“Christmas gift, I bet.”

  “I’d agree.”

  “Not enough,” Eve concluded. “Not enough for the dead-artist angle.”

  Stripped down to her underwear, she tried to think it through. Then just shook her head.

  “Even the cynical cop has a hard time tying her into it. Why would she want Erin dead? I can’t see it.”

  “Consider it time to turn it off, and see what comes to you in the morning.”

  She knew he had that right, but her mind wanted to circle. She considered him, standing there all lean and gorgeous in his boxers.

  “Hard to turn it off. I need a distraction.” She took three running steps and launched herself at him. Hooked her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. “And here you are.”

  “Your distraction, is it?”

  “You’re so good at it.” She captured his mouth with hers until her humming system smothered the fatigue. “See? I’m already distracted.”

  “I suppose I’d best finish the job then.”

  “Well, obviously.”

  All but nose-to-nose, she laughed as he carried her to the bed and dumped her on it.

  With a low growl, Galahad rolled away and jumped down.

  “Serves him right for getting pissy with me.” Rearing up, she nipped at Roarke’s chin. “All right, ace, you’ve got a job to do.”

  “And I do love my work.”

  Now he took her mouth in a slow, deep, dreamy kiss that not only sent her system humming but clouded her too-busy brain. She sighed into it. As his hands ran down her sides, her skin tingled.

  “See, really good at it.”

  Everything in her went soft, and all the sharp edges of the day smoothed into quiet pleasure. As the half-moon peeked through the sky window over the bed, she combed her fingers through his hair, the thick mass of it, and down the firm muscles of his back.

  She sighed again, lifting her arms as he drew her support tank up and over her head. His hands—they had magic in them—glided up her ribs, over her breasts, up to cup her face before gliding down again.

  A gentle passion, lulling her into a dream state.

  He loved seeing her like this, utterly relaxed, utterly open. All that fierce energy quelled into surrender, not just to him but to self.

  He could give, and she could take, then give back in return.

  It never ceased to enthrall him, this meeting of bodies, minds, hearts. No matter what troubled him, troubled her, no matter what horrors crept through the shadows of the world, they had this gift, this love, this passion. And the union it forged between them.

  He rolled, reversing positions, and she came with him, her body fluid as wine. Her mouth sought his, and clung there while he peeled the simple white briefs down her narrow hips.

  He rolled again, bodies tangling over the big bed, the smooth sheets. As warm skin edged toward hot, he closed his mouth over her breast, slid his hand between her legs.

  When she cried out in release, he felt the orgasm rocket through that long, strong body. Even as she shuddered with it, he drove himself into her so dark delight layered over dark delight.

  Not a distraction, an eruption with a change of tone both abrupt and glorious. She flew on it, stormed with it when he shoved her knees up to take more, give more.

  And desperate for the more, she matched his speed, his urgency until everything went bright and hot and beautiful. Until more was impossible.

  Until he said her name and emptied into her.

  She lay under the weight of him, dazed and drowsy. She felt his heart pounding against hers, or hers pounded against his. She couldn’t quite tell the difference.

  The moon held a new place in the sky window, white and clear against the dark.

  Her lips curved when he pressed his to the side of her neck.

  “I believe I did my job.”

  “Damn good job. Kudos. Where does that come from? Kudos? What language is that?”

  “Don’t make me have to distract you again.” He shifted her, nestled her in. “Give that mind of yours a rest.”

  “You don’t have another distraction in you?”

  “Well now, if that’s a challenge—”

  “No.” She managed a sleepy laugh. “I’m tapped out.” But she laid a hand on his cheek. “And the cat’s back,” she added when Galahad jumped on the bed again.

  As she began to drift off, it occurred to her they had a really big bed, and she ended up sleeping in it night after night, wedged between Roarke and the cat.

  And she liked it.

  Chapter Eleven

  It didn’t surprise her to find herself within a dream. The dead woman preyed on her mind.

  Maybe being murdered in the same room where she herself had been targeted for death played into it. Maybe dying right before her wedding as she herself might have played into it.

  Whatever reason nudged at her subconscious, she stood in the Down and Dirty with the music pounding, the holo-band rocking. Onstage with them, Shauna Hunnicut and Nadine Furst, both half-naked, danced like lunatics.

  There was Peabody, with her bowl cut, giggling like a drunk teenager, and Angie Decker laughing with Mira. Mavis, with no baby belly, standing on a table. Crack at the bar, grinning as he mixed a drink for Lopez.

  All of this happened, she thought. Different times, but the same place, and now it blurred together into one wild and singular party.

  “They’re having so much fun.” Erin stood beside her wearing the pink heels, the grass skirt, coconut bra. “Celebrating for us.”

  “I wasn’t really into it,” Eve said. “I was just coming around to understanding I wanted the whole marriage thing. It still scared the crap out of me, but I wanted it. I just didn’t know why I wanted it.”

  “I wasn’t scared, and I wanted it more than I ever wanted anything. More than anything.” Erin said it softly, like a sigh. “But we both loved, you and me. We loved somebody who loved us, and we both had friends who wanted to celebrate that. That’s really mag.”

