Thankless in Death

back after he collected the money, then take a shuttle to some other destination?”

    “It doesn’t fly for me. He had all the valuables to sell, and we know he started that process after the banking. So he doubled back, had another hole to crawl into, stowed the suitcases there while he hit the banks so he didn’t have to drag them around. I’d like his transportation method back to the banks, just to have a clearer picture.”
    She wriggled out of the pants and, standing in her underwear, started to open a drawer for a T-shirt and jeans.
    “Bus is smarter, but—”
    He cut her off by spinning her around, yanking her in, and taking her mouth. Hot, lusty, possessive, and lightly edged with humor.
    When she managed to grab a breath, she attempted a quick shove. “Hey.”
    He just took her mouth again, spun her again—twice and toward the bed. She considered putting up a fight, for form’s sake, but just wriggled back enough to scowl at him. “I’m working.”
    “Not yet, and you’re mostly naked. Such a fine look on you, one of my favorites.”
    “Then why is that closet full of clothes?”
    “Because being an understanding sort, I appreciate your insistence on being fully dressed in public.”
    He gripped her hips, boosted her up so he could carry her onto the platform where the bed spread like a blue lagoon. Then he tipped so they fell back on it with her pinned under him.
    “Just because we postponed soufflé doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a bite of dessert now.”
    To prove it, he closed his teeth over her jaw.
    “And you’re what I’ve a taste for.”
    “Sex, sex, sex.”
    “If you insist.”
    His mouth claimed hers again, muffling the laugh she’d tried tohold back. What the hell, she thought. He was mostly naked, too. She grabbed his exceptional ass, gave it a hard squeeze. “You better make it good.”
    “I’m always up for a challenge.”
    “You’re always up.” And to prove that , she slid her hands around, between them, and found him. The next hard squeeze brought on a moan, had him shifting his teeth to her throat.
    How quickly he could make her need, each time, every time. No matter how familiar, this sweep of feelings always struck as new. And overwhelming.
    The weight of his body, the shape of it, the demands of his clever mouth and skilled hands never failed to make her want and want, and revel in knowing she could have.
    She let the hunger, and the greed with it, the whippy storm of sensations—all the sudden heat, the wonderful aches-—invade. She let them conquer, and gathering them turned them back to him.
    She gave and she took, everything he needed to have, everything he wanted to give in return. Wrapped around him, possessing as he possessed, she met every demand, made her own.
    He knew the rhythms of her body, and all the secret places to exploit, to seduce, to inflame. Yet she remained a fascination and glorious surprise to him, a constant gift for body and soul.
    The way her hands wound through and gripped his hair when he fed from her breast aroused as much as that firm curve, that silky skin. Subtle as the beat of butterfly wings, her quick, rippling tremors, the catch of her breath at his touch added a keen and lusty edge.
    The arch of her body—so lithe, so ready—the pounding drum of her heartbeat under his lips told him she needed, wanted, as urgently now as he.

    He pleased himself, riding his hands along skin, smooth and warm over tough and disciplined muscle. Delighted himself with the long, supple length of her, his warrior, his wife.
    And when his mouth came back to hers, when hers clung to his, fever-hot, that pleasure, that delight spiked beyond reason.
    Wet and hot he found her, and drove her up and up, swallowing her gasps and cries like a man starving. When she broke beneath him, he didn’t relent, couldn’t, stroking those fires until she thrashed under him.
    “Now. Now. Inside me. You.”
    When she bowed up, quivering, he thrust inside her, hard and deep.
    Now, she thought again, her breath sobbing, her hands groping. The quaking shook down to her core, shuddered toward her heart as they rode each other. The mating, fast and furious, ruled them both, carved all else away.
    Again she thought, you. You. And when she broke this time, he broke with her.
    She lay absorbing the aftershocks of her body, and of his. She remembered she’d thought, before Roarke, sex was a basic—sometimes complicated—method of release.
    After Roarke? That