Page 17 of Sheriff's Dirty Secret
“No games. No lies,” I found myself saying, unblinking while looking at him as he drove.
“Are those the rules?” he asked, still lightly stroking my thigh back and forth. I didn’t miss the way his hand seemed to move higher up my leg, dangerously close to my panties, stoking a fire inside of me.
“Yes. No lies. No games.” My breath might have hitched, but I needed him to agree. “I’m not a fan of secrets, Sheriff.” A muscle twitched below his eye, but his fingertips started to stroke my upper thigh, and my heart started to race again. Iwanted his touch so badly, so much more than I had ever wanted anyone else’s. Ever.
Luke lit my body up as if he hadn’t just made me see stars less than twenty minutes ago. My eyes roamed down his face to his chest, and I noticed the thick bulge at the front of his strained jeans. The size of him was a surprise, too. One I wanted to take a ride on as soon as possible.Focus!
“Okay, from here on out, no lies, no games.” There was something about the way he phrased his agreement that made me pay attention, move my eyes to his profile just as he put his truck inPark. “We’re here,” he diverted my attention to look through the windshield. My eyes landed on his place, and my sex clenched.
“Back to the scene of the crime,” I muttered, accidentally out loud. “Maybe we should go to my place.” My nerves were getting the better of me.
“I want you in my bed the first time I have you.” That had my attention jumping to him, and our eyes locked. The way he said it was almost like he had put a great deal of thought into it.
“You sent me home last time I was here,” I reminded him.
“I told you?—“
“I know… but maybe the real reason you sent me away was because you were already… entertaining someone else?” He scoffed and rested the back of his head against the driver’s seat.
“We both know I only have eyes for you, Cookie.” His hand squeezed my thigh.
“Don’t call me that.” I rolled my eyes hoping he somehow couldn’t see the way my heart skipped a beat.
I’d never been a fan of nicknames.
With a name like Olive, kids weren’t the nicest in elementary school. Oli was as much as I tolerated, but that was because I’d grown up with my siblings, who were always shortening it.
But the way Luke called me Cookie? The way he said it with emotions I didn’t want to name got to me from the first time he’d called me it to the point of dreaming about him calling me that.
“I gotta lay down some ground rules.”Uh-oh. Here we go,I thought to myself. This was where he either told me he was into some really weird foot stuff or laid out some kind of kink. “You still want this, for us to walk in there, I need you to know…” He took a deep breath, and I braced. His blue eyes locked with mine as our fingers tangled together.
“This isn’t a one-night stand. And it isn’t going to be some kind of friends-with-benefits shit, either.”
“You don’t want to be my friend.” I’d meant to ask it with some sass, but instead, I sounded as vulnerable as I felt.
“Olive, I want to be your best friend. I want to be your man. I want to be your fucking world.” I blinked, but it was like my brain couldn’t make sense of everything he said. Like it was too much for me to process.
“Cookie,” he called out again even though I was still staring at him.
“Don’t call me that,” I mumbled, and something in his bright blue gaze softened.
“We both know you like it.” I didn’t argue with him. I also didn’t want to think about how he knew that. “You walk in there with me, you’re mine.”
“You say that like…” I had no idea why I couldn’t spit it out. I had never been shy about things when it came to sex.
“Like what?” He was watching me closely.
“Like that’s what you want,” I blurted out, my heart racing inside my chest.
“You have no idea, Cookie, how much I want you. If you did…”—his lips tipped upward in an almost wolf-like smile—“you wouldn’t be here.” I blinked, and my head tilted as Iwatched him a little closer. “You sure as fuck wouldn’t let me touch you.” I shivered at the dark threat in his voice.
For some reason, his usual nice-guy-next-door aura wasn’t there. Suddenly, I realized maybe the guy I’d judged as too sweet, too nice, too vanilla for me might be something else.Maybe he is the perfect guy for us?that voice in my head suggested. I blinked.
“You’re making a lot of big promises before we’ve even stepped foot inside your house,” I sassed. My defenses were trying to hold on.
“You’re not going to distract me, beautiful,” he said, making my brow drop. “I got carried away in the parking lot, but fuck if I have it in me to regret it. I needed to taste you; It was a long time coming. Like us.” I shivered. “I need to hear you say you understand what we started back in the parking lot of the brewery is more than us scratching an itch.”
“Luke...” I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.
