Heart of the Storm (Triple Diamond Book 4)

by Gemma Snow

  “Can you drop me at city hall?” she asked Cam when they headed toward the door. “We’re discussing potential evacuation routes now.” She turned to Hollie. “Lewitt says to triage with Fire and Police and I’ll be in touch with what the mayor’s office has to say. We may not need to evacuate yet, but she wants to know our options with this new projection.”

  Hollie nodded. “Do you want to take my car?” she asked. “The sheriff can drop me off when we’re done here.”

  Cade didn’t want to say no, certainly not with Camilla’s eyes practically burning a hole in his head. He also didn’t want to say please don’t leave me alone in this office with her but the truth was that any time he got a second alone with Hollie, he lost his damned mind and he had a pretty good idea that things were going tits-up the second Walsh and Camilla walked out of the door.

  “I don’t mind dropping Agent Walsh off at the city hall, ma’am,” Camilla said, her voice overly formal in what could only be compensation for the embarrassment she undoubtedly felt at whatever they had done the night before. Cade wouldn’t say it out loud, but it was good for Cam to spend time with someone after all that her ex had done to her psyche, and so what if that someone happened to be one of Hollie’s closest companions? “I’ll make sure she gets back safely tonight too.” That was softer and Hollie’s gaze became a little more discerning before she nodded, bade her goodbyes and ‘call me as soon as you can’s and the two of them watched Cam and Savannah leave the office.

  Hollie waited until they were far enough down the hall they couldn’t see into the room anymore, then she closed the door behind them.

  “Cade,” she said, putting her hands on the desk and looking down at him. “We need to talk.”

  Chapter Ten

  It was the kind of rush she got right before she jumped out of a plane or went on a deep-diving excursion. Her body was high on adrenaline, her heart was pumping hard, her nerves were attuned to every sensation and emotion happening around her, and yet, for all that her natural fight-or-flight instincts were kicking into high gear, Hollie was still standing in Cade Easton’s office, her eyes locked with his and the privacy of the closed door making the room feel too hot and her skin feel way too tight.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Hollie?” he asked. His gaze was difficult to read, which actually made her a little sad. Once, Hollie would have been able to tell exactly what he was thinking from a country mile. But he had changed and she had changed, and the truth was that she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know what was on his mind at present. She already felt vulnerable, exposed and unprepared for what was to come next.

  And to her own desires.

  Because even just being in this room with him, Hollie’s body was so alert, so ready and wanting, that it was challenging to remember why she had come in here on some pretext or another so that she might actually catch a moment with Cade alone before the proverbial shit hit the fan. With the day as busy as it had been, patching up one emergency after another and overseeing the prep work with sandbags and barriers, she hadn’t been able to spend too much time thinking about all that had transpired the night before. But when she and Savannah had reconvened at her once favorite hotspot, Debbie’s Diner, an old-school eatery with the best burgers in town, her defenses had been down, her adrenaline had left her and she had started thinking about everything that had come to pass.

  And regretting it.

  Well, not so much regretting it as…

  She wasn’t entirely sure. She knew without question that they should not have slept together, certainly not all three of them in a public location at the Triple Diamond Ranch of all places, though according to small-town rumor, the new owner was hardly the discreet type, and she had some good old-fashioned ribbing to do next time she saw Dec and Micah.

  Entirely beside the point.

  The point being…the point being that Cade looked really fucking hot with the top button of his uniform undone, his shirtsleeves rolled up and that expression on his face that said he knew exactly what she was thinking. And so, exactly without thinking, Hollie blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

  “Are you a Dom?”

  She stuffed her hands over her mouth as if she was in a cartoon and could just take the damn stupid question back. But Cade blinked slowly, his eyes so discerning now, his full lips parting just a little, and Hollie knew there was no coming back from the question.

  “That’s what you wanted to talk about?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Not even a little bit. I came to say that last night was a mistake.”

