Page 275 of From Rakes to Riches

Like kiss him.

He shocked her with that effortless rumble she was coming to recognize as his chuckle. “I’m not going to hang,mon chaton.”

“Stop calling me that,” she spat. “If you are half of what they say you are, if you’ve committed half the crimes you’ve been credited with, I don’t see how you can escape execution.”

Raphael leaned forward, the light across his eyes following the shape of his brow, gleaming off the ebony of his hair and then settling on his shoulders like Apollo’s own mantle as he brought their faces flush.

Mercy had to force herself not to lean back.

Somehow that felt like a retreat.

“What things do they say I am?” he murmured.

She ticked them off on her fingers as she answered around a dry tongue, pretending his proximity didn’t distress her. “A hedonist. A libertine. A profligate. Scoundrel. Gangster.”

“Ah, for once,theyare right,” he admitted wryly.

“A murderer?”

Cool air kissed her neck, but what caused her to shiver was the tantalizing heat of his breath as he bent even closer. “I have helped men to the next world,mon chaton. But I’ve never hurt a woman. I did not kill your friend.”

“Then I ask you again. What were you doing there? Were you Mathilde’s lover?”

A muted clang caused them both to jump, and Mercy let out a little cry of surprise as the back of the carriage dipped slightly.

She couldn’t say if it was the movement or her own instinct that shifted her body closer to his warmth.

To his strength.

Even though he smirked down at her with no little amount of masculine smugness, his gaze searched hers for something.

For permission?

An inner voice warned her that if she opened her mouth, it would be granted.

She lunged away then, scooting to the far edge of the bench in time for the door to swing open.

While they were still moving?

A mountain of a man in a dark coat and a hood slid inside and closed the door behind him. He turned his head toward her, but in the dim coach, she couldn’t make out anything that resembled a face.

Only a dark abyss was visible in the oval of shadow left by his low hood and his collar.

He stared at her from the darkness, though.

Nay, examined her like one might scrutinize an insect before crushing it beneath his shoe.

With wicked claws he scored that instinct that lived in every human. The one that screamed a warning into her soul that she was not safe.

Her bones veritably crawled beneath her skin to escape him.

If Raphael was dangerous, this man was...well, he defied description.

“What took you so long, Gabriel?” Raphael hissed. “Ten minutes more and it would have been too late.”

Raphael’s brother said nothing. He studied her for the space of two more discomfiting blinks and then gave her his massive back, bending toward his brother.

She’d been dismissed.

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