Free Secret Mercy by Rebecca Lyndon Page B

was fine.” Selena pulled out her phone and showed Paige a picture. Dark hair, dark eyes—he was hot. Paige might have even dared to sneak in a picture of him if she had seen him in front of her in line. Okay, she never would have, but she would have thought about it.
    Just like she was now thinking about what it would be like to actually go to Mercy Club. She could only imagine all the delicious kinds of sin that went on in there. Dark and passionate sins. Secret sins.
    Those people probably felt alive.
    But Paige Murphy wasn’t one of them. She couldn’t be. She was the rational one, and rational women did not run off to depraved, lust-filled nightclubs just because they were going through a rough patch. No matter how much they wanted to.
    “Great. I hope you have a wonderful time.” Paige handed Selena her phone.
    “You’re coming with me.” Selena used that tone that Paige dreaded, the one that said that making up her mind was good enough for both of them.
    “But the invitation is only for you. I don't have one.”
    “You don’t need one. I told this guy, Robert, that I wouldn't come unless I could bring a guest.”
    Paige's mouth fell open. “Why the hell would you do that?”
    “Because I am your best friend.” Selena’s expression turned serious. “And because you need this, Paige. I'm worried about you. It was bad enough when you were with Zach, but now it’s even worse.”
    “I’m fine,” Paige tried.
    “No, you’re not. You hardly ever pick up the phone anymore. You never go out. You’re acting like your life ended the day that idiot walked out. You need something to shake you out of it. Promise me that you'll come and stay for a little while. Have a little adventure. Even if nothing happens.”
    “Nothing is going to happen,” Paige said a little too quickly.
    Selena waggled her brows at her. “There’s only one way to find out.”
      “I have nothing to wear.”
    “I had a feeling you would say that, so I brought you something.” Selena tossed her massive bag toward the couch. Paige caught it with a groan. “Come on, Paige, don’t you want to remember what it feels like to be alive?”
    If Selena had said anything else, Paige was certain she could have resisted. But that phrase, so close to those last words that Zach had said before he’d left, was something she couldn’t ignore.
    She had forgotten what being alive felt like. It didn’t matter when it had happened or whose fault it was. All that mattered was that it had happened. And now Paige had the chance to start over.
     
     
    It was time.
    Alan Fitzhugh watched from the second floor balcony as the guests began to filter into Mercy Club. Each one had been invited for a reason, and Alan didn’t have to guess at any of them. He could sense all of their unfulfilled desires. They crowded inside his head. Usually the sound of their combined cravings never rose above a murmur in the background of his mind, but tonight every one of them was a scream pounding against his skull.
    He grasped the railing tighter, his knuckles turning white.
    Two weeks had passed since his friend and former commander, Richard Guildford, had found Cassandra—his One. The orgasm that she’d given him in the Arsenal’s dungeons, the one he had waited nearly a thousand years for, had returned his soul and changed everything.
    Which meant that it had been two weeks since Alan had invited a woman into the club. He’d been foolish to deny himself for this long. He was a creature of pleasure, an incubus. His whole existence was for a single purpose, to offer up women’s pleasure to the goddess who had long ago made him what he was. The otherworldly hunger inside him increased with every passing minute of denial. And while he knew his thirst could never be fully slaked, he didn’t know how much longer he could contain it before it overwhelmed him.
    But he had to try.
    He had been an incubus for so long now that he wasn’t sure that he wanted to change