by J. D. Robb
“Let’s start this way.” He rose and plucked her off the step up into his arms.
“You don’t have to carry me. I’m okay.”
He flashed a grin at her as he started up. “Maybe it makes me feel manly.”
“In that case . . .” She wound her arms around his neck, rested her head on his shoulder. It felt good. Very good. “The least I can do after standing you up tonight is make you feel manly.”
“The very least,” he agreed.
chapter two
The sky window above the bed was still dark when she woke. And she woke in a sweat. The images in the dream were muddled and blurred. All too glad to have escaped them, Eve didn’t try to clarify the dream.
Because she was alone in the big bed, she allowed herself one quick, hard shudder. “Lights,” she ordered. “On low.” Then sighed when the dark edged away. She gave herself a moment to settle before checking the time.
Five-fifteen A.M. Terrific, she thought, knowing there would be no return to sleep now. Not without Roarke there to help beat the nightmares back. She wondered if she’d ever stop being embarrassed that she had come to depend on him for such things. A year before she hadn’t even known he existed. Now he was as much a part of her life as her own hands. Her own heart.
She climbed out of bed, grabbing one of the silk robes Roarke was constantly buying her. Wrapping herself in it, she turned to the wall panel, engaged the search.
“Where is Roarke?”
Roarke is in the lower level pool area.
A swim, Eve thought, wasn’t a bad idea. A workout first, she decided, to smooth away the kinks and the dregs of a bad dream.
With the objective of avoiding Summerset, she took the elevator rather than the stairs. The man was everywhere, sliding out of shadows, always ready with a scowl or a sniff. A continuation of their confrontation the night before wasn’t the way she wanted to start her day.
Roarke’s gym was fully equipped, giving her all the options. She could spar with a droid, pump up with free weights, or just lay back and let machines do the work. She stripped out of the robe and tugged herself into a snug black unitard. She wanted a run, a long one, and after tying on thin air soles she programmed the video track.
The beach, she decided. It was the one place other than the city she was completely at home. All the rural landscapes and desert vistas, the off-planet sites the unit offered made her vaguely uncomfortable.
She started out at a light trot, the blue waves crashing beside her, the glint of the sun just peeking over the horizon. Gulls wheeled and screamed. She drew in the moist salt air of the tropics, and as her muscles began to warm and limber increased her pace.
She hit her stride at the first mile, and her mind emptied.
She’d been to this beach several times since she’d met Roarke—in reality and holographically. Before that the biggest body of water she’d seen had been the Hudson River.
Lives changed, she mused. And so did reality.
At mile four when her muscles were just beginning to sing, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Roarke, his hair still damp from his swim, moved into place beside her, matching his pace to hers.
“Running to or away?” he asked.
“Just running.”
“You’re up early, Lieutenant.”
“I’ve got a full day.”
He lifted a brow when she increased her pace. His wife had a healthy competitive streak, he mused, and easily matched her stride. “I thought you were off.”
“I was.” She slowed, stopped, then bent at the waist to stretch out. “Now I’m not.” She lifted her head until her eyes met his. It wasn’t only her life now, she remembered, or her reality. It was theirs. “I guess you had plans.”
“Nothing that can’t be adjusted.” The weekend in Martinique he’d hoped to surprise her with could wait. “My calendar’s clear for the next forty-eight hours, if you want to bounce anything off me.”
She heaved out a breath. This was another change in her life, this sharing of her work. “Maybe. I want to take a swim.”
“I’ll join you.”
“I thought you just had one.”
“I can have two.” He skimmed a thumb over the dent in her chin. The exercise had brought color to her cheeks and a light sheen to her skin. “It’s not illegal.” He took her hand to lead her out of the gym and into the flower-scented air of the pool room.
Palms and flowing vines grew lushly, surrounding a lagoon-styled pool sided with smooth stones and tumbling waterfalls.
“I’ve got to get a suit.”
He only smiled and tugged the straps from her arms. “Why?” His graceful hands skimmed her breasts as he freed them and made her brows raise.
