Eve Dallas 02 - Glory in Death (8 page)

His mouth on her breast, sucking, teeth scraping. His elegant hands relentless so that her cries came out in whimpers of shock and gratitude. Another staggering climax to layer thick over the first.

Her hands sought purchase in the tangled sheets, but nothing could anchor her. As she flew up again, she gripped him, nails scraping down his back, up to grab handfuls of his hair.

"God!" It was the single coherent word she managed as he plunged into her, so hard, so deep she was amazed she didn't die from the pleasure of it. Her body bucked helplessly, frantically, continued to shudder even after he'd collapsed on her.

He let out a long, satisfied sigh and lazily nuzzled her ear. "Sorry to wake you."

"Roarke? Oh, was that you?"

He bit her.

She smiled quietly in the dark. "I didn't think you'd be back until tomorrow."

"I got lucky. Then I followed your trail into the bedroom."

"I was out with Mavis. We went to a place called Armageddon. My hearing's starting to come back." She stroked his back, yawned hugely. "It's not morning, is it?"

"No." Recognizing the weariness in her voice, he shifted, gathered her close against him, and kissed her temple. "Go to sleep, Eve."

"Okay." She obliged him in less than ten seconds.

He woke at first light and left her curled in the middle of the bed. In the kitchen, he programmed the AutoChef for coffee and a toasted bagel. The bagel was stale, but that was to be expected. Making himself at home, he sat by the kitchen monitor and skimmed through the paper to the financial section.

He couldn't concentrate.

He was trying not to resent the fact that she'd chosen her bed over their bed. Or what he wanted her to think of as their bed. He didn't begrudge her the need for personal space; he understood well the need for privacy. But his house was large enough that she could have appropriated an entire wing for herself if she wanted it.

Pushing away from the monitor, he paced to the window. He wasn't used to this struggle, this war to balance his needs with someone else's. He'd grown up thinking of himself first and last. He'd had to, in order to survive and then to succeed. One was every bit as important to him as the other.

The habit was difficult to break -- or had been, until Eve.

It was humiliating to admit, even to himself, that every time he went away to see to business, a seed of fear rooted in his heart that she would have shaken herself loose of him by the time he returned.

The simple fact was, he needed the one thing she had refused him. A commitment.

Turning from the window, he went back to the monitor and forced himself to read.

"Good morning," Eve said from the doorway. Her smile was quick and bright, as much from the pleasure of seeing him as from the fact that her trip to Armageddon didn't have the consequences she'd feared. She felt terrific.

"Your bagels are stale."

"Mmm." She tested by trying a bite of the one on the table. "You're right." Coffee was always a better bet. "Anything in the news I should worry about?"

"Are you concerned with the Treegro takeover?"

Eve knuckled one eye as she sipped her first cup of coffee. "What's Treegro and who's taking it over?"

"Treegro's a reforestry company, hence the overly adorable name. I'm taking it over."

She grunted. "Figures. I was thinking more of the Towers case."

"Cicely's memorial service is scheduled for tomorrow. She was important enough, and Catholic enough, to warrant St. Patrick's Cathedral."

"Will you go?"

"If I can reschedule a few appointments. Will you?"

"Yeah." Thinking, Eve leaned back on the counter. "Maybe her killer will be there."

She studied him as he scanned the monitor. He should have looked out of place in her kitchen, she mused, in his expensive, meticulously tailored linen shirt and with the luxurious mane of hair swept back from that remarkable face.

She kept waiting for him to look out of place there, with her.

"Problem?" he murmured, well aware that she was staring at him.

"No. Things on my mind. How well do you know Angelini?"

"Marco?" Roarke frowned over something he saw on the monitor, took out his notebook, entered a memo. "Our paths cross often enough. Normally a careful businessman, always a devoted father. Prefers spending his time in Italy, but his power base is here in New York. Contributes generously to the Catholic Church."

"He stands to gain financially from Towers's death. Maybe it's just a drop in the bucket, but Feeney's checking it out."

"You could have asked me," Roarke murmured. "I would have told you Marco's in trouble. Not desperate trouble," he amended when Eve's eyes sharpened. "He's made some ill-advised acquisitions over the past year or so."

