She knew he’d found a way to get around her with the whole splitting thing, so she took a sip. “I haven’t had that many Bellinis.”
“We’ll have to remedy that.”
“Anyway, it’s okay.”
“Not bad at all,” he agreed. “Civil suit.”
“What?”
“When you find Dorian, she can file a civil suit against Truman. CPS will get dragged in, but they should have done a better job overseeing this woman, shouldn’t they? And a good lawyer’s bound to find a few more children—perhaps adults by now—who have similar stories. Class action suit.”
The idea added a zing to the soother. “Sue her lazy, fucked-up ass.”
“I’ll wager a court would levy more than a slap on the wrist. Unlikely she has the funds to pay off a judgment, but it would make her life hell for quite some time. Then, you have a good friend who excels at exposés.”
“Nadine.” As she rolled it around, that simmering fury turned to satisfaction. “She’d lap this right up. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you have to focus on finding her, and on finding who abducted her and Mina, who killed Mina, and if there are others being held. This is extraneous.”
“Also brilliant. It’s handy having a business genius around.”
“Absolutely true. Finish that up now. We’ll do another round with the wand in the morning after you’ve had some sleep.”
He shifted the cat, then got up, set the wand aside.
Eve considered as he took off his shirt. “I think since you did the wand thing, the soother thing, you should finish me off.”
He angled a look at her as he took off his shoes. “Emotionally, physically, or sexually?”
She wound a finger in the air. “All of that.”
“Feeling better, are you now?”
“Nothing hurts.”
“I’d like to keep it that way.”
“If you don’t think you have the finesse…” She lifted her shoulders.
“Aren’t you the clever one?”
He unhooked his belt, then gestured for her to stand as he took off his jeans. He stepped forward to unbutton hers, added another gesture for her to lift her arms.
She wore a simple white sports bra, wiser, he thought than her usual support tank that would have put pressure on the ribs. Eyes on hers, he peeled it up and off, slowly, before cupping her breasts, sliding his thumbs over them.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, met his mouth with hers. He tempered the heat she put into the kiss, kept it soft, gentle, deep. When his hands glided down her—butterfly wings—her arms tugged to take them both to the bed. But he held her in place so they stood, body to body, as he nudged her jeans over her hips.
His mouth moved from hers to brush lightly, lightly over her jaw, then to her throat where her pulse beat. She ran her hands over his shoulders, then they locked there when he skimmed his lips over her breast. A feather of a touch that tripped her heartbeat while her hands skimmed through his hair to press him closer. Closer until he took more, until he felt her heart sprint under his lips.
When once again she would have pulled him down to the bed, he turned her until her back pressed against the bedpost. Then his hands, his lips traveled down so he treated himself to the taste of her skin. He could never get enough.
The length of that narrow torso, the hard body under soft flesh, and the quiver he could bring inside that tough, disciplined body all enchanted, aroused, overwhelmed him.
She felt those clever fingers ride her jeans down her legs, then slide back up her thighs until her legs went weak and wobbly.
He could make her float, make her want to float, weightless and weak and willing.
Then she was bared to him as his mouth found her, as his tongue slipped over, around, into her.
“Okay. Okay. God!” She had to wrap an arm behind her, around the post to stay upright. “Wait until—”
But he didn’t wait, so the orgasm spread like a fever, so it rocked through her, left her gasping. Helpless, desperate, thrilled, she moved against him and took more.
“Again.” He nipped at her inner thigh, then soothed that tiny, glorious pain with his tongue. He’d take all she had, then find more. When she came again, quaking with it, crying out from it, he slid slowly up her body and set off a storm in her with his fingers.
“Take me now,” he said as he slipped, slowly, slowly, into all that heat. “As I take you. Where we stand. Together.”
She saw his eyes, only his eyes, that wild, wonderful blue. And she knew love so keen she wondered it didn’t slice through them both.