With a shrug, she put it on, and walked into the bedroom.
There were ways for a good morning to get better, she thought, and here was top of the list. Roarke sipping coffee in the sitting area while he scanned the morning stock reports on-screen.
There were those hands that had worked their magic the night before, one holding a coffee mug, the other absently stroking their fat slug of a cat. Galahad’s dual-colored eyes were slits of ecstasy—she could relate.
That beautifully sculpted mouth had turned her system inside out, twisted it into knots of screaming pleasure, then left it limp and satisfied.
Just shy of two years of marriage now, she mused, and the heat between them showed no signs of banking down. As if to prove it, her heart gave a leap and tumble in her chest when he turned his head, and his bold blue eyes met hers.
Did he feel that? she wondered. Could he possibly feel that every time? All the time?
He smiled, so both knowledge and pleasure spread over a face, she thought foolishly, must make the gods weep with joy over their work.
He rose, moved to her—all long and lean—to take her face in his hands. Just a flutter of those clever fingers over her skin before his mouth found hers and made a better morning brilliant.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Yeah. Thanks.” She was a veteran cop, a homicide boss, a tough bitch by her own definition. And her knees were jelly. “I think we should take a few days.” He programmed the AutoChef for coffee and—if she knew her man—for the breakfast he intended her to eat. “I mean maybe in July. Like for our anniversary. If you can work it in between world domination and planetary acquisitions.”
“Funny you should bring it up.” He set her coffee on the table, then two plates. It seemed bacon and eggs was on the menu this morning. On the sofa Galahad twitched and opened his eyes.
Roarke merely pointed a finger, said, firmly, “No.” And the cat flopped the pudge of himself over. “I was thinking a few weeks.”
“What? Us? Away? Weeks? I can’t—”
“Yes, yes, crime would overtake the city in July 2060, raze it to smoldering ash if Lieutenant Dallas wasn’t here to serve and protect.” Ireland wove misty magic through his voice as he picked up the inert cat and set him on the floor to make room on the couch for Eve.
“Maybe,” she muttered. “Besides, I don’t see how you can take off for weeks when you’ve got ninety percent of the businesses in the known universe to run.”
“It’s no more than fifty.” He picked up his coffee again, waiting for her to join him. “In any case, what would be the point of having all that, and you, darling Eve, if I can’t have time with you, away from your work and mine?”
“I could probably take a week.”
“I was thinking four.”
“Four? Four weeks? That’s a month.”
His eyes laughed over the rim of his cup. “Is it now? I believe you’re right.”
“I can’t take a month off. A month is like . . . a month.”
“As opposed to what? A chicken?”
“Ha. Look, maybe I could stretch it to ten days, but—”
“Three weeks.”
Her forehead furrowed.
“We had to cancel plans for a quick weekend away twice this year. Once for your work, once for mine. Three weeks.”
“I couldn’t take more than two, even—”
“Two and a half. We split the difference.” He handed her a fork.
She frowned at it. “You were always going for the two and a half.”
He took her hand, kissed it. “Don’t let your eggs get cold.”