Kindred In Death

“I look forward to helping with that. For the girl, her parents, for you. And for the very selfish reason the fucker compromised my system.”

“All good reasons.”

“I’ll get the data for you. It might take a bit.”

She indulged in another sip of wine. “Why don’t you set up a run and search, and we’ll finish the breather with a swim.”

He angled his head. “A swim? Would that be a euphemism?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll set it up.”

She wanted the water, a good, strong swim-both literally and euphemistically. She needed the physical to offset the hours and hours of thinking. Maybe if she stopped thinking for just a little while, she’d go back to it with more clarity.

Too many threads, she decided. She needed to find one, get a good grip on it. When she pulled, the rest would unravel.

And, she admitted, she was still thinking.

She didn’t bother with a suit, and instead stripped down in the moist, fragrant heat, and dived into the deep blue water. She felt him spear in beside her, and as she surfaced began to cut through the water. She knew him, and his competitive nature. He’d match her pace, push himself-as they were matched in speed and ability in the water.

They hit the wall at the same time, flipped, and raced back. The rhythm, fast, hard-beat striking beat-did its job. Impossible to think when every muscle worked to its full potential, when the heart began to pound from the exertion.

At five laps they were still stroke for stroke, kick for kick.

She pushed, a little more, and a little more yet, slicing through the deep, dreamy blue, stretching for another inch while the water flew up from the power of scissoring legs. A little faster, a little harder, digging down for the speed and the power, she caught the blur of his face as she tipped hers up to grab air.

Again, she thought, again, and curled her body, pumped her legs to drive herself off the wall. Beside him, true as a shadow, she struck out through the clear, the cool, the blue.

She lost track of the number of laps, of time, of everything but the motion, the pace, the sheer physical push and pleasure of spurring herself, and him.

Challenge and motion, skin and water, speed and need.

And when he caught her, slick, wet body to slick, wet body, in midstroke, she was ready for him.

Searching, their mouths came together, cool from the water, hot from hunger. With quick, frantic bites she answered the urgency of the kiss while her racing heart pressed to his. She wrapped her legs around his waist, too desperate to care if they sank like stones.

“Now.” She’d go mad if it wasn’t now.

She captured him even as he gripped her hips, and those hips plunged, demanding more, taking more. When he gave her more, shoving her back to the wall, bracing her, her head fell back on a single choked cry.

Strong, sleek, he thought as he ravaged her neck. And always so much his. Love and lust, need and pleasure swirled inside him as water fumed up in the storm of their mating.

With him, again with him, beat for beat, demand for demand, in this last frantic lap of the race. She chained herself to him, arms and legs locked like shackles as her mouth fused to his once more.

And strong and sleek, she quivered for him as he drove them both to the finish.

He lowered his brow to her shoulder, then managed to grip the edge when she started to slide. “Have a care.” He could barely murmur it. “Or they’ll find us both floating facedown in the morning.”

“Okay.” But she curled into him. “Need a minute.”

“You’re not alone. I had no idea swimming laps made such intense foreplay.”

“My idea.”

“There, you’ve collected sex credit and friend credits in the same day.”

The sound she made was half laugh, half sigh. “Louise is all nervous about the wedding, about all the details being perfect. She has charts and time lines and told me how she’s a wreck of nerves and didn’t expect to be.”

“It’s an exceptionally important day.”

“Yeah, but I said she’s nervous about the minutiae because she’s not nervous about the marriage, about Charles, what they’re doing and why.”

He brushed his cheek to hers as he drew back to study her. “Aren’t you the wise one?”

“I wasn’t nervous about the details of the wedding stuff when we got married. I barely paid attention to them, dumped it on you.”

“You did.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “But then you were distracted by a serial killer.”

“No, that’s not it. I mean, yeah, that was a factor.” She brushed his hair, wet black silk, away from his face. “But I figured out I wasn’t nervous about the minutiae because I was nervous about the rest. About marriage, you, what we were doing and why. I thought that was the crazy part of it-you, me, marriage.” She cupped his face in her hands, looked into his eyes. “I’m really happy I was wrong. I’m re ally happy.”

It surged through him, everything she was to him. “There, too, you’re not alone.”

She brought her lips to his again, softer now, sweeter. Then eased back. “That’s enough of that. Breather’s over.”

She wiggled free, pushed to the head of the pool to climb out. When he stepped out, she tossed him a towel.

“As breathers go, it was exceptional.”

“Yeah, well, anything worth doing. He’d think that.”

Roarke wrapped a towel around his waist. “And our transition is complete.”

“Well, my head’s cleared. I think he’s good at what he does-careful. Doesn’t want too much attention. But he’s the reliable guy, the one who gets it done without the fanfare. People would say, oh yeah, Murdering Bastard’s reliable. I bet he hates that.”

“Why so?”

Tossing on a robe she walked to the elevator. She’d change into soft clothes for the rest of the night’s work. “Because he’s better than that. Better than they are. He’s young, he’s good-looking, charming, efficient, smart, and skilled enough to come up with, or get someone else to come up with this e-virus that’s got all you geeks stumped.”

“We’re not stumped,” Roarke corrected with some a

While it amused her to hear him quote the usual departmental line-with the addition of the Irish-she shrugged. “Point’s the same. He’s not going to be in management, not even middle management unless it requires wearing a name tag. He’ll be the clerk or tech or laborer who never bitches about getting work or OT dumped on him. Who plods through the work, gets it done, but doesn’t object when his boss or coworker or supervisor takes all or most of the credit.”

In the bedroom she pulled on a support tank, underwear. “And he’d hate it, the way he’d hate not being able to beat MacMasters’s security from the outside.”

“You think so?”

“I know so, because I’m looking at you. You’re pissed off because he’s done something e-wise you haven’t been able to figure out. Yet,” she added, not bothering to disguise a grin when those blue eyes fired. “It’s frustrating.”

“You’re making it more so,” Roarke muttered.

“You’ll deal. But the point is, the average guy is a shell, a suit he has to wear that probably doesn’t fit very well. The little things oppose a good fit. Leaving the glass, making the vid, spending hours on the kill, and doing it inside the house. Easier ways, safer ways, but he’s got to show off a little.”

Intrigued, Roarke continued to dress. “And what does all this tell you?”

“Well, adding in he’s young, and that’s going to factor even with his sense of patience and control, he’s going to make more mistakes. Maybe just little ones, show-offy ones, but he’ll make them. And I’ll be able to use his need to shed that ordinary suit when I have him in interview. He’ll want to tell me.

“And for now?” She scooped a hand through her damp hair. “It tells me if he works for Security Plus, he’ll be one of the geeks. Wherever he works, he takes home a decent salary, but damn it, not enough to afford that system. He has to be a geek for either the manufacturer or a service company.”