In Death 24 - Innocent in Death

that was a setup. You bloody well know I couldn’t put my hands on her.”
     
    297
    “Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.” Eve shrugged off her coat, tossed it aside. “I know a setup when I see it, and I know your face, ace. I didn’t see desire on it, I saw annoyance.”
    “Is that so? Is that bloody well so? Well, if you knew it was just what it was, why did you sucker punch me?”
    “Mostly?” She turned, cocked a hip. “Because you’re a man.”
    Eyes narrowed on her face, he tried to stanch the blood with the back of his hand. “And do you have any sort of idea just how often I might expect your fist in my goddamn face because of my bleeding DNA?”
    “No, really don’t.” He looked so furious, so incredibly insulted. She wanted to rip off his clothes and bite his ass. “In fact, I think you’ve earned a good whupping.”
    “Bugger that. I’ve had about enough of women altogether.” The absurdity of the entire thing began to wind through his temper. “You’re fearsome and irrational creatures.”
    She rolled up on the balls of her feet and back again, flexed her knees. “Afraid to take me on? Come on, hotshot, you got punched for being a man. Act like one.”
    “It’s a man you want, is it?” He began to circle as she did. “I’m going to take you down.”
    “Look how scared I am. I’m shaking.” She feinted with her left, spun, and back-kicked.
    “Oh, no, that’s suppressed laughter.”
    He blocked the kick, then the next with his forearm, forced her to jump over the sweep of his foot. He worked her back toward the bed, and when he’d judged the distance, spun, then flipped her.
    She landed on her back on the bed, but when he dived after, she’d rolled off the other side. Crouched into fighting stance.
    “Not going to be that easy, ace.”
    “Who said I wanted it easy?”
    He rolled as well, and she had to give him credit for both speed and agility. She danced back, aimed a jab-blocked-then an elbow jab that connected. She pulled it. After all, she didn’t want him on the disabled list, not with what she had in mind.
    But she didn’t mind if he limped a little. Serve him right. She started to bring her heel down on his instep, but he turned into her, knocked her off balance.
    Together they rolled down the short steps of the platform and hit the floor with her on top.
    298
     
    “Ready to throw in the towel?” she asked, breathlessly.
    “No.” He scissored his legs, trapping hers, and reversed their positions. “You?”
    “My ass.” And she ripped his shirt open.
    “You’ll have to pay for that.”
    “Try to make me.”
    He hooked a hand in the collar of her shirt, tore it down the front. On a chain under it, she wore the diamond and the saint’s medal he’d given her. The arms of the shirt hung on her weapon harness.
    “Bloody cop,” he muttered, hitting the release.
    “Bloody criminal.”
    “Former, and no convictions.” He pressed his mouth to hers, swore at the burn in his wounded lip. “You pack a punch, Lieutenant.” He reared up enough to look down at her face-brown eyes full of challenge, wide mouth curved in a smug smile. “You’re my goddamn Valentine.”
    She laughed, grabbed two fistfuls of his hair. “You’d better believe it, buster.”
    She wanted to devour him, one greedy bite at a time, and let her nails dig a little into his back once she’d torn the tattered shirt away. She’d seen more than annoyance on his face when Magdelana had clung to him.
    Eve had seen what she might have missed if she and Roarke had been stupid enough, crazy enough, blind enough to pass each other by.
    “I love you.” She closed her teeth over his shoulder, gasped when his scraped down her throat. She hooked her legs around his waist, shoved so that he was under her again. With her mouth like a fever on his, on his flesh.
    So it wouldn’t be romantic and dreamy, a snowfall outside the window and gypsy violins singing in the air. It would be desperate, and a little rough. And as real and urgent as their heartbeats.
    He felt his survival depended on the taste and texture of her skin. He pulled and dragged at her clothes like a man possessed by demons.
    “You’ll give me all of you. All.”
     
    299
    “Take it,” she told him, and was under him again. His mouth ravaged her breast, and his hands…his hands, his hands.
    She cried out, rocketing up as the orgasm gathered and flashed through her like a ball of lightning. She heard him murmuring to her, the sound