My Lady Quicksilver

his hand and his mind filed that away for future pondering, even as his mouth descended on hers.

The moment their lips touched he felt the spark of it all the way through him. He wanted her. Not to capture her, not to turn her over to the prince consort, but just to have her. As his.

The thought was madness. There could be no future in this, nothing behind the heat of sex and hunger. Mercury was a shadow; he knew nothing about her. But she was his shadow, his challenge, his obsession. Mrs. Marberry was a temptation he couldn’t afford, a dream of something he’d long since thought gone, but this…this was safe enough to risk.

Violent need swept through him, ignited by passion and frustration. He growled deep in his throat and slid a hand down the smooth curve of her back to the full flesh of her arse. Pressing her against him, he sucked in a sharp breath as his hips rode against the soft juncture of her thighs.

Lynch squeezed his eyes shut, sensation spearing through his groin with white-hot abandon. Her tongue darted into his mouth and he crushed her against him, trying to drink her all in, to take everything he could of her. Lifting her against him, he drove her back against one of the marble columns, her thighs locking around his hips and her skirts riding up between them. A little gasp drove from her throat, then she was kissing him again, her iron hand sliding over his nape as she rolled her hips, straining against him.

Lynch tore his mouth free, gasping as his hips pinned her to the column. He didn’t think. Couldn’t. Need was a vicious beast within him, so hungry for release that he could barely see through the gray haze of his vision. Somehow his hunger had risen and he grabbed her wig and wrenched her head back, his lips sliding over the smooth skin of her throat. The heady kick of her pulse vibrated against his tongue and Lynch bit down, his teeth sinking into the soft flesh with a warning.

Mercury stilled, her iron fingers curling in his hair, just this side of painful. Her heart thundered like a panicked animal in her chest, her breath coming in little gasps that punctuated the air.

“Don’t you trust me?” he whispered, pressing his lips gently to the area he’d just bitten. He licked her, suckling gently to soothe the hurt. “Do you think I’d do it?” The words were reckless. That was precisely what he wanted to do. To put a knife to her throat and spill the sweet blood beneath her skin. To drink it down, to assuage the hungry ache that never completely left him.

His hands quivered as he cupped her backside, lips brushing temptingly over the smooth muscle of her trapezius. He wanted it so badly, the scent of her fear sending hunger cramping through him with iron claws. But he was better than that. He could control this. He would.

Mercury’s hand slid over his throat and down his chest. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Would you?”

Lynch pulled away with a gasp, pressing his forehead to hers. Swallowing hard, he fought to rein himself in. He’d never been this tempted, never come so close to losing control. It was his greatest fear and his own secret agony. “I want to,” he admitted. “But it frightens you.”

“I ain’t food,” she snapped.

“That’s got nothing to do with it.” He shook his head and dragged his hands up to cup her face. “I want you. I want to claim you as mine, and this…this is part of it.” He breathed hard, biting her lip, her chin. Lower. Pressing his face to her cheek as he moaned. “I want to own you.”

Mercury’s iron fingers locked around his wrist. “Like a thrall.”

“No.” He trailed his mouth down her throat and felt her head drop back stiffly. She was clinging to him, as if to hold on to some semblance of control. Lynch’s lips rasped over the bite mark, feeling the imprint of his own teeth. “As mine.”

“You barely know me.”

“Then tell me something about yourself,” he demanded, bringing his drugged gaze back to her flushed face.

Mercury’s hands slid down his chest, one warm, the other cool iron. They trembled. “You scare me,” she whispered, and he didn’t think she was referring to what he could do to her.

His hands stilled. Her full mouth was parted and swollen, her breasts heaving with her breath.

Slowly, he stroked a thumb over her mouth, feeling the wetness on her lips. “You scare me,” he admitted.

Lynch almost caught a shadowed glimpse of her eyes as they darted to his. Then she turned her face away, shutting them. A shudder ran through her. A reckless laugh. “I never expected this.” Slowly her hands ran over his shoulders, fingertips trailing over his skin. “I should ne’er ’ave kissed you.”

“But you did.”

“Aye.” She leaned forward and kissed his chest. Opening her mouth she licked his skin, her small blunt teeth sinking into the muscle of his pectoral.

Lynch sucked in a sharp gasp at the flare of pain, his hands clenching into fists beside her face. His hips gave an involuntary flex, and heat flared through his mouth. Need.

Mercury’s hips slowly unlocked and then she was sliding down him with sinuous grace, her lips trailing over the smooth skin of his abdomen. Muscle clenched and Lynch shoved a hand against the marble column to hold himself up, his gaze locking on her. Mercury slid to her knees, her palms gliding over his thighs and her lips grazing the roughness of the towel, dangerously close to his groin.

She looked up and Lynch’s knees almost gave at the heated look on her face. “Do you trust me?” she whispered, a slow smile spreading over her lips. Slowly she kissed him through the towel, the touch spearing through his engorged member.

Lynch’s other hand hit the column as he shuddered. “Not even an inch,” he told her on a rough laugh, almost an exhale.

“What about”—her eyes ran over him—“a good ten inches?”

His breath caught. Slowly, she reached up and hooked her fingers in the towel. The tucked end came loose and the rough toweling rasped over his erection as it dragged free.

He knew what she intended. Still, he could barely breathe as she slid her palms up his thighs, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.

The shock of her hot mouth almost drove him out of his skin. His hand speared down through her hair and he thrust against her, feeling the wet glide of her mouth over his cock. Her teeth scraped against him as if in warning and behind the mask he saw the gleam of light off her eyes.

Yes. His head bowed in defeat, a guttural groan tearing through his throat. She had the upper hand for the moment, but for once he didn’t give a damn. She was his unholy fascination, simply his in a way that he couldn’t yet comprehend and he needed this so damned much. The week’s torment had driven him out of his mind. He still didn’t know what he would do about Mercury, but luckily this didn’t require thinking at all.

That hot little mouth worked him wetly, stealing his breath and the few wits he had left. Lynch’s mouth parted on a gasp, his eyes hooding as his fist clenched in the wig she wore.

“Stop,” he groaned.

A smile widened over her full mouth and her iron hand fisted around the base of his cock, making him suck in a sharp breath. Hell, that felt so fucking good. He was so close, he needed her to stop, but somehow his lips wouldn’t say the words and she knew it.

She’d put a spell on him. One kiss in the enclaves like a bullet to the chest and now he couldn’t stop feeling it, no matter what the consequences were.

Mercury took him deep, her tongue stroking his shaft with wet abandon and he was lost.

Lynch’s fist clenched and he gasped, thrusting hard against her mouth as he came with a guttural groan. Those pink, swollen lips suckled the sensitive head of his cock and he collapsed against the column, breathing hard.

Mercury pressed a kiss against his thigh, stirring the fine hairs against his skin so that he shivered. “Well,” she whispered, licking her lips. “Me lord Nighthawk, you do impress.” She smiled up at him, cool and mysterious, then slowly slid up his body, pressing herself between him and the column.

If she thought that would undo him, then she was mistaken. And if she thought that was the end of what lay between them… He watched her with cool eyes, stroking the back of his fingers against her swollen mouth.

“I have barely begun,” he murmured, leaning closer and breathing in the sweet taste of her breath. A smile curled over his mouth as he looked down, his fingers trailing lower, brushing over the smooth curve of her up thrust breast. “You, my love, are no lady.”