Chapter Twenty-Three

P ercy's voice stopped her in the hall.

"Danny, wait."

Danny closed her eyes, knowing if she looked over at him, in his dark moleskin coat and unruly, black curls, she'd never walk away.

"I must inform my sister of our need as soon as possible," she said, letting the draft from the front door clear the heat from his nearness. "I'll send a note when I arrive at Bromley, so you won't worry."

"All I do is bloody worry."

She turned then, unable to resist the frustration in his voice that called to her own tumultuous feelings raging inside.

Seeing his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his dark and piercing gaze searching her face with hot intensity, didn't help.

It took every ounce of willpower not to soothe the lines from his brow with her fingers and replace her fingers with her mouth, and then other parts of her, parts that ached for his rough touch.

Danny cleared her throat, forcing her desires away.

"You were wonderful in there," she said. "Authoritative, confident." Handsome, arousing. "All those team skills you learned as a boy paid off."

Percy rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "I felt like a damn fool with everyone all expectant." His expression shuddered. "One wrong move and we're all dead."

Danny clutched her warm belly, his overwhelming trust in dropping all pretense in her presence meaning everything. They were partners... and right now, she needed to be his.

"You can do this, Percy." She reached out and laid a gentle hand on his arm, forcing herself not to reach for more, not now with so much at stake. "Everyone in that room believes in you."

"And you?" he asked, his voice uncharacteristically reserved. "Do you believe in me?"

She'd do anything to wipe away that look of uncertainty in his gaze. But he wouldn't listen even if she admitted she trusted him with her very soul.

Forcing a pout, she ran a finger down his chest and over the hard span of his torso where her nail scraped the edge of his waistband, reminding herself it was to distract him and not to ease her craving to feel him against her skin. "I believe a man who can make me come six times in a single coupling can handle giving out simple instructions to his friends." She cocked a brow. "I, for one, find your instruction more than satisfactory."

Percy tracked her finger's progress across the wide brim of his trousers with a smile that was slow in coming and deliciously wicked and so much like his normal self, Danny felt her shoulders sag with relief.

"It has been a solid eight hours since your last lesson," he said, reaching out and twirling a loose curl from her coif around a finger. "I've been remiss in my husbandly duties, haven't I?" He tugged on her hair to elicit the slightest sting on her scalp, a sting he must have remembered she liked when he'd last taken her from behind and used her long mane as reins to pull them both over the edge of pleasure.

Danny's thighs clenched. There was a monster out there somewhere, bent on destroying those who had come to be precious to her, but even with the threat against their persons and home, even knowing Percy needed her strong and on point, her body had its priorities.

Her earlier revelation sizzled through her body and the resulting awareness left her feeling shy and awkward and horribly aroused despite the discomfort.

Percy stiffened. "What's wrong?"

She bit her lip, the ache between her legs stretching with desire. Even now he was attentive, all consuming, perfect.

It wasn't fair. She'd finally discovered the depth of her affection and now one madman could take it all away. They both needed to stay focused on their roles going forward. None of them could afford a distraction.

Percy's light touch on her cheek brought her back. "Danny?"

"I want you." She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed into his touch, not caring how selfish she sounded. "I want you here and now, against this wall, your cock inside me." I want to know you'll always be close. "But everyone is counting on you." On them both.

His responding chuckle had her eyes popping open.

His dark gaze fixed on her mouth. All the air was sucked from the hall as he growled and dragged her against him. "Everyone can fucking wait."

Danny didn't fight the sexual pull now. With the threat of violence and death, they both needed reassurance the other would make it out alive. They would because Danny refused to live in a world without him.

Percy's lips seared a line of kisses down her temple, along her jaw, playing at the corner of her mouth. "You look ravishing in that dress, Danny. I could barely focus on anything but dipping my tongue down your décolletage and taking a taste."

As his fingers mirrored his words, arousing her through touch, his voice aroused her with fantasy.

