By the time Liam ran into the room, the assassin was fleshy pulp, barely recognizable as a woman at all. Certainly no longer dangerous. But he could tell Devon was badly injured. The only act of bravery left for him to do was to reach out and touch her shoulder, inserting himself into a violent berserker episode.
She turned on him with a growl of pure savagery and only his fast reflexes spared him her claws as they swiped at his face and belly. When her slashing hand came back at him for a second go, her eyes blinded by coats of blood, he caught her wrist and slapped his gun into her palm. The feel and weight of the hard steel triggered things in her mind, made her react with logic rather than limbic systems. Emotional, knee-jerk reaction melted away far enough for her to recognize that the thing in her hand might help her achieve her goal.
Devon rose to her feet, her body shaking with the overdose of adrenaline it had been using. Without an instant of hesitation, she pointed the gun at her assassin’s head and fired it twice, the amazing accuracy of the second shot near the first something only he would ever have the opportunity to appreciate. Even as Devon was stepping away, turning her back on her victim, the body seized once and exploded into a gaseous cloud.
Devon stood there, shaking, raising blood doused eyes to his, only the briefest of fears hurrying through her slowly stabilizing mind. As she looked into his eyes she realized that her savagery would never frighten this man. Never once had the nature of who and what she was caused him hesitation.
“Come,” he said softly, holding out his hand and beckoning her forward with the flicking of two fingers.
With her heartbeat raging in her ears still, her blood burning furiously in her veins, and her breath choking in and out of her lungs with every breath, she did as he bade her to do. She moved into his embrace. Devon felt him take his weapon from her sticky hand and heard him click it into his holster as he pulled her tight to his chest.
Liam held her to himself, simply stood there and acted as an anchor for her, ignoring his own surges of fury that she had been up here, alone and injured, fighting for her life while he had been out of reach checking the stupid windows. Once again she had had to fight for her own life, a blood-strewn room the terrible evidence of how desperate the battle had been. But when he had heard the sounds of struggle and come running to her, he’d hit the threshold of the bathroom door and stood there an entire heartbeat, staring and asking himself one very clear question.
What the hell did she need him for?
Yes, she was injured. Yes, she could have been the one on the bottom side of the fight. But he doubted it. His practiced eyes took in everything in the room and realized the only one who had ever been in danger had been the would-be assassin. The words spinning from her lips had only reinforced his instinctive knowledge. This woman had probably forgotten more about self-defense and fighting than he had ever learned.
What?
What the hell did she need him for?
Liam was not the whiny, needy type. Nor was he the type who could only function as the dominant personality. He preferred to train his principals to take care of themselves. And he had signed on with the understanding that Devon had fought against death all on her own once before. But what he did need was to understand his true role in any situation. He recalled she had been quite straightforward about her needs. That she wasn’t interested in simply being protected. She wanted to eliminate the threat altogether. He had agreed with her approach.
But since then he had learned she was a Morphate, and that her enemies were most likely other Morphates. Very seriously pissed off Morphates by the look of it. So did Devon need his team merely as disposable muscle to wield her weapons? He imagined getting her kind to carry mercury would be a little bit tricky. Then again, she had made it safe enough for anyone to use.
Liam tried to quiet his mind a little as he saw her struggling for breath, blood and flesh congealing on her skin. He felt his own issues and questions fading quickly as he reached out to touch her temple, his fingers brushing her gently, calmingly.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Had it been anyone else, any human, his priorities would have been very different. He would have been rushing to apply first aid and get her to the nearest E. R. However, he knew he couldn’t do that. Not just because she would heal on her own. But because it was illegal for Morphates to imitate humans, he would blow her cover and potentially send her to jail.
He drew her out of her bathroom and into his own suite. He led her back into his bathroom, keeping one hand on her at all times as he used the other to rummage in one of his smaller supply bags resting on the vanity. He pulled a syringe out of the first-aid kit he found, used his thumb to pop the top off it and exposed the pressure needles. He moved aside the ruined fabric of her dress, the tissue-thin fabric now plastered to her body in a macabre papier-mâché of silk and blood. The pressure needle engaged the moment he applied strength to it, injecting her with painkiller. Nothing much, just enough to get her through the worst of the healing process, he guessed.
“I’ll metabolize it very quickly,” she murmured, blowing that idea out of the water.
“It’ll help in the meanwhile,” he said with a shrug. It would have to. He couldn’t stand the idea of her being in such pain for much longer.
“There are longer-acting ones. Made for Morphates.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said, frowning as he gave her a once-over. “Do you have any here?”
She laughed a raspy sound without any humor. “I have a factory full of them in Kuala Lumpur. I invented them with the help of a brilliant scientist named Genesis Gregory about forty-two years ago. Genesis is Kincaid Gregory’s wife. We’ve been manufacturing the drugs ‘illegally’ for several decades. Waiting for the Federated Drug Association to approve something that could cause a human being to overdose is … well … something of an uphill battle.”
“So … weapons … and now drugs. That’s starting to make you something of a cliché, Devon,” he said, his tone in no way judgmental. He was aware of how Morphates had had to work outside the law to make even the smallest strides forward.
