Page 137 of Obsession in Death

“What time is it in Prague?”

“Later than it is here.”

“What time is it here?”

“Almost half-five, and it’s apparent the soother’s worn off.”

She barely remembered gulping it down. “What the hell was in that soother?”

“About five hours’ sleep, it seems.” He rolled on top of her.

“Hey. Who invited you?”

“I live here,” he reminded her, and lowered his mouth to take hers. “The last day of the year.” He roamed to her throat, to the spot just under her jaw that always allured him. “So we’ll end our year the proper way. Then we can begin it the same way after midnight.”

“Is that your plan?”

“Call it spur of the moment.”

“Your alternate to Prague.”

His lips curved against her skin. “Dobrý den.”

“Huh?”

“Good morning,” he murmured, and took her mouth again, slow and deep, and his hands glided down her body and up again.

She hoped to end the year with her UNSUB in the box. But as an alternate... this worked.

So she slid her hand over his cheek, into his hair—all that silk—and down the strong, tight muscles of his back.

The weight of him, both comfort and excitement, the taste as their tongues met, both soothing and stimulating. All, all of him, oh so familiar, but never usual. Clever hands that knew her secrets stroked, brushed, lingered until her skin tingled with anticipation. Her blood, sluggish from sleep, began to heat, began to swim.

In the deep, dreaming dark, in the last hours of a year that had brought blood and death, and joy and comfort, she embraced what fate had given her. And the man who’d changed everything.

For a moment she held there, on that gilded curve of quiet bliss, of knowing, of belonging, with her arms around him, with her face pressed to the curve of his throat.

“I love you, Roarke. I love you.”

The words spilled into the center of his heart, glowed there like a candle. Luminous. He gave them back to her, in Irish, in the language of that heart. And slipped inside her, coming home.

She turned her head until her lips found his. She slid her hands up until their fingers linked.

She rose with him, a welcome; fell with him, a yielding. Soft and sweet, the words spoken. Slow and loving, the rhythm set.

Here was peace in a bloody, brutal world both knew too well. And celebration of two souls, lost, then found.

•••

In the predawn dark, she rose, showered, dressed. While Roarke dealt with his rescheduled ’link conference, she checked the overnight results. In the hours she’d slept, the computer had spat out a few more names.

She studied the faces, the data, asked herself if any of them sparked a memory. Someone she’d seen, in passing. Someone who crossed her path, performed some function.

She disagreed with the computer on one or two. Complexion too dark, too light, a hair too young. But she couldn’t risk tossing any of them out of the mix, not yet.

Laboriously, frustratingly, she programmed the two alternate searches, ordering one without the sector factored in, ordering another after she’d clipped two blocks off the grid.

Though she worried it pressed her technological luck, she added another task, and started probability runs on the current results.