TrackingDesire (11 page)

A few minutes later the shower door opened and Liv turned to
see Julian—still gloriously naked and indeed already half-hard again—enter the
shower to join her. She grinned warmly in invitation.

“It’s hot in here,” she purred temptingly.

Julian smirked at her and gyrated his hips in a sexy little
dance.

“Then let’s really turn up the heat, babe,” he replied. Liv
reached out and placed a hand on each side of his hips, grinding her pelvis in
time with his. Julian’s skin became slick with the hot water as they did a
little bump and grind.

Liv quickly found herself getting aroused, but without the
same heated, intense urgency as before. She enjoyed stroking Julian’s skin, her
fingers tracing patterns over his lithe muscles, loving the wet, warm feeling
of him beneath her hands.

His hands roved over her body, lingering on the dips and
swells and circling around her to cup her ass and bring her closer against his
body. Tingling followed his touch and Liv found herself curious about his
interest in her ass.

“You’re an ass man, are you?” she teased him lightly.

Julian snorted and let his fingers stroke over her soft,
round curves back there.

“I’ve said it before and will probably say it a thousand times
more, but you truly have the best ass I’ve ever seen or felt, babe.”

Liv smirked and decided to let go and enjoy it. She turned
around and continued to bump and grind, this time rubbing her ass against
Julian’s quickly thickening shaft. For a few moments they continued to dance
and tease each other, their breath coming harder and faster as they worked
themselves into a highly aroused state.

When she couldn’t deny herself the pleasure of kissing him
any longer, Liv turned around, wound her arms around his neck and kissed him
deeply. Their tongues tangled together, gliding smoothly against each other and
tasting each other’s essence.

Liv grazed her teeth along the edge of his tongue, then
nipped a light kiss on his full lower lip. When he moaned, she sucked his
tongue hard into her mouth and let her own run lightly down its length.

“Fuck.” Julian panted when she released him. “I need you,
babe. Need to be inside you.”

Liv gloried in the way he lost control with her, wasn’t
ashamed to tell her exactly what he craved. They kissed hungrily, then Julian
turned her around and pressed her against the wall of the shower stall. Her
hands rose to press against the slippery, wet tiles so her back arched and her
ass rubbed against his now fully erect shaft.

His thick fingers probed her tightly puckered ass and Liv
drew in a deep, sharp breath as the pad of his finger roved over her small
hole. Her body tightened and tingled, and for a moment she wasn’t sure whether
she wanted this or not. As Julian’s finger became wet from the water, however,
and his continuous massaging of her constricted hole continued, the tip of his
finger finally penetrated.

At first there was a painfully full sensation, but as he
turned his finger around, stroked the inside of her tiny passage, the sensation
became more pleasurable and she relaxed into his stroking. Julian nipped the
base of her neck at the juncture where her neck and shoulder met. Shivers of
delight soared through her body and her hips bucked with the pleasure.

Liv lowered her hand to her clit and stimulated herself.
Julian watched her with a heated gaze while he continued to tease her ass,
drawing out the pleasurable sensation as his finger slowly penetrated deeper
into her hidden passage. When the digit had lodged itself right up to his
second knuckle, the intense pressure, the too-full feeling had returned, and
Liv moaned.

“Careful,” she pleaded. “I’ve only done this with one man
before, so it’s a fairly new experience for me.”

Quickly, she stroked her clit, helping her body to relax as
the pleasure grew within her. Liquid heat spiraled through her as delightful
shivers overtook the painfully full sensation in her ass. Julian used his free
hand to hold her hips steady and tilt her the way he needed her to ease the
pressure in his shoulders as he penetrated her ass.

Long, lazy minutes passed in a seemingly endless bubble of
time as Liv stroked herself and Julian stroked her most secret inner channel.
It took a moment for her to realize he had inserted the very tip of a second
finger, the water helping to lubricate her and ease its passage, his finger
busily stroking her inner walls to counteract the pain she felt hovering at the
corners of her awareness.

“Oh, Circe!” she cried as her ass contracted around his
second finger, squeezing tightly in faint protest at the over-fullness of her
passage. Julian paused and again strung a series of small but powerful kisses
up the length of her neck.

