Who cared how lonely he was it wasn't as though she could do anything about it. The man was lonely for something that didn't exist, for a mate that had died long ago. That wasn't her problem and she couldn't fix it. She would have if she could, but she couldn't bring back the dead, as Dane often reminded her.
But she could wish . .
* * *
She was f**ked.
Mercury made the vow the minute she stepped from her bedroom with all those nut brown waves of silky hair falling to the middle of her back. She was dressed in light gray cotton pants, pajama bottoms perhaps, or lounging pants, he thought he might have heard Merinus call them. Wide-legged and damned near shapeless. He hated them.
With it, she wore a thigh-long gray jersey, just as damned shapeless as the pants. God, he hoped she at least had sexy underwear. If she didn't, he was going to buy her some. Lots of it. Red and black, sinful silk and lace.
"Would you please stop looking at me like that." A flush covered her face again. It was almost innocent.
"Like what?" He actually hadn't been aware that he was staring at her in any way unusual.
"As though you're undressing me," she retorted, stalking to the kitchen and pulling two beers from the fridge. "A month in your company and it's a wonder I have any semblance of modesty at all."
He grinned at her. "What color is your underwear?"
She stared back at him, her eyes rounded in shock, her expression outraged. "That is none of your business. Do I ask you about your underwear?"
He glanced down at the jeans he had changed into.
"No underwear. Sorry. We didn't get into the habit of wearing those at the labs."
She paused in the process of setting the beers on the table, as he crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
"TMI," she finally muttered. "That's just TMI."
Too much information. He nodded. Okay, he understood that, Cassie Sinclair was always throwing that one out.
"Just in case you were wondering." He grinned.
"Well, I wasn't."
The soft scent of a lie was easy to detect. His grin widened. Sometimes, he just loved being a Breed.
"Drink your beer and leave me alone. You're really aggravating, do you know that? Didn't Jonas tell me you were the quiet Breed?"
He arched his brow as he took the beer and deftly twisted the cap off.
"Well, I don't exactly wonder about Jonas's underwear," he chuckled. "So there's not a lot to talk about there."
"Well, you can stop wondering about mine." If her face could have gotten pinker, it did.
He sat down at the table, leaned back in his chair and stared back at her thoughtfully.
"You want me. I can smell it. Why deny it?"
"And you think wanting is all that matters?" she asked as she turned and moved to the cabinets for plates. "There's more to life than just wanting, Mercury."
She sat the plates on the table before facing him again, her expression earnest.
"Is wanting you so bad?"
No, wanting him was so bad, Ria thought to herself as she stared at him, amazed at the relaxed, sensual animal he had become, as though changing from the enforcer's uniform into jeans and a T-shirt had somehow altered his entire personality.
"It depends on what the want is," she sighed, then stared back at him intently. "Let's be honest here. There's not a chance of anything between us besides a one-night stand or a fly-by-night affair. I don't want either of those."