Chapter Nine #2
Devon and Carter finished moving back her schedule the recommended two weeks.
It meant reneging on some important appointments and withdrawing from some events she had agreed to attend, but not very many.
She was not known for her public persona as much as she was the power of her position.
As for the night meetings with the various Morphates she was trying to court, she would design her future meetings to be even more impulsive.
No one but herself and the other party would know the time and location and she would even put off naming the location until the last minute.
She would warn Liam, of course, but only to give him minimum time for preparation.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She was simply tired of learning her lessons the hard way and she refused to make any further mistakes.
Outside of the safety of Dark Manhattan, there was no one she could trust except herself.
She had known that for decades now, but this was going beyond even the precautions of the past. Devon stood up and turned to the windows behind her chair.
She pulled the drapes open now that her desk was cleared of sensitive data and she wasn’t sitting with her back to the glass.
She hadn’t needed Inez to warn her about that vulnerability.
She’d been aware of it already. Still, with a corner office, it was hard for her to find anywhere in the entire room that wasn’t somehow exposed to the outside.
And with infrared scopes, drawn curtains would do little good.
If someone wanted to kill her badly enough, they would eventually find a way, and there would be very little she could do about it.
Inez’s recommendation had been to substitute the glass with something bulletproofed.
She had agreed with the idea. The glass was being replaced later that week.
She sighed and leaned her forehead against the glass in question, watching down below as one of the men romped on the south lawn with two of the K-9 shepherds that had arrived early yesterday morning.
The soldier was fast and spry, and the dogs were like big puppies as they played.
But she had also watched them do training run-throughs that proved them to be the vicious sentinels they really were.
Inez had warned her never to approach the animals.
She wouldn’t anyway. Many animals, like those dogs, recognized a dangerous predator by instiuct long before humans could.
This was what made them so valuable in service.
That same instinct made certain animals, like dogs or wolves, go ballistic when a Morphate came near.
They sensed the beast within, the animal senses and instincts, and the extraordinary thirst for the hunt, be it sexual or otherwise.
They sensed kindred beings, and therefore a threat to their own dominance.
It would be easy for her to win them over, given time, simply by presenting herself as an Alpha and exerting her dominance.
She would just have to go out of her way to see that she did.
Devon felt a quiver slither over her neck and back and she looked over the lawn again.
Her breath caught when she recognized Liam’s virile form on the edge of the drive.
Colin was talking to him, showing him some kind of a schematic or blueprint, but Liam was looking up at the house.
His full attention was on her. She knew it without any doubt.
This was the reason her body had shivered on instinct.
This was why that thirst for the hunt was suddenly stirring in her belly, looking eagerly for her target.
She drank in his presentation of himself, those powerful legs braced apart, hands on his waist, and biceps flexed.
Though his hair was close to military cut, it was long enough on top to allow the wind to ruffle through the black strands, the sun glinting off those touches of silver.
She rubbed her fingertips together, remembering the feel of his hair, the only thing on his body besides his mouth that she had ever known to be soft.
The rest of him was rock solid hard with muscle, vitality, and outrageous masculinity. Just watching him made her palms sweat.
“Devona, you’ve got it really bad,” she chastised herself.
Then again, it’d been a very long time since she’d been with a male.
Was it any wonder she lusted after so fine a specimen of one?
It didn’t help that Carter was more than right when he said Liam clearly lusted after her in return.
Oh, she was used to the attention her Morphate chemistry attracted from all males, Morphate and human alike, but Liam more than held her attention in return.
Few in either race could make the same claim.
Devon reached back and lifted her hair off the back of her damp neck, not even realizing she was doing it because she was so absorbed in her fascination with him. She had no idea what she looked like to the man watching her from the lawn.
A goddess would have been a good starting descriptive, Liam thought tensely as his fingertips tightened at his waist. She stood in the light of sunset, holding her hair in both hands until her short top rose up to the high arc of her ribs.
Her entire belly was exposed between shirt hem and skirt waist. Sunlight pierced her skirt, showing off the full shape of her legs in sultry shadow.
In his mind he could so easily fit the pieces of the puzzle together and envision her naked form.
God, why was it that she was wearing the most conservative outfit he had seen on her to date, yet he found it just as provocative as those awesomely revealing dresses?
The worst part about it was he didn’t think she gave a single damn as to what she looked like or the effect she had on men around her.
Liam realized Colin had stopped talking and he sheepishly started to apologize for being distracted … until he realized his brother was staring at the same thing he was and panting almost as hard as a result.
“Hey!” he barked, backhanding his sibling in the chest to get his attention.
“Oof! Hey, what was that for?” Colin complained, rubbing his breastbone.
“Keep your eyes in your head, Col,” Liam growled at his brother.
Colin snorted out a laugh, “Oh, like you were just doing?”
“This isn’t a democracy, bro,” Liam reminded him. “It’s do as I say and not as I do, get it?”
“Yes, sir,” Colin said obediently, making a stellar effort not to grin at his older brother. “No staring at babes on the job. Got it.”
“You better,” Liam grumbled, his eyes drifting back to the window despite efforts otherwise.
To his combined relief and disappointment, the drapes had been drawn and the babe in question had disappeared.
He sighed and turned his attention back to the schematic.
“Okay. Tell me again where the electric is vulnerable.”
And hurry, he thought. I have a date.