Seduction In Death

A man, in her dreams, with a sophisticated edge, a toned body, a romantic mind, and some good urban polish.

It seemed she'd found him in Byron.

He was so handsome, with his shoulder-sweeping bronze hair, his golden tan. Her nervous pulse had jumped like dice in a cup when she'd seen him waiting in the booth they'd agreed upon.

He'd already had champagne poured and ready.

When he'd spoken her name, the warmth, the faintest of British accents in his voice had made her want to melt.

The first glass of champagne had gone to her head. She'd been so hot, so itchy. When she'd slid across the booth, she hadn't been able to stop herself from getting her hands on him. Her mouth on him, she'd felt drunk and happy.

Now they were alone in her apartment, and everything seemed soft and fluid. As if she were looking through a thin veil of warm, rippling water.

There was music playing, sweeping rainbow arches of music. And more champagne to dance in her head and sweeten her tongue.

His mouth was silky as it skimmed over hers. His hands so skilled that everywhere he touched her throbbed and ached. Unbearably. He said lovely things to her, though it was hard to understand them through the dizziness, the arousal that bloomed inside her like roses.

Then he drew away and made her moan in protest.

"I want to prepare." He took her hands, traced kisses over the backs. "Set the stage. You want romance, Moniqua. I'm going to give it to you. Wait here for me."

Her head spun as she watched him get to his feet, pick up his bag. She couldn't quite… think.

"I want – I need to…" She got shakily to her feet, gestured toward the bathroom. "Freshen up. For you."

"Of course. Don't be long. I want to be with you. I want to take you places you've never been."

"I won't." She strained against him, lifting an eager mouth to his. "It's so perfect, Byron."

"Yes." He led her to the bathroom door, nudged her gently inside. "It's perfect."

He lighted the candles. He turned down the bed, sprinkled rose petals on the sheets, plumped the pillows.

He'd chosen well, he decided, as he studied the bedroom. He approved the art, the colors, the good fabric of the spread. She was a woman of taste. He touched the slim, old volume of poetry on her bedside table. And intellect.

He might have loved her. If love existed.

He set two fresh flutes of champagne on the table. Added three drops of the drug to one. He would dilute it this time, extend the experience. Lucias had told him she could live for two hours, perhaps a bit more, with the combination of drugs in this proportion in her bloodstream.

He could do a great deal with her in two hours.

He turned when she came to the bedroom door. He held out a hand.

"Beautiful, Moniqua. My love. Let's discover each other."

It was better this time. Even better. Lucias was right. He was always right. The excitement of knowing this experience would be her last, that he would be the last thing she saw, felt, smelled, even tasted was almost unbearably erotic.

Oh, she responded to him, tirelessly. Her heart stormed against his. And still she pleaded with him for more.

She gave him two hours. Two magnificent hours.

When he felt her dying, he watched her almost tenderly. "Say my name," he whispered.

"Byron."

"No. Kevin. I want to hear you say it. Kevin. I want to hear you scream it."

He rammed himself into her, plunging toward the end. And when she screamed his name, he knew the most perfect pleasure of his life.

Because of it, he drew the sheet gently over her body, laid his lips on her brow in a soft kiss before he walked out of her apartment.

He couldn't wait to get home and tell Lucias everything.

It was an hour later when she moved. Her fingers scraped over the sheet, the eyes behind her closed lids twitched. There was a numbness in her chest, and under it a kind of terrifying, unspeakable pain. Her head burned like the sun.

Tears leaked out, trickled down her cheek as she struggled to lift her arm. It felt dead, and the effort had small, strangled sounds trembling on her lips.

Her fingers brushed a glass on the table, knocked it to the floor where it shattered. And the sound of it was dim, like glass breaking under a pillow.

Her fingers crawled over the table, bumped the 'link. Sweat sheathed her as she forced those fingers up, forced her confused mind to count. Slot by slot until she reached the top key on memory.

She pushed it, then her hand fell limp and her body lay drenched in exhaustion.

"What is your emergency, Miss Cline?"

"Help me." Her lips tripped over the words as if they were some exotic foreign language. "Please. Help me," she managed to whisper before she fell back into unconsciousness.

Eve woke when the world started to sway. She opened gritty eyes and stared into Roarke's.

"Why are you carrying me?"

"Because, Lieutenant, you need to sleep. Not at your desk," he added as he stepped into the elevator in her home office. "In a bed."

"I was just resting my eyes."

"Rest them in bed."

She should, on principle, insist he set her back on her feet. But it was kind of nice to get carted around, especially when she only had to turn her head to sniff his neck. "What time is it?"

"Just after one." He carried her into the bedroom, climbed the short steps to the platform, then sat, cradling her, on the side of the bed.

"Do you know what I was thinking?"

She snuggled in. "I've got a pretty good idea."

He laughed, ran a hand over her hair. "I can put my mind to that as well. But I was thinking when I walked into your office and saw you with your head on your desk and your face pale the way it gets when you're finally too exhausted to take another step, that in a matter of weeks we'll have been married a full year. And I'm still fascinated by you."

"We're doing okay, huh?"

"Yes, we're doing just fine." He tugged on the chain she wore around her neck, slid the diamond pendant he'd once given her out from under her shirt where she most often wore it. "You were angry with me when I gave you this. Yet you wear it more often than anything I've ever given you but your wedding ring."

"You told me you loved me when you gave it to me. It pissed me off. And it scared me. I guess maybe I wear it because it doesn't piss me off anymore. But it still scares me sometimes."

Though his cheek rested on the top of her head, he traced a finger unerringly along the mark the knife had left on her throat. "Love's a scary business."

She turned into him. "Why don't we terrify each other?"

Her lips were a breath from his when the 'link beeped.

"Ah, damn it, damn it." She crawled over the bed to answer it.

Eve burst out of the elevator into ICU, strode down the deathly quiet corridor. She hated hospitals more than morgues. She slapped her badge on the counter at the nurses' station. "I need to see whoever's in charge. I need to see Moniqua Cline."

"Dr. Michaels is in with her now. If you'd just wait – "

"In there?" Eve jabbed a finger toward a set of thick glass doors. She was through them before the nurse could do more than let out a piping sound of protest.

She knew who she was looking for. She'd gotten a solid description from the med-tech who'd helped transport the victim into the ER.

She passed a glass-walled room, sca