Judgment in Death (In Death #11)(51)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The voice was rigidly pleasant and didn't fool Eve for an instant. She knew the sound of savagery when she heard it, however elegantly it was cloaked. Just as she recognized it in the frigid blue of Roarke's eyes.

She felt the punch of fear, like a blow to her solar plexus. As a result, her voice was sharp and clipped as she broke Webster's hold and stepped deliberately between him and her husband.

"Roarke. Webster and I are in the middle of a meeting, and a professional disagreement."

"I don't think so. Go find something to do, Eve. Elsewhere."

Insult worked hard to kick fear aside but didn't manage the job. She felt her muscles begin to tremble and had an image of capping off the evening by arresting her husband for murder.

"Get a grip." She did her best to plant her boots. "You've mistaken the situation here."

"No, he hasn't. Not on my end." Webster moved away from Eve. "And I don't hide behind women. You want to do this here?" he said with a nod toward Roarke. "Or outside?"

Roarke smiled, much Eve thought, like a wolf might before a kill. "Here and now."

They leapt at each other. Charged, she would think later when her brain engaged again, like a couple of rams in rutting season. For a moment, she was too stunned to do more than goggle.

She watched Webster fly, come heavily down on a table, which crashed under the weight. Galahad sprang up, hissing, and took a vicious swipe at his shoulder.

He was up quickly, she'd give him that, bleeding. Fists flew with the ugly sound of bone against bone. A lamp shattered.

She was shouting, she could hear herself calling out in a voice that seemed oddly unlike her own. At wit's end, she drew her weapon, hastily checked to insure it was on lowest stun, then fired a stream between them.

Webster's head whipped around in shock, but Roarke didn't so much as flinch. And his fist, already swinging, smashed into Webster's face.

Another table went, splintering into toothpicks. And this time Webster stayed down. Or would have if Roarke hadn't leaned over and hauled him up by the collar.

"Roarke." Her hand steady, Eve kept her weapon trained. "That's enough. Let him go or I'll stun you. I swear I will."

His eyes met hers, hot now, hot enough to burn. He released Webster so the half-conscious man crumpled in a heap. Even as Roarke started toward Eve, Summerset slid into the room.

"I'll just show your guest out."

"Do that," Roarke said without taking his eyes from Eve's. "And close the door. Stun me, will you?" He murmured it, silkily, when he was a foot away.

She backed up, all but hearing her nerves fray. "If you don't calm down, yes. I'm going to go see how bad he's hurt."

"You're not, no. That you're not. Stun me then," he invited, and she heard the alleyways of Dublin in his voice. "Do it."

She heard the doors close, the locks click. Fear had her by the throat, infuriating her even as she took another step in retreat. "There was nothing going on here. It's insulting for you to think there was."

"Darling Eve, if I thought there'd been anything, on your part, going on here, he wouldn't have left breathing." There was no change in his expression as his hand snaked out and knocked the weapon from hers. "Yet you stood between us."

"To try to avoid this." She threw out her arms. "This testosterone explosion. Damn it, you wrecked my place and assaulted an officer, and over nothing. Over my having a professional disagreement with a colleague."

"A colleague who was once a lover, and what I walked in on was personal."

"Okay, all right, maybe. But that's no excuse. If I jumped every one of your old lovers, I'd be bashing every female face in New York and the known universe."

"That's entirely different."

"Why?" She had him now, she thought with satisfaction. "Why is it different for you?"

"Because I don't invite those former lovers into my home and let them put their hands on me."

"It wasn't like that. It was -- "

"And because." He fisted a hand at the front of her shirt, hauling her up until she was forced to her toes. "You're mine."

Her eyes all but bulged out of her head. "What? What? Like property? Like one of your damn hotels?"

"Aye. If you like."

"I don't like. Not one damn bit." She shoved at his hand, twisted, and only succeeded in ripping the shoulder seam of her shirt. Alarm bells went off in her head even as she tried to break his hold with another counter maneuver. She ended up with her back pressed into him and her arms pinned.

"You've crossed a number of lines in a short time, Lieutenant." His voice was warm against her ear. Warm and dangerous. Erotic. "Do you think I'm a man who'll go meekly about your bidding? Do you think loving you has taken my teeth?"

As if to prove otherwise, he sank them lightly in her throat.

She couldn't think, not with the red haze covering her brain. She quite simply couldn't get her breath. "Let go of me. I'm too mad to deal with you tonight."

"No, you're not mad." He whipped her around again, slammed her back to the wall, and yanked her arms over her head. And his face, the face of a condemned angel, was close to hers. "Intrigued is what you are, and reluctantly aroused. Your pulse is pounding, and you tremble. Some of it's fear, just a touch of it to add an edge."