Mercury's War

CHAPTER 10

In her life Ria couldn’t remember ever being so furious as she had been when she walked out of Sanctuary. And she couldn’t even explain to herself why the burning anger was rushing through her so powerfully.

The moment she entered the cabin, she put her case on the bar and lifted the laptop from it before setting it on the counter and lifting the screen.

She pulled her email up, very much aware that her connection was through Sanctuary’s secured network and would be intercepted. She didn’t bother to encrypt the email she typed out to Dane, and pushed “send.”

She let a smile tip her lips. She had no intention of leaving Sanctuary, but it would bring Dane on their asses like a ton of bricks.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Mercury stated as he passed by her on the way to the kitchen. “And you need to eat. You haven’t eaten today.”

She curled her fingers against the counter and bit back the smart-assed comment hovering on her lips. Yeah, she was a bitch. She knew she was a bitch, but it was an attitude that worked for her. Usually. She had a feeling the consequence of that attitude might be more than she could handle at the moment. And besides, she knew how to be a cautious bitch. It was the intelligent path to take when Dane was in one of his crappy moods as well; she hoped it worked with Mercury.

“This isn’t the time to treat me as though I were one of your underlings,” she informed him coolly, though she felt anything but cool. “Sanctuary has some serious problems at the moment, Mercury.”

“And canceling their funding is going to help that?” He snorted as he faced her from the other side of the bar. “If there’s a power play within the ranks, then we need to figure out who’s doing it and what the hell is going on.”

“Why should I bother? Why should you?” She glared back at him, pushed to a limit she hadn’t known she had. “Do you think I haven’t read your Sanctuary file?” She hadn’t been given the lab files. “Are you aware, Mercury, that your pride leader has all but disavowed you?” Her accent slipped free. Dammit. “Ah, why the hell do I care? Obviously you don’t.”

She reached behind her to release the bun at the back of her head, her headache intensifying with each moment it weighed on her head.

The long strands of hair rippled through her fingers as she turned away and pushed her fingers through it in frustration.

“Do you know…” She went silent as she turned back to him. “Mercury?”

He was moving around that counter, slowly. His eyes were hammered gold rather than amber, those blue sparks intensifying the color once more.

Berserker. Once, long ago, his ancestors had terrified English conquerors with their savagery and strength.

It wasn’t rage she saw in his eyes though, it was hunger. Arousal. The same arousal that had tormented her since that kiss days before. The one that had left her burning each night, enflamed, tossing and turning in her bed as she struggled against the need for his body and her need to protect her heart.

“I like this blouse.” He stopped in front of her, the backs of his fingers caressing along the shoulder of the silk blouse she wore. “Why don’t you take it off?”

“Take it off?” she whispered. “How insane would that be?”

Did his expression appear more savage than normal? His eyes more sensual?

“That way I won’t have to rip it off you,” he stated, his voice rough, watching as his fingers rubbed against the material before he lifted his gaze to hers. “I wouldn’t want to destroy such pretty clothes.”

She wanted him to rip the shirt from her. She wanted something she didn’t understand, something she had never faced about herself before. She wanted her lover to be wild. But as much as she wanted him to rip her clothes from her, she wanted to rip his as well.

And that terrified her. She wasn’t a wild lover. Hell, one of her lovers had even told her she was much too polite in bed for his tastes. But Mercury, he made her want wild. He made her want to be wild.

She backed away from him, watching his gaze flicker, his expression turn mocking.

“Afraid?” he asked her.

“Of you, or myself?” she asked him nervously, trying to skirt around him, only to come up short as his arm snaked out, wrapped around her waist and drew her to a stop.

She stared up at him, way up. Six-four was a hell of a stretch for her five-six. Her head barely topped his chest, and his height and breadth made her feel entirely too feminine.

“Why would you be frightened of yourself?” he asked her, using his other hand to stroke down her hair as though soothing her. His fingers threaded into the strands, caressed them, eased her head back until he was staring into her eyes.

Ria swallowed tightly. “We have enough problems here; mixing it with a sexual relationship between us isn’t a good idea.”

