Chapter Ten
He saw the tension in the way she rolled her shoulders, circled her neck.
“Knotted up, aren’t you then?”
“Yeah, some.”
After cupping a hand on the back of her neck, he judged it more than some. He knew ways to untie those knots.
“How about a swim?”
“Ah … yeah, actually. I could use it.” As they walked to the elevator, she looked at him. “Even if you just want me wet and naked.”
“Well, of course, but I also enjoy you dry and dressed. For example,” he said, and when they stepped into the elevator, turned her back to the wall and covered her mouth with his.
He loosened several knots, along with her shirt.
“You could wait on that until we actually get to the pool.”
“No time like the present.”
As his mouth took hers again, he unbuckled her belt. He felt her heart pounding against his, heard the hum in her throat, felt the give in her body. He changed the angle of the kiss. Deeper, just a little deeper.
His fingers slid down, over her breast, over her belly, over her center, then in.
She came in one quick burst. Before she could draw the next breath, he was inside her.
Pinned to the wall, she could do nothing more than feel. The rush, the heat, the shattering pleasure. Her body pulsed and pumped, greedy for more, on fire now for this fast, fierce mating.
He knew she was lost, felt her trembling surrender to him, to herself, to this dark, drowning need they could bring to each other time after time after time.
When her trousers, her shirt, slid to the elevator floor, his hunger spiked. In a sudden frenzy, he pulled the support tank over her head, tossed it, so she wore only the teardrop diamond on a chain, and her boots.
Eyes on hers, he cupped his hands under her thighs, lifted her. Now she chained around him, arms, legs. Now her lips fused to his as they whipped each other to the edge of madness, and over.
She might have slid bonelessly to the floor, but his body, pressed to hers, kept her upright. Breathless, skin slick with sweat, they held there until he turned his head to brush his lips under her ear.
“More relaxed now, I’ll wager.”
“Did you say something? It’s hard to hear with all these bells ringing. Jesus, we’re still in the elevator. I’m naked in the elevator.”
“Not altogether. You’re still wearing your boots. It’s a fascinating look.”
“Right. I’m going to take them off. And we have to pick up all this stuff.”
“As otherwise, Summerset might come across the scattered clothes and suspect we’ve had sex in the elevator.”
“Well. Yeah.”
She pulled off her boots, gathered them and the clothes in her arms.
“I still want a swim.”
“Then we’ll have one.”
He walked with her through the tropical paradise of plants and vines and flowers to the blue sparkle of the pool.
She dumped the clothes on a chair. “I need to reboot my brain after that.”
“I can help with that as well.”
He scooped her up, kissed her. Then he tossed her, high over that sparkling blue. The sound she made caught somewhere between a scream and a squeal before she hit the water.
She surfaced, shoved her wet hair out of her face. “What are you, twelve?”
“I’ll just have to prove, after we’ve had our swim, I’ve more skill and experience than that.”
Stripping off the rest of his clothes, he dived in after her.
After some laps, some lazy floating, a bout of underwater wrestling, he proved his skill and experience.
She slept, and deeply. Until she dreamed.
Dreaming, she stood at the crime scene that smelled of blood and death. The vault stood open and held its treasures.
As she stood, Roarke, in cat-burglar black, came through the window.
“You can’t be here.”
“Now then, I have a job to finish, just as you.”
He walked past her, gave her a wink, then stepped into the vault.
He opened a satchel and drew from a velvet bag the ivory Venus.
“Lovely, isn’t she?”
“It doesn’t belong here.”
“It wasn’t for me to decide that. A man has a living to make, after all.”
With care, he removed the tiara from the Royal Suite from another bag, placed it, then the necklace, the bracelet, the earrings, and finally the ring.
“I held those,” he said, “held them as my own for a brief moment of time. Ah, and the thrill of it, beyond words. But it was the ready I needed, not the sparkle.”
He turned, smiled at her. “Though you’d look like a queen wearing them. A goddess.”
“That’s not what I want.”
“I know it, my darling Eve, or why would I have stopped looking for that thrill? I found more in you than ever that. You brought me the joy, the comfort, the ease—and who would’ve thought I needed the ease of belonging?”
He stepped out, gave her arm an affectionate rub.
“The precious and the priceless,” he said, “but nothing in there is worth more than the life of the man you stand over and for. I believed that before you, and know it only more strongly since. I might have risked my own life for the precious and priceless, but that’s a different thing than the taking of one.
“You know that very well.”
“Yes. I know that.”
“I’d best be off now, as you’ve work to do.”
