Dancing With Danger Page 5

  Knowing, without a doubt, that he could release her like a volcano, and watch as she erupted into ecstasy.

  He should go. He had so much to do, to prepare for.

  He needed to be rid of her. For both of their sakes.

  Visibly deflated, Mercy stowed her opera glasses in the velvet pouch hanging from her wrist and turned to contemplate the wolves.

  They’d come alive at her approach, panting and pacing, some of them making wild, hungry sounds.

  Raphael knew exactly how they felt.

  His feet carried him toward her as if moving without his consent. There was no stopping this, he was propelled—compelled—by her mere presence. She was, indeed, like the sun, and he was merely a helpless body trapped in her orbit.

  How could he leave when she appeared so glum? How could he be the cause of such a frown?

  He’d done some terrible things, but her displeasure would bother him all day.

  So intent was she upon her disappointment, she didn’t mark his approach until he spoke. “I always pity them, the predators,” he murmured as he drew abreast of her, standing close enough that their shoulders nearly touched.

  Other than a lift of her bosom with a sharp intake of breath, she made no move to acknowledge him.

  Raphael leaned against the iron bars of the enclosure, watching the alpha pace back and forth. Staring deep into eyes that seemed so ancient and feral, compared to this so-called civilized place.

  His chest ached for them both. “I wonder what it would be like to be as they are. Creatures of instinct and insatiable hunger...caged but longing to roam free.”

  Mercy tilted her chin to level him a sharp look, scoffing gently. “I am a woman. I don’t have to wonder such things. I already know.”

  A pensive sound escaped him on a huff of breath. “It has never been a mystery why men keep women caged by so many unseen confines,” he said. “Their laws. Their clothing. Societal expectations...And through doing this, men have devised the most fiendish jailers.”

  “Yes, you men have fashioned yourselves as most cunning oppressors,” she agreed with an arch bitterness in her voice. “Congratulations.”

  “No,” he purred, turning toward her. Inching closer. “Women’s greatest enemy is other women. If you ever stopped competing for the favor of your oppressors and rose up against us, instead, we men wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  At this, she shifted, her sharp chin dipping so she could study him from beneath the veil of her lashes. “You speak as though you’re an expert on the subject of my sex.”

  “Women are too complicated and varied for one man to become an expert,” he said, rather modestly, he thought, congratulating himself.

  Her eyes narrowed further, reminding him of a cat irked by the attentions of a tiresome human. “Is it women who are complicated? Or men who are just too simple or fatuous to figure out what should be painfully obvious?”

  He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “You’re right, of course. Let us not say complicated. Let us say...intricate. Comprised of so many parts both fragile and indestructible. Mechanisms of emotion and logic, trivialities and also infinite wisdom.”

  He motioned to the wolves. “We men are the beasts. Quarrelsome and querulous creatures of instinct and desire.”

  “Is that why you call your gang the Fauves? The wild beasts. Because you are encouraging such animalistic behavior?”

  Raphael nodded, wondering why it sounded wrong when she said it, why it pricked him with defensiveness. “My father invented the name and our creed. We were beasts before we fashioned ourselves men, and built our own cages of law and order. But once, we had the morality of a wolf. The ferocity of a bear. Cunning and speed of a viper.”

  “A viper.” She held up her finger as if to tap an idea out of the sky. “That is what you are.”

  He contemplated the word. “I’ve been called worse.”

  “Worse than a snake?”

  He lifted a shoulder and loosened it again. “I don’t mind snakes so much. They’re clever creatures... They’re only villainized because of the one who tempted Eve.”

  She swatted the air in front of her as if batting his words away. “I find that story patently ridiculous.”

  “Do you?”

  She rolled her eyes and tossed her head like a skittish mare. “We haven’t the time for me to count the ways.”

  “I’d still love to hear you do so,” he murmured, finding that he wanted very much, indeed, to know what she thought about anything. Everything. He found her relentlessly entertaining. “Another time, perhaps.”