She could barely breathe. And focusing on all the reasons why a relationship was a really bad idea was getting harder by the second. By the stroke. The stroke of his hand over her long hair. She had never considered her hair particularly sexy until this moment, until she felt him caressing it, enjoying it.

“A sexual relationship between us is a given,” he told her, that growly thing he did with his voice sending shivers down her spine. “I think you know that, sweetheart.”

He called her sweetheart, and he said it in a way it had never been said to her before, as his hand tightened at her hip and pulled her closer to him.

She felt his erection beneath his jeans, thick and hard, pressing into her lower stomach.

“Mercury.”

His head lowered. His hand slid beneath her hair, cupped the side of her neck and held her in the most erotic grip she had ever known, as his lips settled against hers.

“Kiss me, Ria,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me alone in the cold. Warm me, as only you can warm me.”

And she was supposed to deny him? No man had ever asked her to warm him. Not to leave him out in the cold where she always felt she existed herself. Always on the outside looking in. Always left out in the cold.

But there was no cold here. As Mercury’s lips opened over hers, pressing into hers, there was only heat and pleasure; the feel of his hands stroking her, building the fire inside her as he soothed a part of her.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He had already mated. He could never belong to her. Not really all-the-way-to-the-soul belong to her. But she couldn’t deny him either.

A whimper of surrender left her lips, met his kiss, and her hands lifted from his chest to his shoulders. Then to his hair. Coarse, thick, warm. She tightened her fingers in the strands and held him to her as he kissed her with slow, easy possession.

His tongue licked over hers. Faintly rough, just enough to cause her to jerk at the thought of what the lick of his tongue would do to other parts of her body. It was dominant, possessive; it stroked over her lips, her tongue, and when she trapped it and suckled it, she almost cried at the lack of the mating taste. A taste she had heard was wilder than the male giving it.

She let her hands dig into his scalp, lifted herself tighter against him, licked at him, her lips fighting for the kiss as her soul fought to possess some part of him. If even for a moment, to claim a part of him as her own.

And this was why she had fought the attraction building between them. As his hands controlled her, lifted her to him, she had to fight the need to give him parts of herself that no one else had ever touched before.

That wild center growing inside her, the one that wanted to shred his clothes from his body and mark him. That primitive stupid female center that couldn’t accept that he belonged to another, even if she was dead.

He growled as he tore his lips from hers.

Ria opened her eyes, staring into his primal gaze as his hands gripped the curves of her rear and clenched. She shuddered, her lashes dipping closed before she forced them open once again.

“I’m hurting you,” he said quietly, his hand lifting, touching her cheek as she stared back in surprise. “How am I hurting you, my Ria?”

She shook her head, tugging at his hair, trying to pull him back to her. “Don’t stop, Mercury. Kiss me more.”

His head lowered. A gentle kiss to the corner of her lips when she didn’t want gentle. The stroke of his hand along the hair behind her ear when she wanted the sharp bite of his fingers tangling in it.

“Why are you doing this?” she moaned. “Don’t tease me.”

“Tell me how I’m hurting you,” he demanded, and even his voice was gentle.

She closed her eyes against the knowledge that there would be nothing she could hide from him, and so much he could hide from her.

“Because I’m insane,” she whispered, opening her eyes again and gazing back at him. “Because I want more than I should.”

He paused, his expression somber, but his eyes watched her with primitive awareness, with desperate hunger.

“What do you want, Ria?”

“I want all of you.”

“Then all of me is exactly what you’ll have,” he promised her.

His lips moved to hers again, took them fiercely, and she felt the wildness inside him as he gave it rein. He nipped at her lips, then pumped his tongue into her mouth as he lifted her against him, turned and bore her to the couch.

Her back met the cushions as he came over her, his lips still on hers, allowing her room to twist beneath him, to arch against the knee that pressed between her thighs.

“Take it off.” She tore her lips from his, tugging at his shirt.

He gripped the hem and jerked it off. Then he gripped the front of her blouse and ripped it from her.

“Damn pretty shirt.” He was staring at what he had revealed, not at what he had ripped. “Damn.” He ran the backs of his fingers over the curve of flesh that rose above her lacy bra. “I knew I could see the hint of your nipples under that damned fabric, and now I know why.”

