“We’ve annoyed the cat,” Roarke commented.
“Well, three’s a crowd anyway. Except it’s really not. One too many people in a given circumstances doesn’t make a crowd. Why are sayings so stupid?”
“Like the solar system, perhaps we can consider that later.”
“Good idea.”
She leaned down, and this time the kiss was long, slow, deep. Stirring them both so the hands sliding down her back fisted in the thin material of the shirt she wore.
Not too many people here, she thought, just the exact right amount. Just him. Just her. She felt his need for her, wakened so quickly, the strength of it, the depth of it. It was always a wonder to her. She hoped it always would be as the wonder added a layer of beauty over desire.
His heart beat a little quicker against hers. She swore she felt the vibration of it as she rose up again.
Those eyes, still watching her, madly blue and beautiful, as she crossed her arms, drew her shirt up and off. As she shifted. As she lowered. As she took him in.
The morning light bathed her in silver, the long torso, the lean sculpted arms. And in the morning hush there was no sound but her breath and his, and the soft slide of the sheets as she moved over him. Slowly, almost gently rocking to bring the pleasure in long, quiet waves.
The heat of her trapped him, gloriously, brought him light as surely as the sun slipping through the sky window overhead.
She gave them the morning, a reminder of what they were together no matter what the day might bring.
As her rhythm quickened, so did his heart, his blood, his need.
She arched back, a strong and slender bow, with a moaning sigh as she gave herself to that heat, to that light.
Then once again she bent to him, bracing herself as she captured his mouth. And moving, rocking, giving, took them both over that final wave.
She lay on him again, heart to heart, beats fast and thick now. This time her sigh was long and lazy and replete.
“They should make a law.”
Eyes closed, body loose, he stroked her back again. “There are so many already, aren’t there?”
“A law that every day has to start with an orgasm.”
“I believe I could adhere to that law without complaint.”
“You should run for office so you could make it the law.”
“If I ran for office I’d have myself committed as I would have, unquestionably, lost my mind.”
“Yeah, there’s that.” She snuggled in. “I had a dream.”
“I know. It disturbed you.”
“Some of it. Everybody was in this enormous gym. Like Buff Bodies, but bigger. Just as loud, but bigger. All my suspects and players pumping and sweating, with Ziegler on this platform running the show. Even in the dream he was a fuckhead. ‘I’m the trainer,’ he kept saying.”
She lifted her head. “That’s the thing, was the thing for him. Without him, the way he figured, they’d all be fat, lazy slobs. He made them. He’s the trainer, and they did what he told them to do. The sex—willing or coerced—was just another aspect of it. Same with the money. All just his due because he—in his mind—was the one in charge. His whole existence, really, was one big power trip. The people who came to him for training had more money, more prestige, more whatever, but he called the shots, and they fell in line.”
“Does that help you?”
“Mostly it’s just reaffirming what I already knew, maybe kicking it up a little. Stay on a power trip long enough without real power? Somebody’s going to kick your ass. He put his hands on me.”
“So you kicked his ass, dream-wise speaking?”
“No. I could have. I could have done worse. He baited me. He said we were the same, taking money for service. That’s too stupid to get the rise, so he put his hands on me and asked what I was going to do about it? Was I going to carve him up like I had Richard Troy.”
“Ah, Eve.” He shifted to wrap around her.