“God, babe, don’t look at me like that right now. My hands are already shaking,” he whispered in pained confession against the sweep of her ear.
“Leader, Alpha Two. Suspect apprehended … sort of. Sweeping areas now.”
“Define ‘sort of,’” he demanded irritably. Now was not the time for his team to get cryptic.
“Well, Inez kinda had to make a cloud of him. Sorry, Leader, but he had her in his sights. She didn’t have much choice.”
“Do a double sweep,” Liam ordered roughly. “I’ll be down when I’ve secured the principal.” Liam looked down at her. She had a strange smile on her face. “What?”
“Mmm, I’m just wondering how you plan to secure your principal.”
She made it sound naughty, and clearly by the gleam in her eyes that was the whole idea. Liam slammed a hand into the wall near her head in frustration. “This isn’t a game, Devon! This guy wanted to kill you and you’re out here …”
“Flirting shamelessly?” she supplied. “Fine. Go beat your prisoner,” she said with a huffy wave. “I’ll go down to the inside parlor and have a nightcap where there are no windows. Should I take a gun?”
“Damn it, Devon! This isn’t a—!”
Devon stopped him by throwing herself at him; sealing her mouth over his until he was kissing her so fiercely she was bending back over his arm. Her leg snaked around his, the muscle flexed so hard it was like clinging to a tree. She also broke the kiss off, thrusting herself away from him. She was panting hard for breath and she pressed a hand to her wet, bruised lips.
“I will never think this is a joke!” she spat at him. “Sending any of you to face down a maniac with a rifle isn’t funny to me at all!” She spun away from him and ran like lightning down the stairs and into the belly of the house.
Liam sighed, now remembering why it was a bad idea to get involved with a principal.
Chapter Sixteen
He found her exactly where she’d said she would be, a glass of cognac in her hand, an unknown amount in her belly. It was almost 2 A.M.
“Is everyone all right?” she asked him immediately, the tone of her voice stark and quiet.
Liam didn’t want to be hard on her because it had been a rough few minutes there, shifting between desire and fear and fury. He knew his brain had taken quite a while to clear, and his body a bit more beyond that, although adrenaline shifted quite well in transition. Plus, it had been yet another attempt on her life. That made two in four days’ time. He couldn’t blame her for feeling out of sorts because she had a bull’s-eye painted on her pretty little posterior.
“Liam, I’m such a fool,” she said suddenly, bowing her head and sighing. “I know better than this. It was so stupid.”
Liam hadn’t expected her to blame herself like that, so he was a little taken aback. But then he chided himself for the reaction. She had never been the sort to put her own pride and her need to be right above the reality of a situation.
Devon stood up, her skirt revealing her curvaceous legs, her bare skin flashing warmly as she began to pace in a short circuit. Her hair swished around in a dark cloud that was still tangled from his fingers running through it. Her breasts swayed gently under the thin fabric of her blouse with every turn, the tips slightly prominent. She was damnably beautiful, Liam thought with a pained groan.
She turned and walked up to him, ditching her glass along the way. “Liam, I’m not the panicky and clingy sort. I admire and respect your work a great deal and I’m fully aware of your ability to care for yourself and others in any situation. I only said what I did because I was confused and angry. I was frustrated and so damned horny I could reinvent the orgasm given half a chance. And yes, that’s a damned hint,” she finished off, hands on her hips in a way that made the thrust of her breasts more pronounced.
Liam blinked. She was apologizing for having a hissy in a bad situation. Hell, if he had a dime … and considering how many attempts had been made on her life, she was fully entitled!
And she was …
Horny.
“Devon,” he said, clearing the sudden catch in his throat. “Firstly, I’m not upset about things getting confused and temperamental. You were overdue by that point. So was I.”
“It would appear that danger, passion, and fear are a volatile mix,” she sighed.