She hadn't thought of her outfit with its revealing lines and flattering vertical stripes, only that it was the nearest piece of dress within reach when she'd received Charlotte's missive. Now she wished she hadn't taken the extra seconds to tug on drawers and stockings.

His hands came to cup her breasts, lifting them high until her nipples skimmed the top of her bodice, the fabric teasing her sensitive skin.

"By all means, Your Grace," she rasped. "Feast away."

His chuckle of approval reverberated down her spine as his mouth dipped to tug a rosy bud into his mouth.

When she thought she'd go mad with ecstasy, his attention went to her other breast. "When this is all over, I'm going to take a solid week to taste every inch of you," he promised. He cupped her and flicked each breast with his tongue. "Starting with these."

Danny clutched his shoulder, doing her best to muffle her moans with the back of her hand.

Percy pulled away, his gaze fixed on her covered mouth. Hands falling from her chest, he tsked . "This will never do."

Before Danny could protest, Percy opened a nearby closet, barely big enough for the two brooms and bucket it held. Removing the supplies, Percy inclined his head, his gaze wild.

"After you, my lady."

Danny's arousal didn't allow for questions. Entering, her body pressed up against the back of the closet as Percy stepped in behind her and closed the door.

The space was cramped, difficult to maneuver. Danny hadn't even the room to turn around and was about to voice her misgivings when fingers bunched in her skirts and lifted.

Both still standing upright, Percy nudged her legs apart with his foot and worked his fingers through the slit in her drawers to find that coil of nerves at her core.

Danny gasped at the touch and the position, resting her forehead against the cold, wooden paneling and marveling at her husband's ingenuity. Unable to keep the excitement from her voice she asked, "Here, Percy? With everyone next door?"

"Here," he whispered in her ear. "Now."

His barely restrained growls were followed by a snap of buttons popping open and his hard length pressing hot against her backside through the thin knit of her drawers.

Yes, here and now. It was all they could guarantee.

His fingers parted her slit and he pushed upwards in one nail-scraping, core-clenching thrust while his other hand turned her face for better access to the delicate skin between her ear and her shoulder.

"Danny," he murmured against her skin. Massaging her hips, he guided her bottom flush against his pelvis and grinded into her with every shallow buck; urgent thrusts that came faster and faster, giving her no time to think or breathe.

The tension, the limited space, he was everywhere, touching, kissing, drawing her higher and higher towards that bright spot where Earth met the heavens.

He cupped both breasts in his hands and rolled her nipples.

"Percy!"

The orgasm hit hard and brutal, much like the man who gave her such pleasure. There was no need for gentleness or holding back. She wanted all of him: the rough-and-tumble man, the spy, the unbeknownst leader. He was different things to different people, but in this moment, the only thing that mattered was he was hers.

She found his hand that had moved to her thigh and laced their fingers, urging him faster, harder, anything to prolong their connection.

If she could have frozen time and kept him to herself forever, she'd have done so without guilt.

But she had no such power, and when he found his own release with a roar that sounded like the final screams of a tolling bell, Danny's heart crumbled knowing they were all out of time.

*

Percy slunk through the alleys of St. Giles, toeing the new territory lines between the Greens and the Merrys, knowing he'd eventually find one of the lower gang members if he walked far enough.

It was rotten luck the Merrys' blasted dimber-damber had found Percy first.

Syd slid out of a darkened doorway, the knife in his hand needle thin and gleaming wickedly. "Looks like Christmas came early this year. How I hoped I'd be the one on patrol when you stuck your filthy head out of your hole."

Percy eyed the man's ever-hidden face, the inability to read his enemy's expression another obstacle he must overcome if he was to gain the Merrys' cooperation. Unfortunately, Percy never stopped to think before he spoke. "You scarred under that hood, Syd? Or just ugly?"

Syd twirled the blade in his hand, showing a level of deftness and skill that had Percy swallowing audibly. "Too damn handsome is the problem. Couldn't get anywhere without a mob forming."

