“You’ll feel better for a soak in the tub.”
“You want to see me naked.”
“At every moment of every day.” He went into the bathroom, ordered the tub to fill at the boiling temperature she preferred. He added salts of some sort to the water, then turned where she waited and began to undress her himself.
“Getting in with me?”
“I’m not, no. Though, tempting. You’ll soak, use the VR for a relaxation program. Then you’ll eat something soothing.” Every inch he undressed he studied for bruises, swelling, and was relieved to find none. “As it’s the alternative to a trip to the hospital, you’ll obey orders like a good girl.”
“I’d rather you soak with me, and maybe try out a dual VR. Something sexy. And I could be a bad girl.”
He arched a brow. “You’re trying to take my mind off the fact you’ve been hurt. It’s a damn good attempt.” He gave her a light, almost paternal kiss. “In you go, Lieutenant. Alone.”
“You’re turning down sex. Maybe you’re the one who got knocked on the head.” But she stepped into the frothy, swirling water of the wide tub, and couldn’t stop the moan of pleasure. “Okay, yeah, this is good.”
He took VR goggles out of a drawer, set a program. “Relax.”
“Am.”
He slid the goggles on her, heard her sigh. He got himself a glass of wine, as good as a soother, he thought. And leaning against the door, he sipped it slowly, and watched her while she soaked away the aches.
Home, he told himself. She was home and whole and safe.
CHAPTER TEN
RELAXED, RESTED, EVE BUNDLED INTO A ROBE. She stepped to the mirror, scooping her hair back to examine the cut on her forehead. Not bad, she decided, and pulled her bangs over it. You could hardly see it.
Which was bullshit, she admitted, blowing those bangs with an irritable exhale, because he’d see it. He knew it was there. She’d scared him, pulled him away from his own work—with a side dish of worry—and for no good reason. If she’d taken two seconds to think, to contact him, to tell him she’d banged up her vehicle, but she was okay, he wouldn’t have worried.
Big black mark in the Good Wife column. She tended to rack those up.
Worse, he hears she’s been in a crash while she’s investigating the murder of another cop. Just not good.
Guilt smeared over relaxation as she walked back into the bedroom. “Listen, I want to say . . .” She trailed off. She scented the red sauce first, then spotted the plates of spaghetti and meatballs on the table of the sitting area. “Damn it.”
“Not in the mood for pasta?” He narrowed those bold blue eyes to give her a critical study. “You must’ve hit your head harder than we thought.”
“I was going to do it—get dinner, I mean. One of the fancy things you like, because—Hell.” She gave up, hurried to him to wrap her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was so pissed off at what happened, at myself, I didn’t think.”
He stroked a hand down her hair first, then gave the choppy ends a quick tug. “I’m not angry with you.”
“I know. You could be, but you’re not. So I have to be even sorrier.”
“Your logic is fascinating, and elusive.”
“I can’t pay you back with sex or salt-crusted sea bass or whatever because you’re too busy taking care of me. So now I’ve got this black mark in my column against the bright shiny star in yours, and—”
He tipped her head up. “Are we keeping score?”
“No. Maybe. Shit.”
“How am I doing?”
“Undisputed champ.”
“Good. I like to win.” He brushed her bangs back to study the injury himself. “You’ll do. Let’s eat.”
Just like that, she thought. Then, no. No, not just like that. She shifted her grip on him so her arms linked around his neck. “I love you.” And kissed him, soft, slow, deep. “I love you. I love you. I’m just going to keep saying it,” she told him as she pressed her body to his. “Racking them up, so I have a supply built up for when I forget to say it. I love who you are, what you are, how you talk, how you look at me.”
Her lips roamed over his face, down his throat, along his jaw, coming back to his with soft, sumptuous seduction. “I love your body, how you make me feel. I love your face, your mouth, your hands. Put your hands on me, Roarke. Put your hands on me.”
He’d planned to see she ate, rested a bit. To keep his eye on her in case . . . in case. Now she was taking him under. Drawing him down to drown in her.
He nudged the robe off her shoulders, so it slithered to the floor. And put his hands on her.
“More. More. I love you.” Her lips skimmed over his ear; her teeth scraped along his neck to add a shock of lust. “I want more. I want you.” She tugged at his jacket, and her laugh was a low, arousing purr. “Too many clothes. Like the first time, you’re wearing too many clothes. I have to fix that.”
To solve the problem, she ripped his shirt open, and laughed again. “Yeah, that’s better. Oh God, I love you.” Her breath hitched from the skill of his hands, his mouth, even as her fingers got busy on the hook of his trousers. Even when she found him, hot, hard.
“In me, I want you in me. I want you crazy and inside me. I want to see what it does to you, while I feel what it does to me.”
He would have lifted her, swept her up and to the bed. Driven himself, driven her beyond reason. But her mouth came back to his, so tenderly. Sweet, so sweet. He fell helplessly into the warm liquid mists of love.
“Come to bed,” he murmured. “Come to bed with me.”
“Too far.” In a lightning change of mood she hooked her foot behind his, shifted her weight. He landed under his hot-eyed naked wife on the couch.
Before he could catch his breath, her mouth was on his, tongue teasing, teeth nipping. His body quivered as he tried to find his balance.
“I’m going to take you.” Her breathless threat pounded through his blood. “I won’t stop till I’m finished, and you won’t finish until you’re in me. Until I let you in me.”
She demanded, she took, she dragged him to the heady brink of control, only to leave him quaking while she soothed and smoothed tenderness over greed.
He thought he might have begged her, or cursed her. And still she had her relentless way with his body, his heart.
His eyes were wild, and those strong, toned muscles trembled under her hands, her lips. He said her name, again and again, mixed and jumbled with words in English and Gaelic. Prayers, pleas, curses, she couldn’t know. Didn’t care. His fingers dug into her, a bruising testament to his loss of control. When she offered, he feasted on her breasts like a man starving. Even when those fingers, that mouth shot her to orgasm, she held on. Held on.
She would take him.
Her breath screamed in her lungs; her heart beat to bursting. But she watched what she did to him, watched his eyes go molten with what she could do to him.
She gripped his hands, a vise of fingers. “Now,” she said. “Now, now, now.” And taking him in, rode him like a demon.
His vision blurred, and through the haze she was white and gold, slim and strong. His body bucked beneath hers, lashed to fury by pleasure. And striking, the dark blade of that pleasure carved him hollow.
He didn’t move, wasn’t sure he was capable. Reason, reality crept in slowly so he realized they lay tangled together on the sofa, a sweaty, sticky mess of still-quivering limbs and gasping breaths.
Christ Jesus, was there a luckier man in the universe?
Her skin was still hot, almost feverish. Her head lay like a stone on his chest. He considered, seriously, simply closing his eyes and sleeping just as they were for the next day or two.