Judgment in Death

She watched Webster fly, come heavily down on a table, which crashed under the weight. Galahad sprang up, hissing, and took a vicious swipe at his shoulder.

He was up quickly, she'd give him that, bleeding. Fists flew with the ugly sound of bone against bone. A lamp shattered.

She was shouting, she could hear herself calling out in a voice that seemed oddly unlike her own. At wit's end, she drew her weapon, hastily checked to insure it was on lowest stun, then fired a stream between them.

Webster's head whipped around in shock, but Roarke didn't so much as flinch. And his fist, already swinging, smashed into Webster's face.

Another table went, splintering into toothpicks. And this time Webster stayed down. Or would have if Roarke hadn't leaned over and hauled him up by the collar.

"Roarke." Her hand steady, Eve kept her weapon trained. "That's enough. Let him go or I'll stun you. I swear I will."

His eyes met hers, hot now, hot enough to burn. He released Webster so the half-conscious man crumpled in a heap. Even as Roarke started toward Eve, Summerset slid into the room.

"I'll just show your guest out."

"Do that," Roarke said without taking his eyes from Eve's. "And close the door. Stun me, will you?" He murmured it, silkily, when he was a foot away.

She backed up, all but hearing her nerves fray. "If you don't calm down, yes. I'm going to go see how bad he's hurt."

"You're not, no. That you're not. Stun me then," he invited, and she heard the alleyways of Dublin in his voice. "Do it."

She heard the doors close, the locks click. Fear had her by the throat, infuriating her even as she took another step in retreat. "There was nothing going on here. It's insulting for you to think there was."

"Darling Eve, if I thought there'd been anything, on your part, going on here, he wouldn't have left breathing." There was no change in his expression as his hand snaked out and knocked the weapon from hers. "Yet you stood between us."

"To try to avoid this." She threw out her arms. "This testosterone explosion. Damn it, you wrecked my place and assaulted an officer, and over nothing. Over my having a professional disagreement with a colleague."

"A colleague who was once a lover, and what I walked in on was personal."

"Okay, all right, maybe. But that's no excuse. If I jumped every one of your old lovers, I'd be bashing every female face in New York and the known universe."

"That's entirely different."

"Why?" She had him now, she thought with satisfaction. "Why is it different for you?"

"Because I don't invite those former lovers into my home and let them put their hands on me."

"It wasn't like that. It was-"

"And because." He fisted a hand at the front of her shirt, hauling her up until she was forced to her toes. "You're mine."

Her eyes all but bulged out of her head. "What? What? Like property? Like one of your damn hotels?"

"Aye. If you like."

"I don't like. Not one damn bit." She shoved at his hand, twisted, and only succeeded in ripping the shoulder seam of her shirt. Alarm bells went off in her head even as she tried to break his hold with another counter maneuver. She ended up with her back pressed into him and her arms pi

"You've crossed a number of lines in a short time, Lieutenant." His voice was warm against her ear. Warm and dangerous. Erotic. "Do you think I'm a man who'll go meekly about your bidding? Do you think loving you has taken my teeth?"

As if to prove otherwise, he sank them lightly in her throat.

She couldn't think, not with the red haze covering her brain. She quite simply couldn't get her breath. "Let go of me. I'm too mad to deal with you tonight."

"No, you're not mad." He whipped her around again, slammed her back to the wall, and yanked her arms over her head. And his face, the face of a condemned angel, was close to hers. "Intrigued is what you are, and reluctantly aroused. Your pulse is pounding, and you tremble. Some of it's fear, just a touch of it to add an edge."

He was right. She could have damned him for it, but need was crawling through her like savage little ants.

"You're hurting me. Let go of my hands."

"No, I'm not, but perhaps I've been too careful, too often, not to hurt you. Have you forgotten what you took on with me, Eve?"

"No." Her eyes skimmed down to his mouth. God help her, she wanted it on her.

"You're mine, and you'll say it before we're done tonight." He reached out with his free hand and ripped her shirt down the center. "And now I'll have what's mine."

She resisted, but that was pride, and pride was weaker than lust. She twisted her body, hooking a foot behind his in an attempt to overbalance him. He merely shifted his weight into the move and took her down with him.

The shock of the fall knocked the breath out of her, but her knee came up, an automatic jerk of defense. He rolled away from it, still gripping her hands. Pi

He settled for her throat. Savaged it, and sent the pulse beneath his teeth and lips bounding.

He might have stopped himself. The civilized veneer he'd coated over himself was hard set and hard won. But the beast inside him had been teased to raging. He wanted it loose. And the scent of her, of his mate, was humming in his blood.

She was strong. He'd pit his strength and his will against hers before, but always with a sense of fair play underneath. Not this time, was all he could think.

Not this time.

He clamped a hand over her breast, found the skin hot and damp. She made some sound between a snarl and a moan, and when he crushed his mouth to hers, she bit.

The quick flash of pain only appealed to the primal lust surging inside him. When he lifted his head, his eyes were wild and fierce. "Liomsa."

He'd said it to her once before, in the language of his youth. Mine. She struggled, fighting herself now, but when his mouth came to hers again, hot and hard and hungry, she lost.

Desire, with its more primitive barbs, scraped through her. She wanted. Wanted. And now her body arched not in protest but in demand, and her mouth met his with feral force.

He released her hands only to jerk her up, yanking what was left of her shirt over her shoulders. Her weapon harness tangled, locking her arms as effectively as restraints. And now the fear leaped back. She was defenseless.

"Say it back to me. Damn you, Eve. Say it." His mouth fused to hers again, then streaked down her throat, over her breasts. His teeth raked at her. And his hands.

On a sharp cry, her head fell back. Pleasure, its edge as keen as razors, sliced at her, leaving what was left of pride in tatters.

Then she was rolling with him over a floor littered with splintered wood in something too fierce to be surrender.

She fought free of the harness and tore at his shirt. She wanted flesh, his flesh. The feel of it, the taste. Every breath she took was a desperate gasp.

His hands took, possessed, bruising as they moved over her. Those long, skilled fingers arousing mercilessly until she was mad for more. He yanked her trousers down her hips, flung them aside. And ruthlessly used his mouth on her.

Release gushed through her, a flood that scorched her system. Floundering, she dug her fingers into the rug, tried to find some anchor to hold her. But she was flying, catapulted out of control.

And still he wouldn't stop.

Couldn't stop.

The small, mad sounds she made inflamed him, whipped his already crazed blood into a fever of greed. Every gulp of air he took in was full of her, the hot, sharp taste of woman. His.

His mouth raced up her shuddering body, feasted on her breasts while he plunged his fingers into her.

She came again, brutally, and her shocked cry was a dark thrill to him, the sudden bite of her nails on his back a vicious pleasure.