by Ann Charles
He raised their wrists as one and pressed his palm against the door next to her head, his face almost touching hers. “Now did I or did I not hear you call me ‘Hardass’?”
His question reminded her of a line from Two Mules for Sister Sarah, so she responded in kind. “I suppose a man might hear just about anything after being awake for almost two days straight.”
He lifted his non-cuffed hand, running his knuckles along her jawline. “You have a sassy mouth, Veronica Morgan.”
“What are you going to do about it? Arrest me for protesting too much, Sheriff Hardass?”
“Only if you’re trespassing.”
She grabbed him through his pants. “Is this trespassing?”
His mouth came down on hers hard, demanding. She didn’t back down, meeting his tongue in the middle, matching thrusts.
“Veronica.” He reached down and covered her hand with his, showing her how he wanted to be touched.
Passion boiled over, melting everything inside of her, steaming her brain. She fumbled with the button of his pants, wanting to feel the real thing. After years of faking orgasms with Lyle and finding her only release with a vibrator, she needed to touch the real thing, stroke him, feel him inside of her.
“Take off your pants,” she said against his lips.
“Are you sure?” he asked, blinking down at her as if he were shocked to find them handcuffed together on the verge of sex against the supply room door.
“Yes, Grady. I want you inside of me.”
“I’m not carrying any protection.”
“You mean these aren’t standard issue with the hat and star?” She pulled a handful of condoms out of her pocket. “Now take off your pants.”
He looked at her for a moment.
“Unless you don’t want me … or this,” she said, feeling a blush start to crawl up her throat. Jeez. Had she taken things too far too fast for him?
His gaze softened. “Of course I want you and this,” he kissed her, lowering his forehead so it was touching hers. “I just had something different in mind when I imagined taking you the first time.”
He had fantasized about her? That made her knees feel wobbly. “Like what?”
“Fewer rolls of toilet paper in the room, for one.”
She smiled. “You mean you didn’t picture us handcuffed in a supply room?”
“Not in a supply room, no. But we were handcuffed.”
She laughed, deep and throaty. Wow, where had that come from? She had a James Bond sex kitten thing going on for a second there. “Grady?”
“What?” He ran his tongue along her collarbone, making her writhe, her hips tickle.
“Why am I still wearing my underwear?”
His groan sounded almost painful. “Let me fix that for you.” He yanked up her skirt and tugged down her panties, dragging her cuffed hand along with his.
“Now about those pants,” she said, her breath coming faster as his palm slid up her inner thigh.
“Hold your horses. I’m busy.”
“My horses are long gone.” She tugged on his handcuff and unbuttoned his pants with both of her hands. “Get them off,” she said, trying to tear open a condom with her free hand and teeth while he dropped his pants.
“Give me that,” he said, taking the condom from her and frowning at it. “Small? You’re hard on a man’s ego, Veronica. I’m going to need a bigger one.”
She held out the others. He grabbed one and ripped it open.
“I want to put it on.” She had watched a porno once where the woman made the guy all hot and bothered with her technique. Ronnie had watched it over and over. It was that or rearrange her walk-in closet since Lyle had been out of town on business yet again.
“You can do it next time,” Grady said.
There was going to be a next time?
“If you touch me now,” he continued, “I may not be able to last long enough to even get inside of you.”
Knowing he wanted her that much was some heady juju. She watched him slide the condom on, admiring what he had to offer. When he finished and looked up at her with a questioning brow, she lifted her leg and wrapped it around his thigh.
“Now, Grady.”
He took her at her command. The first plunge gave her goosebumps, the path slick with her need for him.
“Veronica,” he breathed in her hair. He tugged on her other thigh. “Wrap both of your legs around me.”
He lifted her, positioning her against the door, then drove into her again and again.
Her one hand was pinned against the door with his, her other clutched his shoulder, squeezing tighter the higher she spun. “More Grady,” she whispered. “I need more of you.”
