J. Robb - Divided in Death

There on the curve of the left was a painted replica of her badge, minutely detailed though it was no bigger than her own thumbnail. Her grip loosened a bit as she tilted her own head to read her name. And Trina escaped.

“Jesus, are you whacked? I said it was a temp.”

“Did you give me any hallucinogenic substance while I was under VR?”

“What?” Obviously steamed, Trina shook back her abused hair, folded her arms, and glowered at Mavis. “What is wrong with her? No, I didn’t give you anything. I’m a certified personal body and style consultant. I don’t have illegals on my menu. You ask me something like that, and-”

“I asked something like that because I’m looking at what you painted on a personal area of my body, and I kind of like it, so I want to make sure I’m not under some illusionary drug haze.”

Trina sniffed, but there was a light that was both pleasure and humor in her eyes. “You like it, I can make it permanent.”

“No.” In defense, Eve slapped a hand on her breast. “No, no, no. No.”

“Got it. Just the temp. Mavis has to cook a while more, so we’ll finish you up.” Trina pressed a mechanism on the table and a section lifted up like the back of a chair.

“How come you’ve got all those colors in the gunk on your hair?”

“I’m getting multied,” Mavis explained. “I’m going to have some red curls, and purple spikes, and-”

“There wasn’t any of that in mine.” Fear clutched at her throat. “Was there?”

“Relax.” To get back some of her own, Trina yanked Eve’s head back by the hair. “The pink streaks’ll wash out.”

“She’s just kidding,” Mavis said as Eve went pale. “Honest.”

By the time it was over, Eve was limp as a noodle. The minute she was alone, she dashed into the nearest bathroom, shut the door, and braced herself for a look in the mirror.

Her knees went weak with relief when she saw there were no streaks of pink, or anything else, in her hair. Nor were her eyebrows the carnival of colors Mavis’s had been when Trina finished with them. She wasn’t vain, Eve assured herself. She just wanted to look like she looked. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. And since she did, the ball of tension between her shoulder-blades dissolved.

Okay, maybe she looked a little better than usual. Trina did something to her eyebrows whenever she got her hands on them that made the arch more defined and framed out her eyes. And her skin had a nice glow to it.

She shook her head, pleased when her hair fell into place without any fuss.

Then her eyes widened in shock. She was vain, or edging perilously close to it. And it had to stop. Deliberately, she turned away from the mirror. She needed to get out of this stupid robe and into clothes. As soon as she did, she’d check on the lab.

Work, she assured herself, was the only thing worth being vain about.

She’d barely nipped into the bedroom when Roarke stepped in from the elevator.

“I just need to change, then I was coming by the lab.”

“Well, I need a minute to speak with you, and saw that Mavis and Trina had gone.”

“What about?” She started rummaging through her dresser for old, comfortable sweats. It gave her something to do with her hands as she prayed it had nothing to do with a field operation in Dallas. “Did you guys have a breakthrough?”

“No. It’s painstaking and exacting work. Slow and tedious. Feeney’s taking an hour restorative. It’s hell on the eyes.”

“Okay.” She could hardly complain about the break when she’d spent a good chunk of the evening flat on her back and covered with goo. “I’m not much help in the comp-jock area, but I’ve got some probabilities to run, some theories I want to play with. Mind’s clear. I hate that.”

“You hate that your mind’s clear?”

“No.” Her shoulders relaxed again. She was tuned to every nuance in his voice, and everything was all right. For now. “I hate that the stuff Trina does actually works-on the brain. I’m pumped,” she said, hauling out a ragged and ancient short-sleeved sweatshirt she’d buried under a stack of silk and cashmere tees. “And I’m thinking… what’re you looking at?”

“You. Darling Eve, you look-”

“Don’t start.” She waved the shirt at him and backed up two steps. Even that was a fake, she thought. It was such a tremendous relief to know he could look at her that way. To know, when he did, her blood warmed, her body tightened. “Don’t even start.”

“You’ve had a pedicure.”

Instinctively, her toes curled in embarrassment. “She did it while I was under VR, and she won’t tell me how to get it off.”

“I like it. Sexy.”

“What’s sexy about pink toes? What could possibly be sexy about that? Wait, I forgot who I was talking to. If she’d painted my teeth pink, you’d think it was sexy.”

“A fool in love,” he murmured and stepped close enough to brush a thumb over her cheek. “Soft.”

“Stop it.” She slapped his hand away.

“And you smell… exotic,” he said after easing closer for a testing sniff. “A bit tropical. Like a lemon grove in spring, with just a hint of… jasmine, I think. Night-blooming jasmine.”

“Roarke. Down.”

“Too late.” He laughed and gripped her hips. “A man needs his restorative, you know. Why don’t you be mine?”

She was his, but still she gave him a shove as his lips came down on hers. “I’ve already had my break.”

“You’re about to extend it. You taste incredible.” His lips skimmed over her jaw, then under it, and his busy hands had already unbelted her robe, slipped beneath it. “Let’s just see…”-he tugged on her bottom lip-”… what else Trina’s been up to.”

He eased the robe off her shoulders, skimmed his teeth over bare skin.

The little ball of lust that had curled in her belly expanded. She tipped her head to the side to give him better access. “I’m giving you twenty minutes, thirty tops, to get yourself under control.”

“Thirty should give me just enough time to…” He trailed off as his gaze lowered to her breast. “Well now.” His voice came out in a purr as he rubbed his thumb lightly over the replica of her badge. “What have we here?”

“One of Trina’s little brainstorms. It’s just a temp, and actually I got kind of a kick out of it after I got over the shock.”

He said nothing, only continued to stroke and circle the image with his thumb.

“Roarke?”

“I’m amazed to find myself ridiculously aroused by this. How odd.”

“You’re kidding.”

His gaze lifted to hers, and that hot blue slammed through her. “Okay.” Nerves danced under her skin. Over it. “Not kidding.”

“Lieutenant.” He gripped her hips again, and hitched her up in one clean jerk until her legs wrapped his waist. “You’d best brace yourself.”

There was no bracing against that kind of assault on the senses, that sort of brutal invasion of the system. Since the bed was too far away, he simply spilled them both onto the sofa and took her over with lips and hands.

She clamped around him. It seemed if she didn’t hold on, hold tight, she might shoot out of her own body. Sensations crowded inside her, careening through blood and muscle and nerve until she was quivering, until she was coming in a screaming rush.

Staggered, she fought for air, then met, finally met, those hungry lips with her own. Partly in lust, partly in desperate relief that they were together, at least here, they were together, she tugged at his shirt. He wasn’t the only one who wanted the taste and texture of flesh. His was hot, as if he burned from the inside out for her.