  He raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair. “Was it?”

  She hadn’t been expecting that and it frazzled her. “I mean, not exactly. I don’t have any regrets, but I know we shouldn’t have made that choice. I know it wasn’t a good idea.”

  “Why?” His voice was so measured and calm that she didn’t exactly need an answer to her previous stupid-ass question.

  “I’m leaving, Cade,” she said, standing up from the desk and pacing around the room for want of something to do with her manic energy.

  I can think of someone to do. Or someones.

  “I’m leaving as soon as this job is over and I’m never coming back here. Gram’s gone, Wes is off gallivanting around the world.”

  “You still pay for the house,” he pointed out. She turned to face him.

  “How do you know that?”

  Cade gave her a knowing look. “You do know that I’m the sheriff, right?” he asked, as if she hadn’t been watching the shiny star on his badge to avoid those devastating deep brown eyes.

  “It hadn’t escaped my notice,” she said drily.

  “So why, Hol?” he asked, ignoring her sarcastic tone. “Why pay for the house you’ll never come back to? There must be a reason.”

  A reason that had her wishing they were back at the question about whether or not he was a Dom.

  “Drop it, Cade,” she said fiercely.

  “Fine.” He stood and leaned against the desk and God how could she not be reminded of all they had done last night, half of which in a very similar position to this one? “I’ll drop that, but I will say this—you have more reasons to return here than just your gram and Wes.”

  “It’s not home anymore.” And if her voice wobbled a little bit when she said it then Hollie wasn’t going to start asking herself why.

  “You keep telling yourself that,” he said, and God, when had he gotten so close to her, that masculine power overwhelming and confident even as he stood before her, nothing outwardly different in his demeanor but the tension in the room somehow so much higher? Hell, she’d always been so turned to him that it had only been a matter of time between them. “And maybe you’ll start to believe it.”

  I’m not supposed to want him, and definitely not supposed to want him again.

  But hell and damnation, she did. Last night’s indulgence hadn’t been the itch-scratching she’d hoped for. It had been a taste of what she had been craving for so, so long and her body ached for more of the debilitating pleasure by simply being around him.

  And yet, there was also that gut-deep part of her that felt almost guilty, as if she were being unfaithful to Sawyer, in a way, which was completely crazy considering there was nothing going on between the two of them, or the three of them, and certainly nothing that warranted her faithfulness and certainly nothing that should be worthy of a guilt trip.

  “The Cabaret and Collar.”

  Hollie narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t the oddest thing to have happened in the last two days, but she hadn’t exactly expected prim and proper Cade Easton to be saying words like that, and in that particular tone of voice. Then again, she hadn’t expected him to be demanding and determined the night before as he fucked her from behind while she took Sawyer’s cock in her mouth…

  “The Cabaret and Collar?” she repeated. Her mind was already foggy with the images of how she must have looked all spread out and
wanton, and it was difficult to find the thread back to the conversation.

  “The first club I ever went to,” he explained. “And where I learned I was a Dom.” He was staring at her intently now, as if prodding her to say something about his needs. “You asked and it’s about time we started being honest with each other, so yes. I am a Dom. For the right partners and within the right context.”

  Hollie knew there was some kind of proper response, something informed and respectful and maybe even insightful. She knew that as the rational, capable woman she was. But the rational side of her, the part of her mind that was so accustomed to making smart, logical decisions, had abdicated in favor of the base ‘jump first and ask questions later’ side that had first had her fleeing this small town and sent her jumping, climbing and diving since.

  “And unless I’m much mistaken…” Cade continued, coming to stand before her so that he pinned her against the desk with a strong hand on either side of her waist. It was all Hollie could do not to buck her hips into his. “You quite enjoy being told what to do.” His mouth was at her ear now and so close she could nearly feel the way his plush lips shaped each of the words. This was madness, giving in to this desire of theirs, but Hollie couldn’t see it as a choice. It was the only thing she could do. Walking away from everything Cade Easton had to offer simply wasn’t an option.

