Visions in Death (In Death #19)(24)

When he eased her back so their eyes met, she smiled.

Watching her, he unbuttoned her shirt, felt her hands, steady again, loosen his. He slid it off her shoulders so he could trace his fingers over her. Skin, pale and smooth, surprisingly delicate over such disciplined strength. A low sound of pleasure hummed in her throat as she spread her hands over his chest.

Then she leaned down, pressed her lips to his ear. "Mine," she said.

It shook him, down to the soul.

Taking her hands in his, he turned them palms-up and laid his lips in the center of each. "Mine."

They slid down together to lie facing one another, to touch, to explore as if it were the first time. Long and lazy caresses that both stirred and soothed. Unhurried passion that lit low fires.

She was warm now, and sure.

His lips brushed her breast and made her sigh again. Closing her eyes, she floated on the bliss. She stroked his hair—all that glorious black silk; his back—hard strength.

She heard him murmur aghra —my love. And thought, Yes, I am. Thank God. And arched to offer him more.

Arousal was a long, slow climb up, gradually up until sighs became moans and pleasure became a quiver of anticipation. When he brought her to peak, it was like being lifted up on the rise of a warm blue wave.

"Fill me." She drew his head down until their mouths met again. "Fill me."

He could see her eyes, open now, dark and drenched. So he slipped inside her, was surrounded, welcomed. Then enfolded.

They moved together, a gentle rise and fall in an intimacy so complete it squeezed his heart. He laid his lips on hers again, would have sworn he breathed her soul.

And when she spoke his name, the tenderness shattered him.

She watched the night sky through the window over the bed. It was all so still she could almost believe there wasn't a world out there. That there was nothing beyond this room, this bed, this man.

Maybe that was one of the purposes of sex. To isolate you, for a little while, from everything but yourself and your lover. To allow you to focus in on your body, its needs, the gratification that was physical, and if you were lucky in that lover—emotional as well.

Without those pockets of solitude and sensation, you might just go mad.

She'd used sex before Roarke, for the release, the physical snap. But she'd never known, or understood, the intimacy of the act before him, the complete surrender of self to another. She'd never experienced the emotional peace that followed until he'd loved her.

"I have things to say to you," she said.

"All right."

She shook her head. "In a little while." If she stayed like this much longer, saturated with him, she'd forget there was a world out there, one she'd sworn to protect. "I've got to get up. Don't much want to, but I have to."

"You're going to eat."

She had to smile. He hadn't finished taking care of her, she thought. He never finished. "I'm going to eat. In fact, I'll get dinner for both of us."

He lifted his head, and those eyes, those brilliant blue eyes, narrowed thoughtfully. "Will you?"

"Hey, pal, I can work a stupid AutoChef as well as the next guy." She gave him a light slap on the ass. "Roll over."

He complied. "Was it the sex or the soother?"

"Was what the sex or the soother?"

"That put you in a domestic frame of mind?"

"A smart mouth won't get you dinner."

Smart mouth or not, he figured he was probably getting pizza.

She hooked a robe out of her closet, then while he watched her with some surprise, took one out of his and brought it to him. "And a smart mouth isn't always verbal. I can see sarcastic thoughts in your head."

"Why don't I shut up and get us some wine?"

"Why don't you?"

He left her contemplating the AutoChef and opened the panel to the wine rack. He assumed she needed to keep busy, keep the nightmare at bay. Thinking pizza, he selected a bottle of chianti, opened it, and set it aside to breathe.

"You'll be working tonight."

"Yeah. I have to do some stuff. I've got Mira's profile, and I want to walk through that again. Put together a progress report. I haven't done any probabilities yet either. Plus I have to scan the eye banks, transplant facilities, that sort of thing. A time waster since he didn't take them to sell them. But it's got to be eliminated."

She brought two plates over to the sitting area, set them down on the table.

"What've you got there?" he asked her.

"Food. What does it look like?"

He cocked his head. "It doesn't look like pizza."

"My culinary programming skills run beyond pizza."

She'd chosen chicken sautéed in wine and rosemary, with wild rice and asparagus.

"Well fancy that," he murmured, flummoxed. "I've opened entirely the wrong wine."

"We'll live with it."

She went back for a basket of bread. "Let's eat."

"No, this won't do." He opened the wine rack again, found a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse in the chilled section. He opened it, brought bottle and glasses to the table. "Looks lovely. Thanks."

She sampled a bite. "Pretty good. Doesn't quite measure up to the soy fries I had at lunch, but it's not bad." When he winced, as she'd intended, she laughed.