Page 42 of Devoted in Death

He rolled on top of her, but first used his mouth, very properly, on hers.

She let herself sink in, found it easy—where once it had been impossible—to set murder and death aside. To take and to give without the world crowding in.

Just the two of them—or just the two of them after the cat landed on the floor with a thump of irritation—in the big bed under the sky window. Just as it had been only the two of them on the island, through long, sunny days and breezy, balmy nights.

He could take her away, with that mouth, with those skilled hands. They roamed over her now, gliding over her shape as if he’d molded it in glass.

Love, she knew—where once she hadn’t believed—could be quiet and sweet, and still hold the world.

She twined around him, loose and willing, swelling his heart with a sigh that whispered contentment, stirring his blood with the press of her fingers. And he was twined in her—heart, blood and spirit—so intricately woven together they fused into one.

“I love you,” he murmured in English, and again in Irish as her heartbeat thickened under his hand, as her pulse leaped against his lips.

She tightened around him, hard and fast. “You are love to me. You are love.” She framed his face, eased him back just enough to meet his eyes. “Mine,” she said, drawing his lips gently, gently back to hers.

She could drift down, down into that bottomless well of love, into the deep and the breathless. She could float even when sensations shimmered over her, through her, into her. And rise up, drenched, when shimmer turned to spark.

She took him in, took in the hot and the hard, took him with her into the deep and the breathless so they rose and fell together.

Hands clasped tight, beat meeting beat. When they broke, love spilled through them.

She curled against him, holding on to the warm, the shape, drawing in his scent. And her lips curved against his throat.

“Paid in full, pal.”

“I’ll note that in the ledger, with a memo you’ve helped me bear my burden for yet another day.”

She snorted out a laugh as her mind began to fuzz toward sleep. “How’s the brain, the ego and all that?”

“Doing well, thanks. And yours?”

“It’s good. All good. We’re good.”

He stroked her back as she drifted away, felt the bed give when the cat deduced the coast was clear and jumped back up.

He thought, it was good. Very good indeed.

•••

It wouldn’t be good for Jayla Campbell. She was beyond pissed as she trudged her way across Carmine, hunched against the cold. If Mattio hadn’t been such a fuckhead, she wouldn’t have stormed out of the party, wouldn’t be what seemed like miles from her apartment—and without a damn cab in sight.

He’d had his hand—both his hands on that blonde’s fat ass, and they’d been rubbing crotches. No excuses this time, no “I was only fooling around” this time, no “But, baby, I was half stoned” this time.

They were down to the D done.

She should never have come out tonight away. Early workday, and she didn’t know the neighborhood. She hadn’t known anybody at the stupid party.

She should’ve listened to her roommate and stayed home. But she’d been a little pissed at Kari for saying Mattio was a cheating dickwad. She’d been a little pissed, she admitted now, because she’d known it was true.

Why the hell did he have to be so good-looking, and so good in bed?

Down to the D done, she reminded herself, blinking back tears and taking her lumps by texting her roomie.

On my way home—done with this crap. Wait up, okay, if you’re not in bed? Get up if you are. I want wine and whine. J

She blinked at tears that came as much from anger as the loss of the cheating dickwad.

“Hey, miss! Hey, sorry!”