Secrets in Death (In Death #45)(104)

“I expect he and Ivanna are enjoying blue skies and balmy breezes, so yes.”

“Okay. Okay,” she repeated. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

She moved just out of his eyeline, heard him go back to the ‘link. And boogied her way back to the elevator with the cat trotting behind her. She started to pick up a box, straightened again.

And decided to go with impulse.

Roarke finished the meeting. It ran a bit longer than he’d estimated, but the small changes he and the engineer made would, he was sure, be worth the time and trouble.

Plus, though he had a few things that could keep him busy, this cleared his slate enough he could see what his wife was up to.

He walked in, glanced at her board, noted some updates, then looked toward her command center.

She sat, in nothing but a couple of tiny swaths of lace, purple boots propped on the desk. When his gaze traveled up, up those long, bare legs, over the lean torso, those firm, lace-frothed breasts, to meet hers, she smiled.

“I figured since I’ve got the boots anyway, they ought to get some wear.”

His wife, Roarke thought, his cop, so often a creature of habit and straight lines, could and did pull out the most fascinating curves.

“They look … perfect.”

She jiggled one. “Comfortable, too. You all done?”

“Oh, I believe I’m just about to start.”

He crossed over, trailed a finger up her leg. “How about you?”

“I’ve got work that’s going to keep me chained here for hours. No reason I can’t take a little personal time first.”

“Good, as I believe this is going to be very personal.”

She smiled again. “Want to sit on my lap?”

He laughed and simply plucked her out of the chair and off her feet. In response, she hooked her legs around his waist.

“I had a donut,” she warned, “and came home to a Summerset-free zone. I’m riding a high.”

“Let’s see if we can keep you there.”

He took her mouth, ferociously. With her legs clamped tight, she dragged at the leather strip so she could fill her hands with his hair. Then she levered her hands between them to fight with buttons until she got to skin.

She could luxuriate there, mouth feeding on mouth, skin pressed hot to skin, and his fingers, long and strong, sliding over and under lace.

The big house empty around them, and all the world locked outside.

When he set her on the command center, she kept her legs hooked to bring him close. Reaching up, she tugged his shirt away before she nipped her teeth at his throat.

“Better than a donut,” she murmured.

His hands played over her, curves and angles, tough and smooth. His took her lips again, more tenderly now, and let the taste of her fill him, fill him even as it stirred deeper cravings.

He’d planned to set up a romantic meal before she got home—candles and wine, music playing low, and a fire simmering. A dance with her, a seduction, a long, slow build to passion.

A quiet intimacy before death and duty pulled them both back in.

Instead she’d seduced him, in a finger snap, with humor and sex—so intimately theirs.

A part of him wished he could hold on, just endlessly hold on to this moment. But he contented himself, was more than content, to know there would be others, scores of other moments.

Intimately theirs.

He trailed his fingers over the lace, over those firm breasts, teasing them both, then flicked open the tiny front hook to free her to his hands.

And when her heartbeat quickened, to his mouth.

Her breath caught. It always did. That rush, that punch of feelings, the impossible knots of them tangled in that mad swirl of sensation as he took her over as no one else ever had, ever could.

Just him, only him, the one who knew her, knew her mind, her body, her often shaky soul. And loved her, simply loved her.

That, just that? The miracle in her life.

She let him take, surrendered herself to his needs and to her own, as here, always here, they became one and the same. Let herself tremble and ache as those hands, that mouth, possessed.

Then as they roamed over her body, roamed down.

His thumbs gliding along those sensitive lines where the white lace rode high, his tongue sliding under where it lay over her center turned the trembles into shudders. And shudders to writhing as he slowly, so slowly, eased the lace lower.

The pleasure all but drowned her, and still he took her down, further down, into the thick and the hot and the glorious. Soft, slow, dreamy touches that left her utterly helpless.

Blissfully so.

He loved the sound she made, between a moan and a purr, when she was steeped in what he gave her, when she yielded to herself. Then the explosion of her, the break and shock when, with fingers or tongue or both, he slid into the hot and wet.

Her body arched, it quaked as she rode that wild burst of release. Her hands flailed, then gripped the edges of the counter as he pushed her higher, gave her more until she cried out once, twice.

Her world reeled and spun, and there was nothing in it but him. She arched up, wrapped around him, her breath ragged, her skin slick. Clinging there, she gathered herself while his lips pressed to her throat.

Then her hands grappled with his belt, tugged. “I want.” She tossed her head back, met those wild blue eyes. “I want.”

He kissed her, and the ferocity was back. “I want.”