by J. D. Robb
“She’s got a groove going.”
Only deep affection for Mavis prevented Eve from leaping back into the soundproofing. “Apparently.”
“I’ll get your drinks. Jess, he brought the brew.”
Mary hulked off, leaving Eve and Peabody in a glass-walled control booth that curved in a semicircle a half level above a studio where Mavis was singing her heart and lungs out. With a grin, Eve moved closer to the glass, the better to see.
Mavis had scooped up her hair so that it spewed in a purple fountain out of a multicolored band. She was wearing modified overalls, the black leather straps running up the center of her bare breasts. The rest of the material was a shimmering kaleidoscope that started at the midriff and ended barely south of the crotch. She danced to the beat on a fashionable pair of slides that left the feet bare and propped them onto four-inch stilts.
Eve had no doubt that Mavis’s lover had designed the costume for her. She spotted Leonardo in a corner of the studio, glowing like a sunbeam at Mavis and wearing a body-skimming jumpsuit that made him look like an elegant grizzly.
“What a pair,” she murmured and hooked her thumbs in the back pockets of her battered jeans. She turned her head to speak to Peabody, but noted her companion’s attention was riveted to the left, and the look on Peabody’s face, Eve noted with some curiosity, managed to combine shock, admiration, and lust.
Following Peabody’s distracted gaze, Eve had her first view of Jess Barrow. He was beautiful. A painting in motion with a long, shining mane of hair the color of polished oak. His eyes were nearly silver, thickly lashed, intensely focused, as he worked the controls of an elaborate console. His complexion was flawless, tanned to bronze, set off by rounded cheekbones and a strong chin. His mouth was full and firm, and his hands, as they flew over the controls, were as finely sculptured as marble.
“Roll up your tongue, Peabody,” Eve suggested, “before you step on it.”
“God. Holy God. He’s better in person. Don’t you just want to bite him?”
“Not particularly, but you go ahead.”
Catching herself, Peabody flushed to the roots of her hair. She shifted on her sturdy legs. This was, she reminded herself, her superior. “I admire his talent.”
“Peabody, you’re admiring his chest. It’s a pretty good one, so I can’t hold it against you.”
“I wish he would,” she murmured, then cleared her throat as Big Mary stomped back with two dark brown bottles. “Jess gets this brew from his family down South. It’s fine.”
Since it was also unmarked and unlabeled, Eve prepared to sacrifice a few layers of stomach lining. She was pleasantly surprised when the liquid slid mellowly down her throat. “It is fine. Thanks.”
“You add to the kitty, you can have more. I’m supposed to go down to wait for Roarke. I hear he’s got money to roll in. How come you’re not wearing some flash, you linked up with a rich man?”
Eve decided not to mention the baby-fist-sized diamond resting between her breasts under her shirt. “My underwear’s solid gold. It chafes some, but it makes me feel secure.”
After another brief processing delay, Mary hooted with laughter, slapped Eve on the back hard enough to bop her head into the glass, then headed off in her rock-breaking stride.
“We ought to sign her up,” Eve muttered. “She wouldn’t need a weapon or body armor.”
The music built to an ear-scorching crescendo, then cut off as if severed with a knife. Below, Mavis let out a squeal and launched herself into Leonardo’s open arms.
“That was a nice take, sugar.” Jess’s voice flowed out like top cream and drifted lazily with a Southern drawl. “You take ten and rest that golden throat for me.”
Mavis’s idea of resting her throat was to let out another scream, then wave desperately at Eve. “Dallas, you’re here. Wasn’t that mag? I’m coming up, don’t go anywhere.” She scrambled through a door on her trendy stilts.
“So this is Dallas.” Jess pushed away from his console. His body was trim and showed off to advantage in jeans as battered as Eve’s and a simple cotton shirt that would retail for a beat cop’s monthly paycheck. He wore a diamond stud in his ear that glinted as he crossed the booth and a braided gold chain around his wrist that slid fluidly as he held out one of those beautiful hands. “Mavis is brimming over with stories about her cop.”
“Mavis brims over habitually. It’s part of her charm.”
