Page 1 of At Your Mercy

1

Wesley

“Is this seat taken?” a sultry voice purred. My gaze dragged from the young man’s sparkling heels, up his long, creamy white legs to his fitted leather shorts, to the skin peeking out from the sequined cowl halter top he wore.

He was all fine lines and sharp angles, his face feminine, with plush lips and eyelashes that looked like spun silk.

His eyes were like nothing I’d ever seen before—like the palest blue surrounded by a light pink hue. His white hair hung just below his shoulders, dusting his collarbones.

I let my gaze linger longer than I should have, tracing him like a puzzle I hadn’t yet decided if I wanted to solve. He was fragile-looking, like a porcelain doll, but there was nothing fragile in the deliberate sway of his hips. His beauty wasn’t soft—it was a blade honed too thin.

Piercing.

I threw a quick glance around our V.I.P. table, making eye contact with one of our cleaners, Tex. Waggling his thick eyebrows, he gave me a wink, seemingly all for the boss getting laid tonight.

The rest of my team was either not in attendance or just not interested in this turn of events. Carson, another one of my cleaners, was focused on the dance floor below, no doubt keeping an eye on his unrequited crush, Yazmin. Yaz was one of our operatives, immensely skilled in discrete eliminations, but quite a club rat when she wasn’t on a job.

Ichabod, my head researcher and tech guy, had been glued to his phone since before we’d even walked in, utterly uninterested in the debauchery going on around him.

Looking back at the minx in front of me, I said, “Suppose so,” my voice low. “But a pretty young thing like you has no need sitting on an old man’s lap.”

Tex barked a laugh at that, but I didn’t take my eyes off the stranger. The kid tilted his head, lips curling.

“Maybe that’s exactly what I need,” he murmured.

A ripple of something dangerous slid through me—heat, curiosity, warning. He wasn’t one of ours. I’d have remembered him. And yet he carried himself like he belonged in my orbit. Like he’d been made to catch my eye.

I gestured to my lap. “It’d be my pleasure then,” I drawled.

He slid into it like liquid, sequins catching the light, a bundle of temptation.

“My name’s Ro,” he said, leaning closer so his perfume—smokey and sweet, like sugared almonds and burnt embers—slid beneath my skin. “You look like a man who gets what he wants. Am I wrong?”

I chuckled, slowly. “I don’t want many things.”

He smiled like I’d said exactly what he was waiting for. “Is that so?”

Ro draped his arms over my shoulders, his top sliding to reveal one of his rosy nipples.

“Are you supposed to be my birthday gift, babydoll?”

“Is it your birthday?”

I made an affirmative noise, nosing the side of his neck. “My fiftieth.”

“Fifty,” Ro repeated, tasting the word like it was ripe fruit on his tongue. He tilted his head back just enough to look down at me through those pale lashes, a smile tugging at his lips. “Then I suppose I should make sure it’s a memorable night.”

Tex whooped from across the table. “Hell, Wes, you don’t need us here if you’ve already got company.”

Carson snorted into his drink, but Ichabod finally looked up from his phone for the first time that night, gaze narrowing at the stranger in my lap. Always the suspicious one. Good. Someone had to be.

“Easy, boys,” I said, dragging a palm over Ro’s bare back, just enough to feel the line of bone beneath soft skin. “We don’t chase off gifts.”

Ro leaned close, whisper-soft, his breath brushing the shell of my ear. “Some gifts are best unwrapped in private.”

My pulse ticked hard, but I smiled. “That so?”

He shifted, grinding down just enough that Tex let out a whistle, making Carson roll his eyes.