Chapter Thirteen #2
Then her heartbeat thickened, and her body slid over the edge of surrender.
Lost now in what they brought each other, she murmured his name.
The sound of it trembled through him as they gave each other more.
With a touch, a taste, a shudder of pleasure, a skip of the pulse, they gave each other more.
Fingers stroking along a thigh, lips grazing along a curve, an angle, before meeting again locked the world away.
In the quiet, in the shimmering dark, as the air seemed to pulse, she opened; he filled.
They moved together, slowly, clinging to the moment, the sumptuous pleasure of it.
Bodies joined, eyes locked, breath quickening, they took each other deeper.
Until there was nothing else, nowhere else, no one else.
And they were lost, together.
When she lay, Roarke’s arm around her, the cat curled at her back, she gave Roarke’s ass a pat.
“That was much better than well enough.”
So they both ended the night on a smile.
Hers didn’t last, not where the dream took her.
A summer night. She felt the heat of high summer, the thickness in the air and the stillness of it. She felt it even as she stood studying the smoking rubble that had once been a building. The torn, charred pieces that had once been living, breathing people.
“Evil did this.” Steven Redman, beside her, spoke quietly. “Only evil could do this.”
“Why? Why did they do this?”
He looked at her, such sorrow in his eyes, and even in sleep her heart hurt. “You know why.”
“I know they wanted you in there, dead, but I don’t know why. What did you find out?”
“It shouldn’t matter what or why. You didn’t stop them. Nobody stopped them. I didn’t stop them.”
He walked to the broken bricks, the twisted steel, the shattered bits of glass, through the stink of smoke and burned flesh, over the torn and blackened.
“Come look, come look if you dare to see. This was my wife, and our daughter inside her. This was our little boy, our child, our son. Do you see what they did?”
“Yes. You call it evil, and you’re right. I’m sorry—”
“Sorry!” His voice boomed now, shook the thick air like a storm. “Sorry means nothing! Sorry does nothing! Evil needs to be destroyed. There!”
He pointed to where three bloody, mangled bodies lay. “You call them victims. I call them evil, destroyed.”
“It’s not the way. We can stop them, root them out, make them pay. I want justice for your family, for you. This is vengeance, and in the end that only destroys you.”
“I lived, destroyed. Now I live to stop them. What would you do if they took all from you?”
“Not this. Not murder for murder.”
“So sure? Look again.”
She saw her office, Roarke on the sofa, the cat across his lap. He glanced up, smiled.
The explosion all but blinded her, shot her back through air tattered and burning like a flaming curtain. For an instant, just an instant, she saw the fire engulf them. Then the smoking rubble buried what was left of them.
Even as she drew in the breath to scream, arms came around her.
“Wake up now. Eve, you’ll wake up now.”
Her scream muffled against Roarke’s shoulder as she dragged him closer. Whole, alive, safe.
And the cat, bumping his head against her side.
“Just a dream.” Roarke rocked her. “You’re all right. I’m here with you.”
“I’m okay.” But the sound of the explosion still rang in her ears.
“You’re cold. Let me pull a blanket over you.”
“No, just don’t let go. Don’t let go for a minute. What—what time is it?”
“Not yet six. You’ve time. Just breathe now, nice and easy.” He rubbed her back to soothe, to warm. “That’s better now, aye, that’s better. I was just coming in. I’d left the office, then went back to check on something or I’d have come in sooner. Pulled you out of it sooner.”
He pressed a kiss to her hair, then her temple. “Let me get you some water.”
“Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Some water.”
When he got up, she picked up the cat, nuzzled him, then buried her face in his fur.
“We’re okay. We’re all okay.”
“He was trying to wake you when I came in. Here now, drink some. And you’ll tell me.”
She nodded, took the water. “I should’ve expected it. I guess you did. You had the monitor on while you were having your meeting with someone in Hong Kong.”
“Just Dublin.” He brushed fingers over her cheek. “There now, some color coming back. I did think you might have a nightmare. But you were sleeping so well when I went out, I’d hoped otherwise. About Redman, wasn’t it? It’s taking a toll on you. It’s hard to watch a case hurt you this way.”
He kissed her lightly. “You’ll want coffee now, and I’m for some myself.”
“It was Redman,” she said as he got up. And told him.
“He went from sad to furious, then he switched it to—or I switched it, as it’s my goddamn brain. It switched to my office, and you and Galahad on the sofa. You smiled at me, then . . . it all exploded, and I saw you, both of you, on fire. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop it.”
“There’s more of the toll it’s taking.” He took her hand, kissed it. “We’re here, me and our cat. You’re who you are, Eve, because you can and do empathize with victims, and he’s surely that. But we’re here, and here we’ll stay.”
“I have to stop this. Him, them. Stopping him isn’t enough. I have to stop it all.”
“Then you will.”
She looked down into her coffee, then up at him. “I know I’d lose the best part of me if I lost you.”
“Eve—”
“No, wait. I know that, and I know I’d hunt them down, I’d take them down so they’d spend the rest of their lives, miserable, cut off from what they value, in a cage. Death ends things, Roarke. Justice can go on and on. That’s what they deserve.”
“That’s my cop.” He kissed her. “Go, get your shower. I’ll see to breakfast.”
The shower helped cement the calm again. Too much work to do, she reminded herself, to give in to nightmares. EDD would link the payment to Cruz to Banner-Wyst; she’d get warrants. She and forensic accountants and EDD, and whatever it took, would compile the evidence needed for convictions.
She’d track Redman, and however much she felt for him, she’d take him down, too. In his case, he’d get the help he needed, but in a secure facility.
When she stepped out, Roarke had the plates under domes. The cat, likely already banished, curled up in front of the simmering fire.
It looked so damn domestic, so utterly normal, her eyes stung. She wanted to keep it light. He’d worry otherwise.
Or worry more.
“Just so you know, I’m going to try to attend at least part of a memorial today, so it’s black.”