"You said he was careful."

"I said he was normally careful. He bought several religious artifacts without having them thoroughly authenticated. His zeal got in the way of his business sense. They were forgeries, and he's taken a hard loss."

"How hard?"

"In excess of three million. I can get you exact figures, if necessary. He'll recover," Roarke added with a shrug for three million dollars Eve knew she would never get used to. "He needs to focus and downsize a bit here and there. I'd say his pride was hurt more than his portfolio."

"How much was Towers's share of Mercury worth?"

"On today's market?" He took out his pocket diary, jiggled some numbers. "Somewhere between five and seven."

"Million?"

"Yes," Roarke said with the faintest hint of a smile. "Of course."

"Good Christ. No wonder she could live like a queen."

"Marco made very good investments for her. He would have wanted the mother of his children to live comfortably."

"You and I have dramatically different ideas about comfort."

"Apparently." Roarke tucked the diary away and rose to refill his coffee and hers. An airbus rumbled by the window, chased by a fleet of private shuttles. "You suspect that Marco killed her to recoup his losses?"

"Money's a motive that never goes out of style. I interviewed him yesterday. I knew something didn't quite fit. Now it's beginning to."

She took the fresh coffee he offered, paced to the window where the noise level was rising, then away again. Her robe was slipping off her shoulder. Casually, Roarke tucked it back into place. Bored commuters often carried long-range viewers for just such an opportunity.

"Then there's the friendly divorce," she went on, "but whose idea was it? Divorce is complicated for Catholics when there are children involved. Don't they have to get some sort of clearance?"

"Dispensation," Roarke corrected. "A complex business, but both Cicely and Marco had connections with the hierarchy."

"He's never remarried," Eve pointed out, setting her coffee aside. "I haven't been able to find even a whiff of a steady or serious companion. But Towers was having a long-term intimate relationship with Hammett. Just how did Angelini feel about the mother of his children snuggling with a business partner?"

"If it were me, I'd kill the business partner."

"That's you," Eve said with a quick glance. "And I imagine you'd kill both of them."

"You know me so well." He stepped toward her, put his hands on her shoulders. "On the financial end, you may want to consider that whatever Cicely's share of Mercury was, Angelini's matches it. They held equal shares."

"Fuck." She struggled with it. "Still, money's money. I have to follow that scent until I get a new one." He continued to stand there, his hands cupping her shoulders, his eyes on hers. "What are you looking at?"

"The gleam in your eye." He touched his lips to hers once, then again. "I have some sympathy for Marco, you see, because I remember what it's like to be on the receiving end of that look, and that tenacity."

"You hadn't killed anyone," she reminded him. "Lately."

"Ah, but you weren't sure of that for a time, and still you were... drawn. Now we're -- " The beeper on his watch pinged. "Hell." He kissed her again, quick and distracted. "We'll have to reminisce later. I have a meeting."

Just as well, Eve thought. Hot blood interfered with a clear head. "I'll see you later then."

"At home?"

She fiddled with her coffee cup. "At your place, sure."

Impatience flickered in his eyes as he shrugged into his jacket. The slight bulge in the pocket reminded him. "I'd nearly forgotten. I bought you a present in Australia."

With some reluctance, Eve took the slim gold box. When she opened it, reluctance scattered. There was no room for it in shocked panic. "Jesus bleeding Christ, Roarke. Are you insane?"

It was a diamond. She knew enough to be sure of that. The stone graced a twisted gold chain and glinted fire. Shaped like a tear, it was as long and wide as the first joint of a man's thumb.

"They call it the Giant's Tear," he said as he casually took it from the box and draped the chain over her head. "It was mined about a hundred and fifty years ago. It happened to come up for auction while I was in Sydney." He stepped back and studied its shooting sparks against the plain blue robe she wore. "Yes, it suits you. I thought it would." Then he looked at her face and smiled. "Oh, I see you were counting on kiwi. Well, perhaps next time." When he leaned in to kiss her good-bye, he was brought up short by the slap of her hand against his chest. "Problem?"

"This is crazy. You can't expect me to take something like this."

