by J. D. Robb
He murmured in Irish. My love. And trailed kisses over those strong shoulders, those long arms where muscles were carved in alabaster. He slipped a flower from her hair. Tracing it over her even as his lips traced. Making her shiver.
“This is something special.”
“The flower?”
“The flower, yes. Extra.” He twirled it on its stem while he watched her. “Will you trust me?”
“I always trust you.”
“I want to give you this. To give it to both of us.”
He flicked the petals over her breast. And with his tongue he tasted them, and her.
She arched up, floating still, still floating, but higher now as if the wave of heat lifted her. Desire shimmered through her like the wine. She could hear birdsong, some exotic, erotic music with the quiet underscore of water lapping against the shore. She could hear his voice, the music of it, as he drew the white gown away.
The sun, his hands, his lips, all on her skin—as hers were on his. The bed rocked on the water, soothing as a lullaby.
Then he swept the flower between her legs.
The sensation had her fingers digging into him. “God.”
He watched her, watched that baffled pleasure run over her face. His cop, his warrior, and still oddly innocent about her own pleasures.
“It’s called the Venus Bloom, and is grown on a colony on Green One. Hybridized,” he said, brushing it over her, watching her eyes blur, “with certain properties that enhance and heighten sensation.”
Her breasts were tingling from it as if the nerves were raw-edged and exposed. And when his mouth closed over her, his teeth a light nip on her nipple, the shock of it had her crying out. He pressed the flower against her as he suckled.
Her body erupted.
She lost her mind. It was impossible to think through the barrage of sensations, the unspeakable pleasure. The shock of it had her body pulsing, plunging as the orgasm gushed through her.
“When I’m inside you . . .” His voice was thick with Ireland now, his eyes wild and blue. “When I’m in you, Eve, it will do the same to me. Taste it.” His mouth crushed to hers, his tongue sweeping in. “Feel it.” He crushed the flower against her. “Come again, I want you to come again, while I’m watching you.”
She bucked, riding out the storm, brilliantly aware of every cell in her body and the pleasure that flooded them. “I want you inside me.” She gripped his hair, dragged his mouth back to hers. “Feel what I feel.”
He eased into her, slowly, so slowly she knew from the tremors in his body how rigidly he controlled himself. Then his breath caught, and his eyes, his beautiful eyes, went blind. “Christ.”
“I don’t know if we’ll live through it,” she managed, and wrapped her legs around him. “Let’s find out. Don’t hold back.”
He wasn’t sure he could have, not now, not with the sensations that pounded him, not with her reckless words ringing in his ears. He let the chain snap and rode it with her, wave by hot, towering wave.
When the last swamped him, it swamped them both.
She wasn’t sure she would ever get her breath back, or the full use of her limbs. Her arms had slid away from him, limply, until her fingers trailed in the water.
“Is that thing legal?”
He was flat out on top of her, breathing like a man who’d climbed up, or fallen off, a mountain. And his laugh rumbled against her skin. “God, only you.”
“Seriously.”
“We really ought to have Trina tattoo that damn badge on your breast permanently. Yes. It’s been tested, and approved, and licensed. A bit tricky to acquire yet. And as you can see, its effects are transitory.”
“Good thing. Wicked effective.”
“Erotic, arousing, enhancing, without taking away the will or choice.” He lifted the flower, twirled it, then tossed it into the water where it floated. “And pretty.”
“Are all of these like that?”
“No, just the one.” He kissed her again, savored the fading heat on her lips. “But I can get more.”
“I bet.” She started to stretch, and frowned at the sound of a beep.
“Ah. Looks like we’re through the first levels, and my attention’s required.”
She sat up, shoved at her hair. She took one last look at blue water, white sand, and flowers strewn like jewels on the shoreline. “Playtime’s over.”
He nodded. “End program.”
18
EVE SAT AT ONE OF ROARKE’S SUBSTATIONS AND began to pick her way through the lives of Kirkendall and Clinton. They needed a base of operations, a place to set up, to store equipment, to plan strategies and do sims.