“That it is. I’m Jess, and I’m delighted to meet you at last.” With his hand still cupped over Eve’s, he turned that slow, heart-thudding smile onto Peabody. “And it seems we have two cops for the price of one.”
“I—I’m a huge fan,” Peabody managed and fought against the nervous stutter. “I have all of your discs, audio and video. I’ve seen you in concert.”
“Music buffs are always welcome.” He released Eve’s hand to take hers. “Why don’t I show you my favorite toy?” he suggested, leading her toward the console. Before Eve could follow, Mavis burst in.
“What did you think? Did you like it? I wrote it. Jess orchestrated it, but I wrote it. He thinks it could hit.”
“I’m really proud of you. You sounded great.” Eve returned Mavis’s enthusiastic embrace and grinned at Leonardo over her shoulder. “How does it feel to be hooked up with a rising music legend?”
“She’s wonderful.” He leaned in to give Eve a one-armed squeeze. “You look terrific. I noticed on some news clips that you wore a number of my designs. I’m grateful.”
“I’m grateful,” Eve said and meant it. Leonardo was a talented and emerging genius of clothing design. “I didn’t look like Roarke’s rag-picking cousin.”
“You always look like yourself,” Leonardo corrected, but he narrowed his eyes and flipped his fingers through her untidy hair. “You need some work here. If you don’t have it styled every few weeks, it loses shape.”
“I was going to trim it up some, I just—”
“No, no.” He shook his head solemnly, but his eyes twinkled at her. “The days of you hacking at it yourself are over. You call Trina, have her do you.”
“We’ll have to drag her again.” Mavis grinned at everything. “She’ll keep making excuses and start clipping at it with kitchen shears when it gets in her eyes.” She giggled when Leonardo shuddered. “We’ll get Roarke to hound her.”
“I’d be delighted to.” He stepped out of the elevator, walked straight to Eve and, framing her face in his hands, kissed her. “What am I hounding you about?”
“Nothing. Have a drink.” She passed him her bottle.
Instead of drinking, he kissed Mavis in greeting. “I appreciate the invitation. This is quite a setup.”
“Isn’t it mag? The sound system’s ace of the line, and Jess works all kinds of magic with the console. He’s got like six million instruments programmed in. He can play them all, too. He can do anything. The night he came into the D and D changed my life. It was like a miracle.”
“Mavis, you’re the miracle.” Smoothly, Jess led Peabody back toward the group. She was flushed and glassy-eyed. Eve could see the pulse in her throat pounding to its own rhythm.
“Down, girl,” she muttered, but Peabody only rolled her eyes.
“You met Dallas and Peabody, right? And this is Roarke.” Mavis bounced on her stilts. “My closest friends.”
“It’s a genuine pleasure.” Jess offered one of his finely boned hands to Roarke. “I admire your success in the business world and your taste in women.”
“Thank you. I tend to be careful with both.” Roarke scanned the area, inclined his head. “Your studio’s impressive.”
“I love showing it off. It’s been in the planning stages for some time. Mavis is actually the first artist to use it, other than myself. Mary’s going to order food. Why don’t I show you my prize creation before I put Mavis back to work?”
He led the way back to the console, sat at it like a captain at the helm. “The instruments are programmed in, of course. I can
call up any number of combinations and vary pitch and speed. It’s accessed for voice command, but I rarely use that. Distracts me from the music.”
He slid controls and had a simple backbeat playing. “Recorded vocals.” He tapped his fingers over buttons and Mavis’s voice punched out, surprisingly gritty and rich. A monitor displayed the sounds with washing of colors and shapes. “I use that for computer analysis. Musicologists”—he flashed a charming, self-deprecating smile—“we can’t help ourselves. But that’s another story.”
“She sounds good,” Eve commented, pleased.
“And she’ll sound better. Overdubbing.” Mavis’s voice split, layered over itself in close harmony. “Layers and fill.” Jess’s hands danced over the controls, drawing out guitars, brass, the jingle of a tambourine, the searing wail of a sax. “Cool it down.” Everything slowed, mellowed. “Heat it up.” Went into double time, blasted.
