Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(16)

Down to unclasp a button, to slowly, slowly ease the zipper open.

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. Dragging 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.”

She propped up on an elbow and did just that. But when she started to reach for her clutch piece, he took her hands.

“Not quite yet.”

“I’m not going to sleep wearing it.”

“Not sleep.” Stretching out, he picked up her weapon harness. As he began to put it on her, she shoved out at him.

“What the hell?”

“Indulge my curiosity.” Quick and efficient, he hooked it on her, then pushed off the bed again to take a good long look.

Propped on her elbows, a wonderfully baffled expression on her face, her eyes still glazed from sex, she stirred his heart.

And propped on her elbows, a weapon on her ankle, another hitched over the shoulders of that lean and naked warrior’s body, she stirred something else entirely.

“Yes, I’ve imagined that.”

“You’ve imagined me wearing my weapons without a shirt? Or pants?”

“I see now that even my exceptional imagination fell short. So, Lieutenant.”

Her bafflement went to shock as he straddled her. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Not even remotely.” He gripped her hands again, pinned her.

“You can’t possibly . . .” She glanced down, saw he absolutely could. “How did you do that?”

“It’s something to do with being twisted, I suppose.”

When he thrust into her, she cried out, came instantly. “Oh my God.”

“I want to watch you, my well-armed cop.” He thrust again, again. “Watch you while I take you, and take you, until we’re both empty.”

He took her slowly down into the dark, drenching her, saturating her with sensation. He made her helpless, took her past the point of caring that she had no defenses. Into that dizzying desperate dark she slid, boneless, even as her body ached for more.

In the dark, he plundered until she was empty. Until he let himself go and emptied into her.