  “I’m not planning on spending an inordinate amount of time in your presence.” Gathering her skirt, she shifted away from him as if she needed space.

  Distance he didn’t want to give.

  “You’re angry with me,” he prodded.

  “Have you forgotten that you escaped the law and left me to face it? What sort of nefarious reprobate does that?”

  “I knew you’d done nothing wrong, and that your family would close ranks and protect you. In my defense, I had business only a nefarious reprobate could conduct. Since you are not one, I couldn’t very well be responsible for your safety.”

  Her chin jutted at a stubborn angle. “I’m an investigator, not an idiot. I wouldn’t do anything unduly perilous. Also,” she glared at him as if she could bore through his middle with the blue fire in her eyes, “you kissed me, you impolite blackguard! Without my permission, I might add.”

  “Ah, for that I would ask your forgiveness, Miss Goode...” His mouth softened and curled up at the memory. “If you had not kissed me back.”

  “I never!” She pushed away from the wolf enclosure and stomped toward the gate, her skirts swishing angrily.

  “I know what animal you are,” he teased, ambling after her with his hands shoved in his pockets.

  So he did not give in to the impulse to reach for her.

  “I am no other creature than woman.”

  “You are a fox,” he corrected. “Playful. Clever...cautious and elusive. Yes. You, Mercy Goode, are a vixen.”

  “What I am is growing tired of your company,” she snapped.

  “Might I remind you that you were the one who followed me here?”

  She whirled on him, her little nostrils flaring and her eyes sparking with azure storms. “I—that—I mean—” She pressed her lips into a frustrated hyphen before gathering her response. “Don’t you dare for one minute feel flattered. I was investigating you. To see if you were doing anything despicable. I didn’t come for you, but to gather information that would help Mathilde.”

  Oh, that he could make her come for him.

  Raphael drank her in. She was lovely when she was angry. Her Cupid’s bow mouth pursed and white at the edges with strain, her snapping gaze electric with color, and her little fists balled with fury.

  She was so young. Perhaps too young for his thirty years. She glowed with an inner incandescence that didn’t belong to this grey country. He wanted to sweep her away to a villa along the cerulean coast of his homeland. To strip her bare while white gauzy curtains danced in the sea breeze. He would let the sun kiss every inch of her pale skin just before his lips trailed in its wake.

  “I want you to leave justice for Mathilde to me,” he said, curling the fingers in his pockets into fists, so he didn’t give in to the urge to sweep her hair away from the curve of her neck. “I will avenge her.”

  It would be among the last things he did.

  “Avenge her?” Her eyes narrowed and she took a step closer, her ire at him thrown over for a clue. “Are you saying you know who is responsible for her death?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Who then?” she demanded.

  She would never drag it out of him. Would never be drawn into his world. She was everything good and light and worthy. She was a beacon, one that both attracted him and warned him away.

  Raphael changed tactics, taking a threatening step toward h
er. “You’ve already done something perilous. You came here. To find me... Alone.”

  He should have expected anything other than a retreat from her. “As you can see, sir, we are not alone.” She gestured to the throngs of people, some passersby paying them a bit of curious attention.

  “We are not alone,” he conceded, drawing her hand into his to brush a kiss against the knuckles of her gloves. “But if you are with me...you are in danger.”

  “From whom?” She glanced about them dramatically, as if searching for the danger of which he spoke.

  Surely some primitive instinct within her had to realize how close he was to—

  “I’m perfectly safe,” she said in a tone more convincing than confident. As if she were trying to persuade herself. “My—my brother-in-law, Chief Inspector Carlton Morley, is nearby.”

  “No, he isn’t,” Raphael tutted, advancing on her with measured steps. Forcing her to retreat in small increments. “I know Morley, he’s as decisive as he is honorable, which means he’d have me in chains before I could do this.”

  Raphael seized her by the elbow and swung her into a deeply shadowed alleyway between two enclosures, with all the deftness of a man twirling his partner in a waltz.

