“You are so beautiful,” he breathed. Standing over her, rampant in the moonlight, he gazed down at her body. “You are as lovely and as perfect as I imagined you would be.”Afraid to believe, afraid to trust, she dared a look at him and felt her heart wrench when she read his expression and understood that she truly was whole and beautiful in his eyes. She was a magnificent to him as he was to her.”

“It was when she returned to him, chilled & clearheaded, that it happened. He sat against the tree, his knees bent & his head in his hands. His shoulders slumped. Tired, unhappy. Something tender caught in her breath at the sight of him. And then he raised his eyes and looked at her, and she saw what she had not seen before. She gasped.His eyes were beautiful. His face was beautiful to her in every way, and his shoulders and hands. And his arms that hung over his knees, and his chest that was not moving, because he held his breath as he watched her. And the heart in his chest. This friend. How had she not seen this before? How had she not seen him? She was blind. And then tears choked her eyes, for she had not asked for this. She had not asked for this beautiful man before her, with something hopeful in his eyes that she did not want.”

“Liam stared at her, his gaze glittering hot with something she was afraid to identify because it made her knees weak and she couldn’t breathe from the intensity and pace of her heart pounding away in her chest.He wanted to kiss her.He didn’t want to want to kiss her—she could read that in his expression, as well—but she knew he did. And right, then. Cop or not—mistake that it would be— she wanted him to kiss her, too.”

“She looked at him, watched the lights from the stage flicker over his expression, in the dark depths of his eyes. There was a whole other world in there, she thought and it was hers to explore forever if she would stop being so afraid.”

“It was over. He knew, but she did not. He could tell by the way she nuzzled him, how her body relaxed in his embrace, how she sighed when he kissed the top of her head. She was still hopeful, he thought, and that made her beautiful. Suddenly he could not bear to imagine a life without her.”

“I am Kian.” “Mercy ” she replied. Swallowing hard she forced her gaze away from him. She was being too bold in her perusal but she could not stop looking at him. “Kindness ” he whispered. Their eyes locked and Mercy felt a jolt of some foreign but not unwelcome sensation pierce her. “I could use some of you”he said thoughtfully as his cool gaze devoured her. “Most definitely I could use you.”He rose and walked around the pond perusing her body as he came to stand beside her. “The milk of human kindness how sweet the taste.”He actually licked his lips and Mercy shivered her core heating and wetting. Then he lowered himself until they were eye to eye. “I believe I could drink you dry.”