“Like this?” He buried himself inside of her.
“Oh, God!” she cried, digging her heels into him. “Yes! Do it again!”
He did, and then didn’t stop, at least not until she shuddered around him, her limbs losing all strength. He slammed into her a couple of more times before groaning through his own release. When it was over, he leaned his forehead on her shoulder, his breath heating her skin through her T-shirt.
“Damn, woman.” He grabbed a towel from the shelf, lowering her to the floor. “You bewitch me.”
Her toes tingled when they touched down. Grady made her feel light and airy, warm all over. Nothing with Raphael had ever come close to that, nor Lyle for that matter. That was troubling. Sex with the Sheriff of Cholla County could quickly become addictive.
“I think I’m going to want to do that again,” she said, pulling her skirt down.
“You think?” He chuckled. The deep, happy sound made her heart swell. “It wasn’t supposed to be this good.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re you and I’m me, and this thing between us might cause problems.”
“Oh.” Yeah, there was that star of his.
“But knowing that hasn’t stopped me from wanting you, even when you said I’d need tweezers to find my dick.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I was sort of wrong on the size.”
“Sort of?” He shot her a mock glare while pulling up his pants.
“My memory is growing hazy now.” She looked around for her underwear. “You may have to show it to me again.”
He pulled a key to the cuffs from his pocket and held it up in front of her. “I was right. You are a handcuffs kind of girl.”
She snatched the key from him. “That’s only because I figured Sheriff Hardass would get off on locking me up.”
“Next time—”
Someone pounded on the door, twisting the locked knob.
“Oh, crap!” Ronnie whispered and hopped away from it.
“Who’s in there?” a male voice demanded from the other side of the door. She knew that voice.
“Damn it.” Grady tucked her behind him. “It’s Butch.”
“Harrison!” The pounding grew louder, faster. “If you’re in there messing around with Kate, I’m gonna kick your ass! I don’t care if you’re the goddamned Sheriff.”
“He’s not joking,” Ronnie whispered. She could hear it in Butch’s tone. “What are you doing?” she asked when Grady grabbed the knob.
“Opening the door.” And he did just that. “Hi, Butch. How was Phoenix?”
Ronnie peeked around Grady’s shoulder.
“What are you doing in my supply room with the door locked, Harrison?” Butch asked, his mouth tight, his tanned face more ruddy than the last time Ronnie had seen him. “Where’s your shirt? And why in the hell does it smell like sex in here?”
Grady stepped back, pushing Ronnie, too. “Calm down. It’s not Kate.” He pulled his left wrist, which was still attached to Ronnie’s right wrist, out from behind him.
“Welcome home, Butch,” Ronnie said, trying on a bright smile for size and feeling like an idiot wearing it.
Butch stared at her for a few seconds, then snorted. A smile eased onto his face, adding laugh lines around his dark blue eyes. “You
’ve got to be shitting me.”
“It’s not what it seems,” Grady said.
“It’s not?” Butch smirked, his gaze darting from Grady’s bare chest to Ronnie’s mouth to their locked wrists. “So you weren’t having some kind of kinky handcuffed sex with my girlfriend’s sister in my supply room?”
Ronnie’s face sizzled.
Grady sighed. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what it is.”
His grin now ear to ear, Butch backed out of the room. “Ronnie, I think you left your underwear on that shelf behind you. Harrison, come by my office and catch me up when you’re done.” He shut the door on his own laughter.
Ronnie blew out a breath and peeked up at Grady. “So much for keeping that our little secret.”
He dragged his hand through his hair. “Yeah. My Aunt Millie already suspects as much.”
Ronnie wanted to adopt his Aunt Millie as her own. She unlocked his cuff and then hers. “You could always lie to Butch.”
“How’s that?” He took the handcuffs from her.
“Tell him you were trying to arrest me and I distracted you with my body.”
