He smiled slowly. “Our woman,” he said, his voice dark and confident as he leaned closer. “Don’t doubt it, Tally. I know who you just came from. I know how hot you burned in his arms and I know damned good and well you would burn the same in mine. The pain in my balls was well worth the experience. So never doubt you haven’t been claimed.”
The hard throb of ownership in his voice sent tremors of excitement racing up her spine even as a firestorm of fury raced through her blood veins. But it was his words that shocked her. He had felt that? They could sense what the other felt? That information she would use later; for now, she had Lucian’s attitude to deal with.
He was taller than her by quite a bit. Her head barely reached his upper chest, so she was forced to tilt her head back as she allowed smug disdain to fill her expression.
“Do you really think you can control me with sex, Lucian?” she asked him, her voice cold, filled with loathing. “Do I really appear to be such a twit that all you have to do is f**k me to handle me? You have another think coming.” She punctuated her words with a forceful jab of her finger into his hard, muscular chest. “No one handles me. No man controls me. Not now. Not ever.”
He glanced down at her finger. Slowly. A second later his gaze speared into hers once again.
“I’ll control you, Tally,” he told her, the tone of his voice whispering of a sexual dominance, an excitement she had only imagined before. “We’ll control you, and I promise you, when we do, you’ll beg for it.”
Her lip curled as a snarl begged to be free. In her life, she could never remember being so furious, so intent on slapping a man to his knees as she was now. And she would have. She could have. If only she could force the required words past her lips. Her repertoire of cutting phrases refused to come to mind now.
“And you’ll learn just how quickly your own arrogance will kick your ass,” she informed him coldly before spinning away and stalking to the door. “Stay the hell out of my file cabinet or do the damned filing yourself. Your choice. I won’t warn you again.”
“Tally.”
She stopped at the door, turning back to him slowly, fighting the compulsion to go to him, to give him what he needed, what they both wanted.
“You’re not fighting me, baby, or Dev. You’re fighting yourself. And I think you’re smart enough to see that.”
“You’re wrong,” she told him softly. “Now, I just left Tweedle Dee in the park with my kneecap imprinted on his balls. Keep f**king with me, and I’ll slam yours up your throat. I’m going back to work now.” She gave the information, pretending she had missed his earlier admission. Revenge was best dealt in surprise, she chuckled to herself.
She swept from the room before he could respond, before she could glimpse any knowledge or emotion in his expression. She had a job to do. A job she enjoyed, and she needed to remember that. Even if Lucian and Dev refused to. And she had revenge to plan. An exacting, satisfying revenge before her fury ended in bloodshed.
Chapter Five
Planning her revenge took a day or two. Tally knew it wouldn’t be easy to separate them, nor would it be easy to convince the other to go along with her. Especially as furious as they had known she was. But she managed it.
Two days later, as Lucian was settling down to a meeting with several military liaisons, Tally picked up a file she had held back the day before and walked into Dev’s office, careful to keep her hand behind her back as she turned the small locking mechanism on the door knob that would automatically secure the door.
“I need you to sign these, Dev,” she told him briskly as she walked over to his desk and moved behind it as though she had no qualms at all in being so near him.
She laid the file on the desk in front of him, opened it and straightened as she turned to look at him.
He didn’t appear interested at all in the papers laid out before him. He was more interested in the fact that several buttons had slid free on her royal blue linen shirt.
“You’ve been in the files again,” he said softly as she glanced down. She knew that was what he would believe. Both brothers, it seemed, immensely enjoyed the fact that the file cabinets managed to strain her blouses until the top buttons slipped their moorings.
She sighed with false impatience. “Of course. Isn’t that the purpose of making me do your filing now? Perhaps you should be the one to button my blouses when it happens.”
A grin tugged at his lips. He shouldn’t be so damned sexy and rakish looking when he smiled like that, she thought, deeply perturbed by it.
“I would be more than willing,” he promised her silkily as he swiveled the chair around to face her and patted his lap. “Sit down here, baby, and let me see what I can do about that pretty blouse.”
She knew he expected her to kick his teeth in for the offer, but rather she sat down sedately on his thigh, staring into his surprised expression with an innocent smile.
“Like this?” she whispered seductively, her body turning into his as one arm came around her back.
“What are you up to?” There was a flicker of suspicion in the jade depths of his gaze as he watched her.
“Me?” she asked him, her eyes narrowing in false anger as she watched him carefully. “Really, Dev. You offered. But if you would prefer not to.” She shrugged her shoulders as she moved to rise, aware that he would catch a glimpse of seductive sheer lace beneath the edges of her bra.
“Now, I didn’t say no.” His arm curved around her back, holding her in place. “I was just questioning your motives, baby. You haven’t exactly been eager to play here lately.”
She would have laughed if she weren’t so determined now.
“Well really, Dev,” she snapped. “The two of you together can be rather intimidating. It’s enough to make even the most jaded of us wary.”
She injected just the right amount of irritation and watched with silent glee as his gaze darkened reflectively.
He sighed, shaking his head slowly. “Why don’t I trust you, Tally?”
She smiled innocently, blinking up at him with a rare display of charm. She could be charming when she wanted to be. She had done so often in the past.
“Because your balls still carry the imprint of my knee cap?” she asked wickedly.
He chuckled, relaxing marginally. “That could be it.” His hands gripped her waist. “If you’re serious about the blouse, come here where I can get to you.”