Portrait In Death

He squeezed his eyes tighter, then forced them open. "Not worth my time or trouble. I never gave her so much as a passing thought in all these years."

"You never gave Meg Roarke a passing thought," she corrected. "You didn't know."

"I never even troubled myself enough to hate her. She was nothing to me."

"You're talking about two different women."

"She deserved better, that's the point. Better all around, and better from me. I ask myself if she'd gone back to him if not for me. If not for thinking my son needs his father. Would she be alive now?"

Worried, she wanted to yank him out of this maze of guilt he was circling. But she went with instinct, with training, and spoke quietly, as she would to a victim, a survivor on the verge of shock. "You can't blame yourself for that. Or punish yourself for it."

"There should be some payment. Goddamn it, Eve, there should besomething. I feel… helpless, and I don't like it. Here's something I can't fix-can't fight with my fists, can't buy or steal or talk my way around. No matter how I line it up, she's dead, and he never paid."

"Roarke, I don't know how many times-you can't keep them in your head or you go crazy-I don't know how many times I've knocked on someone's door and ripped apart the whole fabric of their life by telling them someone they loved is dead."

Hoping to comfort, she brushed her fingers over his hair. "They feel what you're feeling now. And no matter how you line it up, the one who caused it never pays enough."

"You won't like to hear it, but I'll say it anyway. There have been moments, countless moments through my life that I wished I'd been the one to do him in the end. But I've never wished it more than I do now, even knowing it means nothing, changes nothing. Maybe that's one of the reasons I didn't tell you. How can you understand that I think I'd feel more of a man right now if I had his blood on my hands."

She looked down at his hand, and the gold ring, their symbol, that shone on his finger. "You're wrong if you think I don't understand. I understand because I've got my own father's blood on mine."

"Oh Christ." It sickened and infuriated him-he'd wallowed so deep into the mire of his own life that he'd so carelessly thrown that in her face. He drew her against him. "I'm sorry. Baby."

"It wouldn't help." She eased back so he could see her. "Take my word. And believe me, you're more of a man than any other I've known."

He rested his forehead on hers. "I can't do without you. I don't know how I ever got by before you."

"We'll just go from here. You've had a rough couple of days, so I'll try one of your favorite sports and make you eat something."

He smiled, finally, when she rose to go to the AutoChef. "Tending to me, are you?"

Glancing back she studied him. He wore nothing but the trousers. Though there were hints of amusement in his eyes now, the shadows under them still dogged them.

And he was pale yet, pale from worry and fatigue.

Well, she would damn well fix that.

"I think I can figure out how, since I've been on the receiving end often enough." She went for soup. "I don't know much about mothers-neither do you-but from everything you've just said she'd hate you blaming yourself for what happened. If she loved you, she'd want you happy. She'd like knowing you got away from him. That you grew up to be successful and important."

"However I managed it."

"Yeah." She fiddled with the soup, then brought it to him. "However you managed it."

"He's in me, you know."

She nodded, sat beside him again. "I guess it works that way, which mean she's in you, too. Gives you a big one up on me, on the DNA chart."

"I've been shuffling the past behind me all my life. It doesn't shadow me the way it does you." He ate, without much interest, because she'd gone to the trouble for him. "I didn't want to bring you into this, or anyone. I wanted to sort it out for myself, that's all. But it's eating at me. I can see her face now, and I always will. I have family I didn't know of, people who lost her. I don't know what the hell to do about it. So I find myself guilty and churned up and frustrated."

"You don't have to do anything until you feel easier about it." She lifted a hand, stroked his hair. "Give yourself a break."

"I couldn't tell you straight off." He looked at her now. "Couldn't get the words out. Shutting you out was easier. Easier yet, it seems, was taking some of that guilt and frustration out on you."

"Not so easy when I knocked you on your ass."

He leaned over, kissed her softly. "Thanks for that."

"Anytime, pal."

"I'm sorry I left you alone last night. You had a nightmare."

"I'd say we both did. We'll figure this out, Roarke."

"Not so much to…" Her face blurred, doubled, shimmered briefly into focus again. "Ah, fuck me. You tranq'd the soup."

"Yeah, I did." Her tone was cheerful as she took the bowl before it tipped out of his limp fingers. "You need to sleep. Let's get you into bed while you can still walk. I can't carry you the way you do me."

"You're enjoying this part."

"Well, duh." She got his arm around her shoulders, hers around his waist, and hauled him up. "And I'm begi

"Let me complete the reversal," he managed in a voice slurring with the drug, "and say, 'Bite me.'"

"Happy to, when you wake up. Step up, there you go. One more, that's the spirit."

"I should probably be pissed off at you, but I can't quite focus on it. Come sleep with me, darling Eve. Let me hold you."

"Yeah, you bet." She eased him onto the bed, lifted his legs. His face was already going slack. "Just rest now," she whispered as she pulled the covers over him.

He murmured in Gaelic words she'd heard before.I love you. She sat beside him, brushed the hair back from his cheeks, then touched her lips to his.

"Same goes."

She set the lights on five percent so that if he surfaced, he wouldn't wake in the dark. Then she went down to speak to Summerset before going back to her office.

While she worked late into the night, she kept the bedroom on-screen, so she could watch over him.

Chapter 13

His hands were on her, and his mouth, heating her blood, tripping her pulse before she was fully awake.

Languidly, Eve moved under him, sighing a little. Her senses were tuned to him-the scent of her mate, his taste, his shape-and the need for him rose up even as her mind flitted around the blurred edges of sleep.

Gently, lightly, fingertips stroked over soft, warm flesh. The slide of a tongue, the brush of lips, and an erotic whisper close to her ear. She was aroused, still floating on that liquid spill where pleasure was lazy and sweet.

Then he said her name. Said her name before his mouth ravished hers, before his hand slid down to cup where she was already wet, already aching.

And he shot her from dreamy drift into urgent demand.

Now there was only sensation, the pounding of blood and shocks of heat, and the tangle of limbs as they rolled to find more. She ran her hands over him, thrilling herself with the angles, the smooth skin, the hard lines of muscle.

He was starved for her. He'd wakened wanting her, just the warm comfort of her beside him in the quiet light she'd left burning against the dark. But he'd only had to touch her, to see her face, to need.

She was his constant.

Her mouth was eager, her hands quick and greedy. Their moods matched here, he knew.Give me more, and more. And take all you can.

Half-mad, he dragged her up. He could see her eyes, gleaming, focused on him as she locked her legs around him, as her hips surged to take him in-into the wet heat. She watched him still as she clamped around him, already coming as she surrounded him.