My Lady Quicksilver (24 page)

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.”

Her breath quickened at the teasing stir of his touch. “Do you want me to be one?”

“No.” He slid his hand over her nape and spun her around, pressing her hands against the column. She tensed, then stilled as he smoothed the long, dark tail of her hair out of the way and pressed his open mouth against the back of her neck. Suckling hard, he brought the blood to the surface in a red bruise then nipped at the damning mark. Mercury shivered, a soft little gasp of surrender crossing her lips, and Lynch smiled.

He ran his lips down the soft curve of her shoulder, biting her just enough to leave a mark, then soothing the sting with his tongue. Slowly his hands slid up beneath her coat, tracing the curve of the corset she wore. The feel of it stirred desire through him and he pressed his hips against her bottom, letting her know just how much he wanted her.

Mercury sucked in a sharp breath, half turning. “Me lord—”

He caught her hands and shoved them against the column. “Don’t let go.” Then his hands were cupping her breasts, holding the plump weight in his palms.

Mercury’s head tilted back with a groan. “Mercy,” she moaned. “We need to speak.”

“Do we?” He edged the lip of the corset down and her nipple sprang free, hard and tight. Sliding his other hand against her abdomen, he drew her hips back against him, rolling the turgid peak of her nipple between his fingers. “I thought you came here for this?”

Mercury arched into him, her head falling forward with a helpless gasp. He could feel the surrender in her body and the shaking in her knees.

“No. Yes.” She shook her head and moaned. “You want to know who blew up the tower?”

Lynch’s hand tightened on her hip. The words cut through him like a knife. To hide it, he pressed a kiss against the tender skin below her ear and was rewarded with another shiver. She liked this. “You still claim you didn’t do it?”

“Nor did I burn the draining factories.” Her hand splayed over the column, her iron fingers flexing unconsciously. The other hand slid between them, wrapping around his growing erection. “A year ago,” she gasped, “I set a group o’ mechs free o’ the enclaves. They wanted vengeance and I…I needed ’em for somewhat.”

His lashes lowered and he thrust into the grip of her palm.
The
steel
boiler
pack
he’d taken from her at the enclaves.
“I’m listening.”

“There were a power struggle. They broke from me leadership and burned the factories. I were tryin’ to stop ’em when they ’it the Tower.”

“Why?” he asked. Her tight fist made the vein in his temple throb but he could contain the fierce need now. Her clever ministrations had seen to that. She, however, was not so satisfied. “That explosion nearly killed half the blue bloods of the court. I thought that was what you wanted.”

“Personal reasons,” she replied, tilting her head to the side to glance back over her shoulder. “And it didn’t succeed, did it? Now I’ve got every blasted Coldrush Guard and Nighthawk on me trail. You think I wanted that?”

“I think you’re in a lot of danger.”

She laughed under her breath, an almost sad sound. “I chose this path. I knew the risks.”

His lips thinned. Damn her, but he was starting to soften toward her. Was she telling the truth? “Give yourself up,” he said, edging his hand down her abdomen, “and I’ll demand a lenient sentence.”

The stiffness in her body was almost anticipatory. Tension radiated through her and she dragged her iron hand to his, urging it lower. “You can’t make the prince consort do anythin’ ’e don’t wanna.”

“There are ways to play the game,” he replied, his fingers sliding between the heat of her legs, bunching up her skirts. “If you tell me everything you know about the mechs, I’m inclined to be lenient.”

She was tempted. Gasping hard, she pressed her lips to the column, her hips driving back into his groin as his fingers dipped into the wet heat between her thighs. She wasn’t wearing drawers. “Mordecai,” she gasped. “’Is name’s Mordecai. I don’t know where ’e is, but I do know this: ’e’s got somethin’ to do with the massacres in the Echelon. I seen ’im near the second crime scene.”

“How convenient that you were nearby,” he murmured, his mind racing. The mechs had something to do with the madness sweeping the Echelon? That meant it had to be a toxin or a poison. It was man-made and that meant he could catch them.

If she wasn’t lying.

Grabbing her wrists, he spun her around and shoved her against the marble column, holding her hands over her head.

Slowly his hands relaxed on hers, sliding down over the betraying pulse of her right wrist. “Tell me,” he demanded, “that you had nothing to do with the massacres. With Lord Arrondale’s death.”

Mercury pulled against his grip but didn’t fight him. “I ’ad nought to do wit’ it.”

Her pulse ticked through her wrist, as steady as before. She was telling the truth. Either that or she was such a good liar she could control her body’s reflexes.

“I believe you,” he said.

His thumb stroked the soft skin of her wrist. The other one was cool metal, woven so seamlessly into skin that he recognized it as a master-smith job. No wonder her reactions were so exquisite; metal hydraulics had been linked to flesh tendons, and muscle sewn to the thin fibrous sheeting of the interior of her gauntleted wrist. The limb worked almost as naturally as her right hand.

“You want me, don’t you?” she asked. “You’ve been chasin’ me for months.”

Lynch’s gaze hooded. He let her go, hands sliding down her arms. “I don’t need to chase you,” he whispered in his ear. “Because you’ll come back to me.”

“What do you mean?”

Lynch pushed away from the column and dragged the towel around his hips. “I won’t be played for a fool twice. But you…you’re burning for it.” He backed away, watching her shocked expression as she realized he had no intentions of finishing this.

