“That's a pile of bullshit. You could have traded assignments. Julian has been established long enough with his principal to make a command switch easy enough.”
“Colin, why don't you get off my back and just deal with it, okay?” Liam snapped irritably as he threw down his razor and splashed cool water over his face. “And I'd appreciate it if you kept your big mouth shut while you're at it. I don't want Devon being treated with disrespect or as a source of troop gossip.”
“Then I guess you shouldn't have fucked her, huh?” Colin groused, irritated by his brother's slap down.
Colin didn't even hear his own mistake until after the ringing in his head stopped and he found himself up against the wall with Liam's huge forearm pressed furiously against his throat.
“I swear to God, Colin, brother or no, if I hear you talking about her like she's some kind of whore I will make a quilt out of your hide. Do you copy?”
“Yes! Jeez, I didn't mean it like that!” he squawked crossly.
“What I do is my business and no one else's, not even yours,” Liam growled irritably as he released his baby brother none too gently. “You just watch your step. Genetics will not save your ass if you screw up, Colin.”
“Yeah, well, they won't save yours either,” Colin grumbled as he followed Liam out of the bathroom. “I'm just concerned. You don't have to pitch a fit. I'll be waiting downstairs with the others.”
Liam paused to watch his brother storm off, then cursed low under his breath. He ran a hand through his damp, spiking hair and glanced across the hall at Devon's closed bedroom door. He had half a mind to turn her over his knee as well. It was really stupid of her to use his rooms like that. Colin wasn't the only one who didn't think twice about using barracks manners while they were on assignment. It was rather the nature of his position to not expect much in the way of privacy. The idea of keeping her marks on his body out of sight was, when he thought of it, rather ludicrous.
Well, he wasn't going to apologize to everyone for his lapse in his own code of ethics. He would have to deal with it on his own terms and the troops would have to cope. They knew him well enough by now to know this wasn't the norm for him, and that if he broke code it was for a good reason.
Liam just needed some time to figure out what that reason was. He had a hard time believing it had just been about sex, as he had claimed for Colin's benefit. It wasn't Colin's business what his reasoning was.
It was Devon's, however.
Liam drew on some clean blacks, leaving his feet bare but for socks as he went in search of his boots, knife, belt, and gun holster. He knocked on the door to Devon's rooms and let himself in when he didn't hear anything from within. He walked over the threshold with a mild amount of caution. His clothes, boots, and belongings were neatly folded and stacked at the foot of her bed, but he saw not even a glimpse of Devon. He supposed she had gone to her office already, though he had not seen or felt her departure. He was very sensitive to the movements in the house, especially hers, and it bothered him that he had been so embroiled in his altercation with his brother that he had not been aware of her exit. He picked up his knife and spun it between his fingers.
He heard her clear her throat, the sound surprising him as he spun about, wondering how she'd snuck up behind him. She still wore only her towel, and despite her sexy posture leaning against the bathroom doorframe, her expression was a serious one. She must have been sitting quietly in the bath. He raised a brow, curious as to why she hadn't responded to his entrance before this.
“I'm sorry. I messed up. I wasn't trying to flaunt this. I just wasn't thinking.”
“It's not your fault,” he sighed as he laid down the knife on top of his clothes. “It's natural to feel you have the run of your own house. Also, it's easy to feel free when it comes to sharing things with a lover. Actually, I
want
you to feel free like that. It's another form of honesty.” He walked over to her, reaching to frame her face with his hands, his fingertips stroking through her wet strands of hair. “It's just a new complication in this job that I'm going to need to find a way to work around. I'll find a way to deal with it. I've got good people. They'll adjust.”
“I'm not worried about them,” she said softly, leaning her weight against him and burying her nose against his clean T-shirt. He nuzzled the top of her head so he could breathe in the scent of his shampoo on her hair. Something about it excited him and his body responded with long, tense pulses of awareness from head to toe. He exhaled a rough sigh as her hands slid around his back.
“One day you are going to explain how you do this,” he noted with no little consternation.
“Do . . . this?” She sounded perplexed.
“Turn me on without even trying,” he clarified, tilting her head back so he could study her mouth with care.