“Relax for me, baby,” he pleaded. “There’s no way in hell
I’ll fit my prick inside you if you don’t let me stretch and lubricate that
luscious ass of yours first. Just think, baby. Think of how tight and wet you
are, how soon this discomfort will blend into the pleasure of my cock reaming
your ass. You’ve heard that anal orgasms are even more intense than pussy ones,
haven’t you?”

Liv thought back to the one lover she’d performed anal sex
with, and she had to admit that the intensity of the orgasm was different than
what she’d experienced before that. It was darker, more a blend of pleasure and
pain. The realization of how much more intimate it would be with Julian and
how, with the magical, electrical intensity they shared, how very much
more
this could be with
him
spurred her to stroke herself even harder and
relax her sphincter muscles and let Julian do what he craved.

Finally, two of his fingers were lodged deeply inside her
ass and he scissored them gently, stroking her inner walls and stretching her
slightly in preparation. He continued to lick and caress her, and when her body
rocked back onto his, not just accepting his penetration but pushing him more
deeply inside her, he moved his hand from her waist and plunged three fingers
deeply inside her pussy.

The extra stimulation in her cunt had an electrifying effect
on her arousal. Where before she’d been hovering on the knife-edge between pain
and pleasure, now his fingers stroking inside her pussy and filling her had a
galvanizing effect. Pleasure raced through her body and she opened up like a
flower to the sunlight.

All too soon she could feel her climax hovering just over
the horizon, and she cried out her need and desire.

“Circe! Now, Julian, fuck me now! Please. I need you…need
more. Ream my ass, please!”

With a growl that was half pleasure, half triumph, Julian
pulled his fingers out of her ass and ran them slickly up and down his cock,
lubricating it and spreading his pre-cum liberally down his shaft. While her
tiny hole was still partially open, he lodged the head of his cock at her
entrance and with a grunt of effort pressed himself fully into her ass.

Liv froze at the painful penetration, despite his having
prepared her. Fire licked from her ass up to the base of her spine as her
cheeks were spread wide open, pierced by his cock head. They both froze, Liv
from a searing pain, Julian from the tightness of her constricted passage.

They breathed heavily, acclimatizing themselves. Liv
continued to stroke her clit and Julian continued to thrust his fingers deeply
inside her pussy. Slowly, her body unclenched, and she once again felt the
pleasure leaking back into their joining. Julian thrust himself farther inside
her, plunging his cock in and out of her ass with a slow, meandering pace.

Groaning deeply, Liv felt the pleasure spread out over
everything and encompass his actions. A moment later, she was thrusting her ass
back, wanting him deeper, wanting this slow, fiery, building passion to take
over her whole trembling body as it threatened to do. Their bodies slapped
together, the flesh creating slick, intimate sounds as they reached for that
pinnacle that hovered barely out of reach.

“Fuck.” Julian panted heavily, his body moving faster as he
lost control of himself. “Fuck, you’re so tight, Liv—so beautiful. I’ve never
experienced anything like this. You’re perfection.”

Liv felt her body opening to him, accepting him, and craved
more. Her clit had become sensitive as she almost crested the peak, and she had
to stop stimulating herself as his fingers and cock penetrated her body and
took her over the edge. She threw her head back and screamed as pleasure and an
overwhelming release sent her over the top.

Less than a moment later, Julian followed her, his thrusts
deep and possessive, penetrating her to her core. Not one particle of her body
was overlooked or unstroked. Julian filled her to brimming and she overflowed
for him.

They screamed together, their bodies shaking with the force
of their release as Julian emptied his cock and seed trickled down the back of
her thigh as her ass filled. Her legs wobbled and she let herself lean into the
wet tiles of the shower cubicle, barely able to hold up her own weight. Julian
leaned in to her, half supporting, half crushing as he too shook from the force
of his release.

Too soon, he stood and gingerly removed his cock from her
ass, rinsing her body once again with soft, gentle hands in the warm water. It
took her a minute longer to recover herself, but Liv returned the favor, using
the warm water to remove any traces of sweat or semen.

As they held each other steady, she turned off the faucets
and Julian leaned out of the cubicle to get fresh towels.

“You were right,” she said softly, her voice a little hoarse
from her screams.

Julian paused in drying himself and raised an eyebrow at her
in query.

“Anal orgasms are a lot more intense.”

