Golden in Death(13)

She sat, pulled off her boots. “You remember how I kept my word on the shuttle to Italy? Banged you like a drum?”

“I have a very good memory.”

“Yeah, you do.”

She rose, unhooked her weapon harness, peeled it off. “I think it’s time for a repeat performance.”

He’d paused in the act of taking off his shirt, smiled slowly. “Do you, now?”

“I do. Despite ugly death, or maybe due to same, I realized today you need to appreciate what you’ve got when you’ve got it. More, you should grab on to it.”

She hooked a hand in his waistband, yanked him to her. “I’m grabbing.”

She took his mouth, dived deep, added a quick little bite at the end. And smiled. “Being an investigator who recognizes evidence, I don’t have to ask if you’re up for it.”

With a pivot, her foot moving behind his to shift the balance, she had him on his back on the bed.

The cat, as predicted, leaped off the bed and stalked away.

“Nice move.”

After straddling him, she curved down to him. “I got more.”

And took his mouth again to prove it.

She wanted heat, and speed, some quick and reckless abandon for both of them. The man who’d waited, worried; the cop who carried fresh weight.

Here she could show him what she couldn’t always find words for. That her love was boundless, furious, blazing through her so fierce she would always, always fight to hold it, hold him.

With her body she could give them both a reprieve from whatever tomorrow asked of them.

She let herself fly into it, not soft and slow, but like an arrow loosed from a bow. Hot-tipped and keen. And when his hands, all too clever and skilled, roamed over her, she stopped them, gripped them tight in hers. And conquered him with only her mouth.

His lips, his throat, his chest. That heartbeat pounding, pounding as she feasted on warm flesh, on the quiver of strong muscles.

“You wait,” she managed, ripe with her own power as she released his hands. “You wait.” Undid the buttons to free him.

And gripping his hands again, used her mouth.

She destroyed him. Relentless, agile, she destroyed control, layer by layer. Not eroded, he thought, already half mad for her, but simply burned it away like a brushfire.

The heat, God, the heat was unbearable. Was glorious.

He fought to hold back, swore he felt the world, the whole of it, turn upside down. She took him to the searing edge, left him there all but shuddering, as she worked her way up his body again.

At the end, at his limit, he said her name. Like a prayer, a plea, a demand all in one.

He saw her eyes, just her eyes, tawny as a lion’s with her own power. She said, “You wait.”

He snapped, and answered, “No.”

He rolled her over, pinned her. And freed, his hands had their way.

He ravished, as she had, burned away those layers, as she had. Now he feasted, that lean and limber body his to touch, taste, take. She cried out as she came, a sound that thrilled, pushed him to drive her up again, sweeping her from limp to desperate.

Now the world spun, stealing the air, blurring the vision until they clung to each other, wrecked and ready.

When their eyes met, he plunged into her. Fast, rough, with a violence they both craved in the moment, they drove each other to that burning edge, clawed at it to hold the mad pleasure.

And finally spilled over.

Breathless, they lay like survivors of the wreck, waiting for sense and sanity to seep back.

“You said…” She had to pause, pull in more air through still-laboring lungs, then picked her way through something resembling Irish. “What does it mean?”

She’d mangled it, Roarke thought, but he put it together. “Did I?”

“Yeah, right before we killed each other.”

“Apt then. It’s Is mise mo chiall. You’re my madness.”

She thought it over. “I’m going to say that’s a good thing, under the circumstances.”

Turning his head, he brushed his lips over her hair. “You unravel me, Eve, in thousands of ways.”

“I needed to, I don’t know, burn off the day.”

“I’d say we succeeded there.” He shifted, drew her in so she curled against him. “You’ll sleep.”

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes, breathed him in, began to drift. “You have lights on all over the house when I come home at night, when I come home late.”

“To help you find your way.”

“It’s nice,” she murmured, and slipped into sleep.

The cat, concluding his spot was once again clear, leaped onto the bed to settle in the small of Eve’s back.

Yes, Roarke thought, it was very nice.



* * *



She woke alone and early, considered trying for another ten, then gave it up. Too much to do, she reminded herself, and stumbled across the room to program coffee.

The first life-giving gulp got her system going. She gulped more as she headed for the shower.

Between the coffee, hot jets on full, a quick spin in the drying tube, she felt not only human again but ready to deal with the day. The robe on the back of the door—thin, soft cotton the color of apricots—had to be yet another new one. When she shrugged it on, it felt like she was wrapped up in a cloud.