Chapter Ten #2
She shrugged her shoulder, as if to remind him his other hand surrounded her breast still.
He smiled slightly at the idea that he could ever forget such a thing.
Very deliberately he drew his thumb over the tip of that perfectly pointed nipple.
She was so warm, a heated weight in his sculpting palm.
Devon sucked in a breath and he felt her shimmy head to toe with pleasure.
She was so responsive. Maybe it was wrong of him to take advantage of that, but he would use whatever method necessary to fix this blunder.
“I have a crazy kind of lifestyle, Devon,” he said before reaching to give her a gentle, lingering kiss, “and I know the price I pay for it.” Liam slid the palm at her breast upward over her, letting his calluses do all the work of stimulating her.
He caught her groans with his mouth and tongue, sensing when her desire to escape him was overcome by her rushing arousal.
Her hands fell to his upper arms, grasping his biceps.
She closed her eyes and lost herself to him for a good pair of minutes before she gasped for breath.
When she surfaced from Liam’s irresistible kisses, Devon found herself wound around his body tightly, her legs holding him captive, her hands clutching at his clothing, and her mouth wet and filled with his delicious flavor.
Her brain was afloat in sensations she could barely sort out.
What came clearest to her was the way he smelled.
Just as a powerful, vital male in sexual arousal ought to: potent, musky, and scorching with heat.
She lowered her face against his chest and rubbed against him like a cat marking scent, only she was taking it in.
“Mmm,” she murmured, “it’s not fair that you can do this so easily.”
“Me?” His expression was as incredulous as his voice when she looked up at him. She couldn’t help but smile at the genuine amazement in his amber eyes. “This coming from the woman who …”
He trailed off, obviously thinking better of his accusation, and she gave him a dirty look: “Coward!”
“Coward!?” He pulled back from her, completely untangling himself from her, looking at her askance.
“Yes,” she persisted as she straightened her top and tried to quell the bereft feelings left behind because he’d removed himself so suddenly. “A brave man would speak his mind to me, not edit himself for whatever reason. I don’t need edited words or feelings.”
“I see. You’re looking for truth, then? Pure, blatant, unadulterated truth?
” The way he said it, his eyes broiling with burning intentions and steamy desire, made her swallow hard as excited anticipation flooded her.
He moved forward again, settling against her hips first, making sure she was once again aware of his needy body.
He leaned in close to her ear. “Because,” he whispered, “I was going to be a little graphic. I was trying to be a gentleman, or as close to it as I could get. Are you sure you want the truth?” he asked, his lips gliding hotly over her ear.
Since she was suddenly too breathless to form words, she simply nodded.
He was so close she could feel him smile against her, as though he had been hoping for that response.
She was trembling again, her nerves singing wildly under his influence.
He reached up and drew a finger down the side of her neck, slowly wending his way down the low neckline of her top.
“You accused me of affecting you sexually in an overwhelming way, yes?”
“Yes,” she managed on a whisper. “And you said, ‘This coming from a woman who …’”
“This coming from a woman who can make me hard with just the turn of a phrase, the look in her eyes, or the way she laughs,” he told her huskily.
“This unfair accusation coming from her lips while I’m like this …
” Devon had no clue as to how or when he’d caught up her hand, but she was very aware when he cupped her palm in his and pressed it against his bulging fly.
Her gasp was shocked, but not because the maneuver offended her.
No. It was all about the wonderful size and thickness of the erection pressing against her palm and fingers.
She heard him hold his breath, the sound of his teeth grinding together very telling as she pressed against him even more snugly than he had perhaps intended.
Perhaps he had forgotten the nature of the creature he held in his arms.
“Liam,” she purred in uncontainable delight.
Her reaction and enthusiastic touch turned Liam’s little game against him.
He throbbed harder against her touch, his blood pounding until he could barely stay on his feet.
“See now how much better the truth can be?” the little vixen taunted him in a voice of pure sexual invitation.
