When he thrust into her, she rose up to meet him, to take him.
“Yeah, yeah.” Her fingers dug into his hips; her breath went ragged. “This works.”
He let himself go. It was what she wanted, what he needed, so he took, took. Found himself taken. Pistoning hips, muffled gasps, hot bodies, hot minds merging into one frantic unit.
Mating, he would think later when capable of thought again, at its most elemental.
No frills, no sweet words, no seductions needed here and now, not for two people who knew love spread under and over and through all.
To be needed always struck her as elemental. To be needed by him added miraculous to the basic.
So she, too, let herself go, to take and be taken hard and fast until pleasure, already keen, sharpened blade bright.
In those last seconds, on that thin, edgy point of release, her eyes met the wild blue of his. She said, as that blade slashed them both, “I love you.”
Elemental.
Later in the night, curled up against him in bed, Eve dreamed strange dreams.
She walked through the pages of a book until the words blurred under her feet and became the cheap, scarred floor of the flop where Rosie Kent died.
She saw two bodies, two beds, two white sashes tied into bows. As if, she realized, on facing pages of a book.
Rosie Kent on one side just as she’d been in the crime scene photos from the file. Pryor Carridine on the other, as described in the book.
Close, she thought. Not exact, not like twins or clones, but close.
“That one’s mine.”
Eve glanced over. She’d read the description of Deann Dark enough times now to recognize her. The dark hair drawn back in a short tail to leave the face unframed. A pretty face, deceptively soft, as the woman inside it, behind it, knew how to be hard.
“I know which is which.”
Even as she spoke, the pages turned. Now she stood in the theater, a body slumped in a seat on either side of the aisle.
No, of the page, Eve corrected. Again, they were close but not exact.
“I know which is which here, too, but they’re the same to her.”
“Him,” Dark corrected.
“That’s the fiction. They’re the same.”
“We’re not.”
“I’m not in the books.” Still, Eve crossed over to examine the fictional body as she would any victim. “Strongbow had to change some things around so it worked for her. She’d call it rewriting, but really, it’s just cheating.”
She straightened, gestured. “This one came in alone because the friend got the bogus tag before showtime. But the real murder? Strongbow had to wait until both the vic and her friend were in place, because a real person doesn’t have to follow the book, right? Rylan could have decided to skip it if her roommate got the emergency tag before the vid started.”
“That’s not how it was,” Dark insisted.
“It’s not how it was because the killer changed it. Benson came in alone because that’s how DeLano wrote it. Rylan came in with a friend because the killer couldn’t risk her changing her mind. She wrote it different, just different enough.”
Eve turned back. “Benson has to do what’s written, no choice. Same for you. I’m not in the books,” Eve said again. “How does the killer account for that?”
“You don’t exist,” Dark told her. “You’re not real until you’re on the page.”
Eve smiled, cool and thin. “That’s exactly right.”
She awoke to morning’s reality. Roarke sat on the couch in the sitting area, drinking coffee, the morning stock reports scrolling on the muted screen, the cat sprawled beside him.
She stayed in the warmth of the big, fancy bed another moment, studying the man who’d banged her like a drum the night before. The business suit radiated the elegant power of the man wearing it, and she had no doubt he’d already wielded that power in the predawn hours.
The cat showed a man content in his home, and the coffee? Well, a man who understood priorities.
She sat up, said, “I’m not in the books,” and rolled out of bed.
“You’re not, no, and good morning to you as well.”
“Coffee. Shower. Think.” After programming coffee—hot, black—she stumbled off to the shower with it.
Roarke reached down, scratched Galahad between the ears. “Another cold one for those of us who have to venture out of the house today. What do you say we get a bit of oatmeal in our favorite cop, and help it go down easier with a ham and cheese omelet?”
When Eve came out the cat was sprawled in front of the fire, no doubt where he’d been banished, as two domed plates sat on the table. Along with a pot of coffee.
She hit the coffee first. Priorities. And sat.
“I’m not in the books.”
“So you said.”
