The in Death Collection Books 11-15 - J. D. Robb [513]
When she rose to him, when he slid inside her, her vision blurred with tears.
“Don’t.” He pressed his cheek to hers. “Ah, don’t.”
“No.” She framed his face, let the tears come. “It’s so right. It’s so perfect. Can’t you see?” She lifted to him again. “Can’t you feel?” She smiled even as the tears sparkled on her cheeks. “You’ve made me beautiful.”
She held his face in her hands as they moved together, took that silky glide. When she felt him quiver, saw his eyes go to midnight, she knew it was he who surrendered.
After, they lay quiet, wrapped in each other. He waited for her arms to go limp, to slide away so he knew she slept. When they didn’t, he brushed a kiss over her hair.
“If you won’t sleep, you’ll eat.”
“I’m not tired. I need to finish the job down here.”
“After you’ve eaten.”
She might’ve argued, but she remembered how he’d looked, ramming his fists into the speed bag. “Something fast and easy then.” She lifted his hand, examined the knuckles. “Nice job, by the way. You’re going to have to take care of these.”
“Been awhile since I bashed them up quite this much.” He flexed his fingers. “Just scraped up though. Nothing’s jammed.”
“It would’ve been smarter to put gloves on.”
“But not as cathartic, I’d think.”
“Nope, there’s nothing quite like beating something into pulp with your bare hands for relaxation.” She shifted, straddled him. “We come from violent people. We’ve got that in us. The difference is we don’t let it loose whenever we feel like it on whoever’s handy. There’s something in us that stops that, that makes us decent.”
“Some of us are more decent than others.”
“Answer me this. Have you ever hit a child?”
“Of course I haven’t. Christ.”
“Ever beat or raped a woman?”
He sat up so she was forced to wrap her legs around his waist. “I’ve thought about giving you a quick shot now and again.” He balled his fist, tapped her chin gently with his bruised knuckles. “I know what you’re saying, and you’re right. We’re not what they were. Whatever they did to us, they couldn’t make us what they were.”
“We made ourselves. Now, I guess, we make each other.”
He smiled at her. “That was well said.”
“They didn’t give me a name.” She let out a slow breath. “When I remembered that, back there, it hurt. It made me feel small and useless. But now I’m glad they didn’t. They didn’t put their label on me. And, Roarke, right now anyway I’m glad I came here. I’m glad I did this. But what I want to do is get the information to the locals and get out. I don’t want to stay here longer than I have to. I want to go home tonight.”
He leaned into her. “Then we’ll go home.”
They got back to New York early enough for her to be able to say she needed to go into Central and make it sound plausible. She didn’t think Roarke bought it, but he let it slide.
Maybe he understood she needed the space, she needed the work. She needed the atmosphere that reminded her who and what she was at the core.
She bypassed Peabody’s cube, slipped quietly into her office, and shut the door. Locked it, as she rarely did.
She sat at her desk and was absurdly comforted at the way the worn seat fit to the shape of her butt. A testament, she thought, to all the hours she’d sat there, doing the job—the thinking, paperwork, ’link-transmissions, data-formulating part of the job.
This was her place.
She got up and walked to the window. She knew just what she would see, which streets, which buildings, even the most usual pattern of traffic that formed at that time of the day.
The part of her that was still quaking, the part she’d used every ounce of will to hide from Roarke, calmed just a little more.
She was where she was meant to be, doing what she was meant to do.
Whatever had come before, all the horrors, the fears, all funnelled into the now, didn’t they? Who could say if she would be here without them. Maybe, somehow, she was more willing