A Match Made in Texas (12 page)

His gaze dropped to the exposed swells of her breasts. His hand tightened on her arm, and when he spoke, his voice sounded thin and airless.

“You’re lying.”

With that intense gaze locked on her, she felt a little airless herself. The man was standing way too close. So close that she could smell his spicy scent. So close she could feel his all-consuming heat. Suddenly, she couldn’t seem to keep the stream of raunchy fantasies out of her brain. They converged in a tangle of hot, naked flesh and hard, unrelenting need.

Her nipples hardened against the thin terry towel. What little air she had froze in her lungs as she watched the sheriff’s chest rise and fall. Once. Twice. Three times. His gaze lifted, and for the first time since meeting him, he didn’t look pissed. He looked hot. Very, very hot.

“You’re playing with fire,” he said as his thumb caressed the inside of her arm.

She should’ve called a stop to things right then and there. It no longer mattered that he found out about her embarrassing infatuation with his handcuffs. What mattered was doing something really stupid. Something that would no doubt come back to haunt her like every other stupid mistake. Unfortunately, any logical thinking had been completely consumed with naughty fantasies.

“Maybe I like playing with fire,” she said as she met his heated gaze head on.

There was only a second’s pause before he spoke. “Then get ready to get burned.”

In one fluid motion, he dropped her arm and pulled her up to meet his waiting mouth. The quick movement had both the towel on her head and the one on her body dropping to the floor. And there was something about being naked in a fully clothed man’s arms that seemed so wrong… and at the same time, so right.

The kiss he gave her was much more demanding than the one in the jail cell. There he had allowed her to have control, but now he took charge, his lips scorching and his tongue unrelenting. His hands settled on her bare butt cheeks, and he lifted her closer to the hard press of his belt buckle and the ridge beneath his fly. She tried to accommodate their difference in height by standing on her tiptoes. When that wasn’t enough, she stepped right up on the toes of his boots and wrapped a leg around his hips.

He groaned into her mouth and picked her up, carrying her over to the bed. He pulled away from the kiss with a nip of bottom lip before lowering her to the mattress. Since her experience with men was limited, she should’ve felt shy as his gaze devoured her from wet head to blue toenails. But she didn’t. Her attention was too focused on the chest he revealed as he unsnapped his shirt. It was as tanned and muscular as his forearms and dusted with a sprinkling of golden hair.

His sunglasses clattered to the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice as he slipped the shirt off and reached for his belt.

Bri’s imagination hadn’t even come close to the perfect male specimen who stood before her. With hips tilted forward and biceps flexed as he uncinched his buckle, he looked like one of the half-naked models her sorority sisters had used as their screen savers.

Leaving his jeans on, he knelt in front of her and separated her knees. Then with his hot gaze pinned on her, he leaned down and kissed the quivery spot between her legs.

Bri had had oral sex with only two men. Both experiences had been disappointing because their technique had left something to be desired. Dusty’s technique left nothing to be desired. Probably because he didn’t just use his tongue. He used his lips and mouth, sipping and tasting until he found the exact spot that rocked her world. Once he located it, he took complete control of her body. With each stroke of his tongue, he brought her closer and closer to the zenith of a mountain. To the top speed of a race car. To the perfect elevation of the sky. And just when she thought she couldn’t take the excitement and anticipation for one second longer, he sent her free-falling right over the edge.

And suddenly every other thrill-seeking thing she’d ever done in life paled in comparison to this spectacular, amazing, mind-blowing release. When she finally floated back down to earth, she opened her eyes to discover him watching her.

“So you want me to use those?” he asked.

Not sure what he was talking about, she made a guess. “A condom? Yes, please.”

A crooked smile teased one corner of his mouth. “Such pretty manners, but I wasn’t talking about a condom.” He stood and flipped open the top button of his jeans. “I was talking about the handcuffs.”

The oral sex hadn’t caused her to blush, but that did. Her face burned as she glanced over at the handcuffs she still held in her hand. “Oh. Umm… maybe later.”

His teasing smile died a sudden death. “There’s not going to be a later. You’re going back to Miss Hattie’s. As far as I’m concerned, your community service is over—” He hesitated. “Wait a minute, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You thought a little sex with the lonely sheriff would be enough to cancel out your community service.”

It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying when her gaze was stuck on the bulge of pink cotton that pushed open his zipper. With her throat too dry to answer, he came to his own conclusions.

“Dammit to hell!” He zipped up his zipper with a zing and reached for his shirt. “You’d think I’d learn, but I’m like a shit-eating dog. I just keep coming back for more.”

Bri blinked. “Excuse me?” She sat up. “If you’re the dog, just what does that make me?”

“Figure it out!” He turned and headed out the door.

“You jerk.” She grabbed the sheet, wrapped it around her, and followed after him. “I am not… poop. And I’m certainly not trying to get out of my community service by having sex with you.”

Once he reached the living room, he swung back around. “Then what were you doing?” He waved a hand. “I come home to find a naked woman in my bedroom, drooling over my handcuffs.”

“I was not drooling over your handcuffs.” She lifted her hand to shake a fist at him before she realized that she still held the handcuffs. He shot her one of those guy looks that said “yeah, right.” Which had her throwing the handcuffs straight at his head. He ducked just in the nick of time and now looked more pissed off than smug.