“Seems if there’s a Morphate centered law to be broken, I’ve broken it,” she acknowledged grimly. “That is why I distanced myself from Nick and Amara. They are working so hard through legal and proper channels to see to it that Morphates can one day find equal standing in our society. Everything they do must appear completely aboveboard or everything they have struggled for will collapse. I won’t have that. Someone has to get dirty, and it can’t be them.” She raised her eyes to his, her lashes stuck together in pointy clumps. The red on her face made the green of her eyes jump out in startling contrast, the sadness in them causing an instant knot in his throat. “I’m Amara’s Beta. It’s my job to protect her at all costs. It always will be. Even if that means leaving her and the only people who could possibly accept me for what I really am.”
“I accept you for what you really are,” he told her softly, his fingers curling under her chin to make sure she didn’t look away from him. To make sure she saw the steadiness of his eyes. To make sure she understood that it wasn’t just words, and that he was including every bestial layer within her. “I accept the Devon that bites and claws at me when she comes. The Devon that is so brilliant I doubt I’ll ever be honored to know her equal in my lifetime. I accept,” he said, firmly gripping her chin when she went to shift her gaze aside, “the Beta. The vicious assassin who is second to the most powerful female Morphate in the world. Who just handed that joke of an assassin her ass. I accept it all, Devon.”
He didn’t so much as twitch as she searched him for a glimmer of uncertainty. A dash of overconfidence. But he was not speaking randomly or handing her platitudes. He was reminding her that if any human out there was capable of fully comprehending her, it was he.
“Devona,” she rasped softly after a long series of heartbeats.
“Excuse me?”
“Devona. I was born with t
he name Devona Chandler. It’s funny how dropping a single letter here and there can help you disappear into our society and become an entirely different person. I am Devona Chandler. I am Amara Gregory’s Beta. I am one of the wealthiest women in the world. I am Morphate and I am deadly. But you know all of this. You accept all of this. And I don’t doubt you. What I find so hard to believe is why you haven’t even so much as hesitated. You watched me pull that girl apart and your only action was … was to hand me a gun. In what world does that make sense? To discover you are sleeping with a killer. What makes you so okay with that?”
“Because you are sleeping with a killer,” he reminded her gently. “Isn’t that really why I’m here? I’m a killer of Morphates. But also I’m a killer of men. Isn’t that what a soldier boils down to? Someone who has it in them to be okay with taking the lives of others. A career soldier even more so. I am in no position to judge you for who and what you are any more than you are to judge me. I see a kindred spirit in you. Although to be honest I find you a bit out of my league.”
“A better beast than you? A more savage animal?” she queried bitterly, punctuating it with a terse laugh.
“No, babe. A better person than me. More refined. More intelligent. Tomorrow you could decide to change everything about you and you’d have the wherewithal to do it. Me, I’ll always be a soldier. In one form or another.”
“I can’t change everything,” she pointed out in a whisper. “No matter what, I’ll always be a Morphate. I’ll always be an animal.”
“Don’t let the blood fool you,” he said softly as he began to peel away what remained of her dress. “We are all of us animals, sweetheart. It’s just whether we let that part of our nature show or not. All I see here is a woman who just fought for her life. More importantly, one who won.”
He hit the taps and the tub quickly began to fill while he finished pulling blood-soaked silk free of her skin. He steered her into the shower first, tuning those taps as well before moving her under the water. When she grabbed hold of his shirt and wouldn’t let him move away from her, he kicked off his boots and shed the rest of his clothes just as quickly. His hands ran over her, the tile rushing red around their feet as he rinsed off the worst evidence of her nature. By the time he’d rinsed her hair satisfactorily, she was breathing easier and began to exhale soft sighs of release. She was letting go of the savage instincts she’d had to call on and returning to the Devon he knew.
Devona, he corrected himself. But now was not the time to split hairs about why it had taken so long for her to be completely honest with him. Frankly, he understood. He had lied and omitted his fair share of information to other lovers in his life. It was the nature of his job. It just felt a little strange being on the other side of the equation for a change.
She turned around in his hands, facing him and turning her eyes up to his.
“In a little while I am going to be healed as if this never happened and I am going to want to make love with you just as fiercely as I just fought for my life. How do you feel about that?”
“I think we’re going to take a bath first, let you crash and calm. Let’s wait and see just what you’re in the mood for later.”
She smiled then, the expression in her saying he was so silly to doubt her. Liam’s heartbeat jolted into a little quicker pace. Her confidence as a sexual being would never cease to floor him. As unsure as she might be about the rest of her life, here she had found perfect footing with him.
And frankly, nothing had ever rung truer for him, either.
Chapter Fifteen
Devon relaxed her head back against Liam’s shoulder as his fingers smoothed shampoo lather through her hair. She was already half asleep as she lay beneath the hot, tumbling water with her back to his chest, her bottom settled snugly between his thighs. Despite the openness of their nudity and the sensuality latent in their contact, he’d made no sexual overtures to her, content to let her set the mood and pace. She might have let this passivity worry her, except there was nothing passive about his biological reaction to the feel of her slick, nude body nestled up against him.