  He ducked them into the alcove of a door and slanted his mouth over hers, desperate to taste her before she could take in enough breath to protest.

  Chapter 5

  But she didn’t.

  She didn’t struggle or fight.

  The first time he’d kissed her, he’d taken her by surprise. She’d been unerringly sweet and obviously untried.

  And still she’d captivated and aroused him more than the most skilled of courtesans.

  She was artless. Guileless. And in her presence, he was something he’d never been before.

  Helpless.

  She didn’t remain still or soft in his arms. She didn’t become rigid nor limp with fear nor anger.

  She went wild.

  Her fingers were claws in the lapels of his jacket. At the taut muscles of his back. Then suddenly scoring his scalp as she turned his impulsive seduction into a battlefield. Her lips pulled tight against her teeth. Her tongue went on the offensive, thrusting into his mouth and tangling with his.

  God, he’d only meant to pilfer a sip of her. Sample her particular confection of flavor and savor it.

  But she devoured him.

  Raphael’s blood pounded in a deafening roar, screaming through his veins with a victorious thrill. His entire body was consumed with the taste of her, like a crisp, sparkling Alsatian summer wine, both tart and sweet, with a sultry bite.

  She intoxicated him.

  Her ferocity called to something inside of him.

  Because he knew it for what it was. Both an attack and a defense. He’d cornered her, and so she would make certain she was in control by claiming the kiss.

  And he didn’t want that.

  What he wanted was her to enjoy it.

  Bracketing her face with his hands, Raphael brushed tender thumbs over the downy curve of her cheekbones as he fought back the savage lust that hardened his body. He longed to take her. To possess and invade her, to thrust into her with the same abandon she showed now.

  Images tormented him. Of her bent over things, tied to other things, writhing at the wickedness he could wreak upon her.

  It tantalized him to the brink of madness.

  And yet.

  Some foreign sort of affection welled within him. While his body was hard, inside his rib cage, something loosened.

  Softened.

  This was not a moment to conquer.

  But to seduce.

  He brushed his thumbs to where their lips met, and nudged at the corner of her mouth, drawing it open and slack. He broke the seal, unhooking their tongues. Instead, he dragged his slick lips over hers in languid, gliding motions. Once. And again. Coaxing her to respond.

  She reacted just how he’d hoped, her arms more embracing than clutching. Her hands kneading rather than clawing.

  God, he could live to make this kitten purr.

  Had there ever been a woman so perfectly rendered for kissing?

  Her curves were more pronounced next to the hard planes of his own body, her breasts straining against his chest, her hips flaring dramatically when his hands charted the indent of her waist to rest there.

  Somewhere in the distance, a lion roared. A child squealed.

  The sounds broke her of whatever thrall he might have held.

  Small hands flattened against his chest before she gave a mighty shove.

  Raphael allowed it, retreating several steps.

  Glowering in his direction, she wiped at her lips with the back her gloves, as if scrubbing the taste of him away. “You must stop doing that,” she commanded. “It’s—It’s—”

  “Delicious?” he supplied helpfully.

  “Disgusting,” she spat.

  “You did not seem disgusted to me,” he taunted. “What I think you are, is afraid.”

  “I am not afraid of you.” She circled him like he might be a predator about to attack, inching toward the entrance to their intimate alley.

  Raphael tried not to examine why he felt the small distance between them in the very essence of himself. The pads of his fingers, the fine hairs of his body. They seemed tuned to her by some magnetic force, drawing him forward.

  “Are you afraid you’ll like me?” he challenged. “That you’ll want more?”

  “N-no.” Her eyes darted this way and that as she took two more steps backwards.

  “Why are you retreating, then?”

  She froze. Blinked. Then squared her shoulders, drawing herself up to her full—if less than impressive—height.

  “I’m not retreating, I’m—I’m leaving. There’s a difference.” Spinning on her bootheel, she hurried until she reached the end of the alley, and flounced around the corner.

