In Death 29 - Kindred in Death

sheer physical push and pleasure of spurring herself, and him.
    Challenge and motion, skin and water, speed and need.
    And when he caught her, slick, wet body to slick, wet body, in midstroke, she was ready for him.
    Searching, their mouths came together, cool from the water, hot from hunger. With quick, frantic bites she answered the urgency of the kiss while her racing heart pressed to his. She wrapped her legs around his waist, too desperate to care if they sank like stones.
    “Now.” She’d go mad if it wasn’t now.
    She captured him even as he gripped her hips, and those hips plunged, demanding more, taking more. When he gave her more, shoving her back to the wall, bracing her, her head fell back on a single choked cry.
    Strong, sleek, he thought as he ravaged her neck. And always so much his. Love and lust, need and pleasure swirled inside him as water fumed up in the storm of their mating.
    With him, again with him, beat for beat, demand for demand, in this last frantic lap of the race. She chained herself to him, arms and legs locked like shackles as her mouth fused to his once more.
    And strong and sleek, she quivered for him as he drove them both to the finish.
    He lowered his brow to her shoulder, then managed to grip the edge when she started to slide. “Have a care.” He could barely murmur it. “Or they’ll find us both floating facedown in the morning.”
    “Okay.” But she curled into him. “Need a minute.”
    “You’re not alone. I had no idea swimming laps made such intense foreplay.”
    “My idea.”
    “There, you’ve collected sex credit and friend credits in the same day.”
    The sound she made was half laugh, half sigh. “Louise is all nervous about the wedding, about all the details being perfect. She has charts and time lines and told me how she’s a wreck of nerves and didn’t expect to be.”
    “It’s an exceptionally important day.”
    “Yeah, but I said she’s nervous about the minutiae because she’s not nervous about the marriage, about Charles, what they’re doing and why.”
    He brushed his cheek to hers as he drew back to study her. “Aren’t you the wise one?”
    “I wasn’t nervous about the details of the wedding stuff when we got married. I barely paid attention to them, dumped it on you.”
    “You did.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “But then you were distracted by a serial killer.”
    “No, that’s not it. I mean, yeah, that was a factor.” She brushed his hair, wet black silk, away from his face. “But I figured out I wasn’t nervous about the minutiae because I was nervous about the rest. About marriage, you, what we were doing and why. I thought that was the crazy part of it—you, me, marriage.” She cupped his face in her hands, looked into his eyes. “I’m really happy I was wrong. I’m re ally happy.”
    It surged through him, everything she was to him. “There, too, you’re not alone.”
    She brought her lips to his again, softer now, sweeter. Then eased back. “That’s enough of that. Breather’s over.”
    She wiggled free, pushed to the head of the pool to climb out. When he stepped out, she tossed him a towel.
    “As breathers go, it was exceptional.”
    “Yeah, well, anything worth doing. He’d think that.”
    Roarke wrapped a towel around his waist. “And our transition is complete.”
    “Well, my head’s cleared. I think he’s good at what he does—careful. Doesn’t want too much attention. But he’s the reliable guy, the one who gets it done without the fanfare. People would say, oh yeah, Murdering Bastard’s reliable. I bet he hates that.”
    “Why so?”
    Tossing on a robe she walked to the elevator. She’d change into soft clothes for the rest of the night’s work. “Because he’s better than that. Better than they are. He’s young, he’s good-looking, charming, efficient, smart, and skilled enough to come up with, or get someone else to come up with this e-virus that’s got all you geeks stumped.”
    “We’re not stumped,” Roarke corrected with some annoyance as they rode to the bedroom. “The bleeding investigation is ongoing and we’re pursuing all shagging avenues.”
    While it amused her to hear him quote the usual departmental line—with the addition of the Irish—she shrugged. “Point’s the same. He’s not going to be in management, not even middle management unless it requires wearing a name tag. He’ll be the clerk or tech or laborer who never bitches about getting work or