”
So his sister had told them that too. Was nothing left undiscussed? He supposed not. “Yes.”
“She didn’t remember.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“She told me to go away.” That was putting it politely.
Mercy looked at him. “When was this?”
“A couple of days after you told me where she was.”
Mercy nodded thoughtfully. “I went to see her maybe a week after that. She didn’t mention you’d been to see her.”
“She must have forgotten.”
“When I saw her she wasn’t really aware of anything. She’d come off the drink and the drugs. She must have been suffering.”
“Yes.” He’d seen that, been deeply shocked by how gaunt his sister looked, how ill she was, and had then buried it beneath yet more guilt and shut himself off even further.
“You must have suffered too seeing her like that.”
He shrugged, locking the memory away. “It meant nothing to me.”
“Then why did you go?”
“A momentary lapse of reason. It was a mistake.”
She tilted her head. “You might convince yourself of that, Seb, but you won’t convince me. It was a good thing to do.”
Good or bad, who cared whether she was convinced or not? He certainly didn’t. “I don’t need your approval, Mercedes.”
“You have it nonetheless.”
“Is that all?” he said, planting his hands on his desk and about to stand up because now he really was kind of keen to end this conversation. “If it is, I’ll call you a cab.”
“Not quite,” she said slowly, and stifling a sigh he sat back down. “I have another question.”
“About what?”
“The night we slept together.”
Seb went still his body tightening and his pulse spiking. “What about it?” he asked, slightly beginning to regret his recent decision to face things head on.
“Was your aim solely to distract me?”
Well, no, it hadn’t been, he thought, keeping the memories that clamored to be let in at bay. Not remotely. He might have initially kissed her to shut her up, but within a moment of having her in his arms it had been all about the lust. However to tell her that, to admit to having wanted her so badly he’d nearly lost his mind, would make him come across as being, well, possibly a little bit vulnerable, and he wasn’t having that. There was facing up to things and then there was self-destruction.
“What else would it have been?” he said.
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“My aim was to stop you talking, nothing more.”
“Then why not just throw me out?”
Right. So. A perfectly reasonable question. Just not one he wanted to answer. “Look, if you’re after an apology,” he said, opting for deflection, “you can have one. You were absolutely right, Mercedes. I took advantage of you and your adolescent crush on me. But I shouldn’t have. It was a lousy thing to do. I’m sorry.”
She raised her eyebrows as if she didn’t think much of that, which was a shame because as apologies went he’d been getting in a lot of practice and it wasn’t a bad attempt. “So why make love to me all night long?”
Another excellent question. “There’s no point to this,” he said, reaching for his phone because despite his resolve the sooner she was out of here the better. “No point at all. Rehashing the past won’t change it. I’ll call you that cab.”
He scrolled through his list of contacts until he found the one he was looking for and tapped it, wondering why the hell this process couldn’t be quicker.
“Seb?”
“What?” he muttered, lifting the phone to his ear and concentrating on the ringtone instead of her.
“Do you ever think of me?”
“In what context?” He started drumming his fingers on the desk.
“In the hot and naked context.”
Seb went still. The drumming stopped. He cut the call. Right. Well. There was a question. Did he think about her hot, naked and in his arms? Panting and pleading and begging him to do to her all the things he shouldn’t want to do to her? “No.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Is it? Why?”
“Because I’ve been thinking about you in the hot and naked context a lot lately.”
“I thought you hated me,” he said, his temperature rocketing. “Didn’t you once call me a wallowing coward?”
Her eyes clouded for a moment. “You remembered.”
“It’s not something I’m likely to forget.”
“No. I guess not. But maybe you’re not the only one who’s reassessed.” She tilted her head, her gaze too damn shrewd. “I think you wanted me back then, Seb. I think you still do. Maybe as much as I want you.”
A bolt of desire shot through him but he ruthlessly stamped it down. “You’re mistaken.”
“You’re very keen to get rid of me.”
“It’s late. I’m tired.”
“So take me to bed.”
Seb nearly fell off his chair. Yes, yes, yes. “No.”
“The speed and certainty of your answer suggests you’ve thought about it.”
“It hasn’t crossed my mind once.”
“Really?”
“Really.” And technically that was correct because it had crossed his mind a hundred times, but that didn’t matter. “But even if it had my answer would still be no.”
“Why?”
“Because my fledgling relationship with Zelda is too fragile.” True.
Mercy’s eyebrows rose. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Everything. If you and I got involved I’d end up hurting you. Zelda would hate me all over again for that and that is not going to happen.” Again, true.