He laughed at her. “Now that you mention it, yeah,” he chuckled. “Which brings me to something else.” He rubbed his hands together, the fingers slightly chilled from being out of doors. “We found a nest, as I like to call it. Deep inside the tree line but within visual observation of the property. There were signs of more than one dweller. I’m guessing the female and now this male. He was getting into position tonight, it seemed. The bullets were dirty with mercury so I’m guessing …”
Devon wrapped her arms around herself in a hug as she absently stroked her shoulder. She walked a short distance away from him.
“It’s hardly worth pointing out the details. We know where this all originates.” She stopped and looked him square in the eye. “And I know you think you’re slacking in your job because of earlier. I don’t blame you if you want to withdraw from our … our physical relationship. I’m a distraction. And you hate it.”
Liam wasn’t stupid or dense. He could see the weight on her mind in every step she took. She was right. She was a distraction. Every time he touched her it was as though caution just blew away like a leaf on the wind.
“Honey, listen to me,” he said softly. “There are reasons why getting tangled up with you is a bad idea for both of us.” He watched her turn slowly around to face him.
“I know that. And I understand if you want to—”
“No! No, that’s not what I want at all!” he barked, startling her. “Why are you always so accommodating? Hmm? With me, I mean. You push everyone else around like carefully crafted chess pieces, but with me you bend and turn wherever you think I want you to go.”
“There is one piece on a chess board you don’t push around until absolutely necessary,” she huffed back at him. “Right now, you are that piece.”
“That is total bullshit! I’m not some king you have to protect! It’s the other way around, Devon! I’m protecting you, remember?”
“I know that! But you don’t understand, Liam. I’m protecting you from me! From things about me I …” Devon went mute, shaking her head as words failed her and distress flooded her eyes.
“Don’t!” Liam marched up to her and seized her shoulders, giving her a shake. “Don’t treat me like this. I’m not some ignorant grunt. I have a brain and know how to use it. Why don’t you just let me decide for myself how to think and feel about you and stop worrying so damned much?”
“I worry,” she whispered. “I can’t help it. And I don’t think you’re ignorant, Liam. I’m … I’m afraid.” She drew a shaky breath and met his eyes. He could feel her trembling between his hands. “I’m a woman of truth, but I cannot be truthful. I’m a woman of honor, and yet I’m behaving so dishonorably.” She brought a hand to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears. “I am a woman of passions beyond the measure of your understanding, or even mine, and I know that you pull at me like no other. God, Liam, I’m blinded by my passion for you and I don’t even understand why. I swore to myself I wouldn’t make love with you, and yet …”
“And yet, so much for honor and truth, hmm?” he asked softly. “I know the feeling, babe. I made the same promise to myself and began breaking it five seconds later. That isn’t like me. None of this is how I operate, either in work or with a woman. It’s actually making me a little crazy. But, you know what? Sometimes crazy is good for you.” He drew a deep breath and sighed it out from his toes, reaching to ruffle a hand through his crisp hair. “Devon, I’m a real stickler for rules and responsibility, but if I look at myself and see myself flying in the face of what I usually live and breathe by … I have to know it means something. I’m sure it means something.” Whether he was willing to speak the wor
ds to himself or out loud right then, that was another issue. But he wanted her to know this wasn’t all just … nothing. Convenience. Irresponsibility. It was none of the things she was accusing them both of.
“And what about the rest?” she asked, reaching to run a warm hand across his chest, unable to keep from touching him a moment longer.
“Mmm,” he hummed with pleasure at her touch. “That is a good question. You’re a very big distraction, Devon. A dangerous one.” Liam reached out and smoothed back her hair. “But there’s nothing I can do about that, now is there? Even if I tried to walk around this house ignoring you, it would still distract me. All I can do is hand over my post to one of the other Field Leaders. It’s the best and safest answer.”
“Oh,” she said quietly.
Liam chuckled softly. “Unfortunately, that means that Field Leader is going to have to put up with me trying to micromanage his every action.” He leaned closer and nuzzled her ear to whisper hotly across it. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me. In every way I can possibly stick to you.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed hard as shivers shuddered through her. “What does that mean?” she demanded roughly. “What are you saying? Please.”
