She woke shaken as Roarke drew her closer and the thin gray dawn eked through the sky window over the bed.
“You haven’t slept long enough, or well.”
She wrapped around him, took in the warmth, the scent. “Then neither did you.”
“You’ve some time yet.” He stroked her back, long easy glides. “Try to sleep a bit more.”
But she shook her head, burrowed into him. “Can’t. Too much in my head.”
“Why don’t I get you a soother?” Now he brushed his lips at her temple. “Just enough to relax you so you can drift off again.”
He would, she thought. The man who could command—well, damn near anything—who owned an embarrassing chunk of the civilized world, and probably a bigger one of the uncivilized, would get up at dawn and bring her a soother.
Knowing it, feeling it, made her smile, made her forget—just for a minute—how cold and hard the world could be.
“Why don’t you be my soother?” She tipped her head up so her lips grazed his chin. “And maybe I can be yours.”
She shifted up, slid up so her lips met his. And there it was, she thought, all the connection she needed. Mouth to mouth. Love to love.
She stayed wrapped tight, craving the warmth of him, the shape of him—lean and hard.
Not to drift off, but to drift away on all he had for her, all he’d give even when she didn’t think to
ask. With him she could slide so easily out of misery and into pleasure, knowing he’d hold strong—even when she didn’t think to ask.
She’d murmured and tossed in her sleep, caught in dreams that pinched and taunted. Had trembled in them so he’d added logs to the fire, had held her close to chase away the chill.
Now she turned to him, pale, heavy-eyed, asking only for love. Asking only he take it back from her.
So he soothed, taking her slowly, deeply into the kiss, away from dreams, from the cold, from the shadows and the bright, hard lights.
All soft, the dawn, the simmer of the fire, the sweep and glide of his hands over her. His warrior, more wounded than she knew.
And lovely, so much more lovely than she believed. His long, lanky cop, with her tough mind, her sharp eye, and a heart that felt too much.
She opened for him, a fascinating flower with thorns he respected and risked.
When he slipped inside her she sighed. When he murmured her name she arched up, to take more of him. Take all of him.
• • •
While Eve moved under Roarke, felt the day begin with some beauty, the sexless delivery person strode briskly toward the grimy, graffiti-laced flop a half block inside the filthy, all-but-forgotten area locals called the Square.
The chemi-heads, funky-junkies, ghosts, and gamers didn’t troll the streets in winter, not at dawn. Some, certainly some, would still be underground, at places like Ledo’s favorite hellhole, Gametown.
But typically, Ledo crawled back in his flop before dawn. And since the funk had screwed with his eyesight, he didn’t score as much at hustling pool. He could still bag another junkie, managed a quick bang in exchange for some Rush or X, but the illegals-dealing, scrawny asshole hustler who’d insulted and assaulted Eve Dallas had fallen on very hard times.
Even those times were about to come to an end.
The shipping box served as cover, though that cover was likely not needed here. Flops like this didn’t run to security cams or palm plates.
But careful and thorough was successful.
The street door wasn’t even locked, and though two sidewalk sleepers had crawled in out of the cold to sleep on the skinny patch of floor, neither of them stirred as the figure in the thick brown coat stepped over them.
They smelled like a sewer, brought nothing constructive to the world. But ending their lives, pathetic as they were, served no real purpose.
It held no real glory.