by Lucy Score
Scarlett dramatically collapsed on the floor and covered her face with her hands. “Dear Lord, grant me the serenity to not murder all of my dumbass friends and family,” she moaned.
“What in the hell am I supposed to do?” I asked, exasperated.
“Figure out what the hell you want. Do you want to be a deputy? Do you want to be with my brother?”
“Yes, but how—”
“Does knowing the people you’re policing diminish your ability to be good at your job?”
“No, but—”
“Do you want to wake up to Bowie every Christmas morning for the rest of your life?”
Yes.
I did. I wanted a lifetime with the man. Of cookies baking in the oven, babies laughing, kisses stolen in the pantry, of quiet nights where nothing else mattered but his skin against mine.
Not trusting my voice and not really wanting Bowie to know all of this mess, I nodded.
Scarlett rolled up into a seated position. “Then stop letting other people dictate how you live your life. Stop trying to do everything all by your lonesome. Start standing up for yourself. Share. Be part of this life, not just some outsider lookin’ in and keepin’ secrets. And for Pete’s sake, stop lying to your best friend in the whole world!”
“That is a whole lot of conflicting advice,” I pointed out.
But Scarlett was done with me.
“A secret relationship?” she scoffed to herself as she climbed to her feet. “That’s the dumbest damn thing I’ve heard all week.” She headed toward the patio doors.
“He got in my head,” I admitted. Connelly had prodded the cracks that I’d developed after Bowie broke my heart. I wasn’t good enough. My instincts were off. I didn’t belong here.
“Well now, I think it’s time you got in his.”
“I might have something,” I admitted. “I did a little internet research.”
“Did you now?” Scarlett nodded her approval.
“Speaking of. That Shelby girl from boot camp? She’s a journalist. I think she’s trying to get to y’all through Jonah. I haven’t told him yet.” I thought back to his “ah, shucks” face at Shelby’s compliments. The guy had to be lonely out here away from his mother and friends. But accidentally cozying up to a reporter wasn’t the answer.
Scarlett’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, we’ll see about that.”
We were silent for a beat and then another one.
“I don’t want to see you fuck this all up, Cass,” Scarlett confessed. “You gotta understand that obeying crooked authority isn’t doing the right thing. Neither is making yourself small and your wants few. Deep down you know what’s right. You know what you want out of life. So don’t fuck that up just because you’re scared.”
I nodded again, and she reached for the patio door. Bowie and Devlin were probably frozen out there.
“Thanks, Scar,” I said softly.
“Don’t thank me. I’m mad at you, Cass. You’re gonna have to make this disappointment up to me in a big way.” She turned away from me and toward the porch. “Y’all can come back in.”
“Good,” Bowie said. “We’re freezin’ out here and the pizza’ll be here in five.”
56
Cassidy
“Scarlett still mad at you?” Bowie asked as we wandered up Lake Drive.
I’d thrown caution to the wind and let him talk me into hitting the Pop In for a late-night ice cream treat. We weren’t holding hands or sticking tongues down each other’s throats, but we were visible. Together. An inflatable Frosty the Snowman tipped his top hat at me from Yee Haw Yarn and Coffee’s patio.
We were a week out from Christmas, and I hadn’t come up with any solutions to my immediate problems, which included:
How to date Bowie without getting fired?
How to get Connelly to stop treating me like dog crap?
How to apologize to Scarlett?
It was a lot of how to questions and not a lot of answers. And I hated to admit it, but I felt something stirring under the holiday calm. Something was gonna break. But I didn’t know if it was the investigation, Bowie’s patience, Connelly’s limited self-control, or my heart.
“Yeah,” I sighed, biting into my ice cream sandwich. “I haven’t quite figured out how to fix that yet.”
“You’ll figure it out,” he said, opening my car door for me.
I slid in, buckled up. Bowie climbed in behind the wheel and cranked the heater. He looked over at me, a sexy sparkle in his eyes. “You know how many times over the last few years I’ve wished I could take you for ice cream?”
I smiled back. Every time he confessed to a yearning that had tortured him, I felt another seam in my heart stitch itself up. “You know, I’ve had a few fantasies over the years, too,” I confessed.
We’d worked our way through several of Bowie’s winter-themed fantasies that he’d banked. The baggy sweater and nothing else under it had been quite enjoyable. So had the undressing Deputy Tucker scenario.
“Tell me,” he demanded, steering my car toward home with one hand while devouring his strawberry shortcake bar.
“I used to imagine sneaking out of Scarlett’s room and into yours when I slept over.”
“I shared a room with Jameson,” Bowie said, cracking a smile.
“That’s why we’d have to be real quiet.”
He shot me a look and made a right-hand turn.
“Where are we going?” I laughed as he turned us away from home.
“My dad’s house.”
“Are you serious?” I was equal parts horrified and delighted.
“It’s a little different now with the renovations and all. But my old room still has two twin beds.”
“It doesn’t! We can’t.”
“Is the pretty deputy scared?” Bowie quipped.
“I’m an adult with a very nice queen-sized bed at home,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but imagine what would have happened if seventeen-year-old you had snuck into twenty-one-year-old me’s bed.”