Because her bra was so sheer the tight peaks were nearly pressing through the lace.

Ria tried to calm her breathing, but nothing could calm it. She needed his kiss again, she needed more of him. She lifted her back, arching, displaying her breasts and praying he would give in to his hunger for them.

And he did. His head lowered, his lips covering one achingly sensitive peak and drawing it into his mouth.

Ria was in ecstasy. Pleasure was rising inside her like a tidal wave sweeping through her fears. Tomorrow. She would worry about the complications tomorrow. Right now, tonight, he was hers. She had had more of him now than any man she had ever been with in the past. What did it matter if he wasn’t mating her? If he wasn’t keeping her? She didn’t want to be kept anyway, did she?

A part of her ached at the question, but it was fiercely reined in by the sensation washing over her flesh. The lash of his tongue against her nipple, even through the sheer lace of the bra, was destructive. The feel of his hands jerking her skirt up her legs, baring her to him as he pulled back to stare at his handiwork.

Her nipple was red and engorged. His lips covered its mate, sucked and licked and nipped as his hands roamed over her thighs and finally tore the panties from her hips.

Ria almost orgasmed. She had never had her panties ripped from her before. It was so sexual, so wicked she felt her juices flooding her vagina as her clit heated and throbbed with a desperate demand for his touch.

“Beautiful.” He leaned back, allowed his fingers to brush over the dark curls between her thighs. “So soft and warm. So wet.” The dampened curls clung to his fingers.

Ria watched at he touched her, then watched as she touched him. Her fingers pressing against his hard abs, feeling silky sun-kissed flesh, toughened skin and tight muscle.

His fingers parted the swollen flesh between her thighs as hers moved to his belt. She wanted him naked. She want to touch.

A cry fell from her lips. Her gaze jerked between her thighs where he was slowly, slowly burying two fingers inside her. Working them into her tightened channel, twisting them with sharp little movements of his wrist and wringing a whimper from her throat.

He grimaced, his lips pulling tight, the little snarl at the corner revealing a canine. Wild. Primal and wild, and he was making her wild. Her back arched and she drove herself on his fingers and cried out his name.

Long, broad fingers. Oh God, she would never be able to see a man’s fingers without thinking of Mercury’s. Without remembering this. The feel of him stroking inside her body, caressing her, sensitizing her until she was writhing against him, her hips churning as she fought for deeper, faster, harder.

“I’m going to taste you, Ria.” The growl in his voice did shivery things to her spine that spread out through her body and echoed with painful pleasure.

She shook her head, one hand falling from the belt of his jeans to grip his wrist, to hold him in place.

“Don’t stop,” she panted. “Please. Please don’t stop.”

He thrust his fingers inside her again, deeper, harder, stronger, and she held her breath, fighting for her orgasm as he stilled just as suddenly.

He ignored her protest as he moved down her body, sliding her hips to the edge of the couch as he knelt on the floor and lowered his head.

The first touch of his tongue against her clit froze her in place, the second had her hips jerking. The third and she was lost. His tongue rasped. The faintest bit of roughness, just enough to turn excitement to sheer brutal pleasure.

Her hands latched onto his hair and she lifted to him as she felt his fingers slide free of her. His fingers retreated, and his tongue plunged deep. Her legs wrapped around his shoulders, her hips lifting as he fucked her with hard, penetrating strokes of his tongue and growled into her flesh.

His fingers curled beneath her rear, lifting her closer, and she felt the blunted tips of those clawlike nails digging into her flesh and jerked with a pleasure so extreme it felt as though her heart was going to burst from her chest.

She was coming apart from the pleasure, from the wild, desperate need building inside her. She had to come. He had to let her come.

As he pushed his tongue inside her with fierce strokes, his thumb settled on her clit, rotated, stroked, and sent her flying into release. She was exploding into fragments and didn’t care. She held on to him with both hands, held him closer and wailed out her pleasure, not even bothering to be shocked with the fact that she had never wailed in pleasure in her entire life.

