The Devil She Knows (22 page)

“Are you hungry?”

Slowly, she nodded.

“Do you want me to make you something?”

The tip of her tongue swept out across her lips. His gaze was pulled there. He was human, after all. Her lips were wet and tempting. His fingers tightened at her hips, trying to find a slippery hold on the control he was quickly losing.

“No,” she said, taking a single step to close the gap. Her body pressed against him, soft curves meeting hard planes.

Her head tipped back so that she could look him square in the eyes. And what he saw there made him swallow.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice gravelly with his need to touch her.

“You.” Her simple answer drew a groan from deep in his belly.

With one last valiant effort at control, he tried to push her away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But she wouldn’t let him. Rolling up onto her toes, she brought their mouths together. “You won’t. I trust you, Dev. I need you. Please.”

He couldn’t refuse her anything, least of all something he wanted just as desperately.

Picking her up, he brought them together. Her legs wrapped tight around his waist and she clung to him. Her eyes filled with passion and he felt the answering heat building deep inside.

She was beautiful, her dark hair a cloud around her face. The robe slipped from her shoulders, falling to the floor in a puddle. Her skin was pale and soft.

He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his mouth finding her. Her scent, honeysuckle and Willow, filled him.

She grabbed on to his hair, tugging until he looked up at her.

She was his. Finally. His own angel. He loved her, tarnished halo and all. She knew everything. Saw straight through him. And still wanted him. Loved him. Accepted him, flaws and all.

Dev had no idea what he’d done to deserve her, but he had every intention of appreciating the gift he’d been given.

Turning, he placed her in the center of the bed. He started at the curve of her foot and trailed his mouth upward. Soft, worshipping kisses. She writhed beneath him, panting.

“You’re killing me,” she ground out against the building fever.

His lips curved against her skin. “I don’t think anyone’s ever died from delayed gratification.”

Her hands fisted in his hair, pulling his mouth to hers. “You really are a devil.”

“Yeah, angel, but you love me.”

Willow pulled away, putting several inches between them so she could stare straight into his eyes, into his soul. And she let him see all of her.

In that moment there were no masks. No disguises. No walls or barriers or past between them. More than just skin to skin, they were naked. And he’d never loved her more.

It had taken them ten years, but they’d finally found each other again. And he had no intention of ever letting her go.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
The Closer
by Rhonda Nelson!

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Blaze story.

You like it hot!
Harlequin Blaze
stories sizzle with strong, sexy heroines and irresistible heroes playing the game of modern love and lust. They’re fun, flirty and always steamy.

Enjoy four new stories from Harlequin Blaze every month!

Visit
Harlequin.com
to find your next great read.

We like you—why not like us on Facebook:
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

Follow us on Twitter:
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

Read our blog for all the latest news on our authors and books:
HarlequinBlog.com

Subscribe to our newsletter for special offers, new releases, and more!

Harlequin.com/newsletters

Sexy, contemporary romance stories
for today’s fun, fearless female.

The series debuts on August 15, 2013, with
after
burn
by America’s premier author of provocative fiction

and continues with two Red-Hot Reads available in ebook format each month.

On sale September 15, 2013

Cake

by
New York Times
bestselling author
Lauren Dane

Fearless

by
USA TODAY
bestselling author
Tawny Weber

On sale October 15, 2013

Everything You
Need to Know

by HelenKay Dimon

Naked Sushi

by Jina Bacarr

Pre-order your copies today wherever ebooks are sold.

1

F
ORMER MAJOR
G
RIFFIN
Wicklow had heard countless tales about Ranger Security and their often bizarre assignments—ensuring the safe passage of fertility statues, finding lost Confederate treasure, recovering Truffles, the dognapped millionaire—but this...

This had to take the top spot for the Strangest Assignment Ever.

He stared at each of the founding members of Ranger Security in turn. Brian Payne, the Specialist, whose cool demeanor and keen attention to detail was legendary. Jamie Flanagan, a proper genius who’d been a notorious player until he met and married Colonel Carl Garrett’s granddaughter, and Guy McCann, the Maverick, whose ability to skate the thin edge between recklessness and brilliance was still locker-room lore.

When their expressions didn’t change and he was sure that this wasn’t some sort of joke, he looked at the photograph once more and struggled to find the appropriate response. One that wouldn’t make him appear ungrateful for the job, because nothing could be further from the truth.

He cleared his throat. “I’m escorting a bra from West Virginia to New York and back again?”

