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“I didn’t lose.”
Roarke glanced over, smiled at the view of her pretty naked butt as she gathered up her clothes. “I didn’t say you did.”
“You’re thinking it. I can hear you thinking it. I just don’t have time to finish playing that stupid game.”
“It’ll hold.” He fastened his trousers. “I’m hungry. Let’s have something to eat.”
“It’ll have to be quick. I’ve got work. I want to go over and take a look at Draco’s hotel room.”
“That’s fine then.” Roarke wandered to the AutoChef, considered, and decided a cool, sleety night called for something homey. He ordered beef and barley stew for both of them. “I’ll go with you.”
“It’s police business.”
“Naturally. Just doing my civic duty again, Lieutenant.” Because he knew that would irritate her, he offered her a bowl and a smile. “It’s my hotel, after all.”
“It would be.” Because she knew he meant to irritate her, she scooped up a bite. And scalded her tongue. It wasn’t a crime scene, she thought as she blew some of the heat from the second spoonful. And she could use Roarke’s eyes, his mind, not that she wanted to admit it.
“Fine.” She shrugged. “But you stay out of my way.”
He nodded agreeably. Not that he had any intention of doing what she asked. Where was the fun in that? “Will we be picking up Peabody?”
“She’s off. She had a date.”
“Ah. With McNab?”
Eve felt her appetite take an abrupt nosedive. “She doesn’t date McNab.” At Roarke’s look of surprise, she stubbornly stuffed more stew in her mouth. “Look, maybe, in some alternate universe far, far away, they have sex. But they’re not dating. That’s it.”
“Darling, there comes a time, however sad for Mum, when the children must leave home.”
“Shut up.” She jabbed her spoon at him. “I mean it. They are not dating,” she insisted, and polished off her stew.
• • •
Some might have called Ian McNab’s ramshackle apartment on the Lower West Side an alternate universe. It was a guy’s space, badly decorated, heavy on the sports memorabilia, and scattered with dirty dishes.
While he did, occasionally, think to stuff some of the worst of the debris in some dusty closet when female company was expected, it was a long way from the sumptuous space of Roarke’s home, and it smelled a great deal like overcooked veggie hash. But it worked for him.
At the moment, with his heart stuttering and his skin slick from sex, it worked just fine.
“Jesus, Peabody.” He flopped over on his back, much like a landed trout. He didn’t bother to gasp for air. He had a lush, naked woman in his bed. He could die a happy man. “We had to break a record that time. We ought to be writing this down.”
She lay where she was, stunned as she always was when she found herself in this situation with Ian McNab. “I can’t feel my feet.”
Obligingly he propped himself on his elbow, but as they’d ended up crosswise on the bed, he couldn’t see past her knees. She had, he noted, really cute knees. “I don’t think I bit them off. I’d remember.” But with a grunt, he scooted down, just to be sure. “They’re there, all right, both of them.”
“Good. I’m going to need them later.”
As the shock wore off, she blinked, stared at McNab’s pretty profile, and wondered, not for the first time, when she’d lost her mind.
I’m naked in bed with McNab. Naked. In bed. McNab.
Jesus.
Always self-conscious about body flaws, she tugged at the knotted sheets. “Cold in here,” she muttered.
“Bastard super cut the main furnace back first of March. Like it’s his money. First chance I get, I’m rerouting the system.”
He yawned hugely, dragged both hands through his long and tangled blond hair. His narrow shoulders seemed weighed down by the mass of it. Peabody had to order her fingers not to reach up to play with the long loops of reddish gold. He had skinny hips, with the right one currently decorated with a temp tattoo of a silver lightning bolt. It matched the four earrings winking in his left earlobe.
