She sat up, her hip next to his side. He lowered his hands, swiping away his tears, then sat up, facing her.
Merc stared into her eyes. His expression was dark and unholy, filled with a rage he couldn’t contain. “I never even showed their things to Guerre. I didn’t want him see a tragedy like that.”
“The way she died was why I was wondering if she’d been changed before she died—if the Matchmaker’s Curse had acted on her. If just agreeing to become a mutant triggers the curse.”
“Like I said earlier, none of us knew the curse was more than urban legend until it happened to Liege and Summer. For a lot of reasons, we thought it was either set in motion by the Omnis, who wanted to keep us fearful so that we didn’t harbor any hopes of having normal lives, or that it was started by the Omni resistance as a way of giving us hope that we might once again feel something, anything—that there might be hope of falling in love. It’s always been a double-edged curse. We still don’t really know how it works.”
“I’m sorry I touched her things. I shouldn’t have pried into your business.”
Merc brushed a lock of her hair from her face. “My business is your business. I don’t have—or want—secrets from you.”
Ash leaned her forehead against his. After a moment, she kissed his cheek, his temple, his mouth. He smiled beneath the pressure of her lips as he reached up to cup her face. He tilted his head, deepening the kiss.
Heat poured through her body, chased by a hunger she didn’t think she could control. He always did that to her—had since she first imagined him.
“I didn’t know who you were then,” he said. “I knew Summer had a friend named Ash. I wasn’t even conscious at the time. I thought I was dreaming. But afterward, I kept thinking of you, of us being together.” He pushed her legs apart and settled between them, rocking himself against her core. “But once I realized who you were, it was even worse. You were untouchable as the best friend of Liege’s woman and daughter.” He kissed her. “What I feel for you is unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Including during my marriage.”
“Why is it that you felt so strongly about us? The mystery of it all? Because we were cursed?”
“No. Because you’re the half of me I’ve always been missing.”
Ash caught his bottom lip between her teeth and dragged them across it. Merc groaned. Pushing to his knees, he pulled her shorts and thong down her hips as she wiggled free. He pressed his face to the soft flesh between her hipbones, giving her slow, warm kisses from hip to hip.
She pushed her hips upward, but he ignored the hunger throbbing at her core as he moved upward to her navel, then nibbled his way to her first rib, moving from her center to her side across her exquisitely sensitive skin.
When she caught his shoulders and tried to pull him up or push him down, he snagged her hands in one of his. “In time, sweet Ashlyn. We don’t have to rush any of this, as hungry as we may be.”
“Maybe you don’t have to rush…”
He licked his lips as he looked at her. That faint glow began to shine in his eyes. She could only imagine how he would look in the dark. As soon as she finished that thought, the lights on his nightstands went out. She sucked in a sharp breath, feeling gooseflesh rise across her arms and neck. She whimpered when his big palm warmed one of her breasts. He lifted the hem of her T-shirt and nuzzled her. Her nipples tightened before he could suck the first one. He flicked it with his tongue then swiped it in a counterclockwise direction that connected all the dots of fire raging through her body into one white-hot inferno.
“Merc—“
“Soon.”
All of her senses were sparking off each other. Everything he did was too perfectly keyed on her desire. It was as if he was making love to her from inside her own mind.
And maybe he was.
And maybe she didn’t care.
The warmth she felt between her legs was more than his rigid cock rocking against her clit. It was almost as if his tongue was there, warm, wet, wrecking her restraint.
“How do you do that?” she asked breathlessly.
He grinned. “Do you really want an answer now?”
“No. I want you. Now. Now, Merc.”
He entered her, sinking himself fully in one swift move. She cried out, pulling her hands free so she could hold him as she wrapped her legs around his hips, keeping him pressed deeply inside her as she orgasmed.
Just as she began to settle down, he moved in her, in and out, long, slow strokes that were delicious and nerve-racking, starting her hunger up all over again. Before she could reach another peak, he withdrew. She felt the loss of him keenly, but he just lifted and turned her, settling her face down as he lifted her hips and penetrated her again, moving with the same rhythm as before.
He bent over her back, bracing himself on one hand while he stroked her back, her ass, her thigh. Then he reached around to touch her clit, doing with his fingers what his mind was somehow able to do before.
Her ability to think was shot. Her body—and his—were running everything now. At last they orgasmed, together, in a fierce passion that burned out far too fast.
Ash settled on her back and wrapped her arms around his neck. As she looked up at his face, the eyes that met hers weren’t his tawny eyes, but a pair of blue ones, eyes that went with an entirely different face. A grin that was ghastly as it bared half a missing cheek.
Ash screamed and pushed him off her.
Flynn.
It was as if she’d just made love to Merc’s mortal enemy.
She scrambled off the bed and rushed away. She covered her eyes with her hands, too shocked to react in a more life-preserving way. She couldn’t bear to see Flynn in their bed.
How had he gotten into the fort? How had he gotten into bed with her?
Two warm hands peeled her hands from her face. Ash resisted, but she was slowly becoming aware of Merc standing in front of her. His scent, his voice, his worried eyes were all there in front of her.
She looked around him at the empty bed. Where had Flynn gone?
“What’s happening, Ash?”
She shook her head, then touched her hands to Merc’s face. His beautiful, worried face, terrifying in its intensity. She couldn’t make herself say Flynn’s name. She looked up at Merc, silently begging him to hear her thoughts.
He looked at her blankly. Why couldn’t he hear her?
She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Nothing. Not even a puff of air. She pointed to her mouth, opening and closing it like a trout on a hook.
God. Was she even breathing? She wrapped her hands around her throat and took some test breaths. Yeah. She was breathing. She tried again to speak. Nothing.
He frowned then fetched her clothes. He helped her dress, then she followed him into his closet, where he grabbed a pair of joggers from a shelf. She managed to point to his secret cabinet, which he opened.
Guerre, Liege. I need you in here now. Merc summoned the guys. Bastion got there first. Merc glared at him. You weren’t invited.
Don’t be cruel. I heard your woman scream—it wasn’t a scream of pleasure.
Liege and Guerre hurried into the room. The four of them stood around Ash in his closet. “I can’t read her mind,” Merc said. “Something’s blocking me. And she can’t speak. What’s happening to her? What scared her? Is she in pain?”