“So sweet.” His tongue retreated, his head lifting to kiss the violently sensitive flesh of her clit gently. That light touch had her gasping with the bolt of sensation that raced through her.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmured, still kissing, moving lower, giving her no time to come down from her orgasm before he began building the need for another.

And he did it gently, tenderly. The softest strokes of his tongue, the gentlest kisses around her clit.

“I want to touch you,” she moaned, her hands gripping his shoulders as those blunted nails, curved and powerful, raked down her thighs with primitive intensity.

“Not yet.” He nipped at her thigh, causing her to whimper with the edge of pleasure/pain. “Let me taste you. Let me have you like this, Ria. Let me fill my senses with you. I want your taste, your scent with me. In my pores. The same as I’ll give you mine.”

A part of him.

She moaned his name as he spread her thighs farther and kissed the swollen, flushed lips of her pussy. Then he licked her again. Inside and out.

He made her weak. He made her desperate. Her nails dug into his shoulders, scratched his flesh as the rising tide of lust began to build and churn inside her again.

She needed him. And she needed more than his hungry kisses and diabolical tongue.

Fighting for breath, she moved her hands to her breasts, cupped them, raked her nipples with her own fingers and felt him pause. She gripped her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers, opened her eyes and stared back at him.

Dazed, nearly out of her mind with the need burning across every nerve ending, she watched him watch her. Watched his eyes dilate, his lips pull back from his teeth as a grumbling snarl rumbled in his throat.

He kissed his way up her body then. His hands moving to his belt, his jeans. She had only a second to glimpse the furiously flushed head of his cock before his lips covered an aching, hard nipple and drew it into his mouth.

A second later, his cock head pressed against her, hot, thick, silk over iron, and pressing farther.

He paused, his breathing rough and hot as sweat beaded his shoulders and glistened over the tiny, fine invisible hairs that covered his body.

“You promised me,” she reminded him, her voice rough. “You promised me, Mercury. The first time. Hard and fast. You would fill me with all of you in one stroke.”

He rolled his forehead against her shoulder, then nipped the tender flesh as he growled.

“I need it,” she whimpered, arching closer to him, gasping at the feel of his erection stretching her farther. “Please. You promised.”

His hands clenched her hips and she arched closer. He growled again, his lips parting, his teeth gripping her shoulder as his hips bunched and he thrust. Hard. Spearing into her as his name became a scream of such excruciating pleasure that for a second, the smallest second, her mind went black.

And still, she didn’t have all of him. He retreated, worked inside her slowly this time. He pressed into her then thrust again, hard and deep. He buried his cock full-length inside her and burned her with the desperate fullness. The heated impalement of iron-hard flesh threatened to steal her mind as she felt her own delicate muscles spasming, milking him as he throbbed inside her.

And he was biting her. His teeth were locked on her shoulder, pinching into her flesh as she went wild beneath him. One arm curled around his head, trying to keep his bite. The other dug into his back as he began to move, her nails piercing his flesh as his teeth pierced hers and his cock penetrated her with heavy lunges.

Each stroke carried her higher, threw her further into the maelstrom of sensation. She swore she forgot how to breathe. Breathing didn’t matter. When they were done, he would breathe for her. That or she would die from lack of oxygen because she needed all her strength for this. Meeting each thrust, holding tight to him, feeling his hips churning, his cock shafting her, his muscles tightening against her.

And feeling herself fly in his arms. That was what coming with Mercury did. She flew in his arms and screamed, or tried to scream from the rapture tearing through her.

It was wild and pulsating. It was filled with sensation burning, raking across her nerve endings and shattering into fragments. It was the feel of his final thrust, the heavy spurt of his heated semen, his snarl at her shoulder then his lips covering hers as his hips jerked between her thighs.

It was the most exquisite pleasure she could have ever imagined finding in his arms, and it almost, almost overshadowed the pain. Because there was no barb. There was no extension swelling from his cock to hold him in place as he filled her with his seed. There was no hormone spilling into her to ensure he never walked out of her life. There was just this, agony and ecstasy, and the knowledge that she was bound to him. Whether she wanted to be or not.