Page 21 of Taming the Beast (Fairy Tales of New York)

a relationship at the moment and commitment is the last thing on my mind. I’m busy enough as it is with my MBA. I’ve worked incredibly hard to get here,” she said, perching her butt on the edge of the desk and sliding it along until her legs almost touched his knees. “And I’m not going to waste the opportunity I have for anything or anyone. However I would quite like some sex and I would quite like it with you.”

“You can’t have it with me. Go and find it with someone else,” said Seb, gritting his teeth against the revulsion that rose up inside him at the thought of Mercy with someone else and just about resisting the urge to push his chair back and remove himself from her brain-addling orbit because that would be weak.

“I’ve tried,” she said with a sigh of what sounded like exasperated distress.

Seb stilled. “Don’t tell me you’ve failed.” How was that possible? How could any man look at her and not want her?

“That’s exactly what’s happened.”

“Why?”

“You ruined sex for me, Seb.”

He stared at her. “How the hell did I do that?”

“You used me. You used sex as a weapon.”

No, he hadn’t. But yes, that was what she thought. Shit. “I’ve apologized.”

“It’s not enough,” she said. “What you did has colored my judgement and warped my instincts. Now I find that whenever the opportunity for sex arises, I worry so much about motives that the mood disappears.” She bumped his knees with her legs and he felt the contact like a bolt of electricity shooting though him.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I’m glad you agree.”

What? No. Yes. Wait. What was he agreeing with – or not – again?

“So what I’m suggesting, Seb,” she continued, clearly unaware of the disintegration of his brain, “is a fling. No strings. No demands. Just sex.”

A fling? Just sex? He wasn’t sure that was possible with Mercy. “You once looked at me as though you wanted to slay my dragons,” he said roughly.

“I was sixteen and you were easy to romanticize,” she said, a charming hint of pink hitting her cheeks. “I wouldn’t make that mistake now. And, seriously, aren’t you even the tiniest bit curious? Don’t you want to know if it would be the same as before?”

No. He wanted to know if it would be better. “I thought you said you barely remembered it.”

“I lied. Look, Seb, there’s no harm to be done,” she said, her eyes dark and shining and utterly mesmerizing. “Really there isn’t. All I’m after is some scorchingly hot sex. A little light conversation and a whole lot of action. A way to relax after a long hard week. Pleasure. Release. Oblivion. That’s it. Truly. So what do you think?”

Think? Seb was having trouble breathing, let alone thinking, because he could imagine that. Had imagined it. All of it. Even though he’d tried his damnedest not to. So what she was suggesting sounded good. Incredibly good. But it wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t. Although for the life of him he couldn’t remember why not.

Perhaps she was right and he had been overthinking things, he figured with the one remaining brain cell that was functioning. Who was he to tell her how she felt? And what did it matter how she looked at him? As long as they were both on the same page – and it seemed, they were – it could work.

And perhaps, somehow, he owed her, if she thought he’d used her and it had affected her sex life. Five years was a long time to go without. He could help fix that. And really, how hard would a fling with Mercy be to handle? He wasn’t twenty-six any more. He was older and wiser and in a far better place now. He had a grip on his hormones and his control was absolutely rock solid.

Besides, she wasn’t a threat. Of course she wasn’t He was overestimating her power over him. Hadn’t he proved he could resist her the night of Zelda’s slumber party? He could easily have acted on the attraction that she’d been so keen to deny, but he hadn’t, and that spoke volumes. So he’d be fine.

“What do I think?” he said, slowly getting to his feet and giving in to the desire hammering through him, the heat firing along his veins and the delirium beginning to cloud his head. “I think, Mercedes, that you might have a point.”

Chapter Five

‡

Oh, thank God for that, thought Mercy, giddy with relief and desire as Seb reached for her, hauled her into his arms and slammed his mouth down on hers. For a moment there she’d thought he was going to reject her offer, reject her, but he hadn’t and God she was glad, because this was where she wanted to be. Where she’d always wanted to be, if she was being honest. In his arms. Kissing him and kissing him and giving herself up to the mindless pleasure coursing through her.

As his mouth plundered hers and tremors of sensation rippled through her, Mercy lifted her arms, planted her hands on his shoulders then slid them round to the back of his neck, using him to arch herself even closer. She could feel the hard length of his erection jutting against her and it made her head swim and her heart race because she wanted him inside her so badly she ached.

One of his hands was on her waist, the other tangled in her hair and as he pulled her tighter to him he angled her head to deepen the kiss. Urgency rose up inside her and she gave up what was left of her reason to simply feel.

Electricity zipped through her, making her moan and shudder in his arms. In response his body tensed as if it was taking every drop of his control not to just toss her to the floor and ravish her, which she truly wouldn’t have minded.

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