“You would have been all chivalrous and kicked me out,” I guessed. Which is exactly why I’d never done it. I’d made it as far as the hallway outside his door. Twice. But I’d never been brave enough to attempt it.
We were three minutes away from the Bodine homestead. And in those three minutes, I relived just about every teenage fantasy I’d ever had sleeping over at Scarlett’s. I’d come out of the shower in a towel and Bowie would drag me into his room. Or he’d lead me into the woods during a bonfire and have his way with me against a tree. Or we’d run into each other in the kitchen in the middle of the night, and he’d slide me up on the counter and kiss me.
Or I’d sneak into his room and he’d hold the sheet up, welcoming me into his bed.
He bumped down the driveway to the bungalow with its wooded acre and its tidy white trim. They’d re-sided it in a dark green and re-stained the porch a rich, dark honey. It looked crisp, clean, inviting.
And not at all like the home I’d spent many a summer nights in.
Bowie brought my car to a stop. “Come on.”
We unlocked the door and slipped inside. It smelled like fresh paint and carpet. They were still debating on selling it outright or renting it. There were a lot of memories tied up in these walls. Good and bad.
The paint was different, the kitchen updated, but the bones were the same. I remembered watching movies in that skinny living room and that the third step from the bottom squeaked. Important knowledge for when we snuck out of the house in our teenage years.
He took my hand and led me up the stairs. Bowie paused in the hallway and pressed me up against the wall outside the bathroom. My heart thumped its approval. So many memories. So many wants and needs.
“Sorry, sneaking in another little fantasy,” he said, leaning into me.
“Tell me,” I whispered.
“You’d be coming out of the bathroom real late. No one else is awake,” he said, slipping his hands into my coat and settling
them under my breasts. “You’d make the first move.”
“Like this?” I asked, shifting our positions so it was Bowie against the wall and I was the one pinning him there.
“God, yes,” he breathed into my mouth.
“Would I kiss you?” I asked, brushing my lips against his lightly.
Bowie nodded, and I obliged, closing my fingers in his shirt and holding him there. “I’d make it known that I wanted your hands on me.”
“Yes,” he hissed.
“You wouldn’t have a choice. You wouldn’t have to be the good guy. Because it’s late and I want you.”
His breath hitched, and I wondered how many fantasies we’d shared without the other knowing.
“What did I do next?” I asked.
Bowie took my hand and slid it down over his stomach to cup his hard-on through his pants.
I purred, no longer pretending to be seventeen. “Yes.”
“What next,” Bowie asked, caught up in the moment.
“We have to be together. You have to touch me. We need a room with a lock.”
“The bathroom,” he said.
“Exactly.” We kissed and pawed our way to the bathroom door, shedding our coats on the fresh carpet.
“Jesus, Cass. I’ve waited so long for this.”
“We’re in the bathroom. Door’s locked,” I said. My hands were shaking, and my insides were going to liquid. “Now what?”
“You’re wearing one of those cute pajama sets that I always loved.”
I slipped my bra off under my sweater and fished it out of one sleeve. He swallowed hard, and my nipples pebbled. He helped me shuck my leggings so I wore only the sweater.
“You’re wearing nothing but a pair of shorts,” I told him, dragging his shirt over his head. Bowie made quick work of his jeans and stood before me in just tight boxer briefs. He was so hard that the head of his cock was escaping the waistband.
He backed me up against the vanity and settled me on the counter.
“That’s better,” he said, moving between my thighs.
I needed him to touch me right here, right now.
“How far do we go?” he asked me, fisting his cock.
“As far as we can get away with.”
“I can’t believe you were thinking about this, too,” he said as I spread my legs for him. Bowie slid his hands around my ass and pulled me to the edge of the counter.
I reached down between us and closed my fingers around his shaft.
He dropped his forehead to mine as I started to stroke him, guiding his tip through my wet folds.
“What did you do when I slept over?” I asked him, hungry for pieces of him that I hadn’t had.
“I always looked in on y’all,” he confessed, staring down between us to where our bodies were almost joined.
“You did?” My heart picked up the pace, imagining it.
“I’d lay awake for hours listening to you two giggle and gossip. When y’all got quiet, I’d poke my head in to make sure you were asleep and not sneaking out.”
“And then what?”
“And then I’d picture something exactly like this,” he confessed.
I gripped him harder and reveled at the moisture that collected at his tip.
“And you’d touch yourself?” I asked, breathless.
He nodded and reached down. He lined himself up with my entrance that was all kinds of hydrated. “I’d think about how wet you’d be for me. How you’d say my name and I’d have to put my hand over your mouth to keep you quiet.”
“Bowie.”
With a slow, sexy grin, he closed one big hand over my mouth.
“Quiet, honey,” he whispered. “We don’t want to wake anybody up.”
And then he was slamming himself into me. I cried out against his hand, and he growled. “This is what I thought about, Cassidy. You and me,” he said as he pulled out and drove back into me.
I brought my knees up, so he could work himself in and out with ease. I was so fucking wet for him. I always was. My body had been programmed to respond to his. It was the only explanation for why I was already so close to coming.
