Apprentice in Death by J.D. Robb Page A

took you into the bedroom.”
    â€œThat’s imprinted.”
    â€œGood, as she’ll have designs for the bedroom for us to go over in a day or two.”
    â€œYou were serious about that?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    â€œBut the bedroom—”
    â€œIs ours, but was designed for me. Now it will reflect both of us, our needs, wants, tastes.”
    â€œWe don’t have the same tastes, exactly. I don’t even know if I have tastes.”
    â€œYou know what you like, what you don’t. And won’t it be interesting to see how it all melds? And as with your office, it has to suit you. It has to suit me as well, so may it take a bit more work than the two minutes you spent picking your office design.”
    It wouldn’t take two minutes, no, not with Roarke weighing in on it. “Are we going to fight over, like, fabric?”
    â€œI sincerely doubt it, but if we do, I’m sure we’ll make up, on whatever bed we choose together.”
    Frowning, she stepped into the bedroom, looked at the enormous bed on its platform under the sky window. And couldn’t imagine anything that could suit her more.
    â€œI like that bed.”
    â€œAnd we may end up designing around it, but if not, we should bid it farewell as we did your desk. In anticipation.”
    â€œThe way you are, we’ll have nailed each other another five dozen times on this one before it’s gone.”
    â€œThink of it as an undress rehearsal,” he said, and scooped her up.
    Since it was hard to laugh and protest at the same time, she just went with it, so when she hit the bed, she wrapped her legs, boots and all, around him.
    â€œWe’re still dressed.”
    â€œI can fix that. In a minute,” he added, and took her mouth.
    Here was the payoff for a long and difficult day. His body pressed down on hers, that magic mouth sparking heat, spreading thrills. No dark thoughts pressing like bloody fingers against glass, pushing, pushing to come in. Here, she could have, she could take, love.
    She heard the
click
as his fingers—as magical as his mouth—released her weapon harness. She shifted so he could tug it off, shove it aside.
    â€œYou’re disarmed, Lieutenant.”
    â€œThat’s not my only weapon.”
    â€œI’m aware. But I’ve a few of my own.”
    When his teeth scraped lightly down the side of her neck, she thought: Yeah, you do. In response, she pressed up, center to center.
    â€œAnd yours is, as usual, already cocked.”
    Against her skin, his lips curved. “Someone has her punny pants on.”
    â€œI’m thinking about trading them in for naked.”
    She managed to toe off her boots, the rise and fall of her hips with the effort pleasing them both. Rather than pull her sweater off, he slid his hands under it, skimmed them over the tank she wore beneath. When her nipples hardened against the snug material, he roamed down to unhook her belt, then up again to mold her breasts, to tease.
    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.
    â€œIt’s nice.”
    â€œNice, is it?”
    â€œYeah.” Lowering her hands, she began unbuttoning his