Loyalty in Death

"You can't take it personally. No, you can't," she repeated when his eyes flashed. She got up, gripped his arm. "Roarke, it's not you or yours they're interested in. It's their point, it's the power."

"Why should it matter to me what they're interested in beyond using that to find them?"

"It's my job to find them. And I will."

He set his brandy down, caught her chin in his hand. "Do you think you'll close me out?"

She wanted to be furious, and part of her was, if for nothing more than the proprietary way he held her face. But there was too much at stake, too much to lose. And he was much too valuable a source. "No."

His grip gentled, his thumb skimmed over the shallow dent in her chin. "Progress," he murmured.

"Let's understand each other," she began.

"Oh, by all means."

Now she did suck in a breath. "Don't start that with me. By all means, my butt. Makes you sound like some sort of snotty blue blood, and we both know you grew up scrambling for marks in Dublin alleys."

Now he gri

"Are you trying to irritate me?"

"Not very hard, but it rarely takes true effort." He drew in smoke, blew out a fragrant stream. "I don't really need the lecture, you know. I'm sure I have the salient points memorized. Such as this is your job, I'm not to interfere. I'm not to explore any angles on my own, and so on."

"If you know the points, why the hell don't you follow them?"

"Because I don't want to – and if I did, you wouldn't have Fixer's data decoded." He gri

She frowned at him. "Now I suppose you think I should thank you."

"Actually, I was hoping you would." He crushed out his cigarette, set aside his barely touched brandy. But when he reached for her hand, she folded her arms over her chest.

"Forget it, pal. I've got work."

"And you'll reluctantly ask me to assist you with it." He hooked his fingers in her waistband and tugged until she tumbled on top of him. "But first…" He rubbed his mouth persuasively against hers. "I need you."

Her protest would have been lukewarm in any case. But those words melted it away. She skimmed her fingers through his hair. "I guess I can spare a couple of minutes."

He laughed, and tucking her close, reversed position. "In a hurry, are you? Well then."

Now his mouth crushed down on hers, hot, greedy, and with enough bite to shoot her pulse from steady to screaming. She hadn't expected it, but then she never quite did expect what he could do to her with a touch, with a taste, with as little as a look.

All the horror, the pain, the misery she'd waded through that day fell away in the sheer drive to mate.

"I am. In a big hurry." She tugged at the hook of his trousers. "Roarke. Inside me. Come inside me."

He yanked down the soft slacks she'd slipped into after her shower. Mouth still devouring mouth, he lifted her hips. And he plunged into her.

Into the heat and the welcome and the wet. His body shuddered once as he swallowed her groan. Then she was moving under him, driving him, setting a frantic pace that ripped her to peak and over before he could catch his breath.

She closed around him, vise tight, erupted around him, nearly dragged him off that fine edge with her. Gasping for air, he lifted his head, watched her face. God, how he loved to watch her face when she lost herself. Those dark blind eyes against flushed skin, that mouth full and soft and parted. Her head tipped back, and there was that long smooth throat, its pulse wildly beating.

He tasted her there. Flesh. Soap. Eve.

And felt her building again, fast and sure, her hips pistoning as she climbed, her breath ragged as the wave swept in.

And this time, when it crested, he buried himself deep and let it swamp them both.

He collapsed on her, let out a long, contented sigh as his system shimmered. "Let's get to work."

CHAPTER TWELVE

"We're not doing this in here because I want to get around CompuGuard." Eve took her stand in the center of Roarke's private office while he settled down at the control console of his unregistered – and illegal – equipment.

"Mmmm," was his response.

She narrowed her eyes to slits. "It's not the issue here."

"That's your story, and I'll stick with it."

She gave him a scalpel-thin smile. "Stick your smart-ass comments, pal. The reason I'm going this route is because I've got good reason to believe Cassandra's got just as many illegal toys as you do, and likely just as much disregard for privacy. It's possible they can slide into my equipment here or at Central. I don't want to chance them getting a line on any part of the investigation."

Roarke leaned back, nodded soberly. "And it's a very good story, too, well told. Now, if you've finished soothing your admirable conscience, why don't you get us some coffee?"

"I really hate when you snicker at me."

"Even when I have cause?"

"Especially." She strode to the AutoChef. "What I'm dealing with here is a group that has no kind of conscience, that has what appears to be heavy financial resources, expert technical skills, and a knack for getting by tight security."

She brought both mugs to the console, smiled again. "Reminds me of someone."

"Does it really?" He said it mildly as he took the coffee she offered.

"Which is why I'm willing to use everything you've got on this one. Money, resources, skills, and that criminal brain of yours."

"Darling, they are now and always at your service. And following that line, I've made some progress on Mount Olympus and its subsidiaries."

"You got something?" She went on full alert. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

"There were other matters. You needed an hour," he reminded her. "I needed you."

"This is priority," she began, then stopped herself with a shake of her head. Complaining was a waste of time. "What have you got?"

"You could say, nothing."

"But you just told me you'd found them."

"No, I said I'd made progress, and that progress is nothing. They're nothing. They don't exist."

"Of course they exist." Frustration shimmered around her. She hated riddles. "They appeared all over the computer – electronics companies, storage companies, office complexes, manufacturers."

"They exist only on the computer records," he told her. "You might call Mount Olympus a virtual company. But IRL – in real life – it's nothing. There are no buildings, no complexes, no employees, no clients. It's a front, Eve."

"A virtual front? What the hell is the point of that?" Then she knew, and swore. "A distraction, a time waster. Energy defuser, whatever. They knew I'd do a search and scan on Cassandra, that it would lead me to this Mount Olympus, and then to the other fake companies. So I waste time chasing down what was never there in the first place."

"Not very much time," he pointed out. "And whoever set up the maze – and a very complex and well-executed maze it was – doesn't know you've gotten from one end to the other."

"They think I'm still looking." She nodded slowly. "So I continue to search through EDD, tell Feeney to take it slow so Cassandra thinks we're still ru

"Building their confidence while you concentrate in other areas."

She grunted and, sipping her coffee, paced. "Okay, I'll handle that. Now, I need to know all I can about the Apollo group. I gave Peabody the assignment, but she'll have to go through cha