Page 16 of Sheriff's Dirty Secret
Wow.That actually happened!
Nice guy Sheriff Luke March had eaten me out like I was his last and final meal.
In a dark parking lot where anyone could have seen us, of all places!
My sisters and brother had all been inside the brewery. Any of them could have walked out and seen something! Who would have thought the man, the one I had deemed too nice and sweet and probably way too vanilla, had that in him!
I sure hadn’t.
My eyes roamed to his face, observing his profile as he drove. I gave up trying to be subtle about it. What was the point? We both knew what this was.
A one-night stand.That’s what I thought it was going to be. What I’d wanted. Sorta. But Luke had tossed a wrench in that.Give us a chance.It had been a real request and not just something said in the heat of the moment, no matter how much I wanted to talk myself into it during our short drive. The man had teased my body as if he had mastered it, until I had no choice but to give in.
Liar,a little voice whispered.
I’d wanted to give in from the first moment he asked. And it scared me. Terrified me.
For the first time in a long time, I wanted more. The thought of easy and fun didn’t appeal to me when it came to Luke. I looked away and, as if he missed my eyes of him, his hand rested on my thigh, pushing the skirt of my dress so his palm could be skin to skin with my bare thigh. I’d never been happier about taking the time to shave that morning than right then and there.
“What are you thinking about?” he broke the somewhat comfortable silence we’d fallen into.
“Why did you make me promise I’d give you a chance?” I blurted, unable to mask the way my voice slightly shook.
“Us,” he corrected purposely. “I made you promise me you would giveusa chance.” My teeth sunk into my bottom lip.
Us.Could there be an us?
I’d witnessed my sisters fall one after another. I mean, I’d even watched my oldest sister, Coral, be in a long-term relationship to be broken hearted in a way I’d worried about my usually hard-ass attorney sister. When I’d picked her up after the first time she’d hooked up with her now soon-to-be husband, Oleg, I’d known it wasn’t going to be a just-for-fun fling for her.
If Coral could risk her heart again after what she’d gone through with her bastard ex, who had all but flaunted his new relationship in her face, to find love again, maybe I could, too?The question was, did I want to?Yes,that now melded voice whispered in the back of my head.
“Us,” I repeated, my voice a little stronger. “Why?” I repeated, needing to know.
“Because you’re mine,” he replied, as if it wasn’t weird or a little creepy.
There had to be something seriously wrong with me for liking it.No, for loving it.How many nights did I wake up from a dream where I’d imagined he’d been watching me sleep? It hadn’t been a scary thought. If anything, it’d been comforting. The idea of Luke watching over me warmed me from the inside out. I shook my head, and he made a noise of discontent. He probably assumed I was shaking my head about being his.
“You are mine,” he repeated with an unbending confidence that made me blink.
Shit, it was crazy how well I read him despite not really knowing him all that well. But if I was honest, I’d been drawn to him from the first moment I’d seen him when he arrived in Moonlit Pines. He hadn’t noticed me then. I’d watched him walk into Pine and Grind with a white tee and faded jeans and an old baseball hat with the brim pulled low, almost blocking those beautiful blue eyes I’d fallen for from the very start.
But as I’d stared at him, watched the way he was with everyone around him, giving everyone a polite smile and kind words to strangers around him, he’d seemed too nice. Too sweet for me. Onyx, had pulled up a chair at my table, but I had been so enraptured by the new guy in town that I hadn’t even noticed Onyx sitting next to me. When I did, I’d almost fallen out of my chair, and he good naturedly laughed at me.You would chew him up and spit him out.,he’d playfully teased.
Those words had bounced around in my head. I would end up seeing him everywhere. I swear I thought the man was hardly ever home. Whether he was in uniform or his civilian clothes, Icould have sworn he was always around. At the brewery, at the grocery store, even at the dang ski resort before I quit.
Until the day he’d popped up at my booth at the farmers market and made me so mad I’d had no idea what the hell I thought I’d seen in him. But despite all the push and pull, mostly on my part, trying to save him or myself, I wasn’t sure, I was in his truck. I’d let him go down on me and come on me like he was marking me as his. And I’d liked it. A lot.
“I know it’s probably fast but?—“
“That’s not why I was shaking my head,” I cut him off, not wanting any more misunderstandings between us. Not if I was going to give this a real shot. And I was going to do just that. “I was just thinking… it doesn’t matter…”
“It matters to me.”
“I just…” I swallowed and took a breath. Life was about choices and the risks we took. I knew that firsthand. If I hadn’t taken a chance opening a little side hustle baking cookies, I wouldn’t be closer than ever to opening my own shop, and I’d still be working nights in the laundry room of the ski resort.
Risks took hard work.
I knew from watching my parents work at their marriage through the years that it wasn’t easy. And I didn’t mind work or getting my hands dirty.