Devon laughed at him, the sound only serving to worsen his condition.
“Let me get this straight,” she said with amusement. “I had my hand wrapped around your very hard cock this morning and you threw me off like yesterday's garbage, and
now
you're turned on? By what, for heaven's sake? Clue me in so I know what works so well on you!”
“You work well on me,” he rumbled beneath her ear. “And I had every intention of making you finish what you started with that mischievous hand of yours, babe. However, Colin kinda blew my plans out of the water . . . so to speak.”
“Oh? Planning on showering with me?” She smiled slyly as she nestled sexily into his body. He groaned with obvious pleasure, not realizing there was method to her wiggles. As her breasts rubbed across his chest, the tuck of her towel loosened and the linen subsequently slid off her bare body. Liam suddenly found himself holding a naked woman. To say she had a body that wouldn't quit was something of an understatement, he was learning. The woman herself wasn't much of a quitter either, for that matter. “Hmm,” she hummed, “you feel very good,” she flattered deviously, knowing full well the power she was wielding.
Liam couldn't suppress the reactions of his body as she wound herself around him like a sensuous python. He flash-burned like 100-year-old tinder, a thin sheen of sweat shimmering over his skin. “Devon,” he whispered in her ear, “I don't have time for this.”
She laughed at that, her hands sliding around his chest and over his belly as she held him tight with a long leg snaked around one of his. “There isn't a man on the planet that doesn't have time for this,” she scolded softly, her teeth nipping at his throat.
“Devon . . .” Liam sighed and chuckled at her relentless play. “Okay, then I'll rephrase. I don't have time to do this
right
.”
“Liam,” she reprimanded him on a sultry whisper. “All I need is you inside of me for it to be right. The thought of it has me halfway there already. See for yourself,” she invited. She took a hand from his chest and slid it down her own body, leaning back in a provocative arch as she drew his hand past her breasts, down over her taut belly, and then directly below her navel. Her fingertips rested on the backs of his as she curved them over the soft warmth of her mound, and threaded their mutual touch directly into the moist flesh at the crest of her thighs, all under his riveted stare. She shivered with pleasure from her own caresses, and Liam remained entirely passive because it was suffocatingly arousing to see and feel her touching herself. It made him harder than he'd imagined possible, but he was hardly surprised she was capable of it. She was likely able to turn cotton balls into rocks with just one of those sly, sexy looks of hers.
Devon slid her fingers free of her hot folds, shuddering again as she stimulated her clitoris in passing. Her finger gleamed with the honey of her sex, the proof she'd been determined to show him. Liam's amber eyes were hooded with a dark intensity of desire as he watched her raise her hand. His lips parted in hungry anticipation, but it was her own mouth she touched her fingertips to, running them over her bottom lip until it shone. Then she slid her tongue out and touched it to that shine.
“Oh, man,” Liam whispered hotly, just before he reached to seize her mouth so he could share that exotic flavor with her. He sucked her lips and tongue in a wild kiss that was full of his sudden passionate need. She tasted of salty sweet, feminine ambrosia that had his head reeling. Liam reached for her hand and brought those teasing fingers up to his mouth so he could suck first one, and then the other, between his lips. He heard her panting with growing excitement. “Devon. Sweet, tasty Devon,” he murmured huskily. “Your wish is my command,” he offered wickedly in a low voice. “If there's one thing I know, it's how to take an order.”
She felt his palm turning away from her, the backs of his knuckles rubbing her as he unhooked his belt and worked to unbutton his pants. Then he was kissing her again and she lost herself in the mastery of Liam's divine mouth until she felt hot, smooth flesh bumping against her belly. He rubbed his hard erection over her slowly, sliding like hot steel encased in fine silk against her.
“Come here, babe,” he commanded on a growl as his fingers moved to curve over her bottom and his huge hands tightened their grip. Her feet flew up off the floor as if she weighed no more than a child. Devon followed those coaxing hands until her legs were wrapped around his waist, his erection sliding through the slick valley between her legs. She wound her arms behind his neck as she gasped for breath in anticipation. She was trembling with excitation, her inner body throbbing with the empty ache of need to be filled.