  “What about Sawyer?” she asked, because the one still functioning part of her brain, the part that wasn’t preoccupied with her tightening nipples and her throbbing pussy, that part of her was still able to remember all the complicated things that made this affair so incredibly dangerous—and incredibly enticing.

  “He isn’t here right now,” Cade said quietly. The words were a statement of fact, but that didn’t absolve Hollie of the roiling guilt conflicting with the heated desire pulsing through her body.

  “Cade, I need to know how this all works.” There, she still had it in her to be capable of giving a directive.

  “I don’t honestly know, Hollie,” he said, and in that moment Hollie knew she would do just about anything to take the sadness and doubt out of this man’s heart and voice. “But I do know that I want you, like I’ve never wanted anything, that you’re the woman who believed in me, who taught me what it meant to have a family, the woman who helped me take a leap when I would have stayed on the shore. So yes, I want you—all to myself. But if you need to go speak with Sawyer after I have you against my desk, then I’ll say I understand and leave it at that.”

  Her mind was whirling and overwhelmed with all that he had said in such a short turn of phrase. Cade had been as much part of her home growing up as Wes or Gram had been, as the tire swing in the backyard, as tuna casserole on Thursday nights. He might not have even realized it, but he had taught her just as much about a place to plant roots as she had supposedly taught him.

  Hollie brought her hand up to his cheek and her heart nearly burst when he pressed the stubbled skin back into her touch. Coming back to Wolf Creek hadn’t just been dangerous. It had been a no-turning-back leap into the past and a questionable future all at once, and Hollie had no idea what that meant.

  “You’ve always been my family,” she said, almost so quietly that she couldn’t hear it herself. So few people in her new life knew of her past and she had kept it that way, locking secret desires and needs up in a box in the attic of her mind, never to be opened. But telling Cade all that he had meant to her then, all he had come to mean to her in just a few days together, felt as natural to Hollie as swimming deeper or climbing higher. “Cade, you completed our dining room table. I’ll never forget that.”

  “But,” he probed and his eyes were a dark brown, loaded and hot and making it very challenging for her to continue along her train of thought.

  “But I’m confused,” she admitted. “What we shared last night was a lot. And I don’t regret it, truly, but decisions have repercussions.”

  “Maybe,” Cade admitted, his voice taking on that gravelly, demanding tone that sent sparks of heat straight to her pussy and made Hollie involuntarily arch to be closer to him. “But for right now, can’t we just enjoy the spoils?”

  You’re already in the water. Might as well enjoy yourself before the storm.

  Hollie didn’t think, not anymore, not about the complicated web of emotions and desires she was weaving herself into, not about the way she had felt so protected and cared for while sleeping between the two men on the least comfortable floor in the state, not about the extremely intimate expression that Savannah and Camilla Flores had shared on their way out of Cade’s office. She only took her opportunity and did what she so desperately ached to do. She kissed Sheriff Cade Easton.

  He allowed her the lead for a moment, then he took over, leaning in to her body so that Hollie was pressed against the desk and grinding into him, so that she could wrap her legs around his waist and pull him as close to her needy, throbbing center as possible. She ached for him, for more of his touch, for more of the sweet, desperate pleasure to give way to release, but Cade drove a hard bargain and Hollie knew that he wouldn’t let her get what she wanted so easily, not a snowball’s chance in hell.

  “One day, I’m going to take you on a real bed,” Cade whispered in her ear. “The way you deserve to be loved, Hollie.”

  One day, as if they had all the time in the world, as if the threat of literal natural disasters wasn’t looming on the horizon, as if she wasn’t an emergency preparation professional walking into unmitigated destruction and chaos with full awareness and no evacuation plan. For now, it was just her and Cade, the way he felt trailing kisses along the slope of her neck, then pulling down the zipper on her windbreaker, then brushing his mouth over her collarbone.