“Not just any bra,” Payne corrected levelly. He hooked a leg over his knee and leaned farther back into the comfortable leather chair he currently occupied. Downtown Atlanta was framed in the window behind him, glittering with glass and steel. “That’s a Rossi creation, designed exclusively for the Clandestine Lingerie Company.”

Though Griff had never had any reason to purchase anything from the iconic lingerie company, he could certainly remember thumbing through the catalogs in his teens. His lips twitched. They’d been a source of inspiration, for lack of a better term, and were more easily procured than the traditional skin magazines.

“And that bra, in particular, is worth two and a half million dollars,” Jamie Flanagan added. “Naturally, Montwheeler is keen to protect its investment.”

A tremor of shock rippled through him. Griff felt his eyes widen and he whistled low. “Two and a half million? For a
bra?
”

Guy shrugged. “It’s good advertising for the Montwheeler Diamond Company, for Clandestine Lingerie and the jeweler—in this case, Frank Rossi—who was tapped to create the design. Ultimately, Montwheeler gets the jewels back. They’ll put the bra up at auction. If it doesn’t sell, they haven’t lost anything—they still have the stones, after all, and it’s Clandestine who covers the cost of the designer. As far as PR goes, it’s brilliant.”

He supposed. Still...It was hard to believe that people actually spent this much time and money on something so...unimportant, frivolous even. Given what he’d seen over the past several years in service to Uncle Sam—the death and destruction, the horror, the poverty—it was hard to reconcile this new assignment to those he’d had in the past. He swallowed.

But that’s exactly what they were—in the past.

Thanks to some misguided sense of duty and honor—to the very person who’d inadvertently wrecked his family and prematurely propelled him into adulthood, no less—he’d decided a career change was in order. Could he have continued in the military with one kidney? Probably. But given the prep, surgery and post-op care, not to mention his mother’s and sister’s continued come-home pleas, he’d ultimately decided that Providence was trying to tell him something. Once he was certain of the job at Ranger Security, he’d initiated the necessary paperwork.

And the rest, as they say, was history.

Whether or not this new life was going to be an improvement over the old one remained to be seen. He certainly couldn’t find fault with the benefits package, that was for sure. In addition to a very healthy salary and a fully stocked, furnished apartment, a company car had been waiting on him when he’d arrived this morning. He’d been given a laptop, a cell phone, a new Glock with permission to carry concealed and a sincere slap on the back that had welcomed him into the fold.

For whatever reason, that slap had been more appreciated than anything else. He’d instantly liked all three men, felt an immediate kinship. As former rangers themselves, they
got
him. Honor, duty, service. They were more than words; they’d been a way of life. His new employers knew the decision to leave hadn’t been made lightly, knew that coming to terms with this career change was a struggle. Because it wasn’t just the career—it was a different world, one he knew his place in.

And here? Well, that still remained to be seen.

“We’ve been hired by Montwheeler to ensure the safety of the bra,” Payne continued. “You’re to pick it up at Rossi’s in Shadow’s Gap, West Virginia, at three tomorrow afternoon—a representative of Rossi’s will accompany you—and take it to New York, safeguard it throughout the show, then return it to Rossi. Rossi will make any necessary repairs before Montwheeler takes possession once again.”

All things considered, it shouldn’t be too difficult. He nodded. “All right.”

Guy’s lips twitched with humor. “There are worse things in life than going to a lingerie show,” he added. “Leggy, half-naked models parading about and all. Consider it a perk.”

Griff grinned. There was that. He hadn’t been with a woman, naked or otherwise, in months. No time. Between deployment, surgery and recovery, he’d had very little opportunity to find comfort in the softer sex. While he’d been recuperating at his mother’s, one of Glory’s friends had visited frequently and had less than subtly let him know that she was available, but Griff knew the minute he showed the least little bit of interest, his mother and sister would have him married off before he could say “I don’t.”

In fact, the settle-down-and-find-a-nice-girl refrain had been coming off his mother’s lips a little too frequently for comfort, particularly considering he had no plans—immediate or otherwise—to marry. He carried the Wicklow gene, Griff thought darkly, and, based on family history, Wicklows were incapable of being faithful.

It wasn’t a theory he was willing to test.

Thankfully, he’d never met a girl who’d made him want to risk it.

Besides, he already had a family to take care of, the one he’d had since he was almost thirteen years old—his mother and sister.

“Do you have any questions?” Payne asked.

Griff shook his head, tuned back in to the present conversation. “None that I can think of at the moment.”

“All right, then.” Payne stood, signaling the end of the briefing. “I think that about covers it. You know where to find us if you need anything.”