Free The In Death Collection: Books 26-29 by J.D. Robb Page B

now we can have a meal at your desk.”
    â€œI could use the ear.” She studied him as he pulled on the sweater. It was kind of a shame he needed one. “Are we supposed to date?”
    â€œDate what?”
    â€œEach other.”
    He sent her a look that combined amusement, charm, and bafflement. She wondered how he managed it. “As in I take you out, there is some form of activity, then I drop you off at the door with a long, hopeful good-night kiss?”
    â€œNo.” She frowned. “We never did that anyway.”
    â€œI knew I forgot something.” He skimmed a finger down the cleft in her chin. “Should I ask you out on a date, darling Eve?”
    â€œLook, I just wondered about it, that’s all. Peabody started this whole thing about could she take an hour’s personal to get polished up because she and McNab had this date-night deal going so they wouldn’t lose the juice.”
    â€œThat’s very sweet. Are you wondering if we’re low on juice?” He took her hand, drew it to his lips.
    â€œNo.” Why such a deliberately romantic gesture caused tingles straight up her arm, she didn’t know. “I just wondered if that’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to do when you’re married awhile. And you spend a lot of evenings with work.”
    â€œWe like work, don’t we?”
    â€œYeah, we do.” She moved in, grabbed his hair with her fists and pulled his mouth to hers. She put some heat behind it—it was the least she could do—and felt the tingle up her arm arrow to her belly. She ended the kiss with a quick, light nip.
    â€œPlenty of juice in reserve,” she decided. She laid her hands on his cheeks a moment, then stepped back. “And I always hated dating.”

    K icked back at her desk, sharing a bottle of wine and the comforting goodness of homemade chicken pot pie struck her as just about perfect. Summerset might be a pain in her ass but the man could cook.
    As they ate, she rewound the facts and impressions in her head, and played them out for Roarke.
    â€œSo on one hand, you’ve got a guy who appears to dick around on his wife of nearly sixteen years, likes the kink, and when things go wrong, the kink partner runs. But that’s bogus.”
    â€œBecause he was drugged.”
    â€œThat’s the big one, but it’s not all. Accident, even if the killer was hired sex, there would have been some attempt to revive. The very least, you take the rope away. Then there’s the pajamas.”
    â€œThere is?”
    â€œGreta—who strikes me as spookily efficient as the Nazi downstairs, states the vic wore pj’s. And had ten pairs. Count is nine. Where’s pair number ten? I have to figure the killer took them, either for a trophy, or to dispose of them away from the scene. If he’s expecting company, he either has them on so the company can undress him, or he leaves them folded in the drawer where the other nine pairs were. If he’s wearing them, and it was an accident, why grab them up when you run? Doesn’t follow.”
    â€œMaybe the killer worried there was DNA or other forensic evidence on them.”
    â€œThe sweepers didn’t find anything anywhere else in the room. Doesn’t follow. Killer was sealed. Had to be sealed. The only prints in the room were Anders’s, the wife’s, and the housekeeper’s. The few stray hairs in the bed were all his.”
    â€œPutting that aside for a moment, and given it’s long odds considering what I know of Anders, there are some who get off on the idea of rape. Some who might enjoy the idea of being taken, forced, while they’re unconscious. The ultimate submissive.”
    â€œPeople are sick in all kinds of ways,” Eve commented. “But even if he was sick that way, would anyone in their right mind go into that kind of liaison without complete trust in the partner? And with that kind of