But there was no cold here. As Mercury's lips opened over hers, pressing into hers, there was only heat and pleasure; the feel of his hands stroking her, building the fire inside her as he soothed a part of her.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. He had already mated. He could never belong to her. Not really all-the-way-to-the-soul belong to her. But she couldn't deny him either.
A whimper of surrender left her lips, met his kiss, and her hands lifted from his chest to his shoulders. Then to his hair. Coarse, thick, warm. She tightened her fingers in the strands and held him to her as he kissed her with slow, easy possession.
His tongue licked over hers. Faintly rough, just enough to cause her to jerk at the thought of what the lick of his tongue would do to other parts of her body. It was dominant, possessive; it stroked over her lips, her tongue, and when she trapped it and suckled it, she almost cried at the lack of the mating taste. A taste she had heard was wilder than the male giving it.
She let her hands dig into his scalp, lifted herself tighter against him, licked at him, her lips fighting for the kiss as her soul fought to possess some part of him. If even for a moment, to claim a part of him as her own.
And this was why she had fought the attraction building between them. As his hands controlled her, lifted her to him, she had to fight the need to give him parts of herself that no one else had ever touched before.
That wild center growing inside her, the one that wanted to shred his clothes from his body and mark him. That primitive stupid female center that couldn't accept that he belonged to another, even if she was dead.
He growled as he tore his lips from hers.
Ria opened her eyes, staring into his primal gaze as his hands gripped the curves of her rear and clenched. She shuddered, her lashes dipping closed before she forced them open once again.
"I'm hurting you," he said quietly, his hand lifting, touching her cheek as she stared back in surprise. "How am I hurting you, my Ria?"
She shook her head, tugging at his hair, trying to pull him back to her. "Don't stop, Mercury. Kiss me more."
His head lowered. A gentle kiss to the corner of her lips when she didn't want gentle. The stroke of his hand along the hair behind her ear when she wanted the sharp bite of his fingers tangling in it.
"Why are you doing this?" she moaned. "Don't tease me."
"Tell me how I'm hurting you," he demanded, and even his voice was gentle.
She closed her eyes against the knowledge that there would be nothing she could hide from him, and so much he could hide from her.
"Because I'm insane," she whispered, opening her eyes again and gazing back at him. "Because I want more than I should."
He paused, his expression somber, but his eyes watched her with primitive awareness, with desperate hunger.
"What do you want, Ria?"
"I want all of you."
"Then all of me is exactly what you'll have," he promised her.
His lips moved to hers again, took them fiercely, and she felt the wildness inside him as he gave it rein. He nipped at her lips, then pumped his tongue into her mouth as he lifted her against him, turned and bore her to the couch.
Her back met the cushions as he came over her, his lips still on hers, allowing her room to twist beneath him, to arch against the knee that pressed between her thighs.
"Take it off." She tore her lips from his, tugging at his shirt.
He gripped the hem and jerked it off. Then he gripped the front of her blouse and ripped it from her.
"Damn pretty shirt." He was staring at what he had revealed, not at what he had ripped. "Damn." He ran the backs of his fingers over the curve of flesh that rose above her lacy bra. "I knew I could see the hint of your ni**les under that damned fabric, and now I know why."
Because her bra was so sheer the tight peaks were nearly pressing through the lace.
Ria tried to calm her breathing, but nothing could calm it. She needed his kiss again, she needed more of him. She lifted her back, arching, displaying her br**sts and praying he would give in to his hunger for them.
And he did. His head lowered, his lips covering one achingly sensitive peak and drawing it into his mouth.
Ria was in ecstasy. Pleasure was rising inside her like a tidal wave sweeping through her fears. Tomorrow. She would worry about the complications tomorrow. Right now, tonight, he was hers. She had had more of him now than any man she had ever been with in the past. What did it matter if he wasn't mating her? If he wasn't keeping her? She didn't want to be kept anyway, did she?
A part of her ached at the question, but it was fiercely reined in by the sensation washing over her flesh. The lash of his tongue against her nipple, even through the sheer lace of the bra, was destructive. The feel of his hands jerking her skirt up her legs, baring her to him as he pulled back to stare at his handiwork.