Visions In Death

Her hand wasn't quite steady when she stroked along his back. "Guess I scared the shit out of him." "Not enough to make him bolt. He was with you, banging his head against your shoulder. Doing what he could, I'd say, to wake you." "My hero." A tear plopped on her hand, but she was beyond being embarrassed by it. "I guess he rates some fancy fish eggs or something." She breathed deep, looked up into Roarke's eyes. "You, too." "You're having a soother." Even as she opened her mouth to argue, he cupped her chin in his hand. "Don't argue, and for Christ's sake, don't make me pour it in you. We'll compromise this time, and split one. I damn well need it as much as you, or close to it."

She could see it now. He was so pale his eyes were like blue fire against the white of his skin. "Okay. Deal." He got up, went over to the AutoChef, and ordered two short glasses. When he came back, she took the one he handed her. Then switched them. "Just in case you got sneaky and tranqed mine. I don't want to go out again." "Fair enough." He tapped his glass to hers, then downed his portion. After she'd done the same, he set both glasses aside.

"I might point out, that I know you, every suspicious and cynical inch. And if I'd tranqed one of the glasses, I'd have held onto it, knowing full well you'd switch them." She opened her mouth, shut it again. "Damn it." "But I didn't." He leaned forward, kissed her nose. "Deal's a deal." "Scared you. Sorry." He took her hand again, just held onto it. "Summerset said you got home a bit before five." "Yeah, I guess. Needed the zees." She glanced toward the window. "Must've gotten some. It's going dark. What time is it?" "Nearly nine." He knew she wouldn't sleep again, not now.

He'd have preferred it if she would. If he could just lie beside her, holding her close, while they both slept off the dregs of the nightmare.

"You could use a meal," he decided. "And so could I. Want to have it in here?" "That works for me. I could use something else first." "What do you want?" She laid her hands on his face, eased up to her knees to press her lips to his. "You're better than a soother. You make me feel clean. And whole, and strong." She slid her fingers into his hair when his arms came around her. "You make me remember, and you help me forget. Be with me."

"I always am." He kissed her temples, her cheeks, her lips. "I always will be." She slid into him, swaying a little as they knelt on the wide bed in the half light. The storm had passed, but something inside her still quaked from it. He would calm that. He would make it right again. She turned her head, her lips brushing his throat as she sought the taste, the scent of mate.

And finding it, she sighed.

He understood her needs, what she sought from him, sought to give him. Slow, tender, thoughtful love. There were aftershocks trembling inside him yet, but she would quell them.

His lips skimmed a line along her jaw, found hers, then sank dreamily in. Deep and quiet. And she, his strong, troubled woman, melted against him. He held her there so they drifted together into the peace, mouth to mouth, heart to heart. This time, he knew, the flutter of her pulse signaled contentment.

When he eased her back so their eyes met, she smiled.

Watching her, he unbuttoned her shirt, felt her hands, steady again, loosen his. He slid it off her shoulders so he could trace his fingers over her. Skin, pale and smooth, surprisingly delicate over such disciplined strength. A low sound of pleasure hummed in her throat as she spread her hands over his chest.

Then she leaned down, pressed her lips to his ear. "Mine," she said.

It shook him, down to the soul.

Taking her hands in his, he turned them palms up and laid his lips in the center of each. "Mine." They slid down together to lie facing one another, to touch, to explore as if it were the first time. Long and lazy caresses that both stirred and soothed. Unhurried passion that lit low fires.

She was warm now, and sure.

His lips brushed her breast and made her sigh again.

Closing her eyes, she floated on the bliss. She stroked his hair all that glorious black silk; his back hard strength.

She heard him murmur aghra my love. And thought, Yes, I am. Thank God. And arched to offer him more.

Arousal was a long, slow climb up, gradually up until sighs became moans and pleasure became a quiver of anticipation.

When he brought her to peak, it was like being lifted up on the rise of a warm blue wave.

"Fill me." She drew his head down until their mouths met again. "Fill me." He could see her eyes, open now, dark and drenched. So he slipped inside her, was surrounded, welcomed. Then enfolded.

They moved together, a gentle rise and fall in an intimacy so complete it squeezed his heart. He laid his lips on hers again, would have sworn he breathed her soul.

And when she spoke his name, the tenderness shattered him.

She watched the night sky through the window over the bed. It was all so still she could almost believe there wasn't a world out there. That there was nothing beyond this room, this bed, this man.

Maybe that was one of the purposes of sex. To isolate you, for a little while, from everything but yourself and your lover.

To allow you to focus in on your body, its needs, the gratification that was physical, and if you were lucky in that lover emotional as well.

Without those pockets of solitude and sensation, you might just go mad.

She'd used sex before Roarke, for the release, the physical snap. But she'd never known, or understood, the intimacy of the act before him, the complete surrender of self to another. She'd never experienced the emotional peace that followed until he'd loved her.

"I have things to say to you," she said.

"All right." She shook her head. "In a little while." If she stayed like this much longer, saturated with him, she'd forget there was a world out there, one she'd sworn to protect. "I've got to get up. Don't much want to, but I have to." "You're going to eat." She had to smile. He hadn't finished taking care of her, she thought. He never finished. "I'm going to eat. In fact, I'll get di

She hooked a robe out of her closet, then while he watched her with some surprise, took one out of his and brought it to him. "And a smart mouth isn't always verbal. I can see sarcastic thoughts in your head." "Why don't I shut up and get us some wine?" "Why don't you?" He left her contemplating the AutoChef and opened the panel to the wine rack. He assumed she needed to keep busy, keep the nightmare at bay. Thinking pizza, he selected a bottle of chianti, opened it, and set it aside to breathe.

"You'll be working tonight." "Yeah. I have to do some stuff. I've got Mira's profile, and I want to walk through that again. Put together a progress report. I haven't done any probabilities yet either. Plus I have to scan the eye banks, transplant facilities, that sort of thing.

A time waster since he didn't take them to sell them. But it's got to be eliminated." She brought two plates over to the sitting area, set them down on the table.

"What've you got there?" he asked her.

"Food. What does it look like?" He cocked his head. "It doesn't look like pizza." "My culinary programming skills run beyond pizza." She'd chosen chicken sauteed in wine and rosemary, with wild rice and asparagus.

"Well fancy that," he murmured, flummoxed. "I've opened entirely the wrong wine." "We'll live with it." She went back for a basket of bread. "Let's eat." "No, this won't do." He opened the wine rack again, found a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse in the chilled section. He opened it, brought bottle and glasses to the table. "Looks lovely.