“That’s all very basic, as is having her duet with recording artists of the past. You’ll have to hear her version of ‘Hard Day’s Night’ with the Beatles. I can also code in any sound.” With a smile flirting around his mouth, he spun a dial, and skimmed his fingers over the keys. Eve’s voice whispered out.
“Down, girl.” The words melded into Mavis’s vocal, repeating, echoing, drifting.
“How did you do that?” Eve demanded.
“I’m miked,” he explained, “and hooked into the console. Now that I have your voice on program, I can have your voice replace Mavis’s.” He skimmed the controls again, and Eve winced when she heard herself singing.
“Don’t do that,” she ordered, and laughing, Jess switched it back.
“Sorry, I can’t resist playing. Want to hear yourself croon, Peabody?”
“No.” Then she gnawed her lip. “Well, maybe.”
“Let’s see, something smoky, understated, and classic.” He worked for a moment, then sat back. Peabody’s eyes rounded when she heard herself quietly torching through “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”
“Is that one of your songs?” she asked. “I don’t recognize it.”
Jess chuckled. “No, it’s before my time. You’ve got a strong voice, Officer Peabody. Good breath control. Want to quit your day job and join the party?”
She flushed and shook her head. Jess cut out the vocals, tuned the console to a bluesy instrumental. “I worked with an engineer who designed some autotronics for Disney-Universe. It took nearly three years to complete this.” He patted the console like a well-loved child. “Now that I have the prototype and a working unit, I’m hoping to manufacture more. She works on remote, too. I can be anywhere and link up, run the board. I got specs on a smaller, portable unit, and I’ve been working on a mood enhancer.”
He seemed to catch himself, shook his head. “I get carried away. My agent’s starting to complain that I’m spending more time working on electronics than recording.”
“Food’s here!” Big Mary bellowed.
“Well, then.” Jess smiled, scanned his audience. “Let’s dig in. You’ve got to keep your energy level up, Mavis.”
“I’m starving.” She grabbed Leonardo’s hand and headed for the door. Below, Mary was carting bags and boxes into the studio.
“Go help yourselves,” Jess told them. “I’ve got a little fiddling to do. I’ll be right along.”
“What do you think?” Eve murmured to Roarke as they headed down, trailed by Peabody.
“I think he’s looking for an investor.”
Eve sighed, nodded. “Yeah, that was my take. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not a problem. He’s got an interesting product.”
“I had Peabody run a make on him. Nothing’s come up. But I don’t like to think of him using you—or Mavis.”
“That’s yet to be seen.” He turned her into his arms as they stepped into the studio, ran his hands over her hips. “I missed you. I miss spending large quantities of time with you.”
She felt the heat kindle between her thighs, hotter, lustier than the moment called for. Her breasts tingled with it. “I missed you, too. Why don’t we figure out how to cut the evening short, go home, and fuck like rabbits?”
He was hard as iron. As he leaned down to nip at her ear, he found himself struggling not to tug at her clothes. “Good thought. Christ, I want you.”
The hell with where they were, Roarke thought and dragged her head back by the hair to plunder her mouth.
At the console, at the controls, Jess watched them and smiled. Another few minutes, he mused, and they could very well be on the floor, mindlessly mating. Better not. With deft fingers, he skimmed buttons, changed the program. More than satisfied, he rose and started downstairs.
Two hours later, driving home through the dark streets that ran with colors from flashing billboards, Eve pushed her cruiser past the limits of the law. Need was a low, throbbing beat between her thighs, an itch desperate to be scratched.
“You’re breaking the law, Lieutenant,” Roarke said mildly. He was rock hard again, like a teenager cruising on hormones.
The woman who prided herself on never abusing her badge muttered, “Bending it.”
Roarke reached over, cupped her breast. “Bend it more.”
“Oh Jesus.” She could already imagine what he’d feel like inside her, so she punched the accelerator and shot like a bullet down Park.
A glide-cart operator flipped up her middle finger as Eve screamed around a curb and headed east. Cursing lightly, Eve switched on her duty light, popped up the red and blue globe, and had it flashing.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this. I never do this.”