“Don’t push it, Miz Cates.”

Bri could’ve continued the argument, but she learned early on that the best way to win a fight with a man was to make sure you had the last word. Lifting the trailing sheet, she turned as if on a fashion-show catwalk. When she reached the bathroom, she flashed an innocent smile over her bare shoulder.

“But I like pushing you, Sheriff Hicks.”

Chapter Twelve

D
USTY HAD A CRICK IN HIS NECK.

A throbbing in his temples.

And a pain in his ass.

He glanced over at the woman who sat in the seat next to him. A woman who was looking out the side window of the cruiser as if she was on a Sunday drive. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. One blue-toenailed foot was propped up on his dashboard. And her arm stuck out the open window like a kid playing airplane.

“Have you ever been in a high-speed car chase?” Brianne glanced over at him.

It was hard to think with those blue eyes pinned on him. They were direct and disconcerting. Or maybe what was disconcerting were the images the pretty blue eyes evoked. Images of Brianne stretched out on his bed wearing nothing but a tiny skull-and-crossbones tattoo right below her hip bone. The tattoo had surprised him. She hadn’t seemed like the type for a tattoo. Of course, her preoccupation with handcuffs should’ve warned him that there was a wild woman lurking just beneath the polished surface. The type of woman he had no business being with.

He looked away.

“There’s not much call for high-speed car chases in Culver County,” he said. “Although isn’t a high-speed chase what got you here in the first place?”

She made a sound that was part snort and part exasperated huff. Exactly like Emmie made when he didn’t know all the Disney princesses’ names. “That wasn’t high-speed. I wasn’t going more than ninety. And what got me here is an arrogant lawman who can’t seem to make up his mind—first you want a housekeeper, and then you don’t.” She pulled her arm in and reached for a knob on the dashboard. “Can we turn on the lights and siren?”

“No.” He smacked her hand away. “And I want a housekeeper. Just not one who smears up my windows to hell and back, uses all my hot water, and likes handcuffs a little too much.”

He wasn’t sure why he brought up her preoccupation with his handcuffs. It was a topic best left alone. Especially when he glanced over to find her watching him with a heavy-lidded, dazed look—like she was thinking of all the things she wanted to do with his handcuffs.

To prove this, Brianne tipped her head to the side, a strand of black hair covering one eye, and said, “You can’t tell me that you haven’t used them for something other than law enforcement.”

It took a good three swallows to get enough moisture back in his mouth so he could speak. “What I have and haven’t used my handcuffs for is none of your business, Miz Cates.” He looked back at the highway. It didn’t help. He could still see those inquisitive, sexy eyes in the clear blue of the Texas sky.

“Don’t you think we’re past Miz Cates and Sheriff Hicks?” she said.

Oh, they were past it all right. And he was still kicking himself over the fact.

“I think it’s best if we keep things professional, Miz Cates,” he said. “Which is exactly why I decided to release you from your community service and escort you back to Miss Hattie’s. And admit it. You were never going to fulfill your end of the bargain anyway. You might’ve cleaned my house today, but you would’ve come up with a way to get out of it tomorrow—no doubt by calling your brothers.”

Her arm went back out the window, and she held her palm up and fought with the wind for a few seconds before speaking. “I’d just as soon that my brothers didn’t find out about this.”

Dusty had to admit that he was relieved. He wasn’t one to back down from a fight, but he sure wasn’t one to instigate them, either. And he figured arresting their little sister and almost having sex with her was plenty of instigation. Damn, what had he been thinking? If Brianne wanted to, she could easily put together a lawsuit that would get him fired, or worse, end any chances of getting back Emmie. And wasn’t that the reason for his abstinence? He wasn’t about to give Heather any more ammunition. Well, she’d have plenty of ammunition if Brianne decided to pay him back for arresting her. Fortunately, it appeared that she worried about disappointing her brothers more than she enjoyed getting back at him.

She pulled her arm in and slumped down in the seat. “They would be terribly disappointed if they found out about my reckless driving and…”

“Seduction of strangers?” The words just popped out. But once they were there, Dusty wasn’t about to take them back. Just in case she decided to cause trouble, he wanted to make it perfectly clear who had provoked it. Unfortunately, she had a pretty good case for just the opposite.

“I know you think I planned what happened in the bedroom,” she said. “But you’re mistaken. How would I know when you were coming home? And even if I was waiting for you, why wouldn’t I be waiting for you in something a little more seductive? I mean, how sexy is a woman in turban-wrapped wet hair and a threadbare towel?”

Very sexy
. So damned sexy that it filled his mind almost as much as her being completely naked. There was just something about the way the tucked-in towel had weighed against her full breasts and peeked open just below the juncture of her thighs that was twice as sexy as the lingerie Heather had spent a fortune on. But Brianne was right. It didn’t make any sense. And if she hadn’t planned it, then he owed her an apology. Except he had never been good at apologizing.

“Look,” he said as he pulled into the circular drive of Miss Hattie’s. “I’m sorry if I misunderstood—”

“Crap!” She dove down to