He smiled smugly and they dried themselves before hanging up
the towels and stumbling exhausted back to bed. Julian pulled the covers up
around them and Liv snuggled into his arms as if they had been doing it for
years. Her leg rested between his and their heads rested only inches from each
other on the pillow as they sank into the softness of the excellent mattress.

“Red, love?” Julian spoke softly, on the verge of falling
asleep.

“Mmm?” she muttered, half asleep herself.

“You truly do have the most magnificent ass,” he
complimented her.

On a happy laugh, she let herself drift as they fell into a
sated but exhausted sleep.

Liv found herself having the most delicious dream. Large,
warm hands cupped her breasts, rolling her erect nipple gently between two
nimble fingers. She moaned her pleasure and approval, wriggling her ass and
discovering an impressive, hard erection behind her.

Now
this
was heaven!

Wickedly sensual fingers toyed with her and slowly Liv’s
eyes began to flutter. With a moan of denial, she clung to the dream, only to
realize that her mind was relentlessly waking her up.

“So good,” she murmured, but as her lashes fluttered the
dream did not actually fade. Warm hands still cupped and played with her
breasts and a thick, long shaft still burned along her ass cheeks.

“Julian,” Liv muttered huskily, her voice thick with sleep
and arousal.

“Good answer,” he replied with a laugh. Her lover pressed a
kiss to her cheek but didn’t pause in his erotic assault of her body.

“What are you doing?” she mumbled, still half asleep but
arching into the pleasure his touch brought. Julian snickered in reply and
started to nibble a string of kisses down the length of her neck.

“I’ll give you one guess what I am doing, babe,” he replied
cheekily, laughter lightening his tone and making him sound like a wicked imp
with a definite goal in mind.

Liv hummed in the back of her throat, desire washing over
her body. Her legs shifted restlessly and she ground her ass back onto his huge
erection. Small muscles she hadn’t even known she had twinged a little at the
action, reminding her of the passionate assault Julian had waged on her body
the evening before.

“Slow, sensual sex is a wonderful way to wake up,” Liv said
as she cupped Julian’s ass and drew him closer. “It’s tempting to keep you.”

“I didn’t realize you had a choice,” Julian said.

Liv tilted her head back so they could kiss deeply, their
tongues tangling as they tasted each other intimately. Julian lowered his hand,
traced a sweet, decadent trail from her breast down her torso, over her flat
belly and between her lips to find her aching clit.

With a wickedly knowing stroke, he touched her, igniting a
fire in her belly and causing her to gasp and arch off the bed with her need.
Liv lay on the razor-edge of arousal, the last vestiges of sleep evaporating
under Julian’s passionate assault.

The telephone on the bedside table rang, a loud, piercing
noise that effectively cut through the mood of the moment and shattered the
sexual tension growing between them.

“Damn it,” Julian groaned, and for a moment he continued to
stroke her intimately in a vain attempt to recapture the moment. When the phone
rang shrilly again, Liv snickered—she couldn’t help it, the amused sound simply
escaped her lips—and Julian moaned in abject dismay.

“I’m going to fucking kill whoever this is,” he swore
vehemently. “Calling me at this hour of the morning when I don’t have to go in
to work is a shootable offense.”

The phone rang for a third time, the sound seeming to convey
the insistence of the person who was trying to get their attention. With
another mumbled oath, Julian removed his hands and half sat, reaching over
Liv’s prone body to fumble and finally grab the receiver.

“What?” he snarled.

Liv buried her head in the pillow to smother her giggles.

Julian was generally such a placid soul. Relaxed.
Dependable. Unflappable. Never in a gazillion years would she have thought he
might have such a short fuse first thing in the morning when his wake-up sex
was interrupted. This showed a whole new side to him she had not even conceived
could be possible. Especially not considering how stable and reliable he’d
proved himself to be in some very volatile situations at work.

Liv looked back up at her lover as his body stiffened. For a
wild second she thought it might be his mother calling him for something, or
maybe his grandmother, to have a nice, cozy chat and invite him to afternoon
tea one day soon.

“Uh, yes, sir,” Julian replied in his normal tone of voice.
“Yes, I was having an unpleasant dream. The phone woke me. Sorry about that…” A
moment passed silently as the man on the other end spoke, then Julian
continued. “Yes, sir, she’s here. That’s why she wouldn’t have answered her
phone.”

