Page 296 of From Rakes to Riches

Because she was captured in the culmination of her eternal struggle.

The one between what sheshoulddo.

And what she wanted to do.

She might die an old maid, but she certainly didn’t plan on being a virgin.

Suddenly, everything Mathilde told her about him spun through her mind, sped through her blood, and landed in her loins.

The rapture he was capable of imparting. The pleasure. The desire. The stamina.

The sin.

He stepped closer, watching the war play out on her face, and spoke to tip the scales in his favor. “If you are to never take a husband, at least let me give you the knowledge of what to expectfrom a lover. Though I pity the man who next attempts to follow me.”

The sheer arrogance in his claim should have turned her off of him instantly.

And yet, he said this with an odd sort of darkness. Like he pitied her next lover because he was already considering doing him violence.

“Let me have you tonight.” His whisper sizzled through her.

“T-tonight?” she gasped out.

He made a gesture both helpless and sanguine. “I am a man for whom tomorrow is never a certainty, and so I live every night as if it were my last.”

“How wondrous and terrible to not worry for tomorrow,” she murmured.

“Wonderous and terrible. That is my existence in two words.”

One of the wolves howled in the distance, a wild, mournful sound so foreign in the city.

Mercy turned toward it, needing not to look at him for a moment.

To catch her breath.

Was she truly considering this madness?

His breath was a warm caress against her ear as the clean masculine scent of him enveloped her. “Tonight,mon chaton,” he purred from behind her, his finger skimming her shoulder blades so lightly. “Let me stroke you until you are exhausted with pleasure. Demand what you want from me, I do not mind. Let me teach you what you deserve to know. What you should always expect. What your body is capable of.”

Yes.

Mercy couldn’t say the word, so she nodded.

She felt rather than saw him smile, even as he stepped back, granting her some space so she could finally breathe.

Pressing her fingers to her lips, she couldn’t stop thinking about his tongue. Inside her mouth, it’d been warm and slick and tasted like depravity.

She’d been surprised it wasn’t forked, devil that he was.

How would it be on other parts of her?

All her life, she’d hated the story of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The allegory for temptation in the face of consequences.

She’d never understood why Eve bit into the apple.

Not until this very moment.

Not until this man with shining hazel eyes and a voice made of velvet and vice, tempted her beyond reason.

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