Apprentice in Death (In Death 43)

He could spend years on her with just his hands. The firm breasts and long, lean torso under the thin, simple tank, the taut belly, the narrow hips.

He tugged her trousers down, just another inch, traced a fingertip under the waistband of the panties—as simple as the tank. His cop wasn’t one for frills and lace. Yet those simple, unadorned underpinnings never failed to entice him.

He knew what lived beneath.

Just as he knew she’d relaxed, she’d put all else aside—the blood and the dead—for this. For him. For them. So he’d give her everything he had in this time away from the cold and the dark.

Now he peeled her sweater up and away, and the tank with it. When he cupped her breasts in his hands, she cupped his face in hers. Smiled.

“It’s nice.”

“Nice, is it?”

“Yeah.” Lowering her hands, she began unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s nice.”

“I can do better than nice.”

“I’m aware,” she said, making him laugh as his lips brushed over hers.

She could do better than nice, too, but didn’t mind that pace. For now. Like sliding into comfort. Under his shirt, that tough, disciplined body was hers to touch, to take—all that warm, warm skin, those tight muscles.

Hers to take, she thought again as he deepened the kiss. Fire kindled under her skin. With her legs again hooked around him, she levered over, reversed their positions. Now straddling him, she curved down, using her teeth to nip at his lips, his tongue while she rocked them both to quivering.

Even as she tugged off his belt, he flipped her over again. Dr

agging off her trousers, his hand brushed over the clutch piece strapped above her ankle. It added a quick, dangerous thrill. Leaving it, he used his mouth, his hands to destroy her.

She cried out, tossed up as his tongue swept over her, into her. Her fingers dug into the sheets, then into his back as he drove her relentlessly higher.

The orgasm ripped through her, a fast, hard jolt of staggering pleasure. Then the aftershocks, shuddering, shuddering, even as he urged her up again.

Breathless, blind, she dragged him up to her, rolling together now over the blue lake of the bed while she fought to strip away the rest of his clothes.

When he plunged into her, the world quaked.

His mouth—God, she loved his mouth—took hers again, ravishing like a man starving. Then he drove her, they drove each other, hands gripped together, bodies joined. On the edge, fused to the edge as the pleasure swelled to bursting.

When she came again, all she could see was the wild blue of his eyes.

After a long moment, after they both lay limp, like survivors of some brutal wreck, he turned his head enough to graze her throat with his lips.

“Nice, was it?”

“Worked for me. Appreciation?”

“Paid in full.”

“Huh. And no costumes or props.”

“You’re still wearing your clutch piece.”

Her eyes blinked open. “What?”

“That worked for me.” On a half groan, he rolled off her, sat up. Letting his gaze wander over her as she sprawled, naked but for the fat diamond around her neck and the weapon at her ankle. “And would again.”

“Men are just twisted.”

He only smiled, then got up and fetched a bottle of water. After he drank, he held it out. “Hydrate.”