"You do occasionally wear jewelry." To prove his point, he flicked a finger at the gold dangling from her ear.

"Yeah, and I buy it from the street stall on Lex."

"I don't," he said easily.

"You take this back."

She started to pull at the chain, but he closed his hands over hers. "It doesn't go with my suit. Eve, a gift is not supposed to make the blood drain out of your cheeks." Suddenly exasperated, he gave her a quick shake. "It caught my eye, and I was thinking of you. Damn you, I always am. I bought it because I love you. Christ Jesus, when are you going to swallow that?"

"You're not going to do this to me." She told herself she was calm, very calm. Because she was right, very right. His temper didn't worry her, she'd seen it flare before. But the stone weighed around her neck, and what she feared it represented worried her very much.

"Do what to you, Eve? Exactly what?"

"You're not going to give me diamonds." Terrified and furious, she shoved away from him. "You're not going to pressure me into taking what I don't want, or being what I can't be. You think I don't know what you've been doing these past few months. Do you think I'm stupid?"

His eyes flashed, hard as the stone between her breasts. "No, I don't think you're stupid. I think you're a coward."

Her fist came up automatically. Oh, how she would have loved to have used it to wipe that self-righteous sneer from his face. If he hadn't been right, she could have. So she used other weapons.

"You think you can make me depend on you, get used to living in that glorified fortress of yours and wearing silk. Well, I don't give a damn about any of that."

"I'm well aware of that."

"I don't need your fancy food or your fancy gifts or your fancy words. I see the pattern, Roarke. Say I love you at regular intervals until she learns to respond. Like a well-trained pet."

"Like a pet," he repeated as his fury froze into ice. "I see I'm wrong. You are stupid. You really think this is about power and control? Have it your way. I'm tired of having you toss my feelings back in my face. My mistake for allowing it, but that can be rectified."

"I never -- "

"No, you never," he interrupted coolly. "Never once risked your pride by saying those words back to me. You keep this place as your escape hatch rather than commit to staying with me. I let you draw the line, Eve, and now I'm moving it." It wasn't just temper pushing him now, nor was it just pain. It was the truth. "I want all," he said flatly. "Or I want nothing."

She wouldn't panic. He wouldn't make her panic like a first-time rookie on a night run. "What exactly does that mean?"

"It means sex isn't enough."

"It's not just sex. You know -- "

"No, I don't. The choice is yours now -- it always was. But now you'll have to come to me."

"Ultimatums just piss me off."

"That's a pity." He gave her one long last look. "Goodbye, Eve."

"You can't just walk -- "

"Oh yes." And he didn't look back. "I can."

Her mouth dropped open when she heard the door slam. For a moment she simply stood, rigid, the sun glinting off the jewel around her neck. Then she began to vibrate. With fury, of course, she told herself and ripped the precious diamond off to toss it on the counter.

He thought she would go crawling after him, begging him to stay. Well, he could go on thinking that into the next millennium. Eve Dallas didn't crawl, and she didn't beg.

She closed her eyes against a pain more shocking than a laser strike. Who the hell is Eve Dallas? she wondered. And isn't that the core of it all?

She blocked it out. What choice did she have? The job came first. Had to come first. If she wasn't a good cop, she was nothing. She was as empty and as helpless as the child she had been, lying broken and traumatized in a dark alley in Dallas.

She could bury herself in work. The demands and pressures of it. When she was standing in Commander Whitney's office, she was only a cop with murder on her hands.

"She had plenty of enemies, Commander."

"Don't we all." His eyes were clear again, sharp. Grief could never outweigh responsibility.

"Feeney's run a list of her convictions. We're breaking them down, concentrating on the lifers first -- family and known associates. Someone she put in a cage for the duration would have the strongest revenge ratio. Next down the line are the uncorrected deviants. UDs sometimes slip through the cracks. She put plenty away on mental, and some of them are bound to have crawled their way out."

"That's a lot of computer time, Dallas."

It was a subtle warning about budgets, which she chose to ignore. "I appreciate you putting Feeney on this with me. I couldn't get through it without him. Commander, these checks are SOP, but I don't think this was an attack on the prosecutor."