A place to take someone like Meredith Newman.
She started with childhood—Kirkendall in New Jersey, Clinton in Missouri. Kirkendall relocating to New York with custodial parent at the age of twelve. Clinton doing the same, to Ohio, at the age of ten. And both had enlisted in the army at eighteen. Both had been recruited into Special Forces at twenty.
Corporals Kirkendall and Clinton had both trained at Camp Powell, Miami.
“It’s like a mirror,” Eve said. “No, like magnets. They just kept duplicating each other’s moves until they slapped together.”
“No talking.”
Eve frowned over at him. Sleeves rolled, hair tied back, he hammered at a keyboard with one hand and tapped icons on a viewboard with the other. And for the last ten minutes, he’d been muttering in a stylish combination of Gaelic—she supposed—and the weird Irish slang he fell into when revved up.
Bugger this, bollocks to that, shagging, bloody, and a heavy sprinkling of fucks that sounded more and more like fook as he geared up.
“You’re talking.”
“Feisigh do thoin fein!” He rattled that off, sat back for a moment, and studied his board. “What? I’m not talking, I’m communing. Ah yes, there you are, you bitch.”
Communing, she thought as he hunkered over the keys. Get him. But she turned back to her own work. If she wasn’t careful, she’d get caught up watching him. He made a hell of a picture when he was in the zone.
The army had—as the army did—shuffled them around over the next few years. They’d lived in military housing, even after they married their respective spouses—within three months of each other. And when they had opted to leave the military, to buy homes, they’d plunked down in the same development.
She toggled back and forth between locations, financials, added Isenberry into the mix. And slid into her own zone.
When the in-house ’link beeped beside her, she wished she could curse in Gaelic.
“Detective Baxter and Officer Trueheart have arrived and would like to speak with you.”
“Have them wait in my office.” She clicked off, then shot the data and the notes she’d been working on to her office unit. “I’ve got some stuff,” she said to Roarke.
“So do I. I’m in Kirkendall’s CIA file right now. Busy, busy boy.”
“Tell me one thing. Do agencies like that pay fees—outside fees—for wet work? For special assignments?”
“Apparently. I’m finding a number of what’s listed as ‘op fees’ in his file. His top seems to be a half mil—USD—for the termination of a scientist in Belingrad. He worked fairly cheap.”
“How do we manage to live in the same world when you actually exist on a plane where half a million is cheap?”
“True love hobbles us to the same post. Freelancers can get double that for an assassination. Easily.” He looked up from his work. “I was once offered that, at the tender age of twenty—to do away with the business rival of a weapon’s runner. A bit difficult to turn it down—quick money—but murder for pay has always struck me as tacky.”
“Tacky.”
He just smiled at her. “I’m in now, so I’ll keep with it, and run through Clinton’s and Isenberry’s. It won’t take long now, as I’ve already punched through.”
“I’ll be in my office. Just for curiosity, what does .
. .” She paused, brought the Gaelic phrase back in her mind, and mangled it in the repeating.
Surprise flickered over his face as he angled his head. “Where did you hear that?”
“Out of your mouth a little while ago.”
“I said that?” He looked mildly shocked—and if she wasn’t mistaken, a little embarrassed. “Well, what does come back to you. Just a flash from my youth. A very crude one.”
“Oh, then, as a cop who’s worked the tidy and genteel streets of New York for eleven years and counting, I’d be shocked by crude language.”
“Very crude,” he repeated. Then shrugged. “Basically, it’s fuck yourself in your own ass.”
“Yeah?” She brightened. “How do you say it again—the right way? I could use it on Summerset.”
He laughed, shook his head. “Go to work.”
She walked out, mumbling the phrase.
And walked into her office in time to see Baxter take a big bite of a loaded burger. Since there were no takeout bags in evidence, and the smell was real meat, she deduced it came from her own kitchen.
“Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” He grinned and chewed, and gestured toward Trueheart, who was chewing on an identical meal—with the grace, at least, to look slightly shamefaced. “We didn’t stop for fuel. Eats are better here.”
“I’ll give your compliments to the chef. Are you going to report, or just push dead cow in your mouth?”
“Both. Reached out to the primary on Moss, and on Duberry. Team working Moss, they crossed all the hatches. Nothing to go on. No specific threats filed. Moss hadn’t mentioned anything to his wife, his associates, friends, neighbors, about any threats. He and his kid drove upstate to this cabin he owned one weekend a month. Man-to-man time. Fishing and shit. Vehicle was parked, private garage—full vid surveillance, droid security. Droid on showed no tampering, but had a thirty-minute break on his disc. Same with the security cams.”
“What kind of cabin?”
Baxter nodded, picked up one of the fries he had ordered along with the burger. “We thought the same. Why go through all that when it’d be easier to take him out in a cabin upstate. Troy?”
Trueheart swallowed hastily. “The cabin’s in a gated, recreational community, and the security is good. The investigators believed, due to the nature of the explosive device and the ability to jam the lot security, that the possibility was strong on urban terrorism. Several other vehicles were destroyed, and the lot suffered some structural damage.”
“Yeah,” she murmured. “Smarter. Add the urban terrorism element to murk the waters.”
“There was no evidence to conclude Moss was target specific, but if so, they concluded it was because he was a judge, not because of any particular case. Moss had also been approached as a possible mayoral candidate, so the team factored in politics.”
He cleared his throat, and continued when no one commented. “There was no evidence, no reason for them to look at Kirkendall at that time. He’d made no threat, and his case had been resolved about three years prior to the incident. With, ah, what we have now, we can look at Kirkendall, his pattern and pathology, and conclude that he hit Moss in the city rather than at the cabin because it, um, murked the waters. And it was more of a challenge. More of a statement.”
“Agreed,” Eve said and watched Trueheart take an easing breath. “What about the device?”
“Well, that’s pretty interesting.” Baxter gestured with his burger. “And another reason the primary and team concluded urban terrorism. What they were able to sweep up from scene, then sim, indicated a military-style device. This wasn’t any homemade boomer some yahoo stuck together in his basement because he was pissed off some judge made him pay child support. Lab guys creamed over it—primary’s words—plaston base, and it don’t come cheap, electronic trigger designed to blow when the engine engaged, and . . .” He made a wide gesture, pulling his arms apart. “ . . . explode outwards for additional damage.”
Something flickered in her mind. “Okay, how could they be sure Moss would be the one to engage the engine? What about the wife?”
“Didn’t drive.”
“Not good enough. Even private lots can make a few extra fees by renting out a vehicle. You got to factor that in. And Kirkendall would want a hundred percent success rate. I want the lab to take another look. I’m betting there was a fail-safe on it. That he had control, and could detonate or abort by remote if necessary. Clinton’s their E and B man,” she stated. “That’s the specialty that pops out of his data, but Kirkendall would want the control.”
“I’ll give the lab a push,” Baxter agreed. “We also spoke with the primary on the Duberry murder. Now there’s a guy who’s dug in.”
“Meaning?”
“He figured the ex-boyfriend. He still figures the ex-boyfriend. I’m not going to say he missed anything on the investigation, but I’ll be going over it again myself. He homed on this guy and that’s that.”
“Boyfriend alibied?”
“Right and tight. Get this.” He wiggled a fry at her, bit it in two. “He’s home alone, and the building’s scan cams are crap. So yeah, you might think, hey, he could slip out, do the deal, slip back, no big. But in the apartment above him, there’s this guy with this big-ass water bed. Snuck that in past building regs. Weighs a fricking ton. Top it off, he likes to party. Got himself two economy-sized ladies up there for a three-way. And while they’re surfing, they get pretty enthusiastic. Bed pops, and you got yourself a frigging ocean. Water comes gushing through the ceiling, and nearly drowns the guy below. Big altercation between upstairs and down, all witnessed by neighbors—and taking place at the time Duberry was strangled.”