Liam circled her arms a little tighter, drawing her against his extraordinarily muscled body until she melted in that way that made her fit him with marvelous perfection.
“It means,” he growled, “I’m going to make you come until California falls in the ocean.”
When they stumbled into Devon’s bedroom, they were locked together in a passionate kiss that had started as an aching seduction in the parlor. Liam had a way with his tongue, slow and searching alternating with light teasing flicks, and it drove her crazy. He shut the door and leaned back against it, catching her body’s forward motion by her breasts. Cuddling both up tight in his palms, his thumbs and forefingers seized her flirtatious nipples and pulled them into attentive, anxious points.
Devon drew away from his mouth and reached to nuzzle his ear and neck. He lowered his head to accommodate her. “Liam,” she purred, “I want to taste myself again in your mouth.”
Liam jerked his head back so fast that he smacked it into the door. Devon gasped and reached to nurse his wounded skull with gentle hands and a giggle. “If I’d known it was going to be such a dangerous remark, I wouldn’t have said anything.”
“Bite your tongue,” he growled, jerking her up tight against him. “I love what you said. Want proof?” His smile was crooked and sly and she laughed. She reached out boldly and ran her palms down the length of his fly, feeling how stone hard he was.
“I’ve got proof,” she whispered against his lips as he surged against her palm.
“Well, what do you know? Same as my proof.”
“How about that?” she laughed, a twinkle of delight in her eyes.
“Isn’t that known as simpatico?” he asked as he kissed the corner of her lips, his hands sliding down her throat slowly.
“Mmm, close enough,” she murmured against his mouth, the words rolling like thick syrup off her tongue. “God, your mouth drives me crazy,” she breathed as he continued to tease her with light, sipping kisses around her lips.
“Is that so?” he asked, loosing a low, short chuckle. “Fair play, baby, because everything about you drives me crazy.”
“Hmm, I’m all for fair play. Equal rights. We shall overcome,” she whispered as she unhitched his heavy belt from around his hips, the tools of his trade scraping across a tabletop nearby as she discarded it. She next reached for his snug black T-shirt, drawing it out of the waistband of his pants until she could slide her palms hungrily over the hot skin of his back and shoulders. She felt the play of taut muscles flexing as she moved over them, filling him with tension and pleasure until he sighed out a long sound of stimulated gratification.
Liam felt the slight clutch of her nails when he finally stopped teasing her and seized her mouth in a scorching kiss. Her entire body burrowed up into him, feminine lines and curves matching his masculine ones, softness meshing with hardness. His heart throbbed with excitement, with the cravings she inspired so effortlessly. Liam reached for her skirt, dragging the material up her legs to her hips. His fingertips touched bare skin across her hip and he groaned with delight when he remembered she was completely naked beneath it. A few quick motions and she’d be naked in his arms.
He took a step, the movement sliding his thigh between hers until she stepped back for balance. They began a slightly clumsy trek toward her bed. All the while, their lips clung in long drugging kisses. Even when she laughed at her awkward travel backward their mouths did not part. Devon’s lips were bruised and tingling with heat and sensitivity, but it would take a lot more than that to get her to relinquish the mouth of this man who kissed like sin itself. Her legs bumped into the bed at last, one of the posts nudging at her shoulder.
“I’ve been dreaming about you these past few days,” he confessed in a heated whisper, both hands under her skirt and stroking up her thighs.
“Really?” she managed as his fingertips stroked teasing caresses over the fronts of her thighs, a brief slip between them for the heat she radiated like a furnace, a ghosting stroke over her pubic bone, and then up over her hips to the rounds of her bottom.
