Page 70 of Obsession in Death

He studied the long, lean length of her back as he undressed. She had a faint bruise at the right kidney, a moderately darker one on her left hip. The way she rolled her shoulder before she lifted her arms to slick back her wet hair told him it gave her some trouble.

Bruised and bloodied, he thought, not in the line, but snug at home and voluntarily.

“Couldn’t find some handy street thief to pummel?” he asked when he stepped in behind her.

“On the holo tread, I did. Two of them. I like the new program.”

“I thought you would.” And as he was nothing if not a considerate husband, he tapped the dispenser, took a palmful of silky liquid soap. “You should try the rural one.”

“Why would I?”

He stroked the soap over her back. “It might break through your baffling fear of cows.”

“I don’t need a breakthrough. They stay where they are, I stay where I am.”

“A psychopath’s taken a family hostage. You have to reach the farmhouse, take him out before he blows it up, and the family with it.”

She angled her head around, intrigued. “Where are the cows?”

“In the fields you have to cross to get to the house.”

“Sneaky.”

“We’re finding the games and challenges, group competition on the fitness machines increase their use in health clubs, and in homes. We launch the entire line of them January second—when people tend to actually believe they’ll keep their New Year’s resolutions.”

“Sneaky,” she said again, and turned to twine her arms around his neck. “What’s your resolution?”

“To take more showers with my wife.” Mindful of the injury, he touched his lips gently to hers.

“No, you don’t.” She got a good grip on his hair, yanked him back to her, ravaged his mouth. “I just crushed Crusher. I can handle you.”

“You think so?”

If she needed the physical, the punch and the power, he’d oblige her. He’d had a bit of his own in his craw since he’d read the message on the wall that morning.

So he hiked her up, slapped her back against the wet wall, and plunged into her.

“Oh God!” Her hand slid off his shoulder, clawed back for purchase.

“Can you handle me?”

He thrust hard, deep, tore a cry from her, turned her eyes to gold glass. Those long legs chained around his waist as her breath came in tatters.

But she leveled her gaze with his. “Like I told Crusher. Bring it.”

“Get a good grip.” He nipped his teeth into her good shoulder, scraped them up her throat. “I want my hands on you.”

She grabbed hold where she could, helpless, suspended, pinned while he drove her, drove into her.

Nothing but glorious, shattering sensation while his hands took her breasts, ran rough down her body, up again, and all the while he plunged into her, wild, relentless. Everything she needed.

The heat from the pulsing jets, the rising steam from him saturated her. All the hours in the cold, all the hours with blood and death burned away.

Here was a violence of passion that purged and filled again, that scorched then soothed.

She cried out once more, the sound of release twined in surrender echoing off the tiles.

She imprisoned him with his own mad needs, enslaved him with his bottomless love. She enraptured and ensnared him—every inch of her. Her shape, her scent, her spirit.