Calculated in Death (In Death #36)(105)

God, he had the most excellent ass. She wouldn’t mind taking just a little bite. Maybe a big one. And maybe she could stretch that hour into, oh, say, ninety minutes.

What better way to tune up?

She watched him while she stretched her hamstrings, her quads, so tight from the long run they all but pinged. And found another inspiration.

“I think I pulled something.” She sat, head down, rubbing at her calf.

“What?”

“It’s nothing. I just . . .” She let out a little hiss.

“Let me see.” He shut off the machine, came over to kneel beside her. “What did you pull?”

“Your strings,” she said, and yanked him down on top of her.

“Think you’re clever, don’t you?”

“Got you here, didn’t I?” She hooked her legs around him, shifted weight, rolled him under her. “Just where I want you.”

“Did you program this scenario as well?”

“No, this one I’m making up as I go. We’re all sweaty.” She leaned down to nip at his chin. “All worked up and wet. Why waste it?”

“I appreciate your sense of efficiency.” He ran a hand over her butt, down the back of her thigh. “You’re still tight.”

“Why don’t you stretch me?”

She started to lean down again, but this time he flipped her, pressing body to slick body and mouth to mouth in an explosion of heat that quaked down to the core.

Her system shuddered from it, then leaped toward it.

Passion for passion, reckless and greedy.

She dragged at his shirt, short nails scraping along his skin, fingers digging into muscle. She craved his body, the weight, the shape, the glorious feel of it pressed into hers.

In moments she was breathless again, muscles quivering, heart slamming. Before she could catch that breath again, he drove her up and over with hands and mouth.

He felt her go, that shuddering release, the gasp and moan.

It wasn’t enough, not yet, for either of them.

He yanked off her bra, knew his hands were rough. Didn’t care. He wanted her wild, he wanted her desperate, wanted—needed—to drag her down into the madness with him.

She went. Her body alive and eager and reckless under his. Her hands, rough as well, grasping, taking.

No patience, no tenderness here. Not now. Only urgent, avid need gnawing to be quelled.

He set the animal in him free, and its mate met it as ferociously.

Crazed, careless, they stripped each other. He drove into her, hard and deep, shoved up her knees, wanting her to take more. To take all.

To take him.

She cried out, the pleasure tearing through her in keen, hot claws. Her hands gripped his hips as her own pistoned in response.

Fast. Faster, until her cry of release came in desperate sobs. Until her hands slid limply to the floor.

Until he choked out her name.

Her breath whistled out. She wondered her raging heart didn’t jump out of her chest and dance around the room.

“Jesus!” she managed in a voice harsh with a sudden, impossible thirst. “Holy cartwheeling Jesus.”

“Well, that’s an image I didn’t expect.” He’d collapsed on her. He meant to roll off, give her air, and he would. In a day or two.

“I may really have pulled something that time.”

“I won’t be falling for that again. You’ve used me up.”

“Good, because I don’t think I can move.”

With considerable effort, he rolled off her, lay on his back staring at the ceiling as she did. “We can stay here.”

“Forever?”

“It’s an option.”

“Crime would overtake the city, and the financial world would collapse. We can’t be responsible.”

“I suppose not. I need water anyway. A gallon might do it.”

“Just pour my share over me.”

He gained his feet, realized he felt just slightly drunk. Pleasant enough, he decided as he retrieved two bottles of water. He gulped some down as he came back, then smiling down at her—her eyes closed, her face still flushed, tipped the bottle so cold water splashed on her belly.

“Hey!”

“As you requested.” He sat beside her, offered her a bottle.

She drank half of it, sighed. “I figured on tuning up, clearing my head. Mission accomplished, with a big bonus.” She laid a hand on his. “It’s going to be tomorrow night.”

“I suspect you’re right.”

“We’ll be ready. Did you find anything at Milo’s I can use?”

“Oh, we found quite a bit. More than enough already to put a number of people—including Alexander—in prison for considerable lengths of time. Milo keeps exceptional records, and has that insatiable curiosity of the hacker. Alexander opened his personal Pandora’s box when he hired him.”

“Anything on Frye? You got the memo on Frye?”

“I did, yes. Nothing by name. He called Frye the Ass-Kicker, or AK, but he did document the jobs by name. Marta Dickenson, time, location, fee. Parzarri, Ingersol, the same. Cocky little bastard, Milo. He made his own files on everything, secreted them away believing, obviously, no one would be smart enough or good enough to get to them and then past his shields.”