The humor took a moment to register. Percy felt his jaw slacken. The Merry leader had left the stick up his ass home today.

He licked his lips to moisten them and prayed the rare show of humor meant the bastard would hear out his proposal before the stabbing started. "I need your help."

Syd snorted. "Your duke friend told Pops you were coming. You here for an update?"

"Something like that."

Syd sighed. Probably disappointed he must stall his plans to use Percy as a pin cushion. "The Greens' raids started two days ago." He shook his head. "I don't know how you got them riled up, but they're encroaching on our territory as planned."

Ah, so victory had assuaged Syd's normal kill first and cooperate later mentality.

"And your response?" Percy asked.

A flash of teeth in the dark hood and then, "Have them holed up in a warehouse by the docks they think they won from us last night."

The warehouse Percy had instructed Markus to ‘lose' in a brawl with the rival gang, the same warehouse that secretly sat on top of a network of underground tunnels that connected to the Merrys' den.

"Say the word," Syd said, voice laced with violence. "We'll crawl up through the sewers like rats to the feast."

Percy flinched. This was where the stabbing would start if he weren't careful. "About that... Plans have changed. I no longer need the docks out of commission."

Syd was too smart not to read between the lines. Knife rising, he leveled the tip at Percy's chest and accused, "You promised us the Greens' territory."

"And you'll have it, I swear." Percy inhaled a steadying breath and took a bigger risk stepping close, his hands upraised. "But the distraction was for a bigger catch, the destruction of a mutual enemy. An enemy that needs a tighter net to snare."

Syd snorted. "Backpedaling now, Percy? Can't deliver on your promise and now you're making excuses—"

"Nic Brandt is back on the streets, alive and unfortunately alive ."

Syd's growl was rough and followed by a string of curses that left Percy wishing to cover his manhood.

Syd turned sharply back to him, knife angled at his throat. "No more games, Percy. If this is another ploy—"

Percy pressed his neck into the knife tip and felt the sting as the metal bit into his skin. "I'm dead serious, Syd." And because Percy had no hope of winning favor without offering everything, he said, "The bastard is after the woman I love."

Percy had to have heard wrong. The man—heartless bastard and leader of the most ruthless gang in Dockside—couldn't have sighed.

"The woman from the alley?" Syd asked.

Percy nodded, his head spinning from the man's out-of-character outburst. "Help me stop him, and Nic Brandt is yours."

Voice going back to its usual bland hatred, Syd asked, "How?"

"I know where he'll be three days from now."

Syd's hand shook, anger at the man they all had a score to settle with or the anticipation of exacting revenge, Percy didn't know.

After a tense moment where Percy had real concerns he'd lose his head and a rather underappreciated singing voice, Syd retracted the knife and hid it in his waistband.

"Talk fast, Percy," he said. "I already sent word to my men there was a hare in the streets, and my wolves like to come in teeth snapping."

Percy swallowed again and stepped into the dark doorway and out of sight of anyone passing by.

This was going to work. The fact he hadn't been skewered was a good sign.

Gaining the Merrys' cooperation was imperative for his plan to succeed, especially now when every position of defense counted. The Merrys' identities may have been compromised, but that didn't mean they couldn't be useful, a lesson good old Ridley had reminded him of.

Old hurts and grudges meant nothing if it kept Danny out of harm's way. He'd get Syd on his side if he had to dispose of every Green within the rookeries.

Either that, or he was wolf food.

He extracted the plans from his coat and passed them to Syd, knowing this gamble was bigger than the rest. One didn't like to hand over the exact layout of one's mansion to known criminals without a bit of trepidation. But for Danny, he'd invite his second-worst enemy into his home. He'd serve the whole lot of bastards from his own plate if that was what it took. "Take a look at these and tell me what you think."

Syd glanced at Fellow Hall's architectural prints and frowned. "What does an old house have to do with Nic?"

Percy pointed to a spot on the drawing, the perfect place on the estate to trap a monster. "Everything."