Grady’s eyes twinkled. “With our history, that wouldn’t really be a lie, now would it?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“What’s with the jeans?” Claire asked Mac from where he had left her spent, sprawled out and naked on the sheets. They had the Skunkmobile to themselves for another half-hour, her family warned to stay out. What was his rush to get back to the chaos? She wasn’t done with him yet.
“I forgot about Dr. García.” He grabbed his shirt from the floor, shaking it out. “Damn, Slugger. You ripped two of the buttons off.”
“It’s your fault.”
“How’s it my fault?” He pulled on the shirt and buttoned what he could, staring down at her chest.
“My eyes are up here, big boy.” She pointed at her face, redirecting his gaze from her bare chest. “It’s your fault because you did that thing you do with your tongue. You know what it does to me.” She pushed up onto her elbows. “What about Dr. García?”
“I asked him to meet me outside his camper this afternoon to talk about securing the dig site.” His focus drifted south again. “I meant to tell you; he mentioned yesterday when Sheriff Harrison was here that he’s pretty sure he knows the origin of the jade pieces.”
“Did you tell Gramps about this meeting?” Knowing how frustrated her grandfather had been lately with taking a back seat to Mac, she could see him getting all growly and pissy over this if not.
“He’s the one who suggested we talk to Dr. García.” Mac’s hand inched toward her breast but she laughed and rolled away before he made contact. “Get back here, woman.”
“No way. Don’t think you can start something and then leave.” She swung her feet over the edge of the bed. “Besides, I’m coming with you.”
“You sure you don’t want to get some rest? You were still staggering around late last night after all that went down and then over inhaling paint fumes at the restroom first thing this morning with the boys. You’re not Superwoman, you know.”
“That’s not what you were saying a little while ago.” She grabbed her underwear from the foot of the bed. “Have you seen my bra?”
“I was overly smitten when I said that.” He walked out into the hall and came back with her bra dangling from his index finger. “I still think we should burn all of these.”
“They’re too expensive to burn. Did you leave a hickey on my neck? I vaguely remember some biting going on at one point.” She peered in the closet mirror, lifting her chin. “As for the good doctor, I’m the one who swam down in the shaft and got that jade piece. If anyone deserves to know the story of its origin, it’s me.”
“I left a hickey on your hip, not your neck, and you were the one doing the biting.”
Oh, right. That was his fault, too. He smelled so fresh and yummy, like the sun-warmed desert in the morning. He should try not to tempt her like that if he didn’t like being bitten.
He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his socks and shoes. “If you’re coming, we need to leave here in the next five minutes.”
“No problem.” She fastened her bra and then combed her hair with her fingers.
He came up behind her and pulled her back against him, staring at her in the mirror. “Have I told you how crazy I am about you?”
“Yes, in the hallway right after I tore off your shirt, remember?” She stopped his hand as it headed south into her underwear. “When Sheriff Harrison confiscated the camper that belonged to those women, did he mention anything to you about finding something odd underneath it?”
“No.” Mac’s reflection frowned at her. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said, turning in his arms, pressing into him, making his eyes go all dark and sexy again. “Are you sure we need to leave to talk to the doctor right now?”
Mac pushed her back a step. “Claire, did you snoop inside that camper?”
She couldn’t outright lie to him. “I might have sort of gone inside of it one day when I was patrolling the area after realizing that they had gone off to the dig site and left the door unlocked.” But she could fudge the truth a little.
“Claire,” he said, following it with a heavy duty glare.
She kissed his Adam’s apple. “That’s not important, though.”
“How is breaking and entering not important?”
“Because I had no intent to commit a crime.” She grabbed a clean T-shirt from the closet. “I just looked around and left.”
“Which is illegally trespassing, another misdemeanor to add to your growing record.”
“What Sheriff Harrison doesn’t know won’t hurt anyone.” She pulled her Zombies Love Girls with Big Brainnnsssss T-shirt over her head. “Besides, the Sheriff did inform me recently that he has spruced up the jail cell for me.”
