Chapter Fifteen #5
“—hematite and glass polymer that holds the mercury safely inside of it long enough to make it through the force of a pin, the ride down the barrel, and the hit into a target. The composite cracks and breaks up on impact, parts of it melting away and allowing the mercury inside to poison the target quickly. A single expert shot can put a Morphate down like a dog. All the while the bullets are perfectly safe for handling and for carting around as ammunition. You did your job very well there,” he assured her.
“And I think it might not be a bad idea to give these surprises of yqurs a thorough field test.”
“So your thoughts remain unchanged then,” she realized out loud as she stood up and came around to his side of the table, all the while holding his hand. “You’d take this right to Ambrose’s doorstep. You’d use these weapons to make your way past his people.”
“Only those who threatened me or didn’t have the good sense to stand down and let me reach said goal. What is that gorgeous smell?” he asked distractedly as she leaned her body against his shoulder. And just like that, the focus of their dinner together shifted once again.
“It’s a perfume I created. A little hobby,” she said with a shrug that relegated it to a place of unimportance.
Liam turned toward her, his face at breast level as she stood beside him. The aroma seemed to eddy over him on the waves of warmth she was exuding with increasing heat.
“Hobby or not, I find it very appealing.” He took in a deeper breath and was surprised and delighted by the instant warmth he felt rushing through and around his chest. The fact that it then shot directly down into his sexual organs was not a factor to be missed.
It was rather like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer without even feeling the pain of it.
And just like that he found himself hard for her.
From the promise of her perfume and the memories of the ways he had discovered the aromas of her body in the past.
“It has a pheremonal axis. It toys with your inner beast, rousing it to attention by titillating those parts that lie dormant, slumbering in wait for a mate to stir them.” She smiled. “Well, anyway, that’s what the advertising would say.”
“It wouldn’t need any advertising,” he said, his voice low and intent.
“It does its job at the first whiff.” He leaned forward and placed a kiss at the very top of her cleavage, a slow tasting touch of his lips.
Then his tongue made contact. Just enough of a touch to make her catch her breath.
Her hands came up and threaded through his hair, nails dragging over his skull and lighting his nerve endings on fire.
He reached to touch her legs at the backs of her knees, turning in his chair to face her and draw her in close between his thighs.
His hands found the hem of her dress and slid beneath it.
His hands dove under the unusually austere fabric, coasting straight up the backs of her legs until he was cupping the shapely cheeks of her backside in each of them.
Her knees went immediately weak, her weight falling into his hands.
He let it happen, let her drag them both down to the floor.
A cursory glance up at the door of the dining room was the only hesitation on his part.
But she was suddenly holding him tight, arms and legs both pulling him against her soft, sexy body, her mouth zeroing in on his for a soul-wrenching kiss.
The idea that any of her household staff or any of his team might wander past the open door drifted out of his sense of importance.
She was important. The heat of her. The smell of her. The way he knew she would taste if only he could get his mouth on her. However, she was way too thoroughly clothed for that.
Her hands were on his gun belt, deftly whipping it off his hips and letting it fall by the wayside, the weight off his weapon working in her favor as she fumbled for the bottom holster strap around his thigh.
Her fingers and palms were riding down the length of his zipper the very next instant, parting ways so one was cupping his balls through the denim of his jeans and the other was making out the rigid line of his cock in slow detailed strokes.
Liam groaned into her mouth, pressing his hips forward into her hold, his hands braced on the floor so he could give her all the access she needed.
Her tongue worked with sinuous beauty against his, their kiss trading homes between their mouths, often hovering on the cusp between the two.
Every savoring taste of her buried him in a hot haze of the most intense need and outright lust he’d ever experienced.
Wasn’t it supposed to ease? Wasn’t it supposed to get routine by now?
Or was that just what it had been like with everyone before her?
What was it about Devon that made each time with her wilder, more intense than the last?
The way his heart was pounding in his chest and ears, he thought that if things got any more intense he was going to blow his heart out.
“Leader! Alpha Two, we got something funny going on out here, sir!”
The squawk of the radio froze them both in place, their lips clinging as their eyes met for a long, throbbing heartbeat.
Then Liam shifted awkwardly away from her with a violent curse of regret and annoyance, and not a little bit of self-recrimination.
He wiped a hand of frustration over his mouth and ran fingers over his throat to key on the radio he had made sure to lock for outgoing contact so nothing they said over dinner was accidentally transmitted to all and sundry.
He keyed it while watching her sit up and draw her legs close, tucking them under her round bottom.
“Leader here, what’s up Alpha Two?” he said, hoping his voice didn’t actually sound as rough and breathless to them as it did to him.
“Dunno sir, the dogs are going crazy!”
And they were. He’d been too absorbed to hear it earlier but it sounded as though every beast on the property was going wild outside the balcony doors.
Liam launched himself off the floor, grabbing his gun and mini binoculars from his heavy belt.
He kicked open the glass doors facing Alpha Two’s circuit.
From there he had a far better vantage point than the units on the ground.
“Okay. I see him. Alpha Two, you have an intruder, west wall, three meters from the pillar with the cherub on it. Loose the pups if he runs.”
“Copy that, sir.”
“Get dressed and let’s haul ass to a room that doesn’t have a thousand windows in it,” Liam commanded Devon harshly as he reached a hand down to her and pulled her to her feet. “That guy has a rifle and it looked like serious business.”
Liam kept his body between her and the windows, wrapping her up in a brief hug of reassurance before he hustled her into the hallway between the dining room and first parlor.
He ordered the lighting down to dark. “Okay, this is good for the moment.” He braced his arms against the wall, covering her with his body.
He was breathing so hard her hair blew all around her face.
Devon was so dizzy from the changing rush of emotions and feelings that she reached out and clutched his shirt to ground herself.
Liam wasn’t doing much better. He slid a hand behind her back and drew her close to his body, letting her feel his comfortable warmth and residual heat.
“You and I are having a discussion after this is over about how you need to keep your frigging sexy ass at a proper distance until it’s time to retire at night,” he murmured in a deep, rough voice in her ear.
It gave her a wild case of excited chills.
Her body was still humming with outrageous need.
Even now, even with the danger that was stalking her, all she could think about was rubbing herself all over that massively virile body again and again, licking him, taking him in her mouth until he gripped at her with wildly out of control need.
All she could think about, all she could care about, was her need to have him wild in her arms. Ambrose and weapons and assassins fell completely by the wayside when he made her think and feel these things.
Liam was listening for a transmission on the radio giving the all clear, knowing that even after his team apprehended the intruder they would search for others.
He looked down at Devon, seeking the flash of those pale jade eyes he could see even in the dark.
The overwhelming voraciousness in her eyes stole his breath away.
For a single moment he knew her every thought.
It all began and ended with the phrase ‘I want you.’ She would draw him into a sensual world where he would be blinded to everything but the pleasure she gave him by hand, mouth, and body.
“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.