a couple of tiny swaths of lace, purple boots propped on the desk. When his gaze traveled up, up those long, bare legs, over the lean torso, those firm, lace-frothed breasts, to meet hers, she smiled.
“I figured since I’ve got the boots anyway, they ought to get some wear.”
His wife, Roarke thought, his cop, so often a creature of habit and straight lines, could and did pull out the most fascinating curves.
“They look … perfect.”
She jiggled one. “Comfortable, too. You all done?”
“Oh, I believe I’m just about to start.”
He crossed over, trailed a finger up her leg. “How about you?”
“I’ve got work that’s going to keep me chained here for hours. No reason I can’t take a little personal time first.”
“Good, as I believe this is going to be very personal.”
She smiled again. “Want to sit on my lap?”
He laughed and simply plucked her out of the chair and off her feet. In response, she hooked her legs around his waist.
“I had a donut,” she warned, “and came home to a Summerset-free zone. I’m riding a high.”
“Let’s see if we can keep you there.”
He took her mouth, ferociously. With her legs clamped tight, she dragged at the leather strip so she could fill her hands with his hair. Then she levered her hands between them to fight with buttons until she got to skin.
She could luxuriate there, mouth feeding on mouth, skin pressed hot to skin, and his fingers, long and strong, sliding over and under lace.
The big house empty around them, and all the world locked outside.
When he set her on the command center, she kept her legs hooked to bring him close. Reaching up, she tugged his shirt away before she nipped her teeth at his throat.
“Better than a donut,” she murmured.
His hands played over her, curves and angles, tough and smooth. His took her lips again, more tenderly now, and let the taste of her fill him, fill him even as it stirred deeper cravings.
He’d planned to set up a romantic meal before she got home—candles and wine, music playing low, and a fire simmering. A dance with her, a seduction, a long, slow build to passion.
A quiet intimacy before death and duty pulled them both back in.
Instead she’d seduced him, in a finger snap, with humor and sex—so intimately theirs.
A part of him wished he could hold on, just endlessly hold on to this moment. But he contented himself, was more than content, to know there would be others, scores of other moments.
Intimately theirs.
He trailed his fingers over the lace, over those firm breasts, teasing them both, then flicked open the tiny front hook to free her to his hands.
And when her heartbeat quickened, to his mouth.
Her breath caught. It always did. That rush, that punch of feelings, the impossible knots of them tangled in that mad swirl of sensation as he took her over as no one else ever had, ever could.
Just him, only him, the one who knew her, knew her mind, her body, her often shaky soul. And loved her, simply loved her.
That, just that? The miracle in her life.
She let him take, surrendered herself to his needs and to her own, as here, always here, they became one and the same. Let herself tremble and ache as those hands, that mouth, possessed.