And when she peaked, when she flung her hands back to grip the edge of the console, he dropped down to use his mouth on her.
The sounds she made, those cries and groans of mad pleasure, flashed like lightning in his blood. When he gripped those long legs, they trembled in his hands.
He nipped his teeth at her thigh, slid his tongue over her, into her, around her until she quaked, and quaked. And broke again.
She lay shivering, gasping for air, and he gripped her hips. Drove into all that wild, wet heat.
“Take more. Take me. Take all I am.”
She opened heavy eyes, and through the desperate rush understood. All those memories, all those terrible moments churning through him. He needed the now, needed who he was, who they were together.
“Always.” Even as sensation, rioting pleasure, swamped her, she pushed up to him, wrapped her arms around him. “You’re mine. I’m yours. Always.”
It tore through him, and that was love, keen as a blade.
When he let go, the love remained.
He pressed his lips to her throat. “I wouldn’t be who I am without you.”
She started to say otherwise, then settled. Understood the simple truth. “Neither would I, without you. Through everything, you were there. You never stepped back, never walked away.”
She turned her head, brushed his lips with hers. “I’m here.”
“I know it.”
“Thank God I didn’t slice something off you during that.”
“I’m grateful for it.” He hiked up his pants, then with hers still dangling from her boots, lifted her. “What do you say to a shower?”
“That we could probably use one.”
He carried her to the elevator. “Sex and a shower. Better than a restless attempt at a nap for recharging.”
“I’m in no position to argue with that.”
She dressed again, sweater, trousers, boots—all black. She reattached the stilettos—why take chances—strapped on her weapon harness.
She noted Roarke had gone for black as well, but for whatever reason, his made him look like a sexy cat burglar.
Then again, he’d been just that once upon a time.
“You’re authorized for a stunner,” she reminded him.
“Quite right.” So saying, he walked back to his closet, and curious, she followed him.
His clothes, the elegant forest of them, hung in perfect lines and groupings or lay folded, precisely, on shelves.
He went to the central cabinet, pressed some mechanism she couldn’t see under the narrow lip. A mini control panel opened. He tapped in a code, pressed his thumb to a pad. Then the entire side slid open to reveal a small, organized arsenal.
“What the fuck! Why didn’t I know about this?”
“You never asked,” he said simply as he crouched to choose a stunner and a harness.
“You’re not licensed for all of that.”
“On the contrary, I have a collector’s license for all.”
“But that’s—” Why was she wasting her time? Priorities, she reminded herself. “Take the mini blaster and the combat knife.”
He had to smile at her, this love of his life. “Am I so authorized, Lieutenant?”
“I’ll clear it. We’re potentially going to confront a dangerous contract killer who wants you dead. I want you fully armed.”
As he removed the weapons, she crouched for a closer look. “You’ve got a long-range LX-25 repeater.”
“And?”
“Nothing.” She yearned a little. “It’s nice.”
“Would you like one?”
She turned her head, met him eye-to-eye. “If and when I do, I know where to find one.”
He leaned forward, kissed her. Straightening, he hooked the knife in its sheath to his belt. Put on the harness, secured the stunner.
The mini he put in his jacket pocket.
“I need you to wear the coat—the magic coat I gave you for Christmas.”
“Understood.”
She stood another moment, scanning his face. “Okay, here’s the deal. This is a police operation, and you’re a civilian. It’s also personal for you, which makes it personal for me. That’s a complication, but that’s how it is. It’s important we take him alive.”
“Also understood. And on that personal level? I want him alive as much as you. I want words with him, and I’ll have them one way or the other. He has to be alive to hear them.”
“All right then. But if you have the chance to give him a little pain? I’ve got your back on that.”
Oh, aye, the love of his life. “I’d welcome the opportunity.”
“Well, let’s see what we can do about it. First, we need to find him. So let’s get started.”
“Eve. For all my life before you, and had fate been so cruel as to deem I’d never meet you, I’d have nothing, just nothing that could compare even to this single moment.”
“Where we’re standing in your closet strapped with weapons?”
He laughed, cupped her face. “Yes.”
“Let’s go find this bastard, and make an even better moment.”
They walked down. It didn’t surprise her to find her long black coat, and Roarke’s, waiting on the newel post. Roarke would have let Summerset know what they needed at some point.
Her DLE sat outside.
“You drive,” she told him. “I’ll let Feeney and Peabody know we’re on our way in.”
As she did, her ’link signaled.
“Nadine,” she told Roarke. “Maybe she picked up something useful.” She answered, “Dallas. Little busy here, Nadine.”
“Too busy to hear Lorcan Cobbe’s mother put her house in Dublin on the market today?”
“How did you get that?”
“Sources, Dallas.” Nadine tossed her streaky blond hair, tapped a finger to her lips. “Sacred. But we’ll say I have friends who have friends who cover the gossip and society beat in Ireland. Morna Cobbe lives high, so she’s worth some clicks. It hasn’t hit yet because the reporter wants more juice, but it’s going on the list tomorrow. Well, today.”
“Hold on.” She muted the ’link. “Coincidence is bollocks.”
“It is, yes.”
“Okay. Top two reasons Morna Cobbe would suddenly sell her house?”
“The second would be she wants to move—downsize, upsize, different location. But that would be the bollocks of coincidence.”
“Agreed.”
“Number one? Her son’s figured when he kills me, the heat turns up. Not only because he’s all but taken out an ad blimp on his intentions, but because I have connections in Dublin that would squeeze him, and potentially his mother. So he’s decided to get out, relocate himself and her to a cooler clime.”
“And that’s the winner. Nadine?”
“Yeah, yeah, still here.”
“Find out what other properties—residential—went up for sale today in Dublin.”
“Are you serious?”
“Because one of them’s Cobbe’s hole there, and it would be really nice to pin it down.”
Nadine’s foxy reporter’s eyes lit. “It would, wouldn’t it? I’ll see what I can do. You’re in the car,” she realized. “Where are you going? Do you have a lead on Cobbe? What’s the—”