And with a rage so strong it sickened him, he brought up Richard Troy’s HSO file.
It wasn’t yet dawn when she stirred, and felt his arms go around her. So gently around her. Half dreaming, she turned to him, turned into him and found the warmth of his body, then the warmth of his lips on her lips.
The kiss was so tender, so fragile somehow, that she could let herself drift into it even as she floated on that twilight sleep.
In the dark, she could always find him in the dark and know he’d be there to soothe her or arouse her. Or to ask those things of her.
She threaded her fingers through his hair, cradling his head as she urged him to deepen the kiss. Deeper, a mating of lips and tongues, and still soft as a dream she was already forgetting.
For now there was only Roarke, the smooth glide of his skin over hers, the lines of him, the scent and taste. She was already filled with him as she murmured his name.
His mouth trailed over her like a benediction. Cheeks, throat, shoulders, then pressed delicately on the slope of her breast to linger where her heart beat.
“I love you.” His lips formed the words against her breast. “I’m lost in love with you.”
Not lost, she thought, and smiled in the dark even as her pulse thicke
ned. Found. We’re both found.
He cradled his head there a moment—cheek to heart—and closed his eyes until he could be sure he had his fiercer emotions in check, until he could be sure his hands would be gentle on her.
He had a searing need to be gentle.
She sighed, soft and sleepy, and was content, he knew, to be wakened like this. No matter what had been done to her, her heart was open for him, and that open heart lifted him beyond anything he’d expected to become.
So he was gentle when he touched her, and when he roused her to peak it was lovely and sweet.
When he slipped inside her, they were one shadow moving in the dark.
She held him there, close in the big bed under the sky window where the light was going pearl gray with dawn. She could stay like this for an hour, she thought. Stay quiet and joined and happy before it was time to face the world, the job, the blood.
“Eve.” He pressed his lips to her shoulder. “We need to talk.”
“Mmm. Don’t wanna talk. Sleeping.”
“It’s important.” He drew away, though she groaned a protest. “I’m sorry. Lights on, twenty percent.”
“Oh, man.” She clapped a hand over her eyes. “What is it? Five? Nobody has to have a conversation at five in the morning.”
“It’s nearly half-five, and you’ll have your team here at seven. We need the time for this.”
She spread her fingers, squinted through. “For what?”
“I went back last night and accessed more files.”
And through those spread fingers, he saw the annoyance. “I thought you said that was all you could do.”
“For you, it was. I did this for me. I wanted a look at my own dossier, in case . . . Just in case.”
She sat up quickly. “Are you in trouble? Christ, are you in trouble with the fucking HSO?”
“No.” He put his hands on her shoulders, ran them up and down her arms. And suffered, knowing she would suffer. “It’s not that. While I was at it, I had a look at my father’s files.”
“Your mother.” She reached for his hand, squeezed.
“No. It seems she didn’t earn as much as a blip on their radar. They weren’t paying much mind to him that long ago, and she didn’t matter to them, wasn’t useful or interesting, which is all to the good. But Patrick Roarke became of more interest, and they spent time tracking his moves now and again. Mostly, it appears, on the chance he’d give them something to use against Ricker.”
“I’d say he didn’t, as Ricker stayed in operation until last year.”