Fantasy in Death (In Death #30)(68)

Smooth and slow and sweet, they moved together. As sensations shimmered through her like light, she cupped his face in the dark.

Not all magic was fantasy, she thought. There was magic here and she felt it glow in her body, in her mind and her heart.

“I love you. Roarke. I love you.”

Magic, she thought, watching his heart rise into his eyes.

“A ghrá.” My love. And with the word he lifted her home.

In the morning, Eve drank the first half of the first cup of coffee with the concentration of a woman focused on simple survival. Then she sighed with nearly the same easy pleasure as she had the night before under Roarke’s skilled hands.

No question, she admitted, and set the coffee aside long enough to jump in the shower: She’d gotten spoiled.

She didn’t know how she’d managed to get her ass in gear every day before Roarke—and real, honest-to-God coffee, black and strong and rich. Or how she’d lived with the stingy piss trickle of the shower in her own apartment before she’d discovered the sheer wonder of hot multi-jets, on full, pummeling her awake.

Good things, little things, really, that she’d lived without all of her life—like the warm, clean-scented swirl of air in the drying tube. She’d gotten used to those good things, those little things, she realized, so that she rarely thought of them.

She stepped out of the tube and noted the robe hanging on the door. Short, soft, and boldly red—and probably new. She couldn’t be absolutely sure as her man had a habit of buying her pretty things—good things, little things—without mentioning it.

She put it on, picked up her coffee, and stepped back into the bedroom.

A typical morning scene in their household, she supposed. Roarke sipped his own coffee on the cushy sofa in the sitting area, stroking Galahad into a coma while he scanned the morning stock reports. Already dressed, she observed, and he’d probably dealt with at least one ’link conference or holo-meeting before she’d cracked her eyes open.

He’d nag her to eat breakfast, unless she came up with the idea on her own—and very likely let her know if whatever jacket she pulled out didn’t go with whatever pants she pulled on.

Good things, she thought yet again. Little things.

Their things.

While she’d come to rely on the routine, sometimes, she decided, you needed to shake it up.

“What’re you hungry for?” she asked him.

“Sorry?” He glanced over, obviously shifting his attention from screen to her.

“What do you want for breakfast?”

He cocked his head, lifted his eyebrows. “Have you seen my wife? She was here just a minute ago.”

“Just for that, you’ll eat what I give you.”

“That sounds a bit more like the woman we know and love,” he said to the cat. “And yet...” He rose, sauntered over to her. He gave her a spin and a dip, then a kiss more suited to steamy midnight than bright summer morning.

“Well, well, it is you after all. I know that mouth.”

“Keep it up, ace, and that’s all you’ll be tasting.”

“I could live with that.”

She gave him a poke to nudge him back. “I’ve got no time to wrestle with you. I’ve got search warrants to secure, suspects to grill, killers to catch.”

She programmed waffles and mixed berries, more coffee. She imagined Roarke had already fed the cat, but programmed a shallow bowl of milk. Galahad leaped on it like a puma.

“It’ll keep him out of our hair,” she said as she sat.

“And isn’t this nice, our little family having breakfast together.” He plucked a fat blackberry from his own plate, popped it in her mouth. “You look rested. No more dreams?”

“No. Something relaxed them right out of me.” She picked up a raspberry, popped it in his. “But I was thinking about it. Dreams are subconscious whacka-whacka.”

“A little known psychological term.”

“Whatever. I can figure out most of it; it’s just not that deep. But I have a lead suspect in my head, so why was it the fantasy figure that killed Bart in the dream? Maybe because my subconscious was just following the game, or maybe because it’s telling me I’m wrong.”

“You might run it by Mira.”

“Maybe. If there’s time. When the warrants come through, the searches are going to take a while. Hitting three places means extra time, extra men.”

“Mira might back you up on the need for those warrants.”

“Yeah, I’m holding her in reserve. The killer knew Bart’s routine, that’s part of the thing. His inside-his-own-place routine, and that takes a certain intimacy. It’s like this, us,” she explained wagging a finger between them. “The way I knew you’d be sitting here when I came out of the shower. Drinking coffee, petting the cat, checking the stocks and morning media. It’s what you do. You deviate now and then, as necessary, but odds are it’s like this.”

“Mmm.” Roarke cut a bite of waffle. “And the killer played the odds.”

“They were good odds. Just like I favor the odds on whoever killed him making a move to take the leadership role at U-Play. Bart’s death leaves a void, and part of the benefit of that death would be filling it.”

“You’re leaning away from more than one of them being involved now.”