Liam had to agree. He surged against her hand and she responded with pressure and friction that extended his already engorged length in hard pulses of expectation.
God, her touch felt so good. It was unreal.
And if she kept it up, she was going to make him come right in his pants.
Liam had to stop her.
Any minute now, he definitely would.
He groaned when her deft fingers flipped open his belt and unbuttoned his fly. His body clenched in violent anticipation of feeling her bare fingers wrapping around his shaft, stroking him until …
“Devon,” he croaked as he caught her wrists and pulled her away from his zipper. “I can’t do this. You know I can’t,” he implored her.
Damn it to hell, he was begging, he realized.
And he was begging her to not do what he oh so desperately needed her to do.
He was so hard he hurt, his entire body perspiring under the burn of his heat for her.
He wanted her so badly he was seconds away from stripping away those sadistically sexy shorts and taking her right there against the door.
God, what he wouldn’t do to be burying himself in her right that very instant.
Liam was right, Devon thought as she looked up into the turmoil of his gaze.
She shook her head as if coming out of a daze, and the implications of what was happening made full impact.
She was in big trouble, she realized. She was living in the same house with a human male who danced across every sensual and sexual tripwire she owned.
There was a resounding inevitability to what was happening between them.
The impetus would carry their explosive chemistry to the farthest extreme, and it would be likely to happen one day very soon.
The only problem was, she had a great deal of respect for Liam.
A respect that grew the more she watched his behavior, listened to his people speak his praises, and witnessed his skills as a protector.
She wasn’t like others of her kind. She couldn’t conceal herself from him if they were going to end up being intimate.
Not when she knew all too well how he would feel if he learned certain truths at the last minute.
He said he knew everything about Morphates, but did he really know everything?
Morphates had hidden enough along the way to assure her that he probably didn’t.
He would hate her, thinking her the liar and deceitful bitch that she honestly would have become at that point, if she didn’t make sure he truly knew what he was getting into.
Panic-stricken and confused, Devon drew into herself, pulling her arms around her body in a brutally tight hug.
She saw him watching her with concern and wariness as he neatened up the damage she’d done to his clothing.
She almost laughed at how obvious his conflict was.
He didn’t know what to do with her. He didn’t understand her reactions, but he wanted to ease her pain if he could because he feared he had somehow caused it.
It was those deep-seated flashes of Liam Nash’s heart that strangled her with conflict.
“Listen, sweetheart,” he said gruffly, “I don’t mean that I don’t want—”
She cut him off, and when she spoke, it was as though she had a lash around her throat. “I understand. I honestly do,” she said, hoping the truth would override whatever else he saw in her face. “It was thoughtless of me to—”
“Thoughtless of you?” He was incredulous. “Who in hell dragged who in here? Will you stop taking responsibility for everything, Devon? It’s not your job to make everything right, you know. Why do you do that?”
He was wrong. It was her job to make things right. More than he could ever know. And to that end, she drew up a smile and patted him on the chest in comfort.
“You’re right. I just meant that I know we have other things to do that are …
that take precedence.” For some reason she couldn’t bring herself to say ‘more important.’ The sudden light of satisfaction flickering through his eyes told her he understood her omission.
This time her smile was genuine as she watched the obvious stroke to his ego flush through him.
She didn’t mind him knowing he was high on her list of importance, but she couldn’t help a little mischief to remind him how easily power shifted between them.
Devon snuggled forward into him, her softer curves instantly settling fully against hard muscle until they were as good as glued together.
It was so easy to imagine how the connection would translate should they both be naked.
She sighed deeply, the sound of longing washing over them both.
She ran her hands around his waist and up his back, her cheek pressed to his Chest as she listened to the rise in the tempo of his strong heartbeat.
As she breathed in a deep breath, his sun baked masculine scent of sweat and surging arousal thrummed through her senses and into her blood.
She allowed her fingers to explore him, roaming his back and coming over his ribs again to his chest. He made a repressed sound that combined pleasure and frustration into one.