His hands were on her, little thrills. But he let her lead, let her set the pace. He would let her, she knew, for the moment at least. And not knowing when he might take her over was another thrill.
She yanked open her own shirt, put her hands over his to slide them up her body, close them over her breasts. And cruised on the sensation of those long, strong fingers against her. Then bowed back, eyes closed, as his hands skimmed down to unhook her trousers.
She came down to him again, bracing on her elbows. Mouth-to-mouth—long, sumptuous kisses punctuated by quick bites as her heart beat, beat, beat against his. When she offered her breast, he took it, and her breath caught, then released on a shudder.
His now, as much as he was hers. Her body was fueled for him. He rolled her over, pinned her hands to either side of her head. Her eyes were heavy with passion, dark with challenge.
“I want you naked. Lie still while I undress you.”
He touched his lips to hers, then to the dent in her chin, lining little opened-mouth kisses down her throat, over her breasts, down to her belly.
He rolled her pants down her hips, exposing more flesh, then traced his tongue over the tender dip where legs met her center. She arched, shivered.
“Ssh.” A soothing murmur even as he used his mouth to drive her to the edge, finally to push her over it. When she went limp, he continued down her thighs.
He tugged off her boots, let her trousers fall in a heap on top of them. Then began to work his way up, slowly, tortuously.
“Roarke.”
“Look at this flesh and muscle,” he said, echoing her earlier words. “All mine.”
Again, her body began to churn, that outrageous and breathless pressure building and building until everything inside her burst open. She could only reach for him.
He was inside her, deep and strong. His mouth on hers, his fingers linked with hers. Tasting, feeling, holding, they flashed together.
She thought, blind with love, that, yes, she could go home.
* * *
They lay quiet for a moment, settling. He’d rolled again so her head could rest on his shoulder, her hand on his heart that was still drumming.
“I should scold you more often.”
“Wouldn’t make a habit of it. Might tick me off next time. I felt off all day. I was doing the job, like you said, but I felt off. Almost like I was watching myself do the job. Passive or something. That’s not my rhythm. I need to tune it up.”
He gave her belly a light rub. “You felt tuned to me.”
“Sex’ll do that. With you, anyway.” She pushed herself up. “I need to start at the beginning of this, in my head. Rub off this film that’s been clouding my brain, and start over.”
He stretched out to reach the wine. “Then that’s what you’ll do.”
She took a sip of the one he handed her. “What I’m going to do is take a shower and get dressed. Go over my own notes and reports from the scene, the statements. Take an hour and just line it up in my head.”
“All right. I’ll go back to the account, see what I can chisel out.”
“Can I bounce some things off you after I line them up?”
“I’d be disappointed otherwise. Why don’t we rendezvous in an hour, do that bouncing over dinner?”
“That’ll work.” She took his hand, squeezed. “This works.”
He kissed her knuckles. “It certainly does.”
Chapter 13
SHE TOOK HER HOUR AND WENT BACK TO THE beginning. She walked back through it, step by step, using the crime scene record, her own notes, the reports from the sweepers, the ME, the lab.
She listened to statements, judging inflection, expression, as much as the words themselves.
She stood in front of her board and studied each photograph, every angle.
When Roarke came in from his office, she turned to him. He acknowledged the light in her eyes with a grin and cocked brow. “Lieutenant.”
“Goddamn right. I was acting like a cop, doing the cop walk, but I wasn’t feeling like a cop. I’m back now.”
“Welcome.”
“Let’s eat. What do you want?”
“Since you’re feeling like a cop, I suppose it best be pizza.”
“Hot damn. If I hadn’t already rolled you, I’d probably jump you just for that.”
“Put it on my account.”
They sat at her desk, one on either side, with pizza and wine between them. He’d even put a tree in here, she thought. A small one, by his standards, but, by God, she liked looking at it over by the window, sprinkling light out into the dark.
“See, here’s the thing,” she began, “it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Ah.” He gestured with his glass, sipped. “Glad that’s cleared up.”
“Seriously. Here’s what you’ve got on the surface, when you walk cold into the scene: Dead woman, killed by multiple blows of a blunt instrument, head shots from behind. Previous bodily injuries indicating she’d been attacked and/or beaten the day before. Door locked from the inside, window not.”
With a slice of pizza in one hand, she waved toward her board with the other. “Appearance, basic evidence points to intruder entering through the window, bashing her, exiting the same way. As there are no defensive wounds whatsoever, investigator would assume she probably knew her killer, or didn’t believe she was in jeopardy. Now, somebody pounds on you one day, you’re going to be a little concerned next time he pops around.”
“Not if those initial injuries were self-inflicted.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know that—why would you think that— when you find the body? The killer had to be aware of at least the facial injury. It’s right there. And the same weapon was used. So we go back over it, with that data, and we have the murder being set to look like she was killed by whoever tuned her up.”
She took a huge bite of pizza, savored the spice. “We got the killer using the previous injuries as smoke. That’s not bad. Not bad at all. It’s good thinking, just like taking her ‘link was good thinking.”
“Exploiting the victim’s greed and violent impulses.”
“Yeah. But there’s little things that blow that. Again, no defensive wounds. No indication she was bound when she was beaten, and no sign that she attempted, in any way, to fight back or shield herself. Doesn’t wash. Then you add the angles of the bruising. Comes up self-inflicted.”
“Which moves you to a different arena.”
“Exactly. Then there’s the crime scene itself, the position of the body, and TOD.”
“Time of death.”
“Yeah, somebody strange comes in the window middle of the night and you can get out of bed, you run and you scream. She didn’t do either. So the killer came through the door. She let the killer in.”
“The window’s still viable. If indeed she and her partner were having differences, he may have chosen to come in that way rather than risk her not letting him in.”
“The window was locked. That’s the thing about memory. It’s tricky.” She took another bite of pizza, washed it down. “It’s the thing about having a cop on an investigation who knew the victim—who, once that memory gets poked, clearly recalls how the victim always locked every door, every window. The world was full of thieves and rapists and bad business, according to the Bible of Trudy. Even during the day, when we were in the house, it was locked like a vault. I’d forgotten that. She’s not going to leave a window unlocked in big, bad New York. It’s out of character.”
“She lets the killer in,” he prompted. “Late-night visit.”
“Yeah. Late. And she doesn’t bother to put on a robe. She had one in the closet, but she doesn’t bother with it and entertains her killer while wearing her nightgown.”
“Indicating a certain level of intimacy. A lover?”
“Maybe. Can’t dismiss it. She kept herself in tune. Face and body work. I can’t remember any guys,” Eve murmured, trying to look back into the past again. “It was only about six months I was there, but I don’t remember any guys coming around, or her going out with any.”