Bending his head, he kissed and nibbled her neck, something that never failed to get her going. At the same time, she felt him rock slowly back and forth between her legs, his very hard cock teasing the opening of her pussy.
“Now, let’s stop talking about how much we love each other,” he growled. “And start showing it instead.”
She sure as hell wasn’t going to complain about that.
* * *
“We’re going to be late for work again,” Alina said as she buttoned her blouse an hour later.
Their quick display of love for each other had turned into a not-so-quick display, and now they were likely to be a good two hours late getting to the complex, especially since they’d spent the night at her apartment and were going to have to fight DC traffic all the way down to Quantico.
“Don’t worry about it,” Trevor said from the bathroom. “We’ll work a couple of hours late to make up for it. Besides, who the hell is going to notice?”
Alina shrugged, agreeing. The DCO was still in a state of upheaval since that night three weeks ago, and none of that was likely to change anytime soon. Heck, right then, she wasn’t even sure exactly who she and Trevor worked for.
One thing she knew for certain, it wasn’t John.
After Cree had successfully made it out of surgery with the prognosis of a complete recovery, everyone assumed John would come back and take over the director’s position at the DCO. But that hadn’t happened. Alina and Trevor had stopped by to visit Cree at the hospital when John announced he was taking long-term leave. Seeing his wife severely injured and having his daughter kidnapped had changed his perspective on everything. Alina couldn’t say she blamed the man. He’d been forced to hide the existence of his family from the world for nearly a decade. Maybe it was time for him to build his life around them for a while.
But John hadn’t abandoned the organization completely. He’d worked with the DCO Committee—specifically Congressional Representative Rebecca Brannon—to appoint Landon as the deputy director. Landon hadn’t been thrilled and had no desire to sit behind a desk, but he’d done it because John told him the organization needed someone with his solid reputation in place to rebuild trust and get some of the people who’d left during the Dick Coleman era to come back. It was going to take someone with a strong vision and a firm hand to make sure the DCO didn’t go off the rails again.
It looked like putting Landon in charge was a good decision, as the DCO ranks had already started to swell with good people coming in once they realized someone with real field experience similar to John’s was being put into a position of authority.
In addition to handling the day-to-day team management and field operations, Landon and his wife, Ivy, would still be partners and go on missions as needed, while Rebecca Brannon brought in someone else to deal with politics and budgets.
Rumors were already flying around that Brannon was bringing in a complete outsider to be director, some political mover and shaker from Massachusetts named William Hamilton. Alina had never heard of the guy, but apparently he was familiar with shifters already. In a bizarre twist of fate, it turned out Hamilton was the father of a woman Declan used to be engaged to a long time ago. That seemed a little strange—as in soap-opera strange—but both Declan and Kendra seemed to think there was some merit to bringing the guy in. Apparently, they’d seen him operate under pressure during some kind of kidnapping operation, and while they didn’t necessarily trust him, they’d been impressed.
Besides, it wasn’t like anyone could complain about any decision Rebecca Brannon had made up to this point. The congresswoman had somehow gotten Thorn’s goons and the hybrids shipped off to a supermax federal prison—on God knows what charges. Apparently, she’d told them if they played nice and kept quiet, she’d see to it they got out before it was time to sign up for Medicare. Amazingly, they’d all agreed.
Even more impressive, she’d handled the situation with the media and Thorn’s sudden disappearance like she was born to crisis management. She’d arranged for a few stories about Chadwick-Thorn being under investigation for DOD contract fraud to leak to the press the morning after the raid. Two days later, Chadwick-Thorn formally announced Thorn had fled the country along with a whole lot of company money, his head of security, several field agents, and a few of his lead medical researchers. The media had taken over from there, spinning tales of Thorn skimming millions from DOD contracts. There were reports of the former senator hiding out in South America as his company’s stock tumbled. Alina had seen a story on the news last night that said Chadwick-Thorn was going to be broken up and its subsidiaries sold off at a loss. The name was even being changed back to Chadwick Defense.
“You want to stop by and see Evan at the hospital before we go in to work?” Trevor asked as he came out of the bathroom, all wet from the shower and looking good enough to eat.
Okay, she needed to stop having those thoughts right now, or they’d never get out of there.
“Sounds good. I’m sure he can use the visit,” she said, trying to look at anything but the bulge under the towel wrapped around his waist. “Besides, it’ll be a good excuse for why we’re late.”
Trevor flashed her a grin. “We can just tell everyone we were having sex. They’d buy that.”
He was incorrigible. Alina ignored him and went into the kitchen to grab some small single-serving bags of chips. Evan liked when they brought him something unhealthy to eat. He’d been cooped up in the hospital recovering from an infection related to the gunshot wound to his shoulder, and he was going stir-crazy.
Fortunately, all the other members of the DCO had recovered much faster. Even Declan and Morgan were up and running around already. Hopefully, Evan would be joining them soon. The analyst didn’t know it yet, but he was in line for a serious promotion. Landon had approved him to head up the intel branch.
The one dark spot in the entire aftermath was Tanner. When he’d walked out of the gym that night, he’d disappeared off the radar completely. The intel branch was turning over every rock looking for him, but so far, they’d found nothing. Alina expected Zarina to lose her mind completely, but instead, the Russian doctor had buried herself in her work.
Trevor had followed her out to the kitchen to grab some coffee when the door opened and Kathy strolled in with a knowing look on her face.
“Hi, guys,” she said cheerfully. “I figured I should come over to get Molly, since it seems like you forgot to drop her off.”
Alina sighed. “Kathy, what did I tell you about locked doors?”
Her friend laughed and shook the key she was holding in her hand. “I don’t know. Bring a key?”
Alina scowled.
“Seriously, Alina. How else am I going to get a look at your partner fresh out of the shower wearing nothing but a towel? Consider it back pay for all those years I babysat Molly for you.”
Trevor chuckled and added sweetener to his coffee, then took his mug and disappeared back into the bedroom. Alina didn’t know what the heck she was hiding. Kathy was well aware of the fact that she and Trevor were sleeping together. He’d been sleeping at her place nearly every night—unless she was sleeping at his.
