“Yeah, that’s so. Because you’re soft on me. Ask anybody.” She moved to the desk now, watching him as he rose. “I’m soft on you, too. Don’t you know that’s why, or part of why I was pissed off? I don’t want him close to you. I don’t want what he is to touch you. Is that supposed to be your exclusive property? Not wanting someone who means you harm to lay hands
on you?”
“No.” He sighed, ran a hand through his hair in a rare show of frustration. “No, it’s not.”
“The other part was pride, and I don’t have an easy time swallowing it. Neither do you. The thing you said, about me going along with you poking in when it works for me? You were right. I’m not saying that’s going to change, but you were right. I’m not real happy about that, either. And this other thing I know. You only walk away like you did when you’d like to punch me.”
“I must do a great deal of walking away.”
She didn’t laugh, as he meant her to. “No, that’s the thing. You don’t.” She came around the counter, the console, then took his face in her hands. “You just don’t.”
“Eve.” He ran his hands up her arms, to her shoulders.
“I’m not finished yet. It’s a good plan. Not a great one, but we can fine-tune it. I’d rather another way. I’d rather you’d use that ’link to contact whoever it was you were just talking to and agree to go off planet and do whatever the hell it is you do nobody else seems to be able to pull off. I’d rather that, Roarke, because you mean more to me than anything ever has or ever could. But it’s not going to happen. And if anything happens to you Friday night—”
“It won’t.”
“If anything happens to you,” she repeated, “I’m going to dedicate my life to making yours a living hell.”
“Fair enough,” he murmured as her mouth came up to his.
“An hour.” She wrapped herself around him. “Let’s go away from this for one hour. I need to be with you. I need to be who I am when I’m with you.”
“I know the perfect place.”
She had a fondness for the beach—the heat, the water, the sand. She could relax there in a manner she allowed herself so rarely.
He could give her the beach for an hour, take it for himself in the holo-room, where illusions were only a program away.
The island he chose, with its long sickle curve of white-sugar sand, its lazily waving palms, and fat, fragrant flowers, was a setting that suited both of them. The baking heat from the gold ball of sun was offset by the breeze that flowed in from the sea like the tide and brought the scent of it to the air.
“This is good.” She breathed deeply, felt the tension in her neck and shoulders melt away. She wanted the same for him. “This is really good.” She started to ask if he’d set the timer, then decided not to spoil the moment or the mood.
Instead, she stripped off her jacket, yanked off her boots.
The water was a clear and dreaming blue, frothed with white at the shore, like lace on a hem. Why resist?
Her weapon harness came next, then her trousers. She angled her head, looked at him. “Don’t you want to swim?”
“Eventually. I like watching you strip. It’s so . . . efficient.”
She laughed. “Yeah, well enjoy yourself.” She tugged off her shirt, then the little scoop-necked tank beneath. Naked as a newborn, she raced to the sea and dived under the waves.
“I intend to,” he murmured, and watched her strike out, always just a little too far for safety, before he undressed.
She swam like an eel, fast and fearless. For a time he paced himself to her, a companionable competition. Then he simply heeled over on his back to float in the current, to let the water, the sun, the moment, wash away the fatigue that had nagged at him.
And to wait for her.
She swam up beside him, treaded water. “Feel better?”
“Considerably.”
“You looked tired before.” And she wanted to stroke that fatigue away. “You hardly ever do.”
“I was tired before.”
She let her fingers tangle in his hair. “You get your second wind, I’ll race you back to shore.”