“What makes you think you’d hurt me?”
“It’s what I do. You know that. I know that. Everyone knows that. So forget it, Mercedes. There is no way in hell you and I are going to have sex again. Hypothetically speaking or not.” And disappointingly, even more true.
She looked at him for a long while and he could practically see the cogs of her brain whirring, so expressive were her eyes. “I really think you’re overthinking this, Seb.”
“I don’t.”
“I’m not looking for anything permanent,” she said, getting up from her seat and walking slowly towards him. “I don’t want
a relationship at the moment and commitment is the last thing on my mind. I’m busy enough as it is with my MBA. I’ve worked incredibly hard to get here,” she said, perching her butt on the edge of the desk and sliding it along until her legs almost touched his knees. “And I’m not going to waste the opportunity I have for anything or anyone. However I would quite like some sex and I would quite like it with you.”
“You can’t have it with me. Go and find it with someone else,” said Seb, gritting his teeth against the revulsion that rose up inside him at the thought of Mercy with someone else and just about resisting the urge to push his chair back and remove himself from her brain-addling orbit because that would be weak.
“I’ve tried,” she said with a sigh of what sounded like exasperated distress.
Seb stilled. “Don’t tell me you’ve failed.” How was that possible? How could any man look at her and not want her?
“That’s exactly what’s happened.”
“Why?”
“You ruined sex for me, Seb.”
He stared at her. “How the hell did I do that?”
“You used me. You used sex as a weapon.”
No, he hadn’t. But yes, that was what she thought. Shit. “I’ve apologized.”
“It’s not enough,” she said. “What you did has colored my judgement and warped my instincts. Now I find that whenever the opportunity for sex arises, I worry so much about motives that the mood disappears.” She bumped his knees with her legs and he felt the contact like a bolt of electricity shooting though him.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I’m glad you agree.”
What? No. Yes. Wait. What was he agreeing with – or not – again?
“So what I’m suggesting, Seb,” she continued, clearly unaware of the disintegration of his brain, “is a fling. No strings. No demands. Just sex.”
A fling? Just sex? He wasn’t sure that was possible with Mercy. “You once looked at me as though you wanted to slay my dragons,” he said roughly.
“I was sixteen and you were easy to romanticize,” she said, a charming hint of pink hitting her cheeks. “I wouldn’t make that mistake now. And, seriously, aren’t you even the tiniest bit curious? Don’t you want to know if it would be the same as before?”
No. He wanted to know if it would be better. “I thought you said you barely remembered it.”
“I lied. Look, Seb, there’s no harm to be done,” she said, her eyes dark and shining and utterly mesmerizing. “Really there isn’t. All I’m after is some scorchingly hot sex. A little light conversation and a whole lot of action. A way to relax after a long hard week. Pleasure. Release. Oblivion. That’s it. Truly. So what do you think?”
Think? Seb was having trouble breathing, let alone thinking, because he could imagine that. Had imagined it. All of it. Even though he’d tried his damnedest not to. So what she was suggesting sounded good. Incredibly good. But it wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t. Although for the life of him he couldn’t remember why not.
Perhaps she was right and he had been overthinking things, he figured with the one remaining brain cell that was functioning. Who was he to tell her how she felt? And what did it matter how she looked at him? As long as they were both on the same page – and it seemed, they were – it could work.
And perhaps, somehow, he owed her, if she thought he’d used her and it had affected her sex life. Five years was a long time to go without. He could help fix that. And really, how hard would a fling with Mercy be to handle? He wasn’t twenty-six any more. He was older and wiser and in a far better place now. He had a grip on his hormones and his control was absolutely rock solid.
Besides, she wasn’t a threat. Of course she wasn’t He was overestimating her power over him. Hadn’t he proved he could resist her the night of Zelda’s slumber party? He could easily have acted on the attraction that she’d been so keen to deny, but he hadn’t, and that spoke volumes. So he’d be fine.
“What do I think?” he said, slowly getting to his feet and giving in to the desire hammering through him, the heat firing along his veins and the delirium beginning to cloud his head. “I think, Mercedes, that you might have a point.”
Chapter Five
‡
Oh, thank God for that, thought Mercy, giddy with relief and desire as Seb reached for her, hauled her into his arms and slammed his mouth down on hers. For a moment there she’d thought he was going to reject her offer, reject her, but he hadn’t and God she was glad, because this was where she wanted to be. Where she’d always wanted to be, if she was being honest. In his arms. Kissing him and kissing him and giving herself up to the mindless pleasure coursing through her.
