“Then how did I know we were having a party?”
“Good guess.”
Because it was, she just laughed and turned so they were face-to-face, her arms around his waist. “You know what all this makes me want to do? The decorating, the memory street—”
“Lane. Memory lane.”
“Street, road, lane, they all lead somewhere. All this, and the idea of having some big-ass party? It makes me want to punch you, and punch you hard.”
She hooked her foot around his, shifted balance so t
hey flopped back onto the bed. Galahad woke, gave them a hard stare of annoyance, and jumped off.
“How hard?” Roarke wondered.
“Really hard. Tell me when it hurts.”
She took his mouth—an exceptional place to start—a nip, a graze of teeth before she sank in, met his tongue with hers.
Here was all she wanted in the world.
She could shed the miseries and frustrations of the day, even the grief she couldn’t allow to surface and blur the job. Here, with him, the emotional fatigue that had dragged at her since she’d seen twelve young lives robbed of all possibilities and potentials lifted.
Here was happy, and she could take it, hold it, feel it bloom like roses.
The hard lines of his body under hers, his quick and clever hands already roaming. And one long, soul-searing kiss.
He felt her let it go, the tension, the worry that had dogged her even through her pleasure in the tree. The tether loosened, slid away, freed her.
Now just his Eve, just his woman, warm and eager over him. Drawing love in, pouring love out.
He tugged her shirt free from her waistband, wanting her skin under his hands—all that smooth skin on that long, narrow back.
And discovered neither of them had noticed she’d never taken off her weapon harness.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, shifting to find the release.
“Shit. I forgot. Wait. I’ll get it.”
“Got it.” He shoved it off her shoulders. Ignored her wince when it thudded on the floor. “You’re unarmed, Lieutenant.”
“You’d better not be.”
He laughed, rolled to reverse their positions. “Never with you around. My cop.”
Now he nipped at her lip as his fingers got busy on her shirt.
“You’ve still got all this suit on,” she complained, and fought off his jacket. “There are too many pieces.”
“No rush.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Is that the way of it?” Willing to oblige, he slid his hand down the trousers he’d opened, and shot her straight to peak.
When she cried out in shock and satisfaction, he lowered his lips to her throat. “Not as much of a rush.”
He fed there, where her pulse hammered, then at her breast, so firm, so smooth, where her heartbeat thundered.