  He bit the skin there and she groaned, reveling in the mingling pain and pleasure of the movement and the way her body ached for so much more than one bite.

  “You’re going to get it,” Cade whispered, “I promise.” And Hollie realized she had been demanding more out loud. She gasped when his fingers skated her tank top and found her swollen nipples through the fabric. When he squeezed almost too hard, her whole body wracked with unmitigated pleasure and her need for more, for so much more, hiked, sped up and slowed down all at once, as if Cade was playing some sort of ballad against her body that only he knew the music for and she was simply along for the ride.

  His fingers found the button of her jeans and he slowly began drawing them open. The slightest pressure around where she desperately wanted him was a teasing touch, not nearly enough to help her find the release she craved, intentionally pushing her higher and closer to that edge without ever getting near to falling. He pulled the zipper free one tooth at a time, then hooked his hands into the loops of her belt and slowly helped her to wiggle out of her jeans. Hollie kicked her boots off and Cade bent to push the pants off her legs, tossing them and her emergency standard wool socks off and to the floor somewhere that didn’t matter.

  “Do you trust me, darlin’?” he asked, starting to trail kisses up her bare leg, that sinful, promising drawl betraying his own arousal.

  Hollie nodded, so very aware of her own lust, her lips and skin swollen and flush, her face undoubtedly a map of need and willingness, her legs spread, exposing soaked panties to the man who could do whatever he pleased to her desperate body.

  “I do,” she managed, past the haze of need, an instinct kicking in before she even realized what it was. “Sir.”

  Cade’s eyes went even darker. The proper police officer veil dropped away and he took up the mantle of his dominant personality. It felt so right, in this moment, to be at his mercy and to have him at her own as they explored their baser desires in a give-and-take game of trust and need.

  “Oh, you sweet thing,” he murmured. “I’m going to reward you for being so good.” He stepped back away from her body and Hollie groaned in displeasure at the lack of pressure. Cade simply raised one eyebrow and she hushed, taking his lead and following it without question.

 
; “Turn around, darlin’,” he murmured, his voice clear and controlled. “And take off your jacket.”

  She shed the jacket as quickly as she could, then turned to present herself to him, her arms against the desk, her legs spread wide and her head bent in the natural pose she felt so at home in.

  “Fuck, you’re beautiful,” Cade muttered, and she loved that note of desperation he allowed to slip through. “I’m going to fill you up, Hollie, you know that, right?”

  She nodded, the words playing havoc with her sanity and making her want more than just touches and glances.

  “Please, Sir,” she managed, “Touch me. Oh fuck, please touch me.”

  “I don’t think so,” Cade replied, and she heard him settle into the seat across from where she stood. “I’d much rather see you work for it.” He paused and the silence was weighty and thick with tension. “The reward is so much greater when you’ve earned it, don’t you agree?” She most definitely did not agree right at that moment, when her arousal was seeping through her panties and making the insides of her quivering legs slick with need. But she also knew that the relief she desperately sought would be that much harder won if she went against Cade’s requests, so she nodded and kept her head bowed.

  “Yes, Sir,” she managed, though there was no denying the need in her voice. Cade didn’t seem to have any problem with it.

  “I’m going to tell you exactly what I’m going to do to your sweet, wet body,” he explained, detached and controlled in a way that had Hollie desperate to break down every single one of his defenses. “And if you don’t come by the time I’m finished, you’ll be rewarded. Do you understand?”

  Oh, she understood. She understood that Cade had figured out her number in just five minutes and had picked a game he was certain to win.

  “Sir.” Pleading had never helped, but, God, even the promise of such delicious torture had her rubbing her legs together in desperation.

  “Spread your legs wide,” he told her. “And keep them apart. I want to see how wet your panties are when you beg me for a single touch, a single finger in your hot, slick cunt, when I tell you how I’m going to take you from behind in one thrust because your body is so willing and open to me.”