Page 108 of Thankless in Death

They grappled, rolling and bumping into stools, cabinets, each willing to take or give a few bruises, until he did manage to pin her—and she managed to press her knee, none too gently—against his balls.

His hair had come loose, and fell to curtain his face and hers. Breath came fast over the hum and click of equipment. His eyes, fiercely, furiously blue met her seething brown.

His heart, her heart, beat like war drums.

Then, in the flick of a switch his mouth was on hers, her legs wrapped around him. All the fury, the frustration, the insult, channeled into violent and primal need.

She nipped at his tongue, he tore at her shirt, all while that need, that violence, built and burned. Now they rolled, they grappled, to take in an urgent, almost vicious quest for release.

He filled his hands with her, filled his mouth with her, while his blood raged, while her body arched, quaked. She coiled under him, surrounded him, inflamed him beyond any thought of control.

He yanked her trousers down her hips, ripped away the thin, simple barrier and drove her to gasping, shuddering peak with his hands.

And more and more, from him, from her, in a wild whirlwind of mindless, reckless, impossible lust.

Soaked in the flood of dark pleasure, blind with greed for more, for all, she dragged him to her. Bridging up, she demanded that first savage thrust, then the next, the next. With her legs locked hard around him, she drove him, brutally as spurs to flanks, until he’d filled her. Until he’d emptied her. Until he’d emptied himself.

He collapsed on her, his breath gone, his mind gone. She’d destroyed him, he thought. She’d stripped him to the bone, then shattered him. Now she lay under him, limp, and he could feel the tremors, those aftershocks of crazed sex shake her.

Or him. Or both of them.

His. Every maddening, infuriating, fascinating, courageous inch of her. His.

And he’d change not one thing.

“It seems you had time for that.” His throat felt as if he’d swallowed fire—and he’d have given a million for the wine on his workstation—or the strength to stand and get it.

He barely managed to lift his head to look down at her. All flushed, all soft, all long, glinted whiskey-colored eyes.

“It was pretty quick.”

He smiled at that, and at the touch of her hand on his cheek after she spoke. He pressed his lips to her cheek in turn.

Now, with the anger and lust washed away, the love beneath stood solid and strong.

“I’m not jittery. Think of another word. I like your family, you know I do. It’s just... right now, with everything, all of them, it’s...”

“A bit overwhelming.”

She thought about it. “That’s okay. Overwhelming’s okay. When we went there last summer, it was mostly—well, except for the brief pause for the dead body that was not my case—hanging out, drinking some beer.”

“I understand that perfectly well.”

“I guess, maybe. And add on Nixie. It’s not fair, it’s not right, but every time I see or talk to the kid I get twisted inside. It eases off, but it always starts out that way. I just see her the way she was when I found her, after she’d crawled through her parents’ blood and hidden. I can’t get why she wants to see me, talk to me. I must remind her of that, what she went through, what she lost. It messes with my head, and I can’t afford that right now.”

“If you brought her pain, Richard and Elizabeth wouldn’t allow her to see or talk to you.”

“I guess not.”

“Take this friends and family business as it comes for the next couple days. You give what you can, when you can. And as they are friends and family, every one of them understands what you are, what you do, and what it means.”

“Summerset.” She sneered it.

“And Summerset as well.” Roarke flicked a finger down the dent in her chin. “He enjoys drilling you, just as you do him.”

“Maybe.”

She closed her eyes a minute. “I was too late. And I see them in my head, see what he did to them because I was just too late.”