“Liam,” she begged him, tears smarting behind her lashes. Devon wasn't lying. She seemed on the edge of orgasm and all he'd done for her was kiss her and promise to be inside of her shortly. Her mind was a powerful sexual stimulus, her desire for him so intense that she made it far too easy for him.
But he'd never been a man of leisure.
Liam took a single step forward and Devon's back came up against the wall, mere inches from the door they'd abused the night before. Liam smiled slyly when her brows arched. “What can I say? I like a little counterforce,” he whispered teasingly against her lips just as he slid himself into position to enter her. She squirmed in anticipation, drawing the head of his shaft into her grasping sheath. That destroyed the last edge of his patience and he surged into her in one hard thrust.
“Oh, God yes,” he groaned heatedly as she surrounded him in an embrace of fire. His entrance, however longed for and anticipated, still came as a shock to her, and her entire body was clenched tight with it as a soundless cry hovered in her open mouth. Her eyes slid closed in bliss and Liam had to catch his breath just from looking at her.
Liam forgot about everything but Devon. Now that he had her happily impaled on him, he had plans that weren't necessarily the same as hers. Using the wall to support her weight, Liam freed up a hand and sank a cunning thumb into the place where their bodies joined. He found her clit, already swollen and ready for pleasure, which he was more than glad to provide. Devon gasped when the first circling touch impacted her, and then moaned when Liam backed it up with a long withdrawal of his cock from her body and a lazy return.
“Mmm, Christ you feel so nice and tight.” He exhaled the heated words near her ear, his tongue running around the edge of it and giving her shivers. “And those pretty little nipples of yours are just begging for attention, aren't they?”
However, in spite of the observation, Liam didn't change his hold on her for a second in order to give them the attention he obviously knew they craved. Still, just his suggestive tone and words had the power to make her nipples stiffen tightly in excitement.
“There now,” he whispered as he rotated his hips and thumb in different directions. “How's that feel, baby?”
Devon let her head fall back against the wall, her throat working on one sexy moan after another, each sound slamming through Liam like lightning. Liam shifted into long, slow strokes, feeling every inch of her every time he moved, every flutter and reflex. Devon's legs flexed around him, drawing him forward as she caught on to the torturous tempo. She began to gasp and moan in an alternating cadence, her walls tightening around him more with every thrust. Liam slipped his touch away from her, now stroking her belly, her sides, and her magnificent breasts. Her frustration at the change was very obvious and he watched a single tear squeeze out of the corner of her eye. He also watched in fascination as her fangs slowly stretched into place. There was something so perverse in the look of fangs so deadly in a mouth so goddamn sensual and femininely beautiful.
“Liam,” she breathed, knowing how much his name in that irresistibly seductive and longing tone drove him to distraction. “Liam . . . Liam . . .” she chanted between moans, so that his name eventually became her exclamation of pleasure all on its own.
She was rising to orgasm quickly, and again he could sense it in her body and the chaos of her vocalizations. Liam suddenly shoved a powerful arm between her leg and his hip and broke the vise of her legs as he pulled out and away from her. Devon's reaction to the abandonment and abruptly finding herself on her own two feet was volatile and furious. Indignant eyes of jade highlighted her passion-flushed features.
He didn't give her much time for any other reaction.
Devon felt strong hands all over her body, turning her, spinning her dizzily as if she were a doll being posed by a playing child. She suddenly found herself bent over her dresser, the polished wood surface cold against her overheated breasts and belly. Her hands were shackled above her head in one of Liam's and she felt his thighs nudging her open for his approach from behind. This time when he entered her it was with violence, the power of the thrust crushing her thighs against the side of the dresser, the hardware on the drawers rattling. Liam grunted with long, low satisfaction, and after a moment released her hands to push his hands against her shoulders, effectively holding her down while he caressed her. Every nerve, every emotion in Devon's sphere of knowing was raw from Liam's game of torturous delight. After another hard thrust, Liam's hands moved to bracket her hips, shaping them and her bottom for a long moment of stroking. Then he gripped her tight, tilted her entire pelvis so that her backside was inclined high in the air, and thrust once more with a mighty heave of his body and the pulsing shaft within her.