The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(102)

And he stared at her the entire time, those diamond eyes, those wonderful, cynical, often chilly but never cruel, diamond eyes with their navy blue rims boring into her own.

For some reason, just before she began to climax, she found herself reaching up to his face once again.

“You’re going to be okay,” she heard herself say. “That shadow is not in you. You’re not that civilian, I promise you. That is not going to happen to you.”

Vishous froze, his eyes growing wide. “What?”

“It’s all right. Look at your arm. Go on.”

He blinked quick a number of times. And then instead of checking the wound, he said in a voice that cracked, “How did you know.”

“Why wouldn’t you wonder?” She shrugged. “How could you not? If I were you, that’s what would go through my mind. You were wounded in the same way that civilian was, just to a much lesser extent. I would be worried it might spread or something might be harbored inside of me, but that is not what’s going on.”

As he shifted and looked at his arm muscle, his stare narrowed. “It is getting better.”

“I agree. And even though we don’t know for sure, it is logical to assume that is a favorable sign. Also, you have been acting no different, and honestly, that civilian’s wounds were over half his body—more than half.”

V refocused on her eyes. “I want it gone. I don’t want that shit in my skin anymore.”

“Those shadows are so much more dangerous than we thought.”

“The fucking Omega has to go.”

“I agree.”

After a moment, he dropped his head and started to kiss her again, and she kissed him right back, giving him everything she had, trying to reassure him not just about his own injury, but the very future of the race. Which was maybe nuts. But sometimes that was all you could do—just pour your hope and love into your partner because they needed the support, even though it arguably wasn’t going to change or improve what was really going on.

With a luscious sigh, Jane arched into her release, the tide cresting in a quiet, profound way, the warmth, the tightening around his arousal, the sweet, sweet relief cleansing her, wiping out, at least for the time being, all the ugliness that she had seen tonight.

“Oh, God, Jane…” V groaned as he, too, found his orgasm.

The pleasure seemed to last forever, and then they were spooning in a warm cocoon, the duvet yanked over their bodies, his head on his pillow, hers on the inside of his arm.

As they lay there in the dark, Jane closed her eyes.

“What about food,” she mumbled as she started to fall asleep.

“This is all I need,” V replied.

“Me, too…”

Her last thought before she drifted off was that no, in fact this was not like it had been previously when she’d come back exhausted from work. She was tired, it was true, and it was from her job. But instead of being in here alone, she was very much in this together.

With the one she loved.





FORTY-SEVEN


“Detective de la Cruz, how nice to see you again.”

As Vitoria came forward across the gallery space, she offered the man her hand. “I didn’t expect you so soon. It’s not even ten in the morning.”

“Traffic was light.”

He was dressed in a version of what he’d had been in the day before, the blazer dark brown this time, the pants black, the shoes slush-worthy and streaked with dried salt stains. He had something in his hand, but not a notebook. A clipboard? No, it was a thin laptop.

“Would you like to go somewhere to talk?” he said.

“But of course. This way.”

As she led him over to the stairs to Ricardo’s office, she was aware of a curling anxiety. She hid it by reminding herself that if she couldn’t handle this kind of heat, she had no business thinking that she could run her brothers’ illegal empire.

And no, she was not going down to the station to meet de la Cruz. He had given her a choice of that or him coming to her. Not a tough decision.

When they were in her brother’s expansive bowling alley of an office, she walked forward to the desk—but stopped halfway there and turned on her heel.

“Here I am again, being rude. I’ve forgotten to offer you something to drink once more.”

“I’m good. Thanks.”

“As you do.”

She went the rest of the way, noting that she’d left that chair she’d sat in the previous day still out of place and turned around. Ricardo would not have approved, and she had to resettle it back where it belonged.

Smoothing her pink and black Chanel suit, she faced him. “So tell me, Detective, have you found something on the security tapes?”

“Yes. I have.”

As she stared at him, she trained her face to slowly disintegrate into an expression that approximated fear and worry. “Are my brothers okay?”

“Do you mind if I bring that other chair around so we can sit together?”

“No. Not at all.”

Feigning like she had to take a seat or she would fall down, she swept her hair over her shoulder, lowered herself into the chair she’d rearranged, and crossed her legs.

Beneath that show of femininity, she was all calculation.