Dark Mercy (2 page)

“How long have you been working at the Mercy Club?”

Nothing. He didn’t even turn his head to acknowledge her question. She pressed on.

“Do you enjoy working here?”

Marcus stopped on the second floor landing and turned toward her, but his face was still as expressionless as stone. It appeared he was only allowing her short legs time to catch up to his long stride. The second she was back at his side, he silently led her down a long hallway.

Damn. She’d had more luck getting answers out of reluctant generals. As long as he was stonewalling her, she might as well forget about the rapport-building questions and dive straight into the heart of the matter.

“How well do you know the nine men who bought this building?”

Marcus stopped short, and Cassandra thought she was finally going to get an answer out of him.

“I’m sure that Mr. Guildford will answer all of your questions, Miss Davis.” He rapped three times on the door before him. Without waiting for an answer, Marcus swung the door wide, and gestured for her to enter.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest like a shield. Courage, she chided herself. She had been in much more dangerous places than this.

The room that Cassandra stepped into was lushly decorated. Modern paintings hung on the stone walls next to rows of what looked to be medieval weaponry. There were a fair amount of chains and whips as well, Cassandra noted, but it was the enormous four poster bed that demanded her attention.

She pulled her gaze away from it and focused it instead on the well-dressed man standing by the window. Neatly trimmed jet black hair fell just to the top of his ears. His deep blue eyes were focused on her as she stepped into the room. His features were sharp, his jaw line chiseled. His lips were the only part of him that looked soft.

He was handsome, devastatingly so, but more than that, there was an intensity that practically rolled off him.

Another few seconds ticked by. Why was he still staring at her like that?

He wore a dark blue, button-down shirt and an expensive pair of tailored pants. She’d never paid much mind to clothes, but there was something about him that made Cassandra self-conscious of her big box store sweater. So, she was a journalist and not a trust fund baby. That was nothing to be ashamed of.

“Mr. Guildford,” she prompted him when she couldn’t stand his silent scrutiny any longer.

He broke his gaze long enough to nod to Marcus over her shoulder. Cassandra jumped a little as the door closed with a sharp click behind her.

“You may call me Richard.” He pushed away from the wall.

“All right.” Cassandra smiled tightly. Though she would have preferred to keep a comforting formal distance between them, she knew better than to upset such an important interview over something so small.

“You seem uncomfortable.” He stopped at the first post of the bed and leaned against it.

“To be honest Mr. Guild—Richard, I expected we would be conducting this interview in your office, not in your bedroom.”

There was no apology in his smile. “I’m afraid this is as close to an office as I have.”

Cassandra swallowed a frustrated sigh. She was never this easily rattled. She had to regain her composure. Seriously, he wasn’t that hot. Well, okay, he
was
, but that didn’t matter. The only thing that did matter was the story that she had been working on for over a year.

She looked away from his searing gaze, and her eyes caught on the six-foot wooden X standing in the corner.

“That is a St. Andrew’s Cross.” His voice was as smooth as fresh cream.

“I know what it is,” she said.

“Do you indeed?” He arched a single brow. Damn, the combination of those eyes and that voice. No wonder he had the whole city as his feet. “You’re not at all how I imagined you would be.”

“You imagined me?” Cassandra asked before she could stop herself.

“Not surprising. I’m sure you spent the better part of the day picturing me in your mind.”

A hot flush started to burn in Cassandra’s cheeks. “What I meant was, you know who I am?”

“Of course. Miss Cassandra Davis, you’re an easy person to know. You spent several months overseas reporting on the war. Last year, you nearly cost the mayor his job when you broke the story on his office’s accounting discrepancies.”

Cassandra shook her head. “No, the mayor did that all by himself. I just found out about it.”

The corner of his mouth lifted a fraction of an inch. It wasn’t quite a smile, but the effect was still devastating.

“You like uncovering secrets.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s my job.”

“It’s mine as well.”