  Erin looked down at herself, brushed a hand over the grass skirt. “I never had a chance to put this on and make Shauna’s dream come true. We never had a chance to put on our white dresses and make the promises you made.”

  “No, you didn’t. I’m sorry. I’m no expert,” Eve added, “but I think you’d’ve made a solid life together.”

  “Who says you’re no expert?” Erin did a little hula that made the grass skirt sway. “You know people. You get under the skin and know who they are.”

  “That’s the job.”

  “Yeah. Your job, and you’re trying to find out why I’m dead, and who killed me. I wish I could tell you, but this is just a dream.”

  “I know.”

  “You got lucky.” The statement held no bitterness, just flat truth. “I sure as hell didn’t. I’m glad you did, since you’re trying to find out why and who. But you got lucky. He wanted you dead, that dirty cop, and if he’d gotten the full dose in you, if you’d been drinking like he figured, you’d be dead.”

  “I was getting married the next day. Maybe I didn’t know completely why I was getting married the next day, but I wanted to stay sober.”

  “We were supposed to have a few more days before the white dresses. I was a little bit drunk.”

  They stood at the doorway of the privacy room now. For a moment Eve saw herself, fighting Casto off. He’d gotten some of the drug into her, and he’d blackened her eye, but she’d taken him down.

  And the next day, a bright summer day, she’d married Roarke under an arbor of flowers. She’d carried petunias and made those promises to him. He’d made those promises to her.

  They’d kept them for three years and counting.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it, being married?”

  She glanced over at Erin. “Most of the time, yeah. It’s nice. And when it’s not, you know it’ll get back there.”

  “You trusted the bad cop, maybe not a hundred percent, but enough to be in there with him. But you knew how to fight. Me? I know how to paint, how to make art. I know how to tend bar and serve tables, how to clean an apartment. I don’t know how to fight.”

  “You didn’t have a chance to fight. And it wasn’t personal with Casto. It was … business.”

  She saw Erin on the floor now, in her party dress stained with blood that had flowed from the necklace of blood around her throat.

  “You never had a chance.”

  “I trusted the wrong person. So did Shauna. But I’m dead, and she still trusts the wrong person, right? She doesn’t know she trusts the person who killed me.”

  “No,” Eve said as the music and laughter banged her awake. “She doesn’t.”

  When she woke, the man she’d married while she’d sported a black eye—mostly disguised with makeup—sat on the sofa, tablet in hand, cat across his lap.

  The wall screen ran the stock report on mute as he sat in his sleek black suit with its gray pinstripes.

  She smelled coffee, and wished someone would just pour some in her before she had to move.

  The dream hadn’t answered any questions, but it clarified, if it mattered, just how much the investigation brought back the incidents on the eve of her own wedding.

  And what it meant to her to wake like this, on so many mornings, and see him there, sitting across the room.

  “It shouldn’t be possible,” Roarke said without looking up, “but I can actually hear your brain waking up.”

  “It can get noisy in there.”

  “And often does.” He looked over now, and the easy smile faded. “Did you dream?”

  “Yeah. Not a nightmare, just a dream.”

  “That troubles you.” Rising, he went to the AutoChef, programmed coffee. When he brought it to her, she sat up.

  Instead of taking the coffee, she framed his face with her hands and kissed him. “It shows how smart I was and am to marry a man who’d know how much I need coffee and get me some.”

  “And how smart I was and am to have lured you with real coffee in the first place.”

  “Yeah, that was pretty smart.” She took it now, drank. “Like that first bite of New York pizza, my first taste of real coffee was a revelation.”

  “And the dream? A revelation?”

  “Not really. Maybe on a personal level a little. It blurred the murder party with the one at the D&D the night before we got married.”

  And because he remembered, very well, the bruises on her face, he stroked her cheek.

  “That’s hardly a wonder, considering.”

  “No, and it’s stuck with me through this. The whole girl pre-wedding thing, the D&D, the same goddamn room. I got lucky; she didn’t.”

  “It’s never only luck with you, Eve. You have the training, the skills, the reflexes the victim couldn’t have.”

  “I didn’t trust Casto all the way. Enough to give him that shot at me, but not all the way. And…” She had to admit it. “I didn’t like the way he was with Peabody. It bugged me the way he moved in on her. But she’d been my aide like five minutes, so I didn’t push on that.”

  She shook her head, drank more coffee. “Anyway, everybody’s all mixed and mingling together. Nadine, Peabody, Mavis, Mira, and all that along with the other group. And I’m standing there with the victim.”

  She told him.

  “There’s truth in there,” he said. “Erin trusted the wrong person, and Shauna would trust the same one. Still trusts the same one.”

  “Which makes me wonder, should I worry about her now? Will that trust—or some detail or memory that cuts through it—make her a target?”

  “It’s easier to kill a second time, and yet, wouldn’t that risk focusing the investigation even more narrowly?”

  Too early in the day to hit him with how he thought like a cop. Plus, he’d brought her coffee.

  “There was a lot of luck in that first kill. Planning, yeah, and I think the intent to kill Erin had been in the works awhile. But the opportunity, that just opened right up. And the victim, trusting, opened the door for her killer by handing over that opportunity.”

