Reunion in Death (In Death #14)(28)

"No, sir. In my opinion the previous profiler and shrink were too soft on her, and I'd prefer Mira's take. Dunne knows how to play people. Also, her mother and stepfather are still alive. She may attempt contact there at some point. In addition, McNab has compiled a list of people she may have formed a relationship with while in Dockport. I think a trip there might provide some insight."

"When do you plan to leave?"

"I'd hoped to go tomorrow, sir. I thought to request that Feeney come with me in this case. We both dealt personally with Dunne, and while Peabody could use the experience, her plate's full. Her parents are in town, and I recently gave her a cold case to investigate."

His brow furrowed. "A homicide? Is she ready for that?"

"Yes, sir, she's ready. She's on the right track, and I believe she can close it."

"Keep me apprised on all counts. I'll be out of the office most of tomorrow afternoon. Saying good-bye to a friend."

...

It felt strange to be able to clock off at end of shift and head home on time. It was stranger still to walk in the front door and not have Summerset lurking in the foyer ready with some pithy remark or observation. She actually found herself standing there for a minute or two, waiting for him, before she caught herself.

Oddly embarrassed, she started upstairs, almost certain he'd be there, sort of lying in wait. But she made it all the way to the bedroom without a sign of him. Or the cat.

It didn't, she realized, feel quite like home.

Until she heard the shower running, and voices murmuring from the adjoining bath. She stepped in and saw Roarke's long, lanky form through the wavy glass of the shower wall.

It was enough to make a woman want to lick her lips.

The voices came from a screen recessed in the shower tiles, and seemed to be some sort of financial report. The man's mind was full of numbers half the time, she thought, and decided to shift it to another occupation.

She stripped where she stood, moved quietly into the criss-crossing sprays behind him, slid her hands around his waist. And down.

His body braced, a quick ripple of muscle and animal instinct.

"Darling." His voice purred out. "My wife could come home any minute."

"Screw her."

He laughed. "Happy to," he said, and turning had her pressed against the wet tiles.

"Raise water temp to one-oh-one degrees."

"Too hot," he muttered against her mouth as the spray heated, steamed.

"I want it hot." In a quick move, she reversed their positions, clamped her teeth over his jaw. "I want you hot."

She was already wet, and she was randy. Her hands and mouth busy on him, taking him over in a kind of cheerful aggression. He no longer heard the brisk, clipped voice on-screen that detailed the latest stock reports, the market projections. Only the hiss of spray and the beat of his own blood.

He could want her, every minute of every day. Was certain he would go on wanting her after he was dead and gone. She was the pulse, the reason, the breath.

When he caught her dripping hair in his hand, yanked her head up so his mouth could fuse to hers, it was like feeding a hunger that was never, ever quite sated.

She felt it from him, the edge of that violent appetite he so often masked in elegance and style and patience. When she tasted it, it made her crave the primitive, made her lust for the danger of letting the animal inside them both spring loose to feed.

With him she could be tender, where there had never been tenderness. And with him she could be brutal, without fear.

"Now. Now, now, now! Inside me."

He gripped her hips, fingers sliding over slick, wet skin until they dug in. Her breath caught when he shoved her back against the tiles, then released on a cry when he rammed himself into her.

Her body plunged through the first vicious orgasm, then raced for more.

Her eyes locked with his. She could see herself there, swimming in, drowning in that vivid blue. Trusting his strength, she wrapped her legs around his waist to take more of him.

Steam billowed, thin mists. Water streamed, hot rain. He drove himself hard and deep, watching, always watching that shocked pleasure radiate over her face. He could see her rising to peak again, the way her eyes blurred, the gilded brown of them deepening an instant before they went blind, an instant before her body gathered, then shuddered.

She clamped around him, a hot, wet fist, and nearly dragged him over with her.

"Take more." His voice was ragged, his lungs burning. "Take more, and more, until you come screaming for me."

She could hear the sharp, rhythmic slap of flesh against flesh, of flesh against tile, and could taste when his mouth crushed down on hers again the outrageous need in him. And as he thrust into her, as pleasure and pain and madness merged into one searing mass inside her, she heard herself scream.

Limp as rags, still tangled together, they slid down to the floor of the shower.

"Christ Jesus," he managed.

"Let's just stay here for an hour or two. We probably won't drown." Her head dropped onto his shoulder like a stone.

"We might, as I think we're lying on the drains." But he made no effort to move.

She turned her head so the spray beat down on her face. "But it feels good."

He cupped her breast. "God knows."

"Where the hell is everybody?"