As his mouth plundered hers and tremors of sensation rippled through her, Mercy lifted her arms, planted her hands on his shoulders then slid them round to the back of his neck, using him to arch herself even closer. She could feel the hard length of his erection jutting against her and it made her head swim and her heart race because she wanted him inside her so badly she ached.
One of his hands was on her waist, the other tangled in her hair and as he pulled her tighter to him he angled her head to deepen the kiss. Urgency rose up inside her and she gave up what was left of her reason to simply feel.
Electricity zipped through her, making her moan and shudder in his arms. In response his body tensed as if it was taking every drop of his control not to just toss her to the floor and ravish her, which she truly wouldn’t have minded.
He felt so good, hot and hard against her. And his kisses… Lord, she could drown in them. Was drowning in them, so much so that she barely registered that he’d released her head until he slid his hand down her side, beneath her jacket and up to cup her breast. She nearly went up in flames. He rubbed his thumb over her nipple and she tore her mouth from his to gasp because she could hardly breathe for the excitement.
Her head fell back and Seb kissed his way along her jaw, to her ear and that sensitive spot just beneath it, all the while tormenting her with his caresses.
“This what you’ve been thinking about?” he muttered against her neck as his hand, his fingers, his thumb, wreaked havoc on her senses.
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
“And more.”
“You’ll have it.”
He nudged her back and she hit the edge of the desk. She leant against it, much as she had maybe ten minutes ago, only this time she was sandwiched between the desk and Seb and she couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be. Or be doing. Apart from touching him properly, the way he was doing to her, because suddenly his hands were all over her.
He pulled her off the edge of the desk, then lifted her skirt and palmed her buttocks, pressing her hips tighter against him and grinding. He shifted her onto his desk. She parted her legs and he stepped between them and as he started kissing her again she thought he was right where she wanted him.
Drumming with an urgent need to feel his skin beneath her hands, she slipped her arms from his neck. She reached down, tugged his shirt out of the waist band of his trousers and yanked it open, buttons flying and popping everywhere and then finally she had her hands on him.
He felt just as she remembered. Hot. Hard. Smooth. Except for the thin jagged scar that started from just below his ribcage at his back and swept round to his hip, the scar that she’d kissed at length and now traced before moving her hand round to the hard flat muscles of his abdomen and the rough hair that arrowed down.
She felt him shudder, tense, and so with her heart beating like a hammer and her breathing all ragged and shallow and not at all fit for purpose she traced that too, grappling with the button of his pants with her other hand, unzipping his fly and slipping them both inside his shorts to feel him.
She wrapped her fingers round his cock, so hot and velvety and hard, and her mouth watered because she wanted to taste him so badly. But she barely got to stroke him because with a rough curse, Seb stopped her, gripping her wrists and still
ing her movements. His jaw tight, he pulled her hands out, away from him and up, and then further, until they were above her head and she was looking right into his eyes, so close she could see the flecks of black in the dark brown.
“What’s the matter?” she breathed, thrills running through her at the hint of wildness, of danger, she could detect in him. “Too much?”
“Too close. I promised you more.”
“Control slipping, Seb?”
“Of course not,” he growled, as if the very idea of it was risible. “But five years, Mercy.”
“What of it?”
“I should take my time.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Too bad.”
And then, eyes dark and glittering and glazed with desire, he was leaning over her and bending her back and down and Mercy went willingly. He released one of her wrists to reach behind her and sweep his arm across his desk, and away flew papers, pens, mouse, keyboard, clattering to the floor as he pushed her the rest of the way.
He straightened, leaving her like that, lying back wantonly, excitement thundering through her and her heart racing and then he looked her over, slowly and thoroughly and wordlessly, as if wondering quite where to start, as if proving to her as well as himself that his grip on his control was as strong as it had ever been.
Beneath his heavy-lidded gaze Mercy felt as if she was about to burst into flames. She wanted to squirm, writhe, beg, and unable to stand any of it much longer she was just about to tell him exactly where to stuff his bloody challenge when he pulled off her boots, dropped them to the floor, then wrapped his hands around her ankles.
He began slowly sliding them up her calves, her knees, her thighs, and her breath caught at the feel of his rough palms on her bare skin. The friction made her shiver. Made heat pool and desire coil low in her abdomen. Made her head swim with need.
Seb stroked his hands higher, over her hips, lifting the skirt of her dress and pushing it up to her waist, then slipped his fingers beneath her panties and in one smooth, clearly very practiced movement, slid them down and off.
