In Death 17 - Imitation in Death

distinctly male.
     
     
Men, she'd observed, habitually termed the inanimate objects they cursed by uncomplimentary female names. Hell, she did the same herself.
     
     
A couple of lightning bolts popped in the sky, and the thunder rolled closer in one long, menacing growl. Eve felt the first splat of rain in the rising wind.
     
     
She walked over- to rescue the bottle of champagne while Roarke stared at the. grill.
     
     
"I'm thinking pizza," she said and started into the house.
     
     
"It's just a glitch." Roarke scraped what was left of the food into the unit's garbage disposal feature. "This isn't finished," he grumbled to it, and followed Eve into the house. "I'll have another look at it tomorrow, he told her.
     
     
"You know. " She crossed to the AutoChef, which was, in her opinion, the sensible way to cook. "... it's sort of nice to see that you can screw up like the rest of us mortals. Get all sweaty and frustrated and curse out inanimate objects. Though I'm not convinced that thing outside is inanimate."
     
     
"A factory defect, no doubt." But he was grinning now. "I'll see to, it tomorrow."
     
     
"Bet you will. You want to eat in here?"
     
     
"That's fine. We won't likely eat in the kitchen much after tonight, with Summerset due home tomorrow."
     
     
She stopped dead, the glass halfway to her lips. "Tomorrow? That can't be right. He just left five minutes ago."
     
     
"Tomorrow, noon." He walked over to flick a finger over the dent in her chin. "It's been considerably longer than five minutes."
     
     
"Make him extend it. Tell him to... he should take a trip around the world. In a boat. One of those boats you row by hand. It'll be good for him."
     
     
"I offered him more time. He's ready to come home." "Well, I'm not ready." She threw up her hands.
     
     
He only smiled, leaned in, and kissed her forehead as he might, a child's.
     
     
She huffed out a breath. "Okay then. Okay. But now we have to have sex on the kitchen floor."
     
     
"I beg your pardon?"
     
     
"It's on my to-do list, and we didn't get to it yet, so we'll have to go for it now. Pizza can wait."
     
     
"You have a to-do list?"
     
     
"It was supposed to be spontaneous, and uncontrolled, but we'll have to go with what we've got."
     
     
She drained the glass of champagne, set it down, then released her weapon harness. "Go on, strip it off, pal."
     
     
"A sexual to-do list?" Amused, fascinated, he watched her dump her harness on the counter, then start on her boots. "Was that bout we had last week on the dining room table, and the floor, on your list?"
     
     
` That`s right." She pried off a boot, kicked it aside.
     
     
`Let me see the list." " He held out a hand, wiggled his fingers.
     
     
Bent over for the second boot, she lifted her head. "It's what you'd call a mental list." She tapped her head. "All up here. You're not stripping."
     
     
"I love your mind."
     
     
"Yeah, well, let's just, get this little chore ticked off, then we can-"
     
     
She broke off when he swooped her up, then dumped her butt first on the kitchen counter. Taking her hair in two fists, he yanked her mouth to his, and ravished.
     
     
"Spontaneous enough for you?' he asked when she sucked in a breath.
     
     
"It might be-" The words tumbled back down her throat when he ripped her shirt open.
     
     
"How's that for uncontrolled?"
     
     
It was a little hard to comment when her mouth was being assaulted again. He yanked what was left of her shirt down to her wrists. Her hands were trapped, tripping an instinctive panic that tangled messily with a spurt of excitement as he tugged the tattered material like a rope.
     
     
Her hands were behind her back now, and the blood was buzzing in her ears. She couldn't seem to draw a full breath. The champagne she'd drank began to spin giddily in her head, and her thigh muscles quivered.
     
     
"My hands," she managed.
     
     
"Not yet." He was mad for hors It seemed he spent his life mad for her. The shape and the scent of her, the taste and the feel of her. And now the sound she made as his hand raced over her.
     
     
He feasted on her skin, the lovely rise of her breast with her heart raging under his mouth. She moaned again, trembled, losing herself, he knew, as he used his tongue, his teeth.
     
     
Let go. There was nothing more arousing to him than when she let go.
     
     
She still couldn't breathe, but no longer cared. Sensations were storming her, too brutal, too dark, to be