Lieutenant Eve Dallas, one of New York ’s top cops, sprawled naked with the blood beating in her ears and her heart pounding like an airjack. She managed to wheeze in a breath, then gave it up.

Who needed air when the system was revving from the aftermath of truly spectacular sex?

Beneath her, her husband lay warm and hard and still. The only movement was the knock of his heart against hers. Until he lifted one of those amazing hands and cruised it along her spine, from nape to butt.

“You want me to move,” she mumbled, “you’re out of luck.”

“I’d say my luck’s in.”

She smiled in the dark. She loved hearing his voice, the way Ireland shimmered through it. “Pretty good welcome home, especially since you were gone less than forty-eight hours.”

“It certainly put a nice cap on a short trip to Florence.”

“I didn’t ask, did you stop off in Ireland to see your-” She hesitated just a beat. It was still so odd to think of Roarke with family. “Your family?”

“I did, yes. Had a nice few hours.” He continued to stroke that hand, up and down, up and down her back so that her heartbeat slowed and her eyes began to droop. “It’s very strange, isn’t it?”

“I guess it will be, for a while yet.”

“And how’s the new detective?”

Eve snuggled in, thinking of her former aide and how she was handling her recent promotion. “ Peabody ’s good. Still finding her rhythm. We had a family dispute gone sour. Two brothers mixing it up over inherited property. Knocked the shit out of each other before one of them takes a header down the steps and breaks his stupid neck. So the other brother tries to mock it up like a bungled burglary. Tosses all this stuff they were fighting over in a blanket, hauls it out to his car, shoves it in the trunk. Like we’re not going to look there.”