“Who took everything else?” she murmured.
As he stepped through the window, Roarke sent her a smile. “There’s a question.”
And he was gone, like a shadow in the dark.
On the floor, Nathan Barrister sat up. His face, his clothes were wet with blood. His eyes looked dull and full of sorrow.
“I didn’t take any of those things. I didn’t know about them until after my father died.”
“I believe that. But you kept them, for weeks after you did know.”
“It’s not the same, is it?”
“The possession of stolen property … No, not the same.”
“I loved my father. I thought I knew and accepted his flaws. He wasn’t what you’d call a great dad. I know because I’ve tried to be. But he was a good father. He built an important business, ran it well. He treated his employees fairly, even generously.”
With those sorrowful eyes, Nathan looked into the vault. “I don’t know why he did this, why he needed this.”
He turned to Eve. “We wouldn’t have kept all this. Is it so wrong I wanted to find a way to fix this and still protect my family? Our business? My father’s reputation? What harm did it do to take some time to find the best way?”
“It harmed you, Nate. It killed you.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Who did?”
He only shook his head, lay back on the bloody floor. “I didn’t know.”
“Somebody did.”
She woke to find Roarke sitting on the sofa. No suit—black jeans, a light sweater nearly as blue as his eyes—which reminded her it was still the weekend.
Instead of lying on Roarke’s lap, the cat stretched across the back of the sofa as if reading whatever Roarke did on his tablet over Roarke’s shoulder.
“Did you dream then, before you woke?” he asked her.
“I guess. Yeah.” She sat up, realized she felt—body and mind—like a woman who’d been sexed into reviving sleep.
“I’m going to get a workout in.”
“All right. I’ve done one myself already. We’ll have Sunday breakfast when you’re done.”
She saw the fire simmered, and the sky window over the bed ran with wet.
“It’s raining.”
“Buckets. You’ll be working at home, at least for the most part, I’m thinking.”
“Yeah. Unless.” She pulled on gym pants, a tank, running shoes. “I’ll be about an hour.”
“Then you’ll tell me what’s on your mind, won’t you?”
She got coffee, nodded. “Once I figure out what’s on it, I’ll tell you.”
When she went down, he checked the time, then rose. He’d get some work of his own done while she figured it out.
In the gym, she programmed a three-mile run, selected a tropical beach because she didn’t need a challenge. Just movement.
While her body worked, so did her brain.
She polished off the run with weights until her muscles said enough already. She rounded that out with a short session in the dojo with the master, and finished with five strong laps in the pool.
When she came up, Roarke and the cat had deserted the field.
She pulled out an old NYPSD sweatshirt, sweatpants. If she had to go out, she’d change, but she’d work at home in comfort.
She took them into the bathroom, set them aside to grab a quick shower. Because of where her mind had traveled, she thought of the cold shower, the frigid tub of water she’d been subjected to as a child. The meanness in it.
She set the water hot, let the pulsing jets pummel her with heat.
When she came out, Roarke sat as he had before. The table held a pot of coffee and two domed plates.
“You look rested and ready.”
“I feel rested and ready. Galahad?”
“Decided he preferred Summerset’s company. And Summerset enjoyed the company last night. He also told me he expects Number Two’s arrival within a couple of weeks. Three at the most.”
“How would he know?”
“I have no idea, and didn’t ask, as I know what we’ll be expected to witness yet again. Unless we plan a holiday and find ourselves in Australia, for instance, when the day comes.”
“She’d wait until we got back. I swear, she’d find a way.”
“Ah well.”
He removed the domes. Pancakes, bacon, berries.
He thought of her, Eve mused. He always thought of her.
“That’s what I call Sunday breakfast.” She topped off his coffee, then poured her own.
After drenching the pancakes in syrup, she cut into them.
“I dreamed about the vault, all the stuff, you, coming in—through the window—putting the Venus and the Royal Suite in there.”
“As, in a way, I did.”
“Yeah, in a way, you did.”
She ate some bacon, shifted to him. “You were in that … line of work most of your life.”
“If you don’t count the last few years, all of it.
They used me as part of a con, or a ploy, a distraction to a lift when I was, what, three, four, five?
I don’t clearly remember. Then I was out on my own, and expected to bring home a decent take.
I learned to do just that to avoid the boot or the fist. But got them often enough in any case. You know this.”
“I know this. Brian, your other friends, were part of it.”
“We did what we had to do.” He spoke simply, but she heard the mild annoyance under the tone. “It was a different world, Eve.”