His eyes stayed on her. He hadn’t glanced away once since she’d entered. His stare made her want to squirm, want to rub her legs together and release some of the pressure that had formed there. She didn’t dare. She had the distinct feeling that he would know exactly what she was doing.

“Funny you should mention your job, because I can’t find any record of you ever having one,” she said.

“I haven’t needed one in a very long time.”

“That must be nice,” Cassandra said wryly.

“Every man has his burden.” There was something in the way he said the last word that caught Cassandra’s ear.

“You’re British,” she said. He’d pushed the accent down, but there was no denying it was there. No wonder his voice was so damn sexy.

“That surprises you?” he asked.

“Seeing as your birth certificate says that you were born in Fort Collins, Colorado, yes, it does.”

Cassandra only had the chance to feel a lick of satisfaction when a crack formed in his smug mask. What was behind it was so much darker. So much more attractive. She took a step back. For the first time in her career, she was seriously contemplating cutting an interview short. Not because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid of her own reaction to him.

“It appears that your reputation for thoroughness is not undeserved,” he said. “Tell me, Cassandra, do you ever give a thought to what you might find when you go digging?” His voice was rougher now.

 “Of course I do.”

“And yet you chose to come here anyway?”

Cassandra straightened instantly. “Is that a threat, Mr. Guildford? Because I don’t care how powerful or well connected you are. I am not afraid of you.”

“Nor should you be,” he said. “I am not concerned about you discovering my secrets, Cassandra, but I am intrigued by the idea of you coming face to face with your own.”

Cassandra swallowed hard. “I don’t have any secrets.”

The wicked smile returned to Richard’s lips, and Cassandra felt her toes begin to tingle. Who the hell was this man that literally made her knees weak.

“Don’t you?” he asked.

“I don’t have any secrets. Nothing important anyway.”

“Oh, but it’s those little secrets that are the most fascinating. Those little fantasies you’ve never dared to speak out loud. Those are the ones that burn the strongest, aren’t they?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Cassandra lied.

He swung his body out from the post and stood directly in front of her. She looked away, unable to meet his gaze. Unfortunately, there was nowhere else to look other than his massive bed.

For a moment she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to be in that bed with him. His lean body propped over hers. Both of them covered in a fine sheen of sweat as they ground against each other.

“No, not the safe ones,” he said, cocking his head to the side as though he could see her thoughts. “The dangerous ones. The ones you keep trying to push down. But they don’t go away, do they? They keep rising up, each time stronger than before.”

Cassandra had the feeling he wasn’t just speaking in the second person. But he couldn’t know. He was no better than a carnival fortune teller, reading her face and playing the odds that, just like everyone else, there was something buried deep inside that she was ashamed of.

“And that’s what you do here at Mercy Club? You give people the chance to act out their secret fantasies.”

“We free people from the bonds of shame,” he said.

“For a price, of course.” She gave an exaggerated look at his outfit. “There must be good money in the wish fulfillment business.”

“I wouldn’t know. There is no charge for our services.”

Cassandra gave a cynical laugh. “You can’t convince me that you’ve spent millions of dollars renovating this place in order to open the world’s first sex charity.”

The corners of his crystal blue eyes lifted slightly, and Cassandra had the feeling that she had given him exactly the opening he had been hoping for.

“Perhaps it would be better if I showed you,” he said.

Cassandra’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t possibly mean….

He strode toward the door. “You can continue with your interview, if you like, while I give you a tour,” he said in a teasing tone.

“Of course.” Her cheeks burnt with embarrassment that he had read her thoughts so easily. “I’ll follow you.”

“I like the sound of that,” he said in a rough whisper as he passed her. A shiver shot through her body, straight to her core. Damn. She had to get a hold of her reaction to him, or her panties would be soaked through before she got out the door.

Marcus was still standing outside the door when Richard opened it. He’d obviously been given instructions to stay, but why? Richard hardly looked like the kind of man who needed a bodyguard.