He kept that hand over my mouth, and I clung to his shoulders while we stared into each other’s eyes.
“You drive me insane, Cass. I can’t think about anything else but you.”
I didn’t know if it was Past Bowie or Current Bowie saying it, but I sure was appreciative either way.
The feel of him driving into me, those powerful thrusts that bottomed him out inside me, drove me crazy.
“Hold tight,” he ordered gruffly.
I gripped him with my arms and thighs, and he slid his free hand under my sweater.
“I’d fuck you like this, Cass. Right here. It would be our little secret. Our beautiful, dirty little secret.” His thumb brushed over my nipple that had puckered to stone.
One hand on my mouth, one hand at my breast, tugging and squeezing, and I was coming. I felt my muscles milk his cock, closing around him, gripping and sliding.
“Fuck, fuck,” I chanted against his palm.
“That’s my girl. My beautiful girl,” he said with dark pleasure glazing his eyes.
He was grunting softly now on every thrust, and I wanted him to come. I wanted to see this fantasy through, see what Teenage Cassidy was capable of doing to Bowie.
“Fuck, baby. When you come I go crazy,” he growled. Then he was pulling out of me, gripping his cock hard. He stroked hard and fast until the first rope of his release shot out onto my folds. He kept stroking, kept coming, covering my stomach, my thighs, my center with his release.
It was beautiful, desperate, erotic. And I was dizzy with love.
57
Bowie
“Scarlett is gonna murder us for using her new towels to clean up bodily fluids,” Cassidy predicted as I ran the towel under the hot water.
“Honey she’d be a lot more pissed if we left this mess for her,” I teased, cleaning us both up as best I could. She was beautiful with her walls down and her cheeks flushed. Happiness radiated out of her like heat from the sun.
“That was crazy hot, wasn’t it? I mean, I thought it was,” Cassidy said. She had a tendency to jabber after sex. A trait I found fucking adorable.
“Crazy hot,” I agreed.
“What will we do after we run out of fantasies?” Cassidy asked, concerned.
I rinsed the towel out in the sink and looked down her long, lean body. “Honey, I think we’ll be fine.” I had a feeling I could spend a lifetime coming up with new ways to appreciate Cassidy’s body.
“I can’t believe we did that,” she said, hopping off the counter and feeling around on the floor for her pants.
I leaned down and kissed her hard. “You’re my every dream come true. When are you gonna realize that?”
She smiled up at me, and I couldn’t help but gather her up and swing her around in the tight space.
I wondered if she’d known that she’d just given me my very happiest memory in this house.
“Is it weird to be here?” she asked, reading my damn mind.
I set her down on her feet and pulled my shirt over my head. She looked disappointed that I was getting dressed.
We had it bad. I doubted that I’d be able to hold off on popping the question much longer. Especially after I’d heard her confessions to Scarlett. She wanted me every Christmas morning. I wanted to give her time to get used to the idea, time to find the right solution at work. But all she had to do was look at me with those gorgeous green eyes, and I was already halfway to my knee.
It was right. We were right.
“It is,” I admitted. “It’s different now, but I still have all these memories popping out at me every room I step into.”
We picked up our coats off the floor and, loose-limbed and smiling, started down the stairs. “I feel like any minute now your mom is gonna poke her head in the front door and tell Scarlett and me we have to unload the groceries from the car—” She
broke off in mid-sentence, freezing on the stairs.
“What is it?” I asked. Had she seen a bat? Did I have the chance to play hero again?
“Her car.”
“What car?”
“Your mom’s car.”
“What about it.”
“She never let your dad drive it.”
I recalled a few dozen arguments about my dad’s driving ability. My mom drove a beat-up Pontiac bought from a cousin for a grand. It only started half the time and overheated the other half. The speakers on the right side didn’t work, and the fabric on the ceiling had come loose. She kept it pinned up with sunflower safety pins. But it was her pride and joy.
I was surprised by the swift rush of memory.
“She hated the way Dad drove,” I recalled. “He was a terrible driver, even before the drinking.”
“Funny thing about memories,” she said, sounding kind of far away. “Like walking down these steps I remember your mom pulling up out front in your dad’s truck. Her honking the horn at us to come help unload. She was pissed because one of the bags fell over in the truck bed and the eggs were all broken.”
A vague recollection was beginning to take shape.
“She was really upset about the eggs. Upset enough, I figured it was about something more than broken eggs,” Cassidy continued quietly.
“She was upset about a lot of things,” I said, not sure what Cassidy was getting at.
“We should probably head home,” she said. But I got the feeling she wasn’t hearing or seeing me right now. She had that look in her eye that I usually only saw during game night when she was one strategic play away from a win.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
But she didn’t answer, she was already pushing her way out the front door.
I stared down at the beer I was holding while SportsCenter replayed receiver GT Thompson’s injury play over and over again as they discussed his career options. After gritty, raw, incredible sex, Cassidy had given me a perfunctory kiss on the back porch and marched right on into her own house. No invitation. No apology. Just a single-minded focus on something that she didn’t feel like sharing.
