Chapter Seven #4
“Yes. Only small traces were left. Enough to hinder healing. Please sit up and relax, Liam. Let me finish this. It’s okay now.
As you can see, I’m perfectly healed.” He did as she asked so easily that she was surprised, but after smoothing her skirt back into place, he returned a possessive arm around her waist, fingers pressed into her side firmly.
“Liam,” she scolded with a laugh, “this is a little awkward.” She indicated how he was keeping her cuddled close like some kind of favorite toy.
But when she met his eyes and saw the cold glitter within and the thin line of his compressed lips, her amusement floated away. She held her hands poised mid stitch as she stared at his black expression and tried to understand it.
“How much does it take, Devon?” he asked in a low, flat voice that seemed so alien coming from him when she was used to the depth and richness of his normal speech.
She blinked. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Mercury. How much does it really take? What’s the process? The science? We put about a half a cc in our bullets, and we haven’t had enough experience to really figure it out, but I know you know, and I want you to tell me.”
Devon felt an icy chill walk her spine and she turned to look at her hands, though she was too blinded by emotion to move them. “I’m not supposed to—”
“Don’t spout that confidentiality bullshit to me, Devon. I’m the one who figured this out in the goddamn first place! Now answer me! How much does it take? I know one bullet isn’t usually enough, unless maybe it’s the luckiest shot in a lifetime. Tell me.”
“It varies, depending on the sex and size of the Morphate,” she said quietly, “but fifteen milliliters will guarantee death in any Morphate.”
“A tablespoon?” he said almost numbly.
“Yes, but … bullets are also doing damage and spreading the contaminant, so it can take less in those circumstances. For instance the damage you did to kill your original Morphate. The mercury and glass went straight into his brain, that was why it worked so fast and so thoroughly even though there wasn’t all that much in the vial. ”
His hand slid from her waist, down the curve of her buttock and curled around her formerly injured thigh once again, the stroke all about tenderness and nothing sexual.
It stole her breath away and she looked down on his bent head with bemusement.
She automatically continued her stitches as she waited to see what he would do next.
He seemed to shift in such odd directions so suddenly, she simply couldn’t figure him out.
“What happens if it’s not enough mercury? Poisoning?”
“A tablespoon brings instant vaporization once it floods the major organs. Just about anything less than that simply kills more slowly with poisoning. It would have to be less than a teaspoon in order for the Morphate to survive.”
“A single bullet.”
“Just about,” she agreed with a nod. “Depends on the caliber and the load in the particular bullet.”
“So someone came at you with an Uzi full of mercury and you managed to get out of that alive?”
Thinking she saw where he was headed now, she took the scissors from his other hand and neatly trimmed her work, inspecting it as she thought about what to say to him. She was not going to tell him any more lies, but she sensed he was already broiling with temper.
“I would be dead if he’d just shot me while I slept,” she said carefully, pulling off her gloves and tossing everything over to the nightstand with a noisy clang.
She pushed back a little so she could frame his face in her hands and tilted up so she could meet his hard eyes.
“However, the sight of me naked in my bed gave him other ideas first, thereby giving me the advantage.”
“Motherfucker!”
The evil expletive exploded out of him as he tried to find his feet. Devon knew he couldn’t help himself. He was a man used to action and motion. In a temper, he no doubt wanted to stalk and pace to vent his emotion.
However, that wasn’t going to be an option for him this time.
She set a strong hand down on his good shoulder, exerting her strength against his as she held him down.
It was far easier than it would have been had he been in good health.
Regardless, Liam was furious on so many levels it was a wonder he didn’t split right apart.
Keeping him still wasn’t helping matters.
Devon shrugged and smiled just a little before she used her free hand to catch his face and turn him up to the fall of her mouth.
Liam was too combustible to take her gently, his entire psyche roiling with feelings he couldn’t name, never mind grasp.
He damn well didn’t appreciate her strong-arming him, and her tactic to distract him was the oldest trick in the book!
He used the arm around her waist to yank her into his body, lay back and rolled with her until she was once again under him.
Liam’s goal was to take the dominant position and get up once she no longer had him caged in.
Although, the moment he settled into her long, soft body, he found he suddenly wasn’t in so much of a rush anymore.
Her mouth was damp and lush and he was channeling anger like hunger into her kiss, and she was returning it to him measure for measure.
Slowly he became aware of the true heat of her body, the awesome womanly scent of her flowing all over him as he drew away from her mouth just enough to look down into pale jade eyes clouded with need and swollen lips gleaming with the mark of his kiss.
Then he realized he was too damn tired to put up a fight anymore. He ached from head to toe with pain and pent up passion. His shoulder was throbbing and he felt like Quasimodo with an enormous hump deforming him.
He was nestled snugly between the thighs of the most outrageously sexy woman in all the living world, and all he wanted to do was lick every succulent inch of her until he satisfied the seemingly insatiable need he had to taste her.
And that was only the start of a long list of insatiable needs he had concerning her.
Devon watched Liam very carefully and felt when the weight of his body began to increase exponentially on top of hers, pressing her deeply into the mattress.
His lashes lowered over dimming dark eyes and she heard him sigh just before he stroked his mouth over hers in a slow, steady kiss that was thoughtful and skilled rather than wildly emotional, as it had been a moment ago.
Either way, he was one of the most incredible kissers she’d ever known.
He took such care to search and search, craving the knowledge of every inch of her mouth, but never overwhelming or intrusive in his passionate hunt.
Slowly she felt the change from his trying to arouse her to just taking pleasure in the softness and taste of her mouth.
By the time he lifted his head again, she could barely breathe beneath his weight on top of her, but she made not the slightest complaint as his lashes shadowed his cheeks and the tension washed out of his facial features.
He stared down at her and reached to toy with a lock of her hair, gently sliding the silky texture between his fingers.
“I know what’s happening,” he mused in a voice roughed and slurred with sudden exhaustion. “Promise me you won’t go out of the house without me.”
“Liam …”
“Promise,” he demanded, lowering his head to kiss the pulse along the side of her neck. “I trust my people, but don’t risk them yet. I need time. Promise.”
“Okay,” she breathed against his ear, her fingers sifting through his spiky hair, feeling the dampness of perspiration in it. “I won’t leave.”
Satisfied, Liam laid his head down on her shoulder and fell asleep.
Devon let an entire thirty minutes pass, letting him reach a deep sleep and, to be honest, relishing the weight of him on her. Then she gently rolled him off of her body, arranged him comfortably in bed, and left the room to update his waiting coworkers on his condition.