Blinking in surprise, Liv sat up, curious. If the man had
tried to contact her at home, found she wasn’t answering and known to try here
next, it could only be Captain Will.

A blush sprang up on her cheeks as she realized that the
clever man likely had a very good idea of what had really been happening.
Julian’s “bad dream” story wouldn’t hold much water.

Julian rushed to continue speaking, to stem what would have
been a slightly surreal silence on their end of the phone. “Have they
discovered something from the antidote?”

“What?” Julian sat bolt upright in the bed. “When? How?”

Liv could hear the faint sound of Will talking very quickly
on the other end of the phone. When Julian climbed nimbly over her, threw back
the covers and climbed out of the bed to pick up the pen on the bedside table
and start scrawling notes on the notepad by the phone, Liv knew any chance of
sleep or sex had just flown right out of the window.

“Do they have video footage of the suspects?” Julian asked.

Liv pushed back the covers and climbed from the bed, padding
softly into the bathroom. Will would know Julian could update her, so she
decided to get a head start so she was ready to leave the moment Julian hung up
the phone.

Leaving the bathroom door open so she could hear Julian’s
side of the conversation—not that it was very coherent—she splashed water on
her face and wished devoutly for a toothbrush. Spotting a half-full bottle of
mouthwash, Liv made do with that instead, rinsing the fuzzy taste from her
tongue and making herself feel somewhat cleaner and more ready to face the
challenges of the day.

Scouting about, she finally located some deodorant
and—hoping no one would notice that today she would smell rather like
Julian—she sprayed herself with the masculine, spicy scent. She went back into
the bedroom to get dressed in her black-on-black thieving outfit.

“Yes, sir. Absolutely. Yes, she’s up and getting ready now.
We’ll be heading out in five minutes,” Julian said, collecting her bra and
panties. He handed them to her as he spoke. “Yes, sir. See you then.”

Julian hung up the phone and Liv paused in the act of hooking
up her bra. “Something big has happened. That was Will, I presume?”

“The laboratory was broken into early this morning.”

Liv’s jaw dropped and she just stared at him for a moment.

“You’re kidding me. How the hell did they know? Who did it?
They must have put together a team so
quickly
. What the hell?”

“I know,” Julian replied as he opened dresser drawers. “Will
said it wasn’t particularly well-planned—very aggressive, not subtle at all,”
he reported grimly as he dressed. “They made no attempt to hide their
actions—they simply went in, broke the security cameras, put down the
laboratory technicians and stole the samples and their notes on their findings.
A brutal snatch-and-grab job, nothing more.”

“Damn, this must be our fault.
My
fault for setting
off that stupid silent alarm. Otherwise they wouldn’t have noticed until later
this morning, or even longer,” Liv said with a wobble in her tone. Guilt
overwhelmed her for a moment, but she forced it back and focused her energy on
what she could do to make this right.

“You’re not to blame, Liv,” Julian said gently, crossing the
room to rest his hands on her bare shoulders. He kissed her lips with the
sweetest tenderness and for a moment everything fell away and she simply
enjoyed the feeling of being in his arms and the touch of his lips upon hers.

“For all we know, they could have discovered the drugs
missing the moment the party ended,” Julian continued logically when he pulled
away. He stroked her skin once more, then returned to quickly dressing. “It
doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out where we’d take it, especially not
when they know we’re already researching Jolt. None of us are to blame for
this.”

“Are the technicians okay?” Liv asked as she pulled on her
boots. Standing up, she ran her fingers through her hair and quickly and neatly
braided the tresses.

“They’re still a bit woozy—one has a mild concussion—but
they’re fine. It could have been a lot worse,” Julian informed her. He picked
up his keys and waited for her to finish tying her hair back. Even though his
soft gray eyes were gentle on her face, she could see and feel the
determination in him. Her protector had returned in full force.

“You all right to go?” he checked.

Liv pressed a hand to her inner jacket pocket to check her
money, ID and cards were still there along with her keys. Feeling them still
safely zippered away, she took a deep breath and nodded. A minute later they
were on their way.

