"What did you expect, that I'd come crying to you? 'Roarke, you seduced me, and now I'm in trouble. Help.' The hell with that, you didn't seduce me. I went to bed with you because I wanted to. Wanted to enough that I didn't think about ethics. I got slammed for it, and I'm handling it. I don't need help."

"Don't want it, certainly."

"Don't need it." She wouldn't humiliate herself by struggling away now, but stood passive. "The commander's satisfied that you're not involved in the murders. You're clear, so other than what the department will officially term an error in judgment on my part, so am I. If I'd been wrong about you, it'd be different."

"If you'd been wrong about me, it would have cost you your badge."

"Yes. I'd have lost my badge. I'd have lost everything. I'd have deserved to. But it didn't happen, so it's over. Move on."

"Do you really think I'm going to walk away?"

It weakened her, that soft, gentle lilt that came into his voice. "I can't afford you, Roarke. I can't afford to get involved."

He stepped forward, laid his hands on the back of the couch, caged her in. "I can't afford you, either. It doesn't seem to matter."

"Look – "

"I'm sorry I hurt you," he murmured. "Very sorry that I didn't trust you, then accused you of not trusting me."

"I didn't expect you to think any differently. To act any differently."

That stung more than the blow to the face. "No. I'm sorry for that, too. You risked a great deal for me. Why?"

There were no easy answers. "I believed you."

He pressed his lips to her brow. "Thank you."

"It was a judgment call," she began, letting out a shaky breath when he touched his mouth to her cheek.

"I'm going to stay with you tonight." Then to her temple. "I'm going to see that you sleep."

"Sex as a sedative?"

He frowned, but brushed his lips lightly over hers. "If you like." He lifted her off her feet, flustering her. "Let's see if we can find the right dosage."

Later, with the lights still on low, he watched her. She slept facedown, a limp sprawl of exhaustion. To please himself, he stroked a hand down her back – smooth skin, slim bones, lean muscle. She didn't stir.

Experimentally, he let his fingers comb through her hair. Thick as mink pelt, shades of aged brandy and old gold, poorly cut. It made him smile as he traced those fingers over her lips. Full, firm, fiercely responsive.

However surprised he was that he'd been able to take her beyond what she'd experienced before, he was overwhelmed by the knowledge that had, unknowingly, taken him.

How much farther, he wondered, would they go?

He knew it had ripped him when he'd believed she'd thought him guilty. The sense of betrayal, disillusionment was huge, weakening, and something he hadn't felt in too many years to count.

She'd taken him back to a point of vulnerability he'd escaped from. She could hurt him. They could hurt each other. That was something he would have to consider carefully.

But at the moment, the pressing question was who wanted to hurt them both. And why.

He was still gnawing at the problem when he took her hand, linked fingers, and let himself slide into sleep with her.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

He was gone when she woke. It was better that way. Mornings after carried a casual intimacy that made her nervous. She was already more involved with him than she had ever been with anyone. That click between them had the potential, she knew, to reverberate through the rest of her life.

She took a quick shower, bundled into a robe, then headed into the kitchen. There was Roarke, in trousers and a shirt he'd yet to button, scanning the morning paper on her monitor.

Looking, she realized with a quick tug-of-war of delight and dismay, very much at home.

"What are you doing?"

"Hmmm?" He glanced up, reached behind him to open the AutoChef. "Making you coffee."

"Making me coffee?"

"I heard you moving around." He took the cups out, carried them to where she was still hovering in the doorway. "You don't do that often enough."

"Move around?"

"No." He chuckled and touched his lips to hers. "Smile at me. Just smile at me."

Was she smiling? She hadn't realized. "I thought you'd left." She walked around the small table, glanced at the monitor. The stock reports. Naturally. "You must have gotten up early."

"I had some calls to make." He watched her, enjoying the way she raked her fingers through her damp hair. A nervous habit he was certain she was unaware of. He picked up the portalink he'd left on the table, slipped it back into his pocket. "I had a conference call scheduled with the station – five A.M. our time."

"Oh." She sipped her coffee, wondering how she had ever lived without the zip of the real thing in the morning. "I know those meetings were important. I'm sorry."

"We'd managed to hammer down most of the details. I can handle the rest from here."

"You're not going back?"

"No."

She turned to the AutoChef, fiddled with her rather limited menu. "I'm out of most everything. Want a bagel or something?"

"Eve." Roarke set his coffee down, laid his hands on her shoulders. "Why don't you want me to know you're pleased I'm staying?"

"Your alibi holds. It's none of my business if you – " She broke off when he turned her to face him. He was angry. She could see it in his eyes and prepared for the argument to come. She hadn't prepared for the kiss, the way his mouth closed firmly over hers, the way her heart rolled over slow and dreamy in her chest.

So she let herself be held, let her head nestle in the curve of his shoulder. "I don't know how to handle this," she murmured. "I don't have any precedent here. I need rules, Roarke. Solid rules."

"I'm not a case you need to solve."

"I don't know what you are. But I know this is going too fast. It shouldn't have even started. I shouldn't have been able to get started with you."

He drew her back so that he could study her face. "Why?"

"It's complicated. I have to get dressed. I have to get to work."

"Give me something." His fingers tightened on her shoulders. "I don't know what you are, either."

"I'm a cop," she blurted out. "That's all I am. I'm thirty years old and I've only been close to two people in my entire life. And even with them, it's easy to hold back."

"Hold back what?"

"Letting it matter too much. If it matters too much, it can grind you down until you're nothing. I've been nothing. I can't be nothing ever again."

"Who hurt you?"

"I don't know." But she did. She did. "I don't remember, and I don't want to remember. I've been a victim, and once you have, you need to do whatever it takes not to be one again. That's all I was before I got into the academy. A victim, with other people pushing the buttons, making the decisions, pushing me one way, pulling me another."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?"

"That's what's happening."

There were questions he needed to ask. Questions, he could see by her face, that needed to wait. Perhaps it was time he took a risk. He dipped a hand into his pocket, drew out what he carried there.

Baffled, Eve stared down at the simple gray button in his palm. "That's off my suit."

"Yes. Not a particularly flattering suit – you need stronger colors. I found it in my limo. I meant to give it back to you."

"Oh." But when she reached out, he closed his fingers over the button.

"A very smooth lie." Amused, he laughed at himself. "I had no intention of giving it back to you."

"You got a button fetish, Roarke?"

"I've been carrying this around like a schoolboy carries a lock of his sweetheart's hair."

Her eyes came back to his, and something sweet moved through her. Sweeter yet as she could see he was embarrassed. "That's weird."