Liam closed his eyes as he drew her forward, locking her hips against his own and undulating against her fabulously soft heat. “Yes,” he rasped roughly. “I was dreaming of the first time I saw you. You were so beautiful that day I met you. You took my breath away. You still do.” Liam listened to her soft panting breaths and smiled against the side of her neck. He nipped at the sensitive skin there, feeling her shiver in response. “All I could think about was all the things I instinctively wanted to do to you. Things I kept myself from doing. But in my dreams I don’t hold myself in check. In my dreams … how many times do you think I’ve made love to you? How many ways? How often have I heard you cry out in pleasure? God, I hate waking up from that.
“But then when I do,” he breathed, “I have reality, and it’s always more than the fantasy ever could be.” Liam slid his hands high up her sides, bracketing her ribcage and feeling its wild expansions as she dragged in breath after breath. “Your skin is softer, your mouth more delicious and hot, and your scent … mmm …”
Devon felt him breathe in deeply against her neck as his enormous hands slid up to capture her naked breasts beneath her gathered blouse. “Oh, Liam,” she uttered on a shaking gasp as his thumbs rubbed over her sensitized nipples and her breasts swelled with heat and arousal.
“Not many women can claim to be the perfect handful for a man of my size, honey, but you can.” He growled the observation beneath her ear just before reaching to suckle the lobe briefly. “Lift your arms,” he coaxed her silkily.
She did and the blouse flew off, floating to the floor and forgotten an instant later. Liam took a step back so he could ravage her with hungry eyes. Devon reached out for him, slipping strong fingers around the waistband of his black pants and tugging him forward with demanding insistence. He obeyed when he felt her fingers brush over the tip of his erection. A moment later he was flush against her while she stripped him of his T-shirt and worked open his regular belt and his fly. Her teasing fingers brushed against him again and again, flitting away to a new task the minute he began to make a sound of response.
Liam grabbed her around her mid-back and hoisted her clear off her feet. He dragged the little tease up along his body until her breasts were level with his mouth. Instinctively her legs hooked around his ribs and waist, her hands clutching his shoulders as he lined her spine up against the bedpost. He caught her nearest nipple teeth first, drawing it through light scraping nips and the long stroke of his tongue.
Devon gasped and moaned, her hands clutching his head now, tangled in his crisp cut the best she could manage, holding him to his task. She shuddered against him, her legs tightening around him, drawing his lower belly flush to her hot, wet core. And sh
e was getting wetter all the time, each pull of his mouth on her breast driving her wild with internal fire and aching longing.
Liam abandoned her tender nipples suddenly, his forehead pressing against her breastbone in between the beautifully shaped globes, his breath coming so hard he could barely see straight. “God!” he cried. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me!”
The statement was a warning. The only one he could sanely manage. He felt as though he had been waiting for her forever, and he couldn’t bear the separation for another second. He reached beneath her bottom to free himself from his pants.
“Yes! Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, knowing instantly what his intentions were.
“Relax your legs just a little, Devon,” he coaxed her.
She did, sliding down his belly until she held on by his hips and she could feel his shaft sliding up between her legs, the tip plowing through wet flesh until he was notched to her entrance. His hands came to grasp her hips, holding her right where he wanted her.
“I’m …” he gasped, his mouth brushing hers between drags for oxygen. “I want your teeth in me when I do this.”
“No. Not so soon,” she denied him in breathless gasps. But he could tell it wasn’t too soon. She could barely close her lips, her fangs were protruding so far. “I like it best,” she amended, “when you’re coming. It tastes like nirvana. It makes me fly.” She shuddered in his hold. “Just come inside me,” she begged impatiently. “Please, Liam … Liam, please …”
She began to chant his name, over and over, against his lips, within his mouth. That low, sultry artistry of his name. Liam couldn’t bear it, so he slipped his hand over her mouth as he thrust up into her, feeling the pricking of her upper canines in the meat of his palm. She was tight. Like a fist squeezing snug around him. He heard her muffled cry against his hand, knowing it was an even sexier call of his name and thanking heaven for his forethought. Much more of that and he would have exploded before he’d had a chance to get started.
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