by Devney Perry
I did, however, turn when one of his arms went under me at the same time the other went across my waist and he forced my body to his side.
“What’s wrong, Georgia? I left here two minutes ago and you were good. Come back and you’re huddled so far on your side of the bed it’s a wonder you didn’t fall on the fucking floor.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, whispering against his bare chest.
“Stop lying to me, Georgia,” he said. “Especially not after what we just had.”
“What did we have?” I asked, nervous for his response.
Every muscle in my body snapped tight.
I replayed my words in my mind and realized that they hadn’t come out right. Not at all.
Damn.
“I was hoping you thought it was the best sex of your life, seeing as that’s how I feel. Maybe that you felt as lucky as I do right now knowing that not only do we click outside the bedroom but we’re pretty fucking great in it too. That we don’t have to have one without the other. That’s what I thought we just had. But what the fuck do I know,” he clipped.
A thousand-pound weight disappeared from my chest. He’d just said that I was the best sex of his life!
I couldn’t stop the smile that spread wide on my face.
“Okay, now I’m fine. And I’m not lying this time. I was freaking out that you might have thought it was bad and then you would have dumped me. I thought that was pretty, ah, effing great too,” I said.
He didn’t respond and his body didn’t relax. I started panicking again until I felt his chest and shoulders start to shake.
I lifted my head up to look down at his gorgeous, laughing face. Then I laughed too, feeling relieved but mostly just feeling happy.
After he stopped laughing, he caught me in a deep, hot kiss that led to us having sex again. We took our time exploring each other’s bodies the second go, building each other up in a slow burn. He made me come with his fingers and then again with his cock.
Three amazing orgasms later and my body was as relaxed as it had been in years. I was totally content and pliable. But my mind was still active, unable to shut down and find sleep, thinking about all that had happened today.
Jess wasn’t asleep either. His arm underneath me was wrapped around my back and his hand was lightly rubbing my hip.
“What’s going on with your mom?” I was tucked tightly to Jess’s side, my arm across his torso, fingers drumming lightly on his chest.
“She’s just not always there. Like she gets lost in her own head. Spaces out completely. Doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.”
“Is that why she’s been in the hospital so much?”
“Yeah. She forgets the oven is hot and reaches in without a pad. Goes outside, doesn’t pay attention to where she’s walking and trips. Shit like that. Once when I was in high school, she walked outside to get the mail when it was snowing. Must have gone out sometime in the middle of the morning. Spaced out and stood by the mailbox all damn day. Found her there mostly frozen when I got home. Wasn’t wearing a coat or shoes. Took her to the hospital and she had frostbite on her fingers, ears and toes. Lucky she didn’t lose any.”
I didn’t know what to say. My mom could have won consecutive mother of the year awards. I couldn’t imagine growing up knowing you couldn’t depend on your mother. But it was starting to make sense to me why Jess was the way he was. Always in charge. Always taking care of everyone. He had started doing it early and probably didn’t know any other way.
“Has it always been like this?”
“My whole life. Felicity and I learned early on not to rely on her,” he said. “It wasn’t that she was neglecting us on purpose. She just can’t help it. She loves us. Has a good heart. Just . . . has a broken mind.”
“Felicity?” I asked.
“My sister. Moved to Seattle the day after she graduated high school. Haven’t seen her since. She’s two years younger than me so that was, what, fourteen years ago?”
“Do you talk to her at all?”
“Couple times a year. Try and call each other on our birthdays and Christmas.”
“What about your dad?”
“Stuck around until I was eight, then left. Moved to Billings to work for the refinery. Came back to visit off and on for a couple years. But then he met a woman over there and stopped coming back altogether.”
“That’s terrible,” I said.
“Just the way it was. Think he just got tired of taking care of Ma.”
“So he left an eight- and a six-year-old to do it instead? That’s not right, Jess.”
“Nope,” he agreed and gave my hip a firm squeeze with his hand. He could tell I was getting worked up. “But it doesn’t matter anymore, Freckles. I got what I needed from him as a kid, that being the checks he sent us twice a month. Once I got hired at the station, I wrote him a letter telling him he didn’t need to send them to Ma anymore. We were done with him. He doesn’t have a place in my life and hasn’t in ages.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” I whispered.
“It’s okay.”
We lay there in silence, me slowly starting to drift to sleep. It was getting late and though there were thoughts still racing in my head, my body was exhausted and needed to shut down.
Just before I nodded off, Jess squeezed my hip. “Georgia?”
“Yeah?” I yawned.
“Ma latched onto Roe tonight. Talked about her the whole ride home.”
“I know. Is that a bad thing?”
“She’ll want to babysit. Under no circumstances are you to let that happen.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
Jess’s mother couldn’t be trusted with her own children. He didn’t need to tell me twice not to leave her with mine.
A week later, Jess and I were spending our nights learning more about each other’s bodies.
Tonight, I was on my back in bed, legs spread wide, with my knees angled up. His mouth was on me and I was almost there. My legs were shaking and I writhed on the sheets.
Jess so knew how to use his mouth. I’d never had a partner go down on me before so I didn’t have anything to compare him to. Regardless, I sent a silent prayer of gratitude to the heavens. It was effing bliss.