“Huh.” Eve stepped over, stole one of Baxter’s fries.
“Primary’s sure the guy was behind it. You got a woman with no known enemies, ordinary life. You got no sexual assault, no burglary, so you gotta figure personal.”
“Ex-boyfriend’s going to rape her—high probability,” Eve put in. “Do some damage to her face, too. That’s personal.”
“Yeah, but the primary figures he hired somebody to do her. But the guy doesn’t have the financials for a hit. He’s barely making rent. And this was a prime hit. He’s got no priors, no known association with the dark side. The guy’s not in it, Dallas. We started the interviews again. Nobody comes up with any motive, nobody remembers the vic talking about any worries. Her communication and data equipment is long gone, but EDD did the scans, and came up zip.”
“Okay, clock out for the night. Peabody and McNab are out talking to Kirkendall’s former sister-in-law. We’ll brief here, oh eight hundred.”
“Good enough. Listen, Trueheart and I thought we could take the night shift on the kid. We can bunk here.” He shrugged a shoulder when Eve frowned at him. “She’s a cutie. Gets to you. Rough day for her. We could hang out with her awhile, take her mind off it.”
“Talk to Summerset about where you should bunk. I appreciate the extra duty.”
“No problem.” He lifted the burger to his mouth again, then paused. “Where did Peabody head to interview the sister-in-law?”
“Nebraska.”
“Nebraska.” He bit in, chewed thoughtfully. “Do people really live there? I thought it was one of those myths. You know, like Idaho.”
“People live in Idaho, too, sir,” Trueheart told him.
“Step out.” Baxter laughed, and swept a fry through ketchup. “The stuff you learn.”
The two-passenger shuttle landed in a small cargo station in North Platte. As per Roarke’s memo, there was a vehicle waiting for the last leg of the trip.
Peabody and McNab stood in the chilly evening air, staring at the sleek black jewel.
“Oh my God. I thought the shuttle was mag.” Heart skipping, Peabody circled. “You know, the sleep chairs, the comp stations, the menu on the AutoChef.”
“The speed,” McNab added with a dopey grin.
Peabody sent him one back. “Yeah
. Way uptown. But this—”
“It’s a beast.” McNab trailed his fingers over the hood. “Man, this baby’s gotta wing.”
“Bet your ass.”
But when she started to open the driver’s-side door, he took her arm. “Wait. Who says you get to pilot?”
“My partner’s primary.”
“Not good enough.”
“Her husband provided the transpo.”
“Not even,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’ve got a grade on you, Detective Baby.”
“I wanna.”
He laughed, and dug into one of the many red pockets on his baggy pants. “I say we flip for it.”
“Let me see that credit first.”
“This level of trust is sad,” he said, but handed it over.
She studied it, turning it over, and back. “Okay, you call, I flip.”
“Tails, due to how much I like yours.”
“Fine, I’ll take heads due to the fact yours is so empty.” She tossed the credit, snatched it out of the air, and slapped it on the back of her hand. “Damn it!”
“Woo-wee! Strap it in, She-Body, ’cause we’re going to orbit.”
She sulked as she walked around to settle in the passenger’s side. Not that it wasn’t bodacious, even in that position. The seat molded to the tail McNab admired, like a lover’s hands, and the dash was a gleaming curve armed with enough gauges to make his claim of going into orbit not out of the realm.
Still pouting, she engaged the map, programmed the desired location. And was told in the computer’s melodious male voice the most direct route, given an ETA of twenty minutes at posted speed limits.
Beside her, McNab put on black-framed sun shades with hot red lenses. “We gonna beat that down cold.”
He was right, she thought. The beast did wing. The thrill of it infected her enough to order the sky roof open.
“You pick the tunes,” McNab shouted over the roar of engine and wind. “And pump it up!”
She went for trash rock—it seemed to fit—and screamed along with the song as they tore south.