“How does she deal with that? I don’t know anything about writing a book, but it seems to me it’s got to be a problem to add an entire character to the mix, right? And not just one,” she continued as Roarke removed the domes. “There’s you, there’s Peabody. You’ve got McNab and, for this at least, Reineke and Jenkinson. Mira, Morris. It’s a frigging cast of characters.”
As she spoke, she added brown sugar, berries to the small bowl of oatmeal. Her mind definitely elsewhere, Roarke noted, as the look that clearly said, Crap, oatmeal, didn’t appear.
“Your subconscious must have been busy in the night.”
“Maybe, but I’m right, aren’t I? She can replicate, with some creative fiddling, the murders. But she can’t replicate the investigation. She can’t rewrite me or the investigative team, because we’re not in the books.”
“She’s delusional, Eve.”
“Yeah, but that could work for us. I bet she follows the crime beat. If she didn’t before, she’s following it now. And I happen to know the reigning queen of the crime beat, and just how much she loves an exclusive.”
“Which you’d give her.”
“I put it out there we’ve connected these two murders, and we’re looking for a single individual, one suspect. Then I spin the whole following leads, unable to divulge. I can play that out.”
“Writing yourself into the book?”
“No, no, just the opposite. I’m outside it. I’m the reality, but now I’m a face, a voice—visual and auditory, right? And she has to figure out what to do about it.”
“You’ll try to shift her focus to you.”
Her back went up, instantly. “If you don’t think I can handle some whiny wannabe—”
“I don’t doubt you can, but I’d hardly be as I’m written, would I, if I didn’t have some concerns.”
“Okay, and anyway, it’s not about shifting her focus to me. Going after me? That’s a whole new book, and she’s got to finish what she’s already lined up. It’s about shaking things up, giving her something to worry about in the real world. It’s a slap on her writing on one level. She wasn’t good enough to convince me two different people committed two murders.”
“It’s a bad review,” Roarke added, finding the angle inspired. “And quite a bit brilliant. Wear black.”
“You’re telling me to wear black?”
“Suggesting,” he corrected. “And, though I enjoy you in strong colors, you’ll be projecting that visual. Dangerous black. Uncompromising. In fact, I have something in mind.”
When it came to projecting an image, she thought, who had a better handle? “Have at it,” she invited.
Roarke rubbed a hand on her leg, rose, then wandered off into her closet.
As he did, the cat began a slow, silky bellying toward the table.
Eve forked up a bite of omelet. “Do you really think because he went in there, I’d let you get away with it?”
Galahad blinked at her, rolled over, and went back to his sprawl in front of the fire.
Roarke came back with a mock turtleneck, body-hugging pants in a combination of leather and some sort of stretchy material, and a leather jacket with dull silver zippers on slash pockets on the sleeves.
He’d added a pair of chunky boots that would hit well above the ankle and had that same dull silver in buckles over a series of tough-looking straps.
All in dangerous black.
With a nod, Eve polished off her eggs. “I’m good with that.”
She rose to dress as he sat again—noting he’d brought her underwear, too. Black.
Not just the man who had everything, she thought as she started to dress, but the man who thought of everything.
“I’m going to work here for an hour,” Eve told him. “Get that list of potential third victims hashed out. I want to talk to DeLano again, and her mother, and I’d rather do that in my house this time. And Nadine. I need to see if Mira’s on board with my assessment. Or ours,” she corrected, “as you’ve had a lot of insight on this.”
“I wouldn’t wish for another murder,” he said as she crossed over to hitch on her weapon harness. “But I did enjoy the time with you in the library. All of it.”
“I’m pretty fond of that room now myself.” She shrugged into her jacket. “Dangerous?”
“Very. Add lip dye and mascara.”
Her back didn’t go up this time, but her body sagged. “Come on.”
“Consider it insight. Just add that. For the visual.”
“Crap. Bullshit crap.” She mumbled it, but strode off to the bathroom to push through the limited supplies Trina forced on her.
She came out. “Now?”
“Now? Lethal. You’ll worry her, darling Eve. I have no doubt. See that you, at some point, slip a hand into your pocket in a way that shows the camera a hint of your weapon.”
“That’s good. That’s a good one. I’m going to get started.”
He rose, walked to her. Skimmed a finger down the dent in her chin. “Take care of my lethal cop.”