Survivor In Death (In Death #20)(94)

“Why don't I tone it down a bit,” Roarke suggested.

She gained her feet, blood in her eye now. “You do, and I'll kick your ass when I'm done with these.”

He shrugged, sipped. “Your call, darling.”

“Okay.” She shook her arms, circling as they did, noting the female was favoring her left leg now, and the black male was winded. “Let's finish this up.”

She went for the black guy. He might've been the biggest, but the groin shot had hurt. Using the woman as a decoy, Eve flew into a double spin, a snapping side kick, easily blocked, and used the momentum to carry her around, push her forward so that her upper body, head, and fists all connected with the black man's crotch.

This time he went down, and stayed down.

She blocked blows with her forearms, her shoulders, gauging her ground, taking the defensive and drawing both her opponents in close.

A short-armed punch to the jaw snapped the female's head back, and the elbow Eve jabbed into her throat took her out.

Eve grabbed her falling body and shoved it at her last opponent.

He had to spin away, but came back at her. They were both puffing now, and the sweat stung her eyes. She doubled over when his foot landed in her gut. And he was fast--but not quite fast enough to snap his leg back before she gripped his ankle and heaved.

He used the move to carry himself over into a flip, punched the landing with a grace she admired. Even as she was hurling at him, springing up to a flying kick. Her heel landed on the bridge of his nose, and she heard the satisfying crunch.

“That's game,” Roarke said. “End program.”

The figures faded away, as did the dojo. She stood, in her work clothes now, catching her breath. “Good fight,” she managed.

“Not bad. You finished them up in ... twenty-one minutes, forty seconds.”

“Time flies when you're . . . ow.” She rubbed her right inner thigh. “What I get for not warming up.”

“You pull something?”

“No.” She bent to stretch it out. “Just a little tender.” She blew her hair out of narrowed eyes as she glanced toward Roarke. “Twenty minutes?”

“Twenty-one forty. Not quite the high score. I did it in nineteen twenty-three.”

She lifted her head, squinted at him as she pulled the heel of her right foot to her butt in a stretch. “Under twenty first time out?”

“All right, no, not the first time. That took me twenty and change.”

“How much change?”

He laughed. “Fifty-eight.”

“I'd say the difference is negated as you programmed the game. Gimme a sip of that.”

He offered her the glass. “Feel better?”

“Yeah. Nothing like punching your fist into a face to brighten up the day. I don't know what that says about me either, but I don't care.”

“Then we'll have another game. Recreational hour's not up,” he said before she could protest. “Initiate Program Island-3.”

They were on a white sand beach that flowed into water of blue crystal. There were flowers--pink, white, rosy red--strewn along the shoreline. Jewel-colored birds winged into a sky as clear and blue as a glass bowl.

Floating gently on the sea was a wide white bed.

“There's a bed on the water.”

“I've never made love to you on the water. In it, somewhat under it, but never on it. You like the beach.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I like the idea of floating away with you.”

She looked at him. He wore a thin white shirt now, unbuttoned so it rippled in the breeze, and loose black pants. His feet were bare, as hers were.

He'd programmed her for white as well, she noted. Floating white dress with wire-thin straps. There were flowers in her hair. A long way from a black gi and flying fists. “From combat to romance?”

“Can you think of anything that suits us more?”

She laughed. “Guess not. I wouldn't have been able to step away like this for an hour, not a couple of years ago. I hope I'm better for it, all around.”

She took his hand, walked with him into the warm, clear water. And laughed as they rolled onto the bed. “It's like a really sexy raft.”

“And infinitely more comfortable.” He brushed his lips over hers. “I stepped away whenever I chose. But I was never able to take myself away, as I can with you. I know I'm better for it.”

In another world there was death and pain, grief and rage. And here was love. The white sand and blue water might have been fantasy, but this world was as real as the other. Because he was real, they were real.

“Let's take ourselves away, then. Float away.”

She drew him to her, mouth to mouth, heart to heart. The bed dipped gently on the blue water, and the restlessness inside her eased.

She tasted the wine on him, rich, and felt the warm, moist air bathe her skin as he touched her.

A dreaming time now, she thought. Without the hard brightness of that other world. Without the pain and the blood and the incessant violence of the everyday. Calming and soothing, a kind of easy arousal that steadied the heart and fed the soul.

When she held him like this, when her mouth was on his in a long, long kiss, she could forget what it was to be hungry and hurting. Being held like this, she knew she could go back to the hurt stronger.