Page 29 of Sheriff's Dirty Secret
“Scarlett made it for me.”
“Figures.” He pushed the hanger forward, and behind it was a throw. One that had been at the foot of my bed that always slipped off and ended up underneath. “The first time I went inside your place, I took this.” His fingers skimmed the plush fabric. I shivered. I knew what that touch felt like.
My body was addicted to it.
Even then, caged in between his body and the closet, I wanted his touch.
“There are pictures,” I whispered.
“A box full of them.” I chewed on my bottom lip. His fingers rose and pulled my lip out from between my teeth. “Don’t do that, Cookie. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“This is crazy… You’ve been…. You’ve been watching me. Stalking me?”
“I have,” he admitted easily again.
“You promised! You said no secrets, no lies and?—“
“I haven’t lied. I haven’t played games. From that moment when I promised you that just outside my house, I haven’t done anything.”From here on out.Those words replayed softly inside my head. Words that had caught my attention in that moment, but I’d been so easily distracted by them.
“Have you snuck into my place after we got together?”
“Officially?” My lips thinned. I knew that was simply a loophole.
“Luke,” I warned, and it was like something in him snapped.
He was done holding back.
He shut the extra door of the closet and really caged my body against it.
“You’re mine.”
“You’re crazy,” I argued. He rolled his eyes.
“About you,” he growled, pressing his forehead against mine, our lips almost touching. And just like that, knowing everything I knew, I still wanted him. Still craved him. “You know it, your heart knows it, and your body sure as fuck knows it belongs to me.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I muttered, and instead of that pissing him off, his lips stretched into a soft, almost boyish smile.
“We both know that’s not true.” I opened my mouth to argue, but he kept talking, “That night you showed up on my doorstep? I wasn’t kidding. I wasn’t ready for you to walk in. If you had, you would have seen half this shit in the living room and the other half of it in my bedroom. I’ve never been this way with anyone, and maybe your original assumption of me was on the dot. The nice vanilla guy next door. But you, Olive? You brought out a side of me I didn’t know existed. I didn’t know someone could live and breathe for someone else. The thought of not being around you? Not knowing where you were? Of not smelling you? Touching you? It fucking drove me close to insane!”
“Luke.”
“I love you. You love me,” he pointed out as if all the other stuff didn’t make a difference.
“This is?—“
“This is us,” he cut me off. Even with the intensity in his gaze, there was a gentleness there, too. Love and respect. Something deeper that was so beautiful and so real, I didn’t think it even had a name. “I can see it in your eyes, Cookie. You like this side of me. That side only you know about. One that’s a little morethan unhinged about you and only you. Overprotective but not overbearing.”
“Luke.”
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he pushed. I opened my mouth to do just that but hesitated.
Is he wrong?
I pressed my legs together and licked my lips. No. He wasn’t. Not even a little bit.
“Tell me knowing this makes you scared of me.”
“I am scared.” His body stilled.