  “Right now, Shauna’s surrounded by friends, family as well, I expect. Getting her alone with enough cover to get away with it? Opportunities would be severely limited.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you’ll worry.” He tapped her head. “Because it’s very noisy in there.”

  “Some. Thanks for the coffee.”

  She got out of bed and into the shower.

  Surrounded by friends, Eve reminded herself. It would take more than luck for the killer, who was certainly among those friends, to get Shauna alone, kill her, and come up with cover.

  She’d have to keep that worry in the back of her head, as she needed the rest to pinpoint the killer.

  After a spin in the drying tube, she grabbed a robe—this one a pale lavender—and stepped out.

  He had breakfast under domes, and the cat banished to the floor. Because he still worked on his tablet, she walked over, topped off his coffee, and poured herself another.

  “What’s going on with that?”

  “Some of this, and some of that. Infrastructure improvement on your cop bar, Off Duty. We’re so well under way that I imagine you can reopen by the holidays.”

  “I’m not opening anything. It’ll have to open itself.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Because his response made her think he had ideas, and she didn’t want to spoil her breakfast, she ignored that.

  “And some work on guest rooms on the Great House Project. Both sides. Some communications with Peabody’s parents, who’ve let me know their housewarming gifts will be on the way by the end of the week.”

  “Partner’s desk and blown-glass ceiling light. She’s told me a half dozen times. More than.” Eve lifted the domes.

  Waffles! Never the wrong choice.

  “They’re coming, right? The Peabodys?”

  “They are, but wanted the desk and light in place, as hopefully a surprise.”

  “Not big on surprises right now.” She drowned her waffles in butter and syrup. “But I’ll keep it zipped.”

  “They also have gifts for Mavis and Leonardo. A charming little child’s picnic table with benches, and a lovely family sculpture—Mavis holding an infant, Leonardo holding Bella. A thank-you for opening their family to Peabody and McNab.”

  “Nice. Seriously on target. We’ve the gift thing covered, right?”

  “We do, and they’ll arrive well before move-in.”

  “Okay, good. The partner’s desk deal. That would never work for us.”

  “I do on occasion use your auxiliary.”

  “On occasion, and for short duration. How could you buy the next quadrant of the universe if I’m sitting across from you digging for a murderer?”

  “And how could you dig for a murderer if I’m sitting across from you negotiating the price of the next quadrant of the universe?”

  “Exactly. But it’ll work for Peabody and McNab. How do you negotiate buying a quadrant of the universe?”

  “Skillfully. But this morning I settled for closing the deal on a small resort in Australia.”

  “Australia? What are you going to do with a resort in Australia?”

  “Make some improvements, which will include a five-star luxury spa and a few private villas. It’s been let go a bit.”

  “So you grabbed the opportunity.”

  “I did, yes. But I’ll look into that quadrant for you first chance I have.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.” She polished off her waffles, rose to go to her closet.

  “Why are there kangaroos there? It’s not like you see them hopping around the Bronx.”

  “You don’t often see elephants or lemurs there, either. I suppose things have their place.”

  “And crocodiles. They’ve got crocodiles down there. Who decided it was a good idea to make something that swims around waiting to eat you? Sharks. There’s another one. What do they do but swim around, eat fish—or people when they get a chance—and make more sharks?

  “And people think New York’s dangerous,” she continued. “Then they’re off swimming in some lagoon, la-la-la, and chomp. Or it’s how much fun it is to hike in the woods, and bang, a snake bites your ass. You decide to vacation in some cabin, because peaceful and pretty vistas. And it’s all fine until some bear mauls you to death.”

  Roarke listened with genuine fascination as she reeled off various deaths by nature.

  “Sailing along in your big-ass yacht, drink too much, fall overboard. And a shark bites off your leg. Take an African safari, and you’re just asking to get eviscerated, dragged off into some jungle, and eaten. But people do it.”

  She stepped out in tan trousers, a white tee, carrying a navy jacket.

  “People do it,” she repeated, and walked over to hook on her weapon harness. “Then they come here, goggle at everything with their wallets all but hanging out, and when it’s stolen, people back where they come from remind them, smugly, New York’s a dangerous place. How they should’ve gone to Australia to see the cute kangaroos.”

  She loaded her pockets.

  “And when they do, Marge is taking pictures of the cute kangaroos when one of the big bastards with the long claws hops up and slices Waldo open so his guts spill out on the ground.”

  “Remind me not to let you anywhere near the marketing for the resort.”

  She sent Roarke a dark, knowing look. “It could happen—the guts, not me and marketing. I’ve got to go meet Peabody at the art gallery.”

  Still fascinated, he rose. Then gripped her hips, kissed her. “I don’t expect you to come across kangaroos or sharks and the rest, but see you take care of my cop nonetheless.”

  “I’ll do that. Galahad’s enjoying the syrup still on the plates.”

  Roarke glanced back, saw the cat licking his whiskers. “Bloody hell. You distracted me.”

  “Guess I’m good at it, too.” She gave him another quick kiss. “See you later.”

  She’d distracted herself, she admitted as she jogged downstairs and out. With thoughts on predatory wildlife.