Roarke slid his hand down to her thigh. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you?”
She gave a hoarse laugh, swallowed hard. “Don’t tell me, for God’s sake. I’ll kill us.”
Her hands were glued to the wheel and trembling, her body vibrating like a string already plucked. Her breath was already hitching. Clouds slipped past the moon and freed its light.
“Hit the remote for the gate,” she panted. “Hit the remote. I’m not slowing down.”
He coded it quickly. The iron gate eased majestically open, and she burst through with inches to spare. “Excellent job. Stop the car.”
“Just a minute, just a minute.” She rocketed up the drive, flying past the gorgeous trees and musical fountains.
“Stop the car,” he demanded again and pressed his hand to her crotch.
She came instantly, violently, barely managing to keep from steering into an oak. Gasping for air, she pulled the vehicle to a stop, fishtailing and ending in a drunken diagonal across the drive.
She flew at him.
They tore at clothes, fighting to find each other in the narrow confines of the car. She bit his shoulder, yanked his trousers open. He was cursing, she was laughing, when he dragged her out of the car. They fell on the grass in a tangle of limbs and twisted clothing.
“Hurry up, hurry up.” It was all she could manage through the unbearable pressure. His mouth was on her breast through her torn shirt, teeth scraping. She pulled at his trousers, dug her fingers into his hips.
His breathing was fast, rough, the raw need clawing through him as urgently as her nails clawed at his back. He could feel his blood roaring, a tidal wave through his veins. His hands bruised her as he rocked her legs back, drove deep inside her.
She screamed, a wild, savage sound of pleasure, her nails raking his back, her teeth fixing on his shoulder. She could feel him pulsing inside her, filling her with each desperate thrust. The punch of the orgasm was painful and did nothing to lessen the monstrous need.
She was wet, hot, her muscles vising over him like teeth with each pump of hips. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t think, and plunged again and again like a stud covering a mare in heat. He couldn’t see her through the red haze that clouded his vision, he could only feel her, racing with him, pistoning her hips. Her voice buzzed in his ears, all whimpers and moans and gasps.
Each sound bea
t in his blood like a primal chant.
It shattered without warning, beyond his control. His body simply peaked like an engine on maximum power, battered into hers, then erupted. The hot wave of release swamped him, swallowed him, drowned him. It was the only time since he’d first touched her that he didn’t know if she had followed him over the edge.
He collapsed, rolled weakly away to try to find air for his overtaxed lungs. In the glowing moonlight, they sprawled on the grass, sweaty, half-dressed, shuddering, like the lone survivors of a particularly vicious war.
With a groan, she rolled over on her stomach, let the grass cool her burning cheeks. “Christ, what was that?”
“Under other circumstances, I’d call it sex. But . . .” He managed to open his eyes. “I don’t have a word for it.”
“Did I bite you?”
A few aches were making themselves known as his body recovered. He twisted his head, glanced at his shoulder, and saw the imprint of her teeth. “Someone did. I think it was probably you.”
He watched a star fall, shooting silver from sky to earth. It had been much like that, he thought, like plunging helplessly to oblivion. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I have to think about it.” Her head was still spinning. “We’re on the lawn,” she said slowly. “Our clothes are torn. I’m pretty sure I have the imprint of your fingers dented into my butt.”
“I did my best,” he murmured.
She snickered first, then chuckled, then broke into fits of giddy, hiccupping laughter. “Jesus, Roarke, Jesus Christ, look at us.”
“In a minute. I think I’m still partially blind.” But he was grinning as he shifted. She was still shaking with laughter. Her hair stuck up at odd angles, her eyes were glassy, and there were grass stains as well as bruises on her pretty ass. “You don’t look much like a cop, Lieutenant.”
She rolled to sit up as he had, angled her head. “You don’t look much like a rich guy, Roarke.” She tugged on his sleeve—it was all that was left of his shirt. “But it’s an interesting look. How are you going to explain that to Summerset?”
“I’ll simply tell him my wife is an animal.”