Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(34)

“I love you,” he murmured in English, and again in Irish as her heartbeat thickened under his hand, as her pulse leaped against his lips.

She tightened around him, hard and fast. “You are love to me. You are love.” She framed his face, eased him back just enough to meet his eyes. “Mine,” she said, drawing his lips gently, gently back to hers.

She could drift down, down into that bottomless well of love, into the deep and the breathless. She could float even when sensations shimmered over her, through her, into her. And rise up, drenched, when shimmer turned to spark.

She took him in, took in the hot and the hard, took him with her into the deep and the breathless so they rose and fell together.

Hands clasped tight, beat meeting beat. When they broke, love spilled through them.

She curled against him, holding on to the warm, the shape, drawing in his scent. And her lips curved against his throat.

“Paid in full, pal.”

“I’ll note that in the ledger, with a memo you’ve helped me bear my burden for yet another day.”

She snorted out a laugh as her mind began to fuzz toward sleep. “How’s the brain, the ego and all that?”

“Doing well, thanks. And yours?”

“It’s good. All good. We’re good.”

He stroked her back as she drifted away, felt the bed give when the cat deduced the coast was clear and jumped back up.

He thought, it was good. Very good indeed.

It wouldn’t be good for Jayla Campbell. She was beyond pissed as she trudged her way across Carmine, hunched against the cold. If Mattio hadn’t been such a f*ckhead, she wouldn’t have stormed out of the party, wouldn’t be what seemed like miles from her apartment – and without a damn cab in sight.

He’d had his hand – both his hands on that blonde’s fat ass, and they’d been rubbing crotches. No excuses this time, no “I was only fooling around” this time, no “But, baby, I was half stoned” this time.

They were down to the D done.

She should never have come out tonight away. Early workday, and she didn’t know the neighborhood. She hadn’t known anybody at the stupid party.

She should’ve listened to her roommate and stayed home. But she’d been a little pissed at Kari for saying Mattio was a cheating dickwad. She’d been a little pissed, she admitted now, because she’d known it was true.

Why the hell did he have to be so good-looking, and so good in bed?

Down to the D done, she reminded herself, blinking back tears and taking her lumps by texting her roomie.

On my way home – done with this crap. Wait up, okay, if you’re not in bed? Get up if you are. I want wine and whine. J

She blinked at tears that came as much from anger as the loss of the cheating dickwad.

“Hey, miss! Hey, sorry!”

She heard the voice – major twang in it – and kept walking.

“Please, I’m sorry, but I’m really lost. Can you just tell me how to get to Broome? Is that right? Is Broome right?”

The twangy voice hurried up to her, and the woman owning it shivered and bit her lip. “I’m just lost, and I’m awful nervous. If you could just tell me which way to go. It’s so cold, and I can’t find a taxicab.”

“Tell me about it.” Jayla sighed. “Did you say Broome?”

“Yes, with an ‘e,’ is that right? I’m not from New York.”

“Shocked face.”

The woman smiled, then looked down. “Oh, would you look at that?”

Instinctively Jayla looked down, bent over a little.

It hit her like a hammer. Maybe it was a hammer. Pain exploded, the world spun, going red at the edges. She tried to cry out, but only managed a moan.

Something – someone – shoved her, yanked her. She fell hard, hard enough to steal what little breath she had still in her lungs.

“I’ve got her, honey!” The twangy voice came as though through a tunnel, a tunnel flooded with water. “Let’s go, I’ve got her. Told you to let me pick ’em, Darryl. I’ve got a knack.”

Somebody laughed. Even as she whimpered, tried to turn over, the hammer struck again, and knocked her into the dark.

8

Eve woke to the familiar. The scent of coffee, Roarke, already dressed in one of his master-of-the-business-universe suits on the sofa in the sitting area working on his PPC as the screen, on mute, scrolled with financial data she’d never understand. And the cat sprawled over the top of the sofa like some feline potentate.

Really, it didn’t get much better.

She lay still a moment, taking it all in – and still he sensed she’d waked as his gaze shifted to hers.

“Good morning.”

“It feels like one,” she decided.

She pushed up as nothing beckoned more alluringly that the scent of coffee. Since he’d gone for a pot, she walked over, poured an oversized mug, and gave herself that special glory of the first morning sip.

“How many countries and/or off-planet stations have you talked to this morning?” she wondered.

“Only Italy and Olympus. It’s a slow day.”

“In your world,” she countered as it was barely six a.m. “Shower,” she declared, and took her coffee with her.

Next to coffee, real coffee, pulsing jets and raining showers of steaming hot water equaled the finest start to any morning. There were days she didn’t think twice about it – such things had become routine. And other days she remembered, with brutal clarity, the cold, the hunger, the dark spaces, the painfully bright ones.