“My anxieties are not at peace knowing that, sweetheart.” Mac crossed his arms over his chest. “Why did you ask if the Sheriff found something odd under the camper?”
“Because I found something under there. Ronnie has it hidden somewhere in here.”
“I thought you said you didn’t take anything when you snooped.”
“I didn’t. Not then. But a few days later, Henry’s leash got caught up under their camper. When I crawled under to unwrap him, I found a little box tucked up in the back bumper. I just wondered if the Sheriff found that box.” She went out in the hall, where Mac had peeled her jeans off and given her the hickey, carrying them back to the bedroom. “Now that I think about it, the Sheriff had Deputy Dipshit with him yesterday. That incompetent fool wouldn’t know where to find his ass if it weren’t attached at his waist.”
Mac watched her tug her jeans up over her hips. “Did you open the box?” He didn’t even let her react to his question before saying, “What am I thinking? Of course you did. What was in it?”
Her Mighty Mouse cap hung on a hook inside the closet. Claire could tell Ronnie had been in the bedroom cleaning. Her older sister had always picked up after them when they were kids. Time had not changed some things. She grabbed her cap and pulled it on her head. “Eyeballs.”
Catching her arm, Mac turned her in his direction. “Eyeballs?” When she nodded, his brows wrinkled. “Human?”
“You’ve been watching too many horror movies with me.” She looked around for her flip flops, not seeing them, and grabbed a pair of canvas slip-ons. “They were round glass eyeballs, I think. A bit smaller than human eyes, but not small enough to be doll’s eyes.”
He dropped onto the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. “That’s weird.”
“And creepy.” She walked over to him and tipped his chin up. “You ready?” She kissed him on his wrinkled brow.
“I worry about you, Slugger.”
“Don’t let the eyeballs mess with your head.”
He pulled her closer, resting his forehead on her sternum. “I don’t want anything t
o happen to you, and I can’t always be around to keep you out of trouble.”
“Is this about you leaving tomorrow morning?” She tugged him to his feet. “I swear, I’m just gonna paint the restroom and help Ruby with some stuff Gramps can’t do right now until you get back Friday night. No chasing gun-toting older ladies or harassing Deputy Droopy.”
He followed her down the hall. “Promise me you won’t go up in the mines while I’m gone.”
“I promise. It’s way too spooky when you’re not there with me.”
Holding the door open for her, he caught her hand on the way outside, kissing her knuckles. “I can’t wait until you come home to Tucson with me. It sucks there without you.”
She smiled at him. She missed him, too, but she wasn’t looking forward to returning to her job search and rattling around in their big house all day, waiting for him to come home. Life here in Jackrabbit Junction had much more to offer—only it didn’t have Mac. Looking away before he could see that struggle in her eyes, she dragged him outside with her into the afternoon sunshine. “Time will fly until you’re back here again.”
She kept hold of his hand as they strolled along the drive toward the new restroom and the archaeologist crew’s setup beyond it, not quite ready to leave the land of bliss they had slipped away to enjoy. Reality had way too many barbs and left a mess in its wake. Take her mother, for example, and her bitterness toward just about everything.
Deborah appeared in front of them, as if she’d stepped out of Claire’s thoughts onto the scene. Damn it. That’s what Claire got for even thinking about the woman.
“Claire,” Deborah said.
Claire couldn’t look at her mother, the scene with Manny still too fresh. “What?” she asked her mother’s feet.
“Oh, would you stop with this silly business and look at me.”
Wincing, she did as her mother demanded. Deborah had forgotten to put on lipstick this afternoon.
Or maybe Manny had kissed it off.
Oh, blah. Claire’s stomach curdled at the image that thought brought with it, along with all of the others that tumbled after. There had been so much whipped cream—ugh.
“I’m human, Claire.” Deborah said, shoving a plate of cookies into her hands. “I have physical needs, just like you and MacDonald. Manuel was able to … to help me find some release for the time being.”