“I thought I’d ’ave to fight me way free,” she whispered, her pupils dilated with desire.

He
should
capture her. Lock her up now. But what to do with her? He was certain the prince consort had spies in the guild, and although he’d managed to keep one or two humanists quietly guarded in his time, the possibility of the prince consort getting his hands on Mercury made him feel physically ill. He couldn’t guarantee her safety. Not at the guild and not anywhere in his little hidey-holes in the city.

Lynch took a step away. “Go via the south wing and wait until the clock tower chimes ten. The guards will be changing their shift.” He tucked the towel into itself, uncertain whether he was doing the right thing. A thought flashed into mind: if he couldn’t hand her over to the prince consort now, how was he going to do it in when the time came?

Mercury’s head. Or his.

“Go,” he said, before he changed his mind. “Get out of here.”

***

It was a long, slow climb to his rooms and he barely noticed any of it. Once he’d left the warm steamy chamber, his mind had started working again.

What the hell was he doing? Lynch knew what she was doing and doing well—testing his resolve, slowly turning him away from his purpose. He hadn’t missed her words about a challenge to her leadership. She’d meant to set him upon the mechs tonight and they both knew it.

But had she meant anything else she’d said? Or was seducing him just a way to soften him? His fist clenched. He highly suspected she was playing him, though whether he’d managed to inflict some damage on her own psyche, he didn’t know.

This had to stop. He had less than a week to “find” Mercury and deliver her to the Echelon. The first part seemingly the easier of the two tasks. He needed to focus himself and think about what he was going to do before he found himself played for a fool.

Lynch stopped in front of the door to Mrs. Marberry’s study, the scent of lemon-infused perfume flavoring the air. Here was another reason his footsteps dragged. Guilt suffused him. He’d left Rosa this afternoon only to find her gone when he returned. After his actions in the observatory, it was little wonder.

When he was in her presence, he hadn’t once thought of Mercury. Rosa eclipsed all thoughts of any other woman. Yet one steamy encounter in the bathhouse had proven him as susceptible as any other man.

Both women intrigued him in their ways. Mercury was a mystery, designed to be solved. A challenge. Sex.

And Rosa? His stomach clenched. He wasn’t quite sure what she meant to him. Her slightly bawdy humor intrigued him and he found himself seeking her out increasingly. The shocking truth was that he
liked
spending time with her. She drove him insane with her little games, but the thought of them made him smile—a feeling of lightness when she was around, as if the sun shone just that little bit brighter.

So why then had he betrayed her in such a way? Each step away from the steam room only made him feel more uneasy with his actions. He’d lost his head for a moment, taken pleasure for pleasure’s sake. The agony of it speared through him. He wasn’t the sort of man who could bed two women at the same time. His actions tonight had taken the choice from him, and for a moment he almost hated Mercury for taking Rosa from him. It wasn’t a fair thought though—he’d been the one at blame. The one who hadn’t been able to deny himself.

And it damn well shouldn’t matter. Today had beguiled him in ways he had to turn his back on. He had a job to do and a week to do it in. If he didn’t wall himself off from these distractions, then none of this would matter. He’d be executed in the atrium.

Rubbing at his chest, he pushed into Rosa’s study. She’d gone home long ago, but the ghost of her remained in her fragrance and the meticulous neatness of the room. A vein in Lynch’s temple throbbed. He had to forget her. She appealed to a future that didn’t exist for him.

The heady trail of her perfume, however, wouldn’t let him forget. He followed it through his study, to the previously locked door of his private rooms. Warm candlelight filled his bedroom, the candle sitting in a puddle of wax. She’d evidently expected him long before.

There was a note on his pillow and something small and black beside it. Lynch frowned before realizing what it was.

He crossed slowly to the bed. The letter tempted him. His fingers almost itched to touch it, but he’d made his decision. Mrs. Marberry needed to be forgotten—for her own sake as much as his. No matter how much he longed to see her again.

Pull
yourself
together. Focus
. He crumpled the letter in his fist and threw it in the cold grate where it landed with a soft exhale of white ash. The velvet button however…that he kept, slipping into his pocket as a reminder of what could have been.

Then he turned and headed for his armoire and the stark leather body armor that awaited him. He had work to do.

Fourteen

Fog boiled through the East End, filling the close-knit streets and obscuring the houses below. Lynch peered across the disembodied rooftops, rubbing at his knuckles absently. This was a dangerous part of town, ruled by cutthroat human gangs and the Devil of Whitechapel himself, one of the few rogue blue bloods who’d fought free of his fate and carved his own living outside of Echelon power.

The city walls loomed in the distance, keeping the Echelon in and the human rabble out. Both groups seemed to prefer it that way, and it was an easy way of distinguishing who belonged where.

Sound skittered off the tiles behind him and a half glance alerted him to the arrival of Byrnes. The other man moved with catlike grace along the ridge of the house, fog stirring around his boots as he silently surveyed the world. The taste of coal was thick in the air, like the exhale of a pipe-smoker’s breath.

“Well?” Lynch asked.

“I found an entrance to Undertown,” Byrnes murmured, kneeling beside him. His cold gaze raked the fog. Garrett was a leader of men, but Byrnes was the only choice when it came to hunting in dark spaces. He liked to be alone, liked the shadows. “I wish you’d brought more men.”