Free Danger That Is Damion by Lisa Renee Jones

sitting naked on top of me and teasing me mercilessly, then I deserve to have you use my name.”
    “Fine,” she whispered. “Damn you, Damion .” And then, somehow, someway, without any coherent decision to do so, and with what felt like a physical demand, a life or death necessity, he was crazy-hot kissing her, his free hand melding to her back, pressing her close. Or maybe she was the one who’d kissed him. That possessive feeling he’d experienced with her a minute before expanded inside him again, a sensation like nothing he’d ever known, screaming mine . This woman was somehow a part of him. There was nothing but her, but them. All he knew was the rightness of this. They were wild, hot, and headed toward a firestorm of trouble he had to stop right now. But damn if she wasn’t the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted, addictive and spicy sweet, and impossible to resist. Impossible.
    ***
     
    Chale didn’t dislike dogs. In fact, he liked dogs. But dogs, like kids and some adults, needed to be taught manners. The one presently growling and tugging at his pant leg, clearly hadn’t been. For the entire hour since he’d talked to Damion, the wiener dog had barked, snapped, growled, and generally acted like a kid going through a bad case of the terrible twos, down to the “me-me-me or else I’ll throw a tantrum” stage.
    From where he leaned on the hotel nightstand, one leg crossed over the other, Chale stared down at the dog and waited for Lev to emerge from the bathroom in the doorman uniform he’d managed to scrounge. No surprise Agent Wonderful had been desperate for some pool time. Like the CIA agents who’d done a piss poor job of guarding Lev, the dog soon would be departing.
    The Zodius would expect them to make a run at departure come nightfall. Chale wanted them to get what they expected, minus Lev and his family. Thankfully, Lev was more than agreeable to a plush, safe life under Renegade protection, as long as he knew his wife and kids were safe. Which Chale had agreed to—he’d expect nothing less from anyone who gave a damn about his family. Exactly why Lev’s wife had already departed the room in a maid’s uniform, the kids hidden in a laundry hamper. They were now being escorted by two Renegades, en route to Sunrise City.
    “Houston!” Chale yelled toward the tiny kitchen area of the hotel suite—Houston being the nickname for Tommy Richards, their team’s weapons expert, a name chosen not only because he was from Houston, Texas, but for reasons no one knew except Chale—that it was Damion’s dead younger brother’s name—Damion refused to call him “Tommy.”
    Fortunately, Houston loved dogs as much as he did gadgets. “The hotdog demands your attention.”
    Houston sauntered into the room, held up a bag of sliced hotdogs, of all things, and grinned. “Someone say hotdog ?” He whistled. “Here, pup.”
    Chale would have rolled his eyes, but the dog, thankfully, was already darting toward Houston. Unfortunately, Houston teased the animal, and it started jumping, and Lord help Chale, barking. Chale grimaced and ran his hands down his jeans. “The idea is to make it stop barking.”
    Houston tossed a handful of hotdog pieces to the floor, and the dog instantly began to scarf them down in blessed silence. “Ask and you shall receive,” Houston said, giving a big white smile that only made his long blond hair and pretty-boy face all the more… well, pretty. Houston was “pretty” in a cowboy, manly way that Chale had initially assumed meant wimp. Then in a confrontation with a Zodius, he’d seen Houston transform into something he could only liken to a pissed off alligator, and he’d forgotten that idea. Houston was a beast.
    “He gets sick when he eats table food,” Lev said from the bathroom door, now dressed in black slacks and a red button-down jacket about one size too big.
    The dog started barking again, begging for more hotdogs. Chale motioned for Houston to give the