Page 25 of Forever Finds Us
“My office manager?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Have you two— I mean, are you and Tabitha… you know, knockin’ boots?”
“God, no! Why would you think that? She’s my employee, and that’s a line I will never and have never crossed.”
The relief filling my body whooshed out of my mouth with my next breath, but I tried to disguise it by saying, “And now you see the predicament I’m in with your sister.”
“I get your point. If you want to keep what happened between us, I’ll support that.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure.” But there was some kind of ambiguity in his eyes when he said it.
Although, now I felt like a harlot for keeping it from Abey. I’d tell her eventually, but before that happened, I needed to wrap my head around the last twelve hours.
It still all felt like a horny dream.
“Full disclosure, though. I am gonna tell my best friend,” I added right before he opened his door. “I should probably be up front about that. I can’t not tell her. But she won’t say a word to anyone.”
If she does, I’ll be forced to tattle to Rye about how she tells me he likes to tittie fuck her in the back of the bookstore.
There are no secrets between besties.
Chapter Ten
Brand
We wrote out our statements at the sheriff’s station, and Roxanne dropped me back at Merv’s place.
No one besides Deputy Sims had been in the office. That guy was so burly and tight-lipped that I didn’t think we had to worry about him gossiping. I’d only met him a few times because he’d worked with my sister for years, but Frank Sims seemed more like the kind of guy who’d arrest someone for spreading gossip than the kind of person to offer it, though he did let us know that Natalie was okay and resting comfortably at the hospital.
I hadn’t been sure at first how I felt about Roxanne wanting to keep what happened between us a secret, but I supposed she probably had a point. Small-town Wisper could whip up a frenzy with information like that.
Besides, I wasn’t under any false assumptions that Roxanne was my forever person. Yeah, I was searching for something, or someone—someone who understood me—but what were the chances I’d found that person the very second my tires had crossed into the Wisper town limits?
Zero to none.
But that didn’t mean it had been wrong for us to enjoy each other.
Damn, that woman.
Last night was the hottest sex I’d ever had. Roxanne had been completely unexpected and surprising in the best way. The urge to bite and possess and command wasn’t new to me. I’d been wanting it since I could remember, but no one I’d ever been with had been into it.
Roxanne was more than into it. I couldn’t get the image of my red teeth marks on her supple thigh out of my head. And no woman had ever been so beautiful when she’d come.
And this morning when she dropped me home, the way she’d blushed when I walked around her truck and motioned for her to roll down her window and then leaned in without a word and left a lingering kiss on her cheek and my business card and cell number beneath the strap of her bra? She was even more beautiful then, and her unassuming demeanor was endearing.
It seemed I’d gotten used to women who expected to be pampered and given expensive jewelry every weekend. Besides her dainty, gold cross, which I could still feel digging into the palm of my hand, Roxanne hadn’t worn jewelry. Maybe that was because she’d been in her uniform, but she wasn’t flashy at all.
She seemed like the kind of woman who’d be willing to sit next to me by the lake while I fished. In fact, she’d probably fish with me, and that was kind of refreshing.
Sitting at the desk in my bedroom at Merv’s house, nursing a second, more palatable cup of coffee, I was getting hard again just remembering Roxanne’s eyes on mine in the mirror, her lush body, and to be honest, the gun strapped around her thigh back on the trail. That last particular fantasy drummed up sultry images of her in strappy, black lingerie, her long, strong legs straddling me and my hands digging into her skin, leaving more marks that I’d kiss and soothe later.
Shit. At this rate, I’d never get any work done.
My hair was still wet from a shower as I stared at my computer, at the list of names Tab had sent me to look over before she started making phone calls on my behalf to try and get a permanent home crew together. I had my project leads all lined up, Bea, Clay Marveaux, and Tweety, who would be making the move with me from Sheridan, but I still needed the majority of the positions filled before I could start bidding on new jobs.
The letters on my laptop screen blurred together, and I leaned back in the uncomfortable desk chair from Dixon’s childhood bedroom, replaying more memories of last night in my mind: Roxanne naked in the motel shower, her wet body glistening under the spray of the water. One of my hands gripped her throat and held her still, and the other moved between her legs while my tongue searched her mouth. And the sounds she’d made while I’d given her pleasure over and over, pleasure I hadn’t been able to stop myself from giving.
