Dark in Death (In Death 46)

“No, bitchy ones. As in dead Loxie Flash bitching about being dead. Everybody’s fault but hers, right, until you wanted to punch her in her whiny face. But since she’s dead, what’s the point?”

“I’d say your subconscious recognizes your latest victim contributed to her own fate, and if personality follows into death, she’d bitch and cast the blame about.”

“Yeah. She deserved a good punch in the face, but she didn’t deserve murder—or having her last moments splashed all over the Internet and gossip venues. So.” She drained her coffee where she stood. “Morgue,” she grumbled and headed for the shower.

She’d just started to work out the basic outline of her morning when Roarke stepped in behind her, into the hot, crisscrossing jets.

His arms came around her. That hard, wet body pressed against her back, and she lost her train of thought.

“A little life to start off the day.” His hand slid down to her center. “And to counterbalance the morgue.”

“When you put it like that.” She started to turn around, turn into him, and found herself pressed to the tiles.

“We’ll just have to make it quick.”

His fingers slid into her, shot her straight to peak even as his teeth grazed over the back of her neck.

She splayed her hands on the tiles, prepared to push off, pivot somehow, and grab on to him. But he thrust inside her, destroyed her with hard, fast strokes. Her vision blurred—crazed pleasure, rising steam, the pulsing beat of water—so she closed her eyes, surrendered.

She heard the helpless sounds she made, echoing, drowning under the hot rain. And everything in her tightened, clung, hung on that sharp, stunning edge between pleasure and panic.

Then fell.

Somewhere, somehow, she felt his heart pounding against her back and his lips brushing against the side of her neck. Felt his grip become a caress before he turned her.

Once again she looked straight into his eyes, and thought she’d fallen into that perfect blue sea after all.

She skimmed her fingers through his wet hair. “I guess the word’s wow.”

His lips curved as she brushed hers over them. “Something about having my naked wife serve me coffee in bed, I suppose.”

She held on to him another moment, decided dreams of the bitching dead and trips to the morgue really could be counterbalanced.

Then she nudged him away. “Okay, that’s done, now hands off, pal. I’ve got to move.”

She finished showering, hopped in the drying tube and, grabbing the robe off the back of the door, went out for a second hit of coffee. She’d programmed breakfast by the time he came out, a towel slung around his hips.

“Hungry, are you?”

“I am now.”

He grabbed a robe for himself so he could join her. And, after removing warming domes, sat a moment in silence.

“You programmed oatmeal.”

“Yeah, so? I … What? Damn it!”

He sat back, laughing at her shocked consternation.

“You’ve screwed with my subconscious. I should be eating waffles.”

He patted her leg. “Tomorrow, waffles it is, whoever gets to the AC first.”

Since she just continued to scowl at the bowl, he doctored up the oatmeal as he knew she liked—or tolerated. “It’s a good choice. We’re caught in this cold snap, dipping down from Canada. We’ll be lucky to hit twenty degrees today.”

“Canada’s got no business dipping down here so the rest of us have to eat oatmeal.” But she ate it, and comforted herself with berries.

“What can I do to help today, if I manage to find some time for it?”