His tongue was working my clit while he moved two fingers in and out.
“Oh my god,” I moaned. My hips bucked when he gave my bud a hard suck.
He eased up and with one last flick, I came undone. Turning my head into my pillow to keep from shouting, I let my body shudder and explode.
My back collapsed back into the bed as I came down, panting for air.
Jess kissed his way up my stomach and lined himself up with my entrance. With one powerful thrust, his bare cock was buried deep.
I loved it when he did that.
He started to move in and out with slow, deep strokes. To reach a second orgasm, it usually took him a while to work me back up, but tonight I knew it wouldn’t take much for him to get me there again.
And it didn’t.
He kept his unhurried pace until I was on the edge.
“I’m there, Jess,” I breathed.
“Yeah, baby,” he said. “Fuck, you feel so good. So tight and wet. Love fucking my Georgia.”
His dirty words in my ear sent me over the edge and my orgasm ripped through me. I covered my mouth with a hand to muffle my moans as I clenched tightly around Jess’s cock.
He gave up his slow pace and started thrusting faster and harder until he moaned into my neck and let himself come.
Our hearts pounded in sync as he released his weight on top of me, crushing me into the bed. I loved the feel of him lying heavily on me. I couldn’t take it for long, but while I could, I savored it. My legs wound around his thighs and I trailed my hands over his muscled back, down to his ass.
Jess had such a great ass. I gave it one good squeeze and felt his cock jerk to life inside me.
He chuckled into my neck. “So glad we’re done with condoms, baby.”
<
br /> “Hmm,” I hummed. “Me too.”
We had run out of condoms tonight and decided to sally forth without. After having Rowen, I’d gone on birth control pills to help regulate my periods, and before Jess, I hadn’t had sex in half a decade. Jess assured me he’d only ever used condoms. Ever. And since he was the poster boy for responsibility, I knew we were safe.
Jess kissed my neck and slowly pulled out so we could hit the bathroom.
We each did our cleanup, and while I pulled on my pajama pants and tank, he crawled back into bed with his black boxer briefs.
“Do you own any other color boxers?” I asked.
He chuckled.
I guess that meant no.
Smiling, I tucked myself into Jess’s side.
Tonight, we’d spent a quiet evening together. The three of us had gone on a short hike to enjoy the September weather. The mountains were bright with color. Winter wasn’t far away and soon the leaves would fall, so we’d taken advantage of the short autumn season.
“I loved that hike, honey. And the sunset.” After our hike, we’d driven to a lookout and watched the sun set while drinking hot cocoa.
“Yeah. Proud of Roe for hiking the whole thing,” he said.
“She’s getting so big. Feels like yesterday she was just starting to walk.” Before I could get all weepy thinking about my baby girl growing up, I changed the subject. “Are you doing okay? It’s been a tough week, Sheriff.”
On Tuesday night, someone had come to the station and slashed the tires on all of the cruisers. Granted, most of the deputies took their cars home with them, but the three extras left in the back parking lot had been hit. Twelve shredded tires.
Jess had been furious. He’d watched the security camera footage a hundred times and still couldn’t make out the bastard that did it. Whoever it was had known exactly where the cameras were. After slashing the last tire, he’d walked up to the camera, given it a mock salute, flipped it the middle finger and bowed.
Someone was taunting Jess. He assumed it was Wes, and I was sure he was right. But his hands were tied without proof.
“I needed tonight, baby. Some time away from the station to clear my head. To see my girls. It helped out. It’s been a shit couple of weeks. Feels like I’m getting nowhere and losing control of my town.”
Resting my chin on his chest, I stared into his blue eyes. “You’ll get to the bottom of it. I know you will. It just might take some time.”
“Yeah,” he responded, not sounding like he believed me.
“And we’ll be here whenever you need another getaway. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, stroking the side of my hair.
I dropped my head back onto his shoulder and twisted my legs so they were entwined with his.
“Night, honey,” I whispered.
“Night, Freckles.”
Jess was so exhausted he fell asleep before me.
Before I drifted off, I decided to start a new Friday rotation until it snowed. One week at the café. The next on a hike, enjoying the beauty of Montana and the comfort of our little unit.
Jess
“Sheriff Cleary,” I answered my desk phone.
“Jess. Frank down here at Pawn One. Think you’d better come down here right now. I got a kid in my shop trying to sell me some jewelry that I recognize from Big Sky Jewelry.”
“Be right there,” I said and raced to Prescott’s one and only pawnshop.
The kid in the shop was probably sixteen or seventeen. He stood at the counter, looking over a gold coin collection locked in a display case. Next to him was a small stack of silver. At an initial glance, I recognized one of the bracelets that the jewelry store owner had described in her list of stolen articles.
I walked up behind the kid and slapped one hand on his shoulder, causing him to spin around with wide eyes.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered.
“Yeah. I think you’d better start explaining what you’re doing with that jewelry, kid.”
“I, ah, was just . . .” he stammered.
“You were just trying to sell a handful of stolen silver. Time to take a trip to the station. We’ll call your parents when we get there,” I said, reaching for my cuffs.
