Bitches. Whores.

All but consumed with rage, he stormed around the apartment.

He had the screen on repeat, playing the Channel 75 interview and the media conference over and over and over.

He couldn't help himself.

They'd sent women out after him. Women discussing him, analyzing him, condemning him. Did they think he was going to take that? Look at them. Pretending to be so good, so clean, so righteous. But he knew better. He'd seen, and he knew.

Underneath they were cheap and vicious. Weak and vile.

He was stronger. Look at him now. Just look.

He did, turning to one of the walls of mirrors to admire his body. The sheer shape and strength. The perfection he'd worked so hard to achieve. He was a man.

"Do you see? Do you see what I am?" He turned, holding out his arms, and a dozen pairs of eyes stared back at him as they floated in their jars.

They could see him now. She could see him. She had no choice but to look at him. Forever.

"What do you think now, Mother? Who's in charge now?" They were all hers. All those staring eyes. But she was still out there, judging him, ready with her punishing hand, her slashing belt. Ready to lock him in the dark so he couldn't see. So he wouldn't know.

He'd take care of that. Oh, yes, he would. He'd fix her little red wagon. He'd show her who was boss. He'd show all of them.

They'd pay. This mother's son would make them pay, he thought as he stared back at the screen. He'd show them what he could do.

These three. He moved closer to the screen, gritting his teeth as he looked at Eve, at Peabody, at Nadine. They'd have to be punished. Sometimes you had to deviate from the plan, that's all. So they'd have to be punished. You were punished when you were bad. You were punished when you were good.

He'd save the top bitch for last, that's what he'd do. He smiled fiercely at Eve.

It was always smart to save the best for last.

It was a good meal, with good company. For nearly two hours, murder didn't play in her head. She enjoyed, particularly, watching Roarke relate. The way he slid, so smoothly, between Charles's urbane sophisticate and McNab's street-smart wiseass. How he mixed with the women, flattering without being oily, flirting without being obnoxious.

Effortlessly. Or it seemed effortless. But wouldn't he have things on his mind, too? The big wheels and complex deals that made up his work and a large part of his life. He would've spent the day buying and selling God knew what, coordinating and supervising projects she couldn't begin to imagine. Taking meetings, making decisions, contemplating the enormous chessboard of his empire.

Then he could sit, over coffee and dessert, telling a story about some bar fight from his youth to make McNab roll with laughter, or exchanging opinions about great art with Charles.

On the way home, he reached over, brushed a hand over hers. "That was a very nice evening."

"It didn't even nearly suck." "High praise indeed." She laughed at herself, stretched out her legs. Somewhere along the line she'd taken his advice. She'd relaxed. And after she'd relaxed, damn if she hadn't enjoyed. "I mean it." "Darling Eve, I know you do." "You're a layered guy, Roarke." "I'm nothing if not." "I don't know why I'm surrounded by smart-asses." "Birds of a feather." "Anyway," she said after a beat. "It was educational to watch you schmooze." "I wasn't schmoozing. Schmoozing is business, or business-related.

This was personal and friendly conversation." "Ha. The things you learn." She leaned her head back. She was tired, but she realized, she wasn't weighed down by fatigue. "There was a lot of conversation. And it wasn't even boring or irritating." "God." He picked up her hand, pressed it to his lips as he drove through the gates. "I adore you." "Lot of that going around tonight, too." "It was pleasant to spend time with two couples so obviously in love." "Hard to miss it with all the gooey looks and pats and strokes. Sex sizzling in the air and all that. You ever think how it'd be if you switched them around?" "Sizzling looks, gooey sex? I think of little else." She snickered as they got out of the car to walk to the door. "No. The people. You put Peabody with Charles and McNab with Louise. It'd be totally screwed up." "You could put Peabody with Louise." "Sick. You're a sick man." "Just playing the game." He took her hand as they walked upstairs to the bedroom. "You seem to have your second wind, Lieutenant." "I think it's my third, maybe fourth of the day. I actually feel pretty good." She booted the door shut behind her. "In fact, sitting around in all that sizzle's got me hyped. How about some gooey sex?" "Thought you'd never ask." Hooking an arm around his neck, she jumped so he could catch her in his arms. She calculated her weight, his, narrowed her eyes. "How far do you figure you can carry me?" "To the bed would be my first guess." "No, I mean how far do you think you could haul me like this? Especially if I'm…" She went limp, dropped her weight, let her arms dangle.

She felt him shift and adjust, not quite stagger. "Tougher this way, right?" "I still think I can manage the bed, where I certainly hope you plan to revive a bit." "You're in good shape, but I bet you'd feel it if you had to carry me, say, twenty, thirty yards like this." "Since I haven't strangled you, yet, I won't have to." She boosted back up as he climbed the platform with her.

"Sorry. No murder in the bedroom tonight." She kept her arms locked around his neck when he lowered her to the bed. "You touch me." Obviously amused, he nipped at her chin and that wonderful hair brushed her cheeks like strands of silk. "That's definitely on the agenda." "No." She laughed again, then rolled over on top of him.

"When we're just hanging out, when you don't even think about it. I like it." She leaned down to rub her lips over his, and linking fingers, stretching sinuously down, slid his arms over his head. "I like this."

"Enjoy yourself," he invited.

"Probably should make it fairly quick, in case I lose this third, fourth wind." She closed her teeth over his jaw, nipping lightly.

Keeping his hands locked with hers, she ran her lips down his throat, traced them back to his. Then she curled back like a cat to unbutton his shirt.

"Yeah." She rubbed her hands over his chest. "You're in shape." Then her lips.

She could feel his heartbeat pick up, drum lightly under her hands and lips. He wanted. Wasn't it amazing he always wanted her? The muscles of his belly quivered when she tasted there, and jumped when she ran her tongue under his waistband.

She slid down the zipper, freed him. Tormented him.

Then uncurling, she watched him as she peeled off her shirt, as she took his hands and pressed them to her breasts.

On a low hum of pleasure her head fell back. His hands were hard and smooth and skilled. The long, liquid tugs began, from heart to belly, from belly to loins, when he used them on her.

"Let me. Let me have-" He reared up, clamped his mouth on her, and the hum became a sob, the tugs a burn.

Now it could be desperate, now it could be urgent. Slick body straining to slick body, hands and mouths greedy for more. The sharp nip of teeth, the quick bite of nails, the hot slide of tongues.

She was trembling when she straddled him. Once again their hands and eyes locked. She took him in, took him deep.

And cried out.

Breathless, she lowered her brow to his, fought for breath, for sanity. "A minute," she managed. "It's too much. Wait a minute."

"It's not too much." His mouth seared over hers. "It's never too much." Never would be. She rose up, and rode.