* * * * *

Liv felt a shiver run down her spine as she and Julian
toured the lab with Will. The cleanup hadn’t really begun yet, though the blood
had been washed away from where the concussed technician had hit her head on
the edge of a bench. She had been lucky the night shift supervisor had managed
to sound an alarm when they had been overcome and help had arrived only fifteen
minutes too late and not six hours later.

Papers were strewn everywhere, beakers and vials had been
broken on the floor or smashed against walls and any other surface, seemingly
in anger. A lot of frustration and rage could be felt, barely contained in the
whirlwind that had stormed through the lab.

“So what was taken—do we even know for certain yet?” Liv
asked, her eyes wide as she tried to keep moisture in her mouth. The violence
that had torn through the lab was an almost physical presence. It creeped her
the hell out and she struggled to keep her mind centered on the professionalism
that was needed right now.

“The night shift supervisor had a quick look around before
she left to be looked over by the medical people,” Will replied grimly, his
cigar firmly between his teeth as he chewed viciously. “They do indeed believe
the ochre sample was the partial antidote. It’s gone. They’re also missing what
remained of our samples of Jolt. All those various mixtures and recombinations
that have been synthesized, of Jolt and our own antidote—it’s all been taken. A
number of other, unrelated drugs have also been stolen—possibly just to cover
their bases or make it appear like a random robbery. We’re unclear on that and
basically it makes no difference. We know exactly what’s occurred here and we
aren’t fooled.”

“Maybe these guys weren’t precisely sure what they were
after,” Liv guessed. Will nodded, still fuming and barely restraining his anger
about the attack.

“Bastards were just reacting,” he summarized. “They know
we’re responsible for effectively closing Jolt down, so when the alarm went off
at the Tiens’ and they realized the ochre powder was gone they decided to act
rashly and hit back at us.”

“They’re wrong if they think this will stop the
investigation or our team,” Julian replied calmly. “They’re using their own
standards to measure us by. We’re not just a band of greedy criminals. We’re a
larger group and much better people than that.”

If some of the tension relaxed in Will’s features at this
comfort, it was hard to tell. Their captain was seriously worked up.

“I wanted to close these guys down before,” Will admitted
between clenched teeth, “but now it’s personal.
No one
concusses my
people and gets away with it. I will not bow down to pressure like that, allow
them to destroy our labs, steal our research. They’ve made a big mistake if
they think something as petty and foolish as that will make me crawl off and
weep to lick my damn wounds.”

“Had the technicians made any headway?” Liv asked curiously,
also hoping to divert Will’s mind somewhat, relieve some of his anger.

“Sort of,” he replied pensively as he chewed nearly through
his cigar. “Johanne was a little garbled before the medics carted her away. It
wasn’t easy to understand her train of thought. But from what I gathered, they
had discovered that the antidote was merely an intermediary step. The ochre
powder they’ve been selling is not
actually
the antidote, but a midway
point between Jolt and what an antidote would be.”

“So,” Julian continued with a frown as they tried to follow
the logic. “Effectively what they found was that, while this group has made
some headway in suppressing the problems Jolt causes, they haven’t finished the
full procedure. This ochre powder is a temporary fix that has solved some of
the issues but not all of them, right?”

Will nodded grimly. “That’s how I understood it, yes.”

“If they took our technicians’ notes,” Liv continued
carefully, “does that mean we’re back to square one?”

“No. Thankfully,” Will answered, his brow lightening
somewhat. “Standard procedure is not just to keep paper notes, but also backup
and archive copies on an external email server.”

Julian’s eyebrows rose high. “You’re saying these people
didn’t
trash the computers and corrupt the hard drives to infect the off-site
servers?”

Liv snorted, amused by Julian’s shock.

“You’re dealing with wizards,” she reminded him gently. “We
barely use the computers we own ourselves. And those who do use them as a tool
almost never have a deep understanding of the intricacies of how they work.
Indeed, most of us have only started using
word processors
in the last
few years, and email is used by less than fifty percent of working,
career-driven wizards. I don’t personally have an email address, and except for
typing up my reports and occasionally surfing the net for research purposes, I
don’t use my work computer at all. Very likely it didn’t even cross their minds
that after only twelve or so hours the technicians had bothered to save or
email their work to date. It’s not common even for humans to perform regular,
manual backups every twelve or twenty-four hours. It’s not something the
wizards would necessarily have thought of once they’d deleted the hard drive of
the computers.”