  When Raphael caught up, she was strolling toward the entrance, quite obviously doing her level best to keep her footsteps steady so not to appear as though she fled.

  He should let her go.

  He should turn around and put her behind him. Focus on the task at hand and not give in to the strange and unmistakable lure.

  It was as if she had his heart affixed to a spool of string like a kite, and he trailed after her—above her—in quivering anticipation of the moment she would pull him out of the wind.

  No good could come of this. He...should...just...

  “I’ll squire you out.” The offer slipped from his lips before he could pull it back.

  She rewarded his chivalry with a sharp glare. “I hardly need a squire, and don’t require your company.”

  “Evidently not, but in order to quit the zoo, I also need use of the gate.”

  “There’s the other entrance.” She pointed toward the back where he’d left Marco.

  “Alas, this one is the one I prefer.” He offered a gesture of regret that conveyed there’s nothing to be done, and sauntered after her.

  She made an exceedingly unladylike sound of exasperation and quickened her pace. “Just keep your hands and your lips to yourself.”

  Raphael lengthened his strides, having no issue keeping up with her. He breathed in the frigid air tinged with her singular scent, and didn’t even lament the clouds as they drifted toward the sun in a threatening manner.

  Even at the bitter end of winter, when all tended to be grey and gloomy, she smelled of sweet herbs and sunshine, evoking memories of sipping pastis on sun-drenched verandas of the Mediterranean.

  The shadows could not touch her. The grey couldn’t dim her, no matter how it might try.

  And he was a moth mesmerized by her flame.

  A vendor called to her, holding out paper wrapped around candied nuts.

  “No, thank you,” she said as she bustled on by.

  He trotted to catch up. “You’re a lady of taste, surely you can spare a coin for—”

  Raphael maneuvered himself closer and it
only took a censuring look to send the man scampering in the other direction.

  “Unbelievable,” she muttered beneath an irate breath.

  “You’re welcome.” He flashed her a winsome smile as if he’d not caught the sarcasm in her voice, and clasped his hands behind his back to make himself seem more casual.

  She whirled on him, thrusting a finger at his chest. “What is the matter with you? Do you enjoy throwing your strength and malice into the faces of those less powerful? Do you prefer it when people fear you? Does it lend you some perverted sort of thrill?”

  “Of course not,” he defended, running the tip of his tongue over lips that still tasted of her. “I get my perverted thrills elsewhere.”

  “Bah!” She threw her hands up in an ironically violent gesture of defeat and stomped away, abandoning all pretense of composure.

  Thoroughly amused, Raphael fell into step with her. “I shouldn’t like you to fear me,” he explained.

  “As I said, I do not, but you just intimidated that poor man back there.”

  “I didn’t want him to hassle you.”

  “No, of course not, when you’re doing such an excellent job of it.”

  He sighed, hating that he felt the need to explain himself to her as he had no one else in his entire lifetime. “Fear isn’t something I find enticing, merely...useful.”

  “Useful?” She wrinkled her forehead in puzzlement as if she couldn’t fathom how or why anyone would use such an awful, powerful phenomenon. “You mean, in your criminal enterprise?”

  “Yes.”

  “You make men fear you so that you may control them.” She said this with conviction, as if she had experience in the matter.

  Keeping his hands distinctly clasped behind him—so as not to give in to the overpowering urge to once again pull her against his body—Raphael surprised himself by telling her the truth. “There is a difference between leading men and controlling them. Again, I prefer people not fear me.”

  “But you just said you use—”

  “It does me no good to incite terror of me, per se,” he clarified. “If I have an enemy, I find out what they already fear and turn it on them. I figure how to sow it among their own ranks until the right eye doesn’t trust what the left eye sees. I can make it so the heart and the brain fear each other, and then the muscles and blood don’t know whom to obey. When men fear what they used to love, that fear often turns to hate. And then they rip out their own hearts. They pluck out their own eyes... They devour themselves.”