J. Robb - Creation In Death

She didn’t belong there. Would never belong there, in that hideous gallery of death.

Yet she had put herself there, he realized. Had put her image among the others. Steely-minded, he thought now. His cop, his wife, his world. Coolheadedly, cool-bloodedly aligning the facts and data, even when her own life was part of them.

He ordered himself to calm, to understand why she’d put herself there. She needed to see the whole picture, and seeing the whole picture would shut it down.

He looked away from the board and over to her. She was exactly as she’d been when he entered. Kicked back, still-and safe.

He went to her, realized some of the rage and fear was still with him when he wanted to simply pluck her up, wrap himself around her, and hold on. And on. Instead he reached down to take the mug out of her hand.

“Get your own coffee,” she muttered, and opened her eyes.

Not asleep, he realized, but in the zone. “My mistake. I thought you were sleeping on the job.”

“Thinking time, pal. Didn’t hear you come in. How’s it going?”

“Well enough. I grabbed a swim and a shower to delude myself that I was still feeling human.”

“Yeah, I went the beach run and iron pumping route. Mostly works. I’ve been doing probabilities and some data juggling. I need to write up a report, then do some runs. When-”

“I want ten minutes,” he interrupted.

“Huh?”

“Ten minutes.” He took the coffee now, set it aside, then captured her hand to pull her out of the chair. “Where it’s just you, just me.”

She cocked up her eyebrows as he drew her away from the desk. “Ten minutes isn’t anything to brag about, ace.”

“I’m not meaning sex.” He slid his arms around her, kept moving in what she now understood was a slow and easy dance. “Or not precisely that. I want ten minutes of you,” he repeated, lowering his brow to hers. “Just that, without anything or anyone.”

She drew in a breath, and smelled the shower on him. That lingering scent of soap on his skin. “It already feels good.” She touched her lips to his, angled her head. “Tastes good, too.”

He skimmed a finger down the dent in her chin, brushed his lips on hers. “So it does. And there’s this spot I know.” He used his finger to turn her head slightly, then laid his lips along her jawline, just below her ear. “Just exactly there. It’s perfect.”

“That one spot?”

“Well now, there are others, but that’s a particular favorite of mine.”

She smiled, then rested her head on his shoulder-a favorite spot of hers-and let him guide her through the easy dance. “Roarke.”

“Mmm?”

“Nothing. It just feels good to say it.”

His hand stroked up and down her back. “Eve,” he said. “You’re right again. It does. I love you. There’s nothing that feels more perfect than that.”

“Hearing it’s not bad. Knowing it’s the best.” She lifted her head, met his lips again. “I love you.”

They held on, and they ended the dance as they’d begun. With his brow resting against hers. “There, now,” he murmured. “That’s better.” He drew back, then lifted her hands to his lips.

He had a way, just that way, of making her insides curl. His lips warm on her skin, and those wild blue eyes looking over their joined hands into hers made her wish she had a hundred ten minutes just to be. As long as he could just be along with her.

“It’s pretty damn good,” she told him.

“Why don’t I get us a meal,” he suggested, “and you can tell me about those probabilities.”

“I’ll get it. It’s got to be my turn by now. You can go ahead and look them over if you want.”

She stepped back, turned. And saw, as she realized now he would have seen, her photo on the board. “Oh, Jesus. Jesus.” Appalled, she gripped a handful of her own hair and tugged. “Listen, this was stupid. I’m stupid. I only put this up there to-”

“Don’t call yourself stupid, for you’re far from it most of the time.” His tone was cool and even. “I’m more than happy to let you know when you are stupid. It’s not a problem for me.”

“Yeah, you’ve made that clear in the past. But this was just so-”

She broke off again when he held up a hand. “You put yourself there because you have to be objective, and more-you have to be able to see yourself as he does. Not only as you are, but as he sees you. If you don’t, you may be careless.”

“Okay, yeah.” She slid her hands into her pockets. “Got it in one. Are you okay with this?”

“Does it help you if I’m not okay with it? Obviously not. So I’ll deal with it. And I’ll kill him if he hurts you.”

“Hey, hey.”

“I’m not meaning the garden variety of bumps, bruises, and occasional bites,” he added with a glance at her leg, “you seem to incur on an alarmingly regular basis.”

“I hold my own,” she snapped back, oddly insulted. “And you’ve taken some hits yourself, pal.” Her eyes narrowed when he held up a finger. “Oh, I really hate when you do that.”

“Pity. If he manages to get past your guard, past me, and all the rest, and causes you real harm, I’ll do him with my own hands and in my own way. You’ll have to be okay with that, as that’s as much who and what I am and it’s who and what you are that put your own face up there.”

“He won’t get past my guard.”

“Then we won’t have a problem, will we? What’s for dinner?”

She wanted to argue, but she couldn’t find any room to maneuver. So she shrugged and stalked off toward the kitchen. “I want carbs.”

The man was exasperating. One minute he was kissing her hand in the sort of quietly romantic gesture that turned her to putty, and the next he was telling her he’d do murder in that calm, cool voice that was scarier than a blaster to the temple.

And the hell of it was, she thought as the cat bumped his head against her leg, he meant both those things absolutely. Hell, he was both of those things absolutely.

She ordered spaghetti and meatballs, leaned back on the counter, and sighed. He might be exasperating, complicated, dangerous, and difficult, but she loved every piece of the puzzle that made him.

She gave the now desperate Galahad a portion from each plate-fair was fair-before carrying them back into the office. She saw he’d correctly interpreted her carbs as spaghetti, and had opened a bottle of red. He sat, sipping, and scanning her comp screen.

“Maybe he’ll cause you real harm.” Eve set the plates on her desk. “Then I’ll kill him.”

“Works for me. Interesting questions posed here, Lieutenant.” As if it were any casual meal-and for them perhaps it was-Roarke expertly wound noodles around his fork. “Interesting percentages.”

“Probability’s high Mira hit it with the reasons he’s come back to New York, and the reason he’s targeted me. Also in the high range he’s connected to opera professionally. I’m not sure I agree.”

“Why?”

“Has to be a lot of work, right? Focus, energy, dedication. And in most cases, a lot of interaction with others. Factor it in, sure,” she said, studying the display on-screen, “but when I rolled it around during my thinking time, it doesn’t fit for me. He’s no team player. My gauge is he likes his quiet time. You could, on some level, call his killings performances, but that’s not how I see them. They’re more intimate. Just between him and the vic until he’s done.”

“A duet.”

“A duet. Hmm.” She rolled that around, too. “Yeah, okay, a duet, I can see that. One man, one woman, the dynamics there, extremely personal. A performance, okay, without an audience, too intimate to share. Because, I think, at some time he was intimately connected to the woman all the rest represent. Yeah. They were a duet.”