“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.”

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.