Golden in Death (In Death 50)

After straddling him, she curved down to him. “I got more.”

And took his mouth again to prove it.

She wanted heat, and speed, some quick and reckless abandon for both of them. The man who’d waited, worried; the cop who carried fresh weight.

Here she could show him what she couldn’t always find words for. That her love was boundless, furious, blazing through her so fierce she would always, always fight to hold it, hold him.

With her body she could give them both a reprieve from whatever tomorrow asked of them.

She let herself fly into it, not soft and slow, but like an arrow loosed from a bow. Hot-tipped and keen. And when his hands, all too clever and skilled, roamed over her, she stopped them, gripped them tight in hers. And conquered him with only her mouth.

His lips, his throat, his chest. That heartbeat pounding, pounding as she feasted on warm flesh, on the quiver of strong muscles.

“You wait,” she managed, ripe with her own power as she released his hands. “You wait.” Undid the buttons to free him.

And gripping his hands again, used her mouth.

She destroyed him. Relentless, agile, she destroyed control, layer by layer. Not eroded, he thought, already half mad for her, but simply burned it away like a brushfire.

The heat, God, the heat was unbearable. Was glorious.

He fought to hold back, swore he felt the world, the whole of it, turn upside down. She took him to the searing edge, left him there all but shuddering, as she worked her way up his body again.

At the end, at his limit, he said her name. Like a prayer, a plea, a demand all in one.

He saw her eyes, just her eyes, tawny as a lion’s with her own power. She said, “You wait.”

He snapped, and answered, “No.”

He rolled her over, pinned her. And freed, his hands had their way.

He ravished, as she had, burned away those layers, as she had. Now he feasted, that lean and limber body his to touch, taste, take. She cried out as she came, a sound that thrilled, pushed him to drive her up again, sweeping her from limp to desperate.

Now the world spun, stealing the air, blurring the vision until they clung to each other, wrecked and ready.

When their eyes met, he plunged into her. Fast, rough, with a violence they both craved in the moment, they drove each other to that burning edge, clawed at it to hold the mad pleasure.

And finally spilled over.

Breathless, they lay like survivors of the wreck, waiting for sense and sanity to seep back.

“You said…” She had to pause, pull in more air through still-laboring lungs, then picked her way through something resembling Irish. “What does it mean?”

She’d mangled it, Roarke thought, but he put it together. “Did I?”

“Yeah, right before we killed each other.”

“Apt then. It’s Is mise mo chiall. You’re my madness.”

She thought it over. “I’m going to say that’s a good thing, under the circumstances.”

Turning his head, he brushed his lips over her hair. “You unravel me, Eve, in thousands of ways.”

“I needed to, I don’t know, burn off the day.”

“I’d say we succeeded there.” He shifted, drew her in so she curled against him. “You’ll sleep.”

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes, breathed him in, began to drift. “You have lights on all over the house when I come home at night, when I come home late.”