Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(63)

“The more resources the better,” she repeated, sliding her hands into her pockets, trying to pace off some of the excess energy. “We wouldn’t be this far on Little without Banner, and we wouldn’t have him confirmed – and he damn well is – without DeWinter and Morris.

“And the towing angle, that’s good. Wouldn’t have that without your criminal perspective.”

“Always happy to help.” He turned her around, released her weapon harness.

She shrugged out of it. “The locals didn’t want that connection – the local connection. They wanted Jansen to have gotten his head caved in by some homicidal hitcher. It’s all over their reports.”

“Hmm.” Roarke turned her around again, unbuckled her belt.

“As for Little, smoother if that was just his bad luck.”

He tugged her sweater over her head.

“Same with Fastbinder in West Virginia. Guy takes a wrong step, does a header into a crevice. Tragic, sure, but people aren’t hammering the local law about tracking down a couple killers.”

Roarke backed her to the bed, hefted her onto the platform, nudged her to sit.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m here to help, remember.” He lifted one of her legs, pulled off her boot.

“You’re working on getting me naked.”

“The reward for the help.”

“You looking for another payment?”

“I’d planned to run an account, but under the circumstances.” He pulled off the other boot.

“I am a little wired.” She boosted up her hips as he tugged her trousers down and away. “Might as well put the caffeine to some use.”

“And if I burn it out of you, you might shut up long enough for us to both get some sleep.”

With the flat of his hand, he covered her face, gave her a gentle shove back.

And with a throaty growl, Galahad padded to the far corner of the bed, turned his back to them.

“How does he know we’re not just going to sleep?”

“Animal instinct,” Roarke supposed, pulling off his own sweater before he levered over her.

“I’ve got some of that.” Eve yanked him down, added a quick bite to the kiss. “Fast.” She used her teeth on his throat now. “Fast and hard and rough.”

She was already pulsing, already pumping. And her swift, ripe greed sparked its match in him. While she struggled to undress him, he cupped a hand between her legs, sent her careening over the first keen edge.

Nothing now, nothing but need, like a fever, like a flame, burning, climbing. Mad with it, she arched up, grinding herself against him until they both shuddered.

Still arched, she locked her legs around his hips, reached up to grip the sheets as if she’d fly away without the anchor.

“Fast,” she said again, barely breathing. “Hard. Rough.”

He drove into her, sheathed to the hilt, ripped a cry from her. And again, with the pleasure so sharp it slashed through him like a blade.

Again, and still again, with a madness that clawed up to haze his vision so she seemed suspended in smoke beneath him.

He used his hands on her, slick, quivering skin, and his mouth, while he plunged – hard, fast, rough.

She’d wanted that dark greed inside him, the animal roused, so he freed it, rode it, rode her until her strangled scream sounded in his ears, until her body shook against his. Until she seemed to melt away.

And still he rode, past reason, took more. Took all.

And with all, released.

Her ears rang with the hammering of her own heart. His knocked against her like a fist. She sensed him start to move and managed to get her limp arms around him.

“No. Just stay,” she murmured. “Just stay awhile.”

And slept.

She woke in the dark, pulled from deep and blessedly dreamless sleep by the insistent beeping of her communicator.

Disoriented, still tangled with Roarke, she tried to push up.

“Wait. Lights on, ten percent.”

At Roarke’s command, the dark lifted as he rolled away.

“My comm…”

“Still in your trousers.” He found them, fished the communicator out while she tried to scrub the fog of sleep away.

“Ah —”

“Block video,” he advised.

“Christ. Yes. Block video,” she ordered. “Dallas.”

“Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.”

At 4:18 a.m., she learned of Reed Aaron Mulligan.

Downtown again, she thought. A full day ahead of schedule. Unless…

“Do you want me to wake Peabody?” Roarke asked.

“Yes. No. No, no point. It’s going to be one of theirs, but that’s gut, not fact. I’ll talk to this Mulligan’s mother first.”

“Then I’m with you. With you,” he repeated before she could object.

She was showered, dressed and pumped on coffee inside ten minutes, with Roarke barely a minute behind as he remoted a vehicle over from the garage.

Then they were out the door, into the cold, clear night, where one of his burly A-Ts waited, engine and heaters running.

“Possible missing lives with his mother on Leonard, off Broadway.”

“I heard Dispatch.” He drove fast, smooth through the gates and onto streets quiet in the predawn winter. “This is a break-in pattern, yes?”