Roarke looked down. “Well, now, fuck us all.”
“You’re going to want to get that mess out of my house.” With this, Eve strode out again.
She passed Summerset in the foyer. She assumed the expression on his face was a grin, but couldn’t be absolutely sure. “You’re going to want to be careful-spreading your mouth like that could split your whole face in half.”
“I thought applauding would be a bit inappropriate.”
She snorted, and kept right on going upstairs.
Face throbbing, sensibilities insulted, Roarke stepped over Magdelana. In the foyer, he sent Summerset an icy look. “Take care of that.”
“With absolute pleasure.” Still, Summerset stood another moment, watching Roarke head upstairs after his wife.
He caught up with her in the bedroom. “Damn it all to hell and back again, you know very well that was a setup. You bloody well know I couldn’t put my hands on her.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.” Eve shrugged off her coat, tossed it aside. “I know a setup when I see it, and I know your face, ace. I didn’t see desire on it, I saw annoyance.”
“Is that so? Is that bloody well so? Well, if you knew it was just what it was, why did you sucker punch me?”
“Mostly?” She turned, cocked a hip. “Because you’re a man.”
Eyes narrowed on her face, he tried to stanch the blood with the back of his hand. “And do you have any sort of idea just how often I might expect your fist in my goddamn face because of my bleeding DNA?”
“No, really don’t.” He looked so furious, so incredibly insulted. She wanted to rip off his clothes and bite his ass. “In fact, I think you’ve earned a good whupping.”
“Bugger that. I’ve had about enough of women altogether.” The absurdity of the entire thing began to wind through his temper. “You’re fearsome and irrational creatures.”
She rolled up on the balls of her feet and back again, flexed her knees. “Afraid to take me on? Come on, hotshot, you got punched for being a man. Act like one.”
“It’s a man you want, is it?” He began to circle as she did. “I’m going to take you down.”
“Look how scared I am. I’m shaking.” She feinted with her left, spun, and back-kicked. “Oh, no, that’s suppressed laughter.”
He blocked the kick, then the next with his forearm, forced her to jump over the sweep of his foot. He worked her back toward the bed, and when he’d judged the distance, spun, then flipped her.
She landed on her back on the bed, but when he dived after, she’d rolled off the other side. Crouched into fighting stance.
“Not going to be that easy, ace.”
“Who said I wanted it easy?”
He rolled as well, and she had to give him credit for both speed and agility. She danced back, aimed a jab-blocked-then an elbow jab that connected. She pulled it. After all, she didn’t want him on the disabled list, not with what she had in mind.
But she didn’t mind if he limped a little. Serve him right. She started to bring her heel down on his instep, but he turned into her, knocked her off balance.
Together they rolled down the short steps of the platform and hit the floor with her on top.
“Ready to throw in the towel?” she asked, breathlessly.
“No.” He scissored his legs, trapping hers, and reversed their positions. “You?”
“My ass.” And she ripped his shirt open.
“You’ll have to pay for that.”
“Try to make me.”
He hooked a hand in the collar of her shirt, tore it down the front. On a chain under it, she wore the diamond and the saint’s medal he’d given her. The arms of the shirt hung on her weapon harness.
“Bloody cop,” he muttered, hitting the release.
“Bloody criminal.”
“Former, and no convictions.” He pressed his mouth to hers, swore at the burn in his wounded lip. “You pack a punch, Lieutenant.” He reared up enough to look down at her face-brown eyes full of challenge, wide mouth curved in a smug smile. “You’re my goddamn Valentine.”
She laughed, grabbed two fistfuls of his hair. “You’d better believe it, buster.”
She wanted to devour him, one greedy bite at a time, and let her nails dig a little into his back once she’d torn the tattered shirt away. She’d seen more than annoyance on his face when Magdelana had clung to him.
Eve had seen what she might have missed if she and Roarke had been stupid enough, crazy enough, blind enough to pass each other by.
“I love you.” She closed her teeth over his shoulder, gasped when his scraped down her throat. She hooked her legs around his waist, shoved so that he was under her again. With her mouth like a fever on his, on his flesh.
So it wouldn’t be romantic and dreamy, a snowfall outside the window and gypsy violins singing in the air. It would be desperate, and a little rough. And as real and urgent as their heartbeats.
He felt his survival depended on the taste and texture of her skin. He pulled and dragged at her clothes like a man possessed by demons.
“You’ll give me all of you. All.”
“Take it,” she told him, and was under him again. His mouth ravaged her breast, and his hands…his hands, his hands.
She cried out, rocketing up as the orgasm gathered and flashed through her like a ball of lightning. She heard him murmuring to her, the sound thick and Irish. Felt him quiver as he held himself back.
And that she wouldn’t allow. “You’ll give me all of you,” she said. “All.”
She shattered his will, undid his control, her hands and lips taking him as he’d taken her. Beyond what was reason. Near to delirium, he dragged her mouth back to his, and devoured.
Lips and teeth and tongues, fingers that demanded and took, bruises be damned. Her breath was burning even as she took from him, gave to him. His blood burned under his own skin.
“Now, now, now.” She chanted it, arching up.
When he drove into her, she cried out again, the sound close to a scream. And still her hips pumped fast and strong, whipping him into the glorious dark.
Her hands lost their grip on his hips, slid away to thump against the floor. Inside her body, everything had been pummeled, twisted, wrung out, then smoothed soft again. Her toes wanted to curl in pleasure, but there wasn’t enough energy left for the movement.
“Jesus,” she managed. “Holy dancing Jesus.”
“When I can actually stand up again, some time in the distant future, I’m going to let you punch me in the face again, so we can see if all that finishes up the same way as this.”
“Okay.”
“Or maybe we’ll try that romantic dinner. Then you can punch me.” He actually felt her wince. “Problem?” He lifted his head, saw by her face there was. “What?”
“I’m really sorry.”
“I think, considering our current positions, and state of being, apologies are unnecessary.” But he read the look. “Not sorry for the punch, I see. It’s work?”
“I didn’t contact you to tell you to hold dinner, because I wanted to tell you face-to-face. Which we now are, in addition to other body parts. It’s a lot to explain, but I will. I’ve got something I need to deal with, and I could use your help with it.”
“All right.”
“Maybe we could fit in the candlelight and so on before midnight, but-”
“It doesn’t matter, Eve. I promise you.”
Yeah, we got lucky, she thought. God, didn’t they just. “I got you a present.”
“Did you?”
“It’s a book of poetry-romancy stuff. I thought, ‘How schmaltzy is that,’ so it seemed like the thing. Then I screwed up and left it in my desk at work.”
He smiled, leaned down to kiss her softly. “Thank you.”
She touched his cheek. “I’ve got to grab a shower and get to this. I planned to dig straight in, so we could maybe have a really late dinner, but then I had to punch you and your blonde tart, and one thing led to another.”