Liam enjoyed the way she relaxed under his hands, the way her breathing evened out, and the way she absently curled her hands around his knees to hold on to him. He was aware of the exact moment she fell asleep, but he finished washing the soap from her hair just the same. He slid soapy hands down her shoulders and arms, stroking her gently and slowly. He continued to bathe her, his hands sliding over her throat, her chest, and underarms. He moved on to her breasts, his fingers slipping over her nipples, the aureoles puckering tightly as he swept past. She stirred when he traveled over her belly. Devon turned her head so her face was pressed to his neck, her lips rubbing over him as she smiled sleepily.
“You’re better than a maid,” she murmured.
“Yeah. I can think of one way I’m much better,” he teased her.
“So can I,” she sighed, her hand slipping behind her to seek the erect flesh nestled in the curve of her back.
“There we go, thinking alike again,” he said, his breath catching mid-sentence when her slick fingers encircled him. “You know, you can just relax and sleep if you want. I won’t hold you to earlier promises,” he told her tensely. “I know you had a headache before all this started. It can’t have improved much.”
“I never said I had a headache.”
“You didn’t have to say it. I could tell,” he whispered.
“Mmm, and that’s how you’re so successful at your occupation, where observation is everything.” Devon made the remark absently. She was far more interested in discovering the extent of his arousal and just how hard he really was. Her inquiring fingers alone improved matters, and she could feel him swelling and pulsating with a rush of excitement when she closed her fist around him and stroked him.
“Ahh, baby,” he groaned, his legs shifting restlessly around her. His hands anchored to the tub sides. “Your hands …” he breathed with rough pleasure as she rubbed fingers over and around him. “Do you have any idea how good that feels?”
“Mmm, I have some idea,” she told him, a smile drifting over her lips. She turned around, sliding like a slippery eel until she straddled his hips and had her hand back around him. Her breasts moved against his chest provocatively as she stroked him in several long, stunningly arousing pulls. “I could make you come, yes?”
“Easily,” he growled as his hips began to press up with her caresses.
Devon leaned forward to kiss the corner of his mouth, a butterfly flick of her tongue touching him there. She reached her second hand between his legs and cupping his stones she gently tugged on him and fondled him expertly.
“God, it’s as though we didn’t make love at all,” he said with amazement, “the way I react to you. It feels like the first time. That keen, beautiful feeling of first getting to be with a lover. There’s nothing about you that doesn’t fascinate me. Thrill me.”
“I know,” she sighed, excitement rising as she watched his face and reactions to her touch. “Even when we’re fighting,” she whispered against his ear seductively, “I keep thinking how sexy you look in that outfit you wear when you work. About how sexy you’d look out of it.”
“Hmm … if I’d known that, there wouldn’t have even been an argument.” She laughed, highly doubtful of that. “Or I would have ended it sooner. Watching you at dinner with another man, watching him simply touch your hand … it made me a little crazy, you know. Didn’t help that I kept getting an occasional flash of garters through the material of your skirt.”
“Liked those, did you?” she chuckled with sinful sensuality as she stroked him in quicker motions.
“Devon …” he moaned, his hands reaching to seize her shoulders. “Let me take care of you before you bring me too close,” he said, his voice like sandpaper.
“What’s too close?” she asked curiously as her nails ran over him, forcing nerves into harsher attention.
“A couple more seconds of
that,” he said on harshly falling breath.
She laughed, the sound miles away from the pain she’d been forced to feel at the hands of another just a short while ago. She leaned forward to kiss his shoulder in her delight. “Just making sure I have your attention,” she murmured against his damp skin.
“That has to be a joke,” he laughed abruptly.
“Mmm, nope. Here, is this better?”
She removed her second hand, grasped the edge of the tub over his shoulder and before he could blink, she had guided him into her snug, hot little body.
Definitely better. But damn, he couldn’t get a single word past his throat to tell her so. Luckily, his body spoke for him. His hands clamped onto her hips and he surged up into her.
“One of these days, we’re going to have to try and do this slowly,” she mused impishly as she felt the desperation in his grip.
“Son of a bitch,” he managed at last. “How do you always do this to me?” he demanded. A better question might be ‘why.’ She always seemed so unconcerned with her own pleasure. With her eager, slippery body all over him, however, it was easy for him to be selfish as she commanded his focus. Liam realized that was partially because she seemed to take a great deal of delight in manipulating him until he was out of control. It turned her on, her body growing hotter with each passing moment, her hard nipples sweeping across his chest, her head falling back as she moved with the rhythm of his hands and hips.
“Mmm, Liam you feel so good,” she purred. “You always feel so good.”
Feeling good certainly wasn’t a problem. An excess of feeling good was becoming an issue, however. She had reached out to grip the tub on both sides, giving herself a wicked leverage with which to move. The water washed away the natural lubricants of her body, and friction grew by leaps and bounds.
“Devon, look at me,” he demanded in short, bursting breaths. She lifted her head and opened slumberous, passion-hazed eyes, assuring him that she was just as caught up as he was. “Good girl. Now let’s try something before you have your way with me.”
Dangerous Page 25
