"Hello, Lieutenant."
"How's it going?"
"Better than it was. Wine?"
"Sure. I'll get it." She crossed over to the bottle he'd left on the table, poured a glass for herself. "Been home long?"
"I haven't, no. A few minutes."
"Did you eat?"
His eyebrows arched, the eyes beneath warming with humor. "I did, if one considers what's available at the hospital edible. And you?"
"I caught something, and yours couldn't have been worse than what I can get at Central. So you went by to see Mr. Grace and Agility?"
"He sends you equally fond thoughts." Roarke sipped his wine, watched her over the rim. Waited.
"Okay, okay." She dropped into a chair. "How's he doing?"
"Well enough for someone who fell down a flight of steps this morning. Which he wouldn't have done if he'd use the flaming elevator. Snapped his fucking leg like a twig, ripped bloody hell out of his shoulder. Well."
He closed his eyes again, tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. Opened his eyes again. And made her wonder if he went through that same routine when he was settling down after dealing with what he liked to call one of her "snits."
"Well. They've got the leg in a skin cast and brace, and tell me it'll fuse like new. A clean break. The shoulder's likely to trouble him longer. He's sixty-eight. I couldn't remember that this morning. You'd think he'd use the elevator when he's got an armload of something or other. And why he'd bother with linens when he should've been getting himself out the door for holiday is another that's beyond me."
"Because he's a stubborn, tight-assed son of a bitch who has to do everything himself, and his way?"
Roarke let out a half-laugh and drank more wine. "Well, so he is."
And you love him,Eve thought.He's your father in every way that counts.
"So, you're bringing him home tomorrow."
"I am. My ears are still ringing from his annoyance that he isn't home tonight. You'd think I'd locked him in a snake pit rather than seeing he's in a private suite at the best medical facility in the goddamn city. Fuck me, I should be used to that sort of thing."
She pursed her lips when he shoved out of the chair and headed back to the wine bottle. "I guess you bitch to him about how I complain when you dump me in a health center. Maybe the two of us can arrange for you to have some hospital time. Then Summerset and I will finally bond."
"What a happy day that'll be."
"Had a crappy day, haven't you, ace?" She set her glass aside and rose.
"Tomorrow promises to be just as delightful. He's not happy with the idea of having a medical aide in-house here for the next week or so."
"Can't blame him. He's feeling stupid, uncomfortable, and pissed off. So he kicks at you, because he loves you best." She took the glass from Roarke's hand, set it down. "That's what I do."
"From the bruises on my ass, both of you must love me desperately."
"I guess I do." She linked her arms around his neck, fit her body to his. "Why don't I show you?"
"Are you taking my mind off my poor mood?"
"I don't know." She rubbed her lips over his. "Am I?"
"Well." He gripped her hips, pressed her closer. "Things are looking up."
She snickered, and bit him. "We're all alone. What should we do first?"
"Let's try something we haven't before."
She eased back to study him. "If we haven't done it yet, it must not be anatomically possible."
"You've such a gutter mind." He kissed the top of her nose. "I love that about you." He drew her back to him. "I was thinking of dancing in the parlor."
"Hmm," she decided as she swayed with him. "It's not bad. For starters. Of course, in my earlier fantasy, we were naked while we were dancing."
"We'll get there." Relaxing, making the effort to relax, he brushed his cheek over her hair. This was what he needed, he thought. She was what he needed. To hold onto. To sink into. "I haven't asked about your day."
She was drifting now, on the music, on the moves. "About as crappy as yours."
She'd wanted to ask him about Browning and Brightstar. He probably knew them, or of them. They were the sort he'd know, and in a way that might give her an edge on them. But it could wait. She'd just let it wait until she didn't feel all this tension balled inside him.
"I'll tell you later."
She rubbed her cheek to his, then skimmed her lips there, teasing her way to his mouth. With a long, low sound of pleasure, she trailed her fingers into his hair and used her lips, her teeth, her tongue, to seduce.
The worries of the day slid away as she filled him. The warmth with its promise of heat, the lazy desire that was sure to turn to urgency. While he guided her in small circles, she led him in this more intimate dance with kisses that drugged the mind, with hands that aroused the body.
As her mouth became more demanding, she tugged the jacket off his shoulders, then raked her short nails up the back of his shirt.
He could feel the music, a kind of rising pulse inside him as he tasted the flesh of her throat. What beat inside him beat for her, and always would. Her fingers were busy now with the buttons of his shirt even as he shoved her own jacket down her arms.
She shook herself free of it before clamping her teeth, small, nibbling bites, on his bare shoulder.
"You're getting ahead of me," he managed.
"Keep up." Nimble and quick, she unhooked his trousers and closed her hand over him.
His blood surged, stealing his breath so that he fumbled with her weapon harness. Though he hit the release, the strap tangled with her half-open shirt. "Bloody hell."
Her laugh was muffled against his mouth, and her hands were ruthless.
She could feel his heart raging against hers now, just as she could feel his struggle for control. But she'd make him lose control this time, until he thought of nothing but her, felt nothing but that burn in the blood.
She knew how the need would build in him-in her-gathering fast and hot, as painful as a fresh bruise, spreading until the system screamed for release.
That was what he brought her, what they brought each other.
They dragged each other to the floor, rolling over the rug as they pulled and tugged at clothes, as hands rushed over damp flesh and mouth sought mouth.
She wanted him wild, mindless, raging, and knew his body-its weaknesses, its strength-well enough to exploit both. She waged power against power and felt a fresh spurt of excitement when his breath caught on her name.
His hands were rough, she wanted them rough, as they raced over her. His mouth was hot, voracious when it closed over her breast.
Feeding, he fed her so that even as she flew over that first whippy edge, she could crave more.
When he clamped his hands over her wrists to still her hands, she didn't struggle. She would let him believe he had the control, let him take and take until he thought them both sated. She arched, offering herself to that greedy mouth, and absorbed every shattering thrill.
And when she felt him brace to plunge inside her, she rolled-quick as a snake-and reversed their positions. Now her hands cuffed his wrists, and her body pinned his.
"What's your hurry?"
His eyes were madly blue, his breath in tatters. "Christ, Eve."
"You'll just have to wait till I'm done with you."
Her mouth crushed down on his.
His system was one raw nerve, and she scraped pleasure over it without mercy. His skin was slick with sweat, his heart a painful hammer blow against his ribs, his blood already screaming in his ears. And still she used him.
He heard himself say her name again, again, then lost his own words in a frantic spate of Gaelic that might have been prayers, might have been curses.
When she rose over him, her skin gleaming in the last red lights of the dying sun, he was beyond any speech.
Now her fingers linked with his, and she took him in.
She bowed back, her body a slim and lovely arch of energy, and it shuddered, shuddered, as his did. Then she shifted her gaze, fixed her eyes on his. And rode.