“I am going to take Cassandra on a tour of the club, Marcus. Will you ready the Iron Room for us?”

Marcus nodded before making his way down the hallway.

“The Iron Room?” Cassandra asked.

“It is in the lower level of the Arsenal. I have a feeling it will be of interest to you.” He guided her toward the stairs.

Cassandra refused to think too hard about what he meant by that. She tried to pick up the conversation from before.

“So you don’t deny that you’ve turned the Arsenal into a sex club?”

“Does that shock you?” he asked.

“I’ve lived my entire life in San Francisco. Very little shocks me.”

“Then why have you taken such an interest in what we are doing here?” There was only genuine curiosity in his voice, no anger.

“There are many people in this community who object to turning this historic landmark into something vulgar.”

He stopped once they reached the next floor. “Vulgar is a harsh word, Cassandra. Is it yours or theirs, I wonder?”

Cassandra opened her mouth, but no answer came. She didn’t have one.

She didn’t
need
to have one, she reminded herself. This was her interview. What she needed to do was wrangle back control of it. She was the one asking questions.

“If you are so proud of this place, why don’t you advertise what you do here?”

“The people who need us find their way here,” he said. “Just like you did.”

Cassandra bit into her lip. She pulled out her slim pocket notebook and scribbled down a few notes. Not that she would need the reminder. She had the feeling that every one of his words would be branded in her brain for a long time.

After a few moments of her stalling, he leaned in close. So close that she could smell the crisp scent of his silk shirt.

“Are you ready?” he asked patiently.

“For what?” she asked, even though she knew well enough. She had come to witness the dirty deeds that went on here. That time had come.

He led her toward the second door on the right. Cassandra closed her eyes as he turned the ornate brass knob. What was she doing? She’d waited over a year to see exactly what went on behind these doors. She couldn’t chicken out now. She forced them open as she walked inside.

The room was narrow, no wider than a utility closet. No doubt that was what it had been before its renovation. Now a whole wall was missing, and in it’s place was the dark side of a two-way mirror. But it was what was on the other side that made Cassandra gasp.

It was an opulent Victorian-themed room, and everything from the burgundy-colored wallpaper to the damask drapes looked as decadent as Cassandra had imagined. A naked woman was draped across the center couch. Her hands were clasped above her head, bound together with a length of crimson silk. A shirtless man stood at the armrest and held the excess like reins, keeping her body pulled tight. Every muscle in his torso was clearly defined. Another man, dressed in the same all black uniform as the security guards, knelt on the floor with his head between her thighs.

Cassandra’s jaw fell open as she watched the woman writhe with pleasure. The woman’s nipples were tight, straining upward as she arched her back. She wasn’t the vision of willowy perfection like the woman who had passed Cassandra on the stairs, but right now in the throes of ecstasy, she was beautiful.

The man holding the silk turned and inclined his head in Richard’s direction.

“Can they see us?” Cassandra asked.

“No,” Richard said.

“Hear us?”

He shook his head.

There had to be some signal she hadn’t caught.

Not that it mattered. Cassandra was more concerned with trying to contain the sizzle of forbidden pleasure that burned inside her. She tried to think of questions to ask him, anything that would distract from what she was watching.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“She is a guest here. I can’t tell you her name; it goes against our privacy rules. But the man licking her pussy is Brian, and the man at her head is Geoffrey.”

“Geoffrey? Geoffrey Stark?” Cassandra glanced at the floor as her memory stirred. “That man is one of the club’s owners?”

“Indeed. He is one of the nine.”

“Do you all take part in your guest’s fantasies?”

“Not always, but when we invite someone here it is for a purpose.”

Goosebumps rose on Cassandra’s arms. Richard stood at her side, but he wasn’t looking through the glass. Just like in the bedroom, his gaze was only on her. She thought of the red envelope that she had found on her desk. Her heart began to pound in her chest as understanding dawned inside her.

Richard Guildford hadn’t accepted her interview request. He had invited her to Mercy Club. For this.