“What kind of water sport did you have in mind?”
“Whatever works.” He cupped her face in his hands, bent to kiss her. “I love you, Eve.”
“I know.” She closed her eyes and rested her brow against his. “It’s so weird.”
Naked, she turned and dove into the dark water. She stayed under, skimming along the bottom. Her lips curved when the water turned a pale blue. The man knew her moods before she did, she thought. She did twenty laps before rolling lazily to her back. When she reached out, his fingers linked with hers.
“I’m pretty relaxed.”
“Are you?”
“Yeah, so relaxed I probably couldn’t fight off some pervert who wanted to take advantage of me.”
“Well then.” He snagged her waist, turning her until they were face to face.
“Well then.” She wrapped her legs around him and let him keep her afloat.
When their mouths met, even the whisper of tension fled. She felt loose and fluid and quietly needy. Sliding her fingers up, she combed them through his hair—thick, wet silk. His body was firm and cool against hers and fit in a way she’d nearly stopped questioning. She all but purred as his hands skimmed over her, just hinting of possession.
Then she was underwater, tangled with him in that pale blue world. When his mouth closed over her breast, she shivered with the thrill of sensation, from the shock of being unable to gasp in air. And his fingers were on her, in her, shooting her to a staggering climax that had her clawing toward the surface.
She gulped in air, disoriented, delirious, then felt it whoosh out of her lungs again when his clever mouth replaced his fingers.
The assault on her system was precisely what she’d wanted. Her helplessness. His greed. That he would know it, understand it, and give was a mystery she would never solve.
Her head dipped back to lay limply on the smooth side of the pool as she simply wallowed in the pleasure he offered her.
Slowly, slyly, his mouth roamed up, over her belly, her torso, her breasts, to linger at her throat where her pulse beat thick and fast.
“You’ve got amazing breath control,” she managed, then trembled as gradually, inch by inch, he slipped inside her. “Oh God.”
He watched her face, saw the heat flush her cheeks, the flickers of pleasure move over it. Her hair was slicked back, leaving it unframed. And that stubborn, often too serious mouth, trembled for him. Cupping her hips, he lifted her, moved in deep, deeper to make her moan.
He rubbed his lips over hers, nibbled at them while he began to move with an exquisite control that tortured them both. “Go over, Eve.”
He watched those shrewd cop’s eyes go blind and blurry, heard her breath catch then release on something like a sob. Even as his blood burned, he kept his movements achingly slow. Drawing it out, every instant, every inch until that sob became his name.
His own release was long and deep and perfect.
She managed to drag her hands out of the water and grip his shoulders. “Don’t let go of me yet. I’ll sink like a stone.”
He chuckled weakly, pressed his lips to the side of her throat where her pulse still danced. “Same goes. You should get up early more often.”
“We’d kill each other. Miracle we didn’t drown.”<
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He drew in the scent of her skin and water. “We may yet.”
“Do you think we can make it over to the steps?”
“If you’re not in a hurry.”
They inched their way along, staggered up the stone steps to the apron. “Coffee,” Eve said weakly, then stumbled off to fetch two thick terry robes.
When she came back, carrying one and bundled into the other, Roarke had already programmed the AutoChef for two cups, black. The sun was staining the curved glass at the end of the enclosure a pale gold.
“Hungry?”
She sipped the coffee, hummed as the rich caffeine kicked. “Starving. But I want a shower.”
“Upstairs then.”
Back in the master suite, Eve carried her coffee into the shower. When Roarke stepped into the criss-crossing sprays with her, she narrowed her eyes. “Lower the water temp and die,” she warned.
“Cold water opens the pores, gets the juices flowing.”
“You’ve already taken care of that.” She set the coffee on a ledge and soaped up in the steam.
She got out first, and as she stepped into the drying tube, shook her head as Roarke ordered the water to drop by ten degrees. Even the thought of it made her shiver.
She knew he was waiting for her to tell him about the case that had kept her out the night before and was taking her back on her day off. She appreciated that he waited for her to settle in the sitting area of the suite, a second cup of coffee in her hand and a plate loaded with a ham and cheese omelette waiting to be devoured.
“I really am sorry about not showing up for the deal last night.”
Roarke sampled his own buttermilk pancakes. “Am I going to have to apologize every time I’m called away on business that affects our personal plans?”
She opened her mouth, closed it again, and shook her head. “No. The thing is I was headed out the door—I hadn’t forgotten—and this call came in. Jammed transmission. We couldn’t track.”
“The NYPSD has pitiful equipment.”
“Not that pitiful,” she muttered. “This guy’s a real pro. You might have had a tough time with it.”
“Now, that’s insulting.”
She had to smirk. “Well, you might get a chance at him. Since he tagged me personally, I wouldn’t put it past him to contact me here.”
Roarke set his fork aside, picked up his coffee, both gestures casual though his entire body had gone to alert. “Personally?”
“Yeah, he wanted me. Hit me with some religious mission crap first. Basically, he’s doing the Lord’s work and the Big Guy wants to play with riddles.” She ran the transmission through for him, watching his eyes narrow, sharpen. Roarke was quick, she reflected as she saw his mouth go grim.
“You checked the Luxury Towers.”
“That’s right, penthouse floor. He’d left part of the victim in the living area. The rest of him was in the bedroom.”
She pushed her plate aside and rose, raking a hand through her hair as she paced. “It was as bad as I’ve ever seen, Roarke, vicious. Because it was calculated to be ugly, not because it was uncontrolled. Most of the work was precise, like surgery. Prelim from the ME indicates the victim was kept alive and aware during most of the mutilation. He’d been pumped up with illegals—enough to keep him conscious without taking the edge off the pain. And believe me, the pain must have been unspeakable. He’d been disemboweled.”
“Christ Jesus.” Roarke blew out a breath. “An ancient punishment for political or religious crimes. A slow and hideous death.”
“And a goddamn messy one,” she put in. “His feet had been severed—one hand gone at the wrist. He was still alive when his right eye was cut out. That was the only piece of him we didn’t recover at the scene.”
“Lovely.” Though he considered his stomach a strong one, Roarke lost his taste for breakfast. Rising, he went to the closet. “An eye for an eye.”
“That’s a revenge thing, right? From some play.”
“The Bible, darling. The lord of all plays.” He chose casual pleated trousers from the revolving rack.
“Back to God again. Okay, the game’s revenge. Maybe it’s religious, maybe it’s just personal. We may zero in on motive when we finish running the victim. I’ve got a media blackout at least until I contact his family.”
Roarke hitched up the trousers, reached for a simple white linen shirt. “Children?”
“Yeah, three.”
“You have a miserable job, Lieutenant.”
“That’s why I love it.” But she rubbed her hands over her face. “His wife and kids are in Ireland, we think. I need to track them down today.”
“In Ireland?”
“Hmm. Yeah, seems the victim was one of your former countrymen. I don’t suppose you knew a Thomas X. Brennen, did you?” Her half smile faded when she saw Roarke’s eyes go dark and flat. “You did know him. I never figured it.”
“Early forties?” Roarke asked without inflection. “About five-ten, sandy hair?”
“Sounds like. He was into communications and entertainment.”
“Tommy Brennen.” With the shirt still in his hand, Roarke sat on the arm of a chair. “Son of a bitch.”
“I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me that he was a friend.”
“He wasn’t.” Roarke shook his head to clear away the memories. “At least not in more than a decade. I knew him in Dublin. He was running computer scams while I was grifting. We crossed paths a few times, did a little business, drank a few pints. About twelve years ago, Tommy hooked up with a young woman of good family. Lace curtain Irish. He fell hard and decided to go straight. All the way straight,” Roarke added with a crooked grin. “And he severed ties with the less . . . desirable elements of his youth. I knew he had a base here in New York, but we stayed out of each other’s way. I believe his wife knows nothing of his past endeavors.”