Hours later, the kid had confessed and been released to his parents. I had just sent the preliminary report to the county attorney and tomorrow, the court would decide his punishment.
“Hey, boss. You got a minute?” Sam asked from my office doorway.
“Anytime, old man. Come on in.” I was packing up for the day but stopped to sit so Sam would take a load off too.
He slumped in a chair across from my desk.
“Appreciate you sitting in there with me today. Know long hours in those damn metal chairs are hard on your back,” I said.
“Ah, it’s no problem. I just can’t believe we’re looking for another dealer,” Sam said.
“Shit keeps getting deeper.”
After bringing Zander Baker and his parents into the station’s interrogation room, I’d learned why he had stolen the jewelry.
To buy illegal prescription pills.
Zander would take a couple of pills himself, usually oxycodone, and then resell the rest at a markup to his friends.
So not only was I trying to track down Wes’s meth operation, now I was looking for a pill mill.
Fuck. Me.
After hearing Zander’s confession, I had more questions than answers.
Zander didn’t know who he was buying the pills from. The exchanges were done using texts and remote drop locations, and every day was in a new place. Underneath a rock by a light pole. Behind a garbage can of a shop downtown. In an envelope taped underneath a mailbox.
The phone numbers had all been linked to disposable phones, which made tracking the dealer using texts impossible. And the pills were always picked up outside of town. Also at different locations during each deal.
“You believe him that he didn’t hit Silas’s calf?” Sam asked.
“He confessed to everything else. Even told us he went out there for a pill pickup. Don’t know why he’d lie about it. Could have been the seller that killed the animal.”
“Or worse. Could be a whole other bunch of kids picking up pills,” Sam said, shaking his head.
“Fuck, Sam. I don’t want Prescott’s kids on drugs. We gotta get to these fucking dealers.”
“What are the chances Wes is behind the pills?”
“Doubt it,” I said. “Doesn’t make sense that he’d branch out. He controls all aspects of his crystal meth operation. He does production so he isn’t reliant on a supplier. Probably keeps eighty to ninety percent of his profits. Pills would mean an outside source. Big cuts into his profit margin. I just don’t think he’d do it.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “You’re probably right. You’ll get them, boss.”
I sure as fuck hoped he was right.
By the weekend, nothing had changed. I was putting in some extra hours doing paperwork so come tomorrow, I could hit the streets. I needed to be more present in town. See what was happening with my own eyes.
“Working on a Sunday, Brick? No rest for Prescott’s Good Prince, I guess.”
Wes waltzed into my office.
I grumbled but didn’t respond. Instead, I contemplated firing my dispatcher for letting a suspected criminal approach me without warning.
“What do you want, Wes? Here to turn yourself in? Draw me a map to your meth house? Go to rehab?” I asked.
“Whatever are you talking about?” Wes said. “I just came to talk to my old friend Jess.”
“Spit it out, Drummond. What do you want?”
“I heard you went out to talk to Dad last week,” he said.
“Your point?”
“They just love you. Mom and Dad. So disappointed that I didn’t turn out more like you.”
“You know how they feel about drugs. No surprise they’re disappointed. Maybe get some help and make them proud. Take over the farm like your
dad always wanted.”
Wes scoffed. “I’m not running that farm. And I don’t need help.”
I shook my head. We’d had this conversation too many times to count. No one could get through to Wes. Not his parents. Not his friends. Maybe we were all stupid for holding out hope that he’d turn his life around.
“What do you want, Wes?”
“You know, I’m just so happy for you, Brick. Finding Gigi. She’s stunning. And that little girl? So cute.”
My frame locked tight. What the fuck was he doing bringing up Georgia and Rowen?
“It just so happens I’ve been in the area lately when Gigi picks up the kid from school. It’s nice. To watch them together. So nice, I think I’ll do it every day,” he said.
I shot out of my chair and leaned over my desk.
“Stay the fuck away from them. If I hear you’re bothering her, you’re dead. Cop or not, I’ll end you.”
He sneered and started backing away.
Then he gave me a mock salute, flipped me the middle finger and bowed. Just like the man had done on camera the night he slashed the cruisers’ tires.
It had been Wes. I knew it.
And I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.
I stood and watched him leave the station. Then I picked up a cup on my desk and sent it flying into the wall, the glass shattering on impact.
“Fuck!”
I gave myself a few moments to calm down. Then I grabbed a dustpan to clean up the glass before Oakley could cut his paws. When I was done, I hit the vending machine for a soda before sitting back down in front of my paperwork.
I was stressed to the max. Wes kept pushing me into a corner and all I wanted to do was push back. But I fucking couldn’t. My badge bound me to follow the rules. Most of the time, I liked those rules. The structure. Not today.
My fuse was short and I knew it wouldn’t take much for me to blow. I pitied the person who pushed me over the edge.
Gigi
The weekend was going by quickly. While Jess was at work, Rowen and I had spent time doing fall yard work. We had also cleaned the entire house and done the laundry.
It was nice to have a quiet weekend with my girl. We were settled from the move and getting into a good routine. Our lives were officially here in Prescott and it was starting to feel like home.
