39
" Her mouth was cut, her left eye already beginning to swell. There was raw color along her cheekbone.
He managed to take a full, almost easy breath. "You're going to have a hell of a bruise."
"I've had them before." The medication was seeping in, turning pain into a mist. She only smiled when he stripped her to the waist and began checking for other injuries. "You've got great hands. I love when you touch me. Nobody ever touched me like that. Did I tell you?"
"No." And he doubted she'd remember she was telling him now. He'd make sure to remind her.
"And you're so pretty. So pretty," she repeated, lifting a bleeding hand to his face. "I keep wondering what you're doing here."
He took her hand, wrapped a cloth gently around it. "I've asked myself the same question."
She grinned foolishly, let herself float. Need to file my report, she thought hazily. Soon. "You don't really think we're going to make anything out of this, do you? Roarke and the cop?"
"I guess we'll have to find out. "
― J.D. Robb , Naked in Death (In Death #1)
40
" Gold winked at his wrist as he pressed his choice for two coffees on the AutoChef built into the side panel. "Cream?"
"Black."
"A woman after my own heart." Moments later, he opened the protective door and offered her a china cup in a delicate saucer. "We have more of a selection on the plane," he said, then settled back with his coffee.
"I bet." The steam rising from her cup smelled like heaven. Eve took a tentative sip -- and nearly moaned.
It was real. No simulation made from vegetable concentrate so usual since the depletion of the rain forests in the late twentieth. This was the real thing, ground from rich Columbian beans, singing with caffeine.
She sipped again, and could have wept.
"Problem?" He enjoyed her reaction immensely, the flutter of the lashes, the faint flush, the darkening of the eyes -- a similar response, he noted, to a woman purring under a man's hands.
"Do you know how long it's been since I had real coffee?"
He smiled. "No."
"Neither do I." Unashamed, she closed her eyes as she lifted the cup again. "You'll have to excuse me, this is a private moment. We'll talk on the plane. "
― J.D. Robb , Naked in Death (In Death #1)