Eve sat on the arm opposite him. “It might have been one of the past endeavors, and one of those less desirable elements, that’s responsible for what happened to him. Roarke, I’m going to be digging, and when I dig how much of you am I going to uncover?”
It was a worry, he supposed. A mild one to him. But, he knew, it would never be mild to her. “I cover my tracks, Lieutenant. And, as I said, we weren’t mates. I haven’t had any contact with him at all in years. But I remember him. He had a fine tenor voice,” Roarke murmured. “A good laugh, a good mind, and a longing for family. He was fast with his fists, but never went looking for trouble that I recall.”
“Looking or not, he found it. Do you know where his family is?”
He shook his head as he rose. “But I can get that information for you quickly enough.”
“I’d appreciate it.” She rose as he shrugged into the casual elegant shirt. “Roarke, I’m sorry, for whatever he was to you.”
“A touchstone perhaps. A song in a smoky pub on a rainy night. I’m sorry, too. I’ll be in my office. Give me ten minutes.”
“Sure.”
Eve took her time dressing. She had a feeling Roarke would need more than ten minutes. Not to access the data she’d asked for. With his equipment and his skill he’d have it in half that time. But she thought he needed a few moments alone to deal with the loss of that song in a smoky pub.
She’d never lost anyone even remotely close to her. Maybe, Eve realized, because she’d been careful to let only a select few become close enough to matter. Then there had been Roarke, and she’d had no choice. He’d invaded, she’d supposed, subtly, elegantly, inarguably. And now . . . she ran a thumb over the carved gold wedding ring she wore. Now he was vital.
She took the stairs this time, winding her way through the wide halls in the big, beautiful house. She didn’t have to knock on his office door, but did so, waiting until the door slid open in invitation.
The window shields were up to let in the sun. The sky behind the treated glass was murky, hinting that the rain wasn’t quite finished. Roarke manned the antique desk of gleaming w
ood rather than the slick console. The floors were covered with gorgeous old rugs he’d acquired on his journeys.
Eve slipped her hands into her pockets. She was almost accustomed to the grandeur she now lived in, but she didn’t know what to do with Roarke’s grief, with the self contained quiet sorrow.
“Listen, Roarke—”
“I got you a hard copy.” He nudged a sheet of paper across the desk. “I thought it would be easier. His wife and children are in Dublin at the moment. The children are minors, two boys and a girl. Ages nine, eight, and six.”
Too restless to sit, he rose and turned to stare out at his view of New York—quiet now, the light still dull, the skies almost still. He’d brought up visuals of Brennen’s family—the pretty, bright-eyed woman, the rosy-cheeked children. It had disturbed him more than he’d anticipated.
“Financially they’ll be quite comfortable,” he said almost to himself. “Tommy saw to that. Apparently he’d become a very good husband and father.”
She crossed the room, lifted a hand to touch, then dropped it. Damn it, she was no good at this, she thought. No good at knowing if comfort would be welcomed or rejected. “I don’t know what to do for you,” she said at length.
When he turned, his eyes were brilliantly blue, and fury rode in them along with the grief. “Find who did this to him. I can trust you for that.”
“Yeah, you can.”
A smile touched his lips, curved them. “Lieutenant Dallas, standing for the dead, as always.” He skimmed a hand through her hair, lifting a brow when she caught it.
“You’ll leave this to me, Roarke.”
“Have I said otherwise?”
“It’s what you haven’t said that’s just beginning to get through.” She knew him, knew him well enough to understand he would have his own ways, his own means, and very likely his own agenda. “If you’ve got any ideas about going out on your own, put them to bed now. It’s my case, and I’ll handle it.”
He ran his hands up her arms in a way that made her eyes narrow. “Naturally. But you will keep me apprised? And you know that I’m available for any assistance you might require.”
“I think I can stumble through on my own. And I think it would be best if you took a step back from this one. A long step back.”