I don’t get it. I don’t get it.” Eve frowned through the windshield as Roarke drove home. “I know he’s right, I know it’s true, but I don’t get it.”

“Precisely what would it be?”

“How you can have the sex outside marriage, and that’s just hunky with everybody involved? Why bother with the marriage thing?”

“Finances, companionship, habit, security, status.”

“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.”

“You really should learn to form more definite opinions.”

“And the other thing, that she can’t get all her jollies from within the marriage? Okay, true-I hear this all the time, especially after he kills her or vice versa, but what crap.” Sheer annoyance had her slumping down in her seat. “If you didn’t have the sex buzz, you shouldn’t have hooked up.”

“Sometimes the buzz changes frequencies for one of the partners.”

“Okay. All right. Say I want to change frequencies. I decide I want you to suck your thumb and call me Mommy while I paddle your cute ass.” She shifted her gaze to his profile. “What do you say?”

“I would probably suggest a reasonable compromise, such as I’d like to suck on something else, preferably something attached to you, and I’ll call you whatever you like. If spanking must be involved, we’ll just have to take turns there.”

“See.” She poked his shoulder. “That works for me.”

“I sincerely hope not, but we can see.”

“No.” She snorted out a laugh. “I mean it works for me that you’d say let’s modify a little if I came up with something weird.”

“Remember that the next time I want to tie you up with your own underwear and slather your naked body with raspberry sauce.”

She slid her eyes toward him again. “Was there a first time?”

“Could be.”

The man, she mused, continued to surprise her. “Back to the point. I can’t see a marriage staying solid if one or both partners enters into an intimate relationship elsewhere. And profession aside, the LC-client relationship is intimate.” She considered, mulled, as Roarke drove through the gates. “Maybe, for instance, you’re married to this guy, everything’s frosty, then he turns out to be gay as an Easter basket. You got a problem. Maybe you stick it out because of those reasons you named-money, habit, whatever. And maybe you go to a professional to get off. But is that a marriage or just an arrangement?”

“Is there love? Your view on this is narrow. That’s how you’re built.”

It didn’t feel narrow to her. It felt right. “Marriage is a promise. That’s one of the ways you talked me into it. If you break one part of the promise, it’s going to crack other parts.”

“Even if both parties agree?”

“I don’t know.” She got out of the car. “But I’m interested to hear how Ava Anders explains it.”

Inside, they started upstairs together. “It seems to me,” Roarke said, “that if she’d wanted to hide the payments to Charles, she’d have paid in cash. And speaking of Charles, did he seem distracted tonight? Even before he understood why we were there?”

“Yeah, something. Maybe some trouble in paradise, even though he said everything was fine.”

“That would be a pity. They work together very well.”

When she started to turn toward her office, he took her hand, tugged her in the opposite direction. “What? I’ve got work.”

“We both always have work. Now, it’s nearly midnight, and you’ve had a very long day.”

“I just want to-”

“So do I. I’m thinking of ordering up some raspberry sauce.”

“Funny guy. You’re a funny guy. Look, I just want another hour to-”

“I have other plans for your next hour.” Shifting position, he began to back her into the bedroom. “Here’s that compromise. That…modification.” He depressed the release on the weapon harness she’d strapped back on to go out.

“Maybe I’m not in the mood.”

“Then…” He trailed a finger down her throat, flipped open the first button of her shirt. “I suppose you’re going to be bored. Fire on.” He opened the next button as the flames flashed in the hearth. “Lights off.”

He continued to back her toward the platform, and the lake-sized bed it held, watching her eyes when her harness and then her shirt fell to the floor. “Step up,” he warned when they reached the platform. “And again.” Then he gave her a light shove so she fell back on the bed.

“I guess I’ll just lie here and take it.”

“You do that.” He lifted her leg, pulled off her boot.

“Don’t take it personally if I nod off.”

“Of course not.” He tossed the second boot aside. He ran his hands up her legs, smiling at her quiver when they stroked over her center on the way to the hook of her trousers. He drew them down her legs, let them drop.

Eve faked a yawn, tapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

He cocked a brow. There wasn’t another woman in the world, he thought, who could amuse, challenge, and arouse him as she did. He pulled off his sweater, tossed it aside, then sat on the side of the bed to remove his own boots. Behind him, she made exaggerating snorting sounds until he pinched her.

“Oh, sorry. Was I snoring?”

He stood, unhooked his trousers, stepped out of them. “Go back to sleep,” he said as he slid onto the bed, slid onto her. “This won’t take long.”

She started to laugh, and the sound strangled when he closed his teeth over her breast through the thin tank she wore. “Okay then.” She cleared the huskiness out of her throat. “I guess I can give you a few minutes.”

“Well, now, I appreciate that.” He caught her nipple, exquisite control, while he trailed a fingertip up her inner thigh, traced it at the edge of the simple cotton.

He heard her breath catch, and felt her muscles twitch, then the quiet moan when he slid just under the cotton. Slipping toward the heat and away again, teasing while her heart kicked to gallop under his relentless mouth. All that strength, all that wit, all that will melted into need beneath him.

His mouth found hers, took, as he stroked her up, still up, up to the quivering edge.

Then he rolled off. “Well, that ought to do it.”

Her body all but screamed in denial.

She levered up, straddled him. He was hard as iron, and his gorgeous face covered with humor. “Funny guy,” she said again. Crossing her arms, she tugged the tank up and off, then crooked both her index fingers. “Hands on, pal.”

“Well, if you insist.”

He cupped her breasts, brushed his thumbs over her nipples. She planted her hands on either side of his head, and leaning down, feasted on his mouth. The taste of him. She loved the taste of him, would never have her fill of it. The way his lips fit to hers, the glide of his tongue. She could spend hours, days, on his mouth alone, on the magic she found there.

With her breath quickened, her skin already hot, she flipped away, flopped onto her back. “That ought to do it.”

They lay where they were a moment, then turning their heads, grinned at each other. And dove.

She laughed, and groaned, she gasped and giggled. The sheer fun and foolishness added bold, bright color to the deeper tones of desire. His hands were quick; her mouth avid. Together they moved recklessly over the big bed, under the cold stars gleaming through the sky window.

He drove her over, and her cry was of cheerful pleasure. This, he thought, this, the unity, the adventure of it, would always delight him. Sustain him. Even when he was inside her, when the need pounded them both, the utter joy of what they’d found, what they’d made, rushed through him. She was the happiness he’d searched for all of his life.

Her eyes, gilded by firelight, stayed on his; her lips curved. When they sprang over that shining edge together, his heart simply soared.

Under him, limp, her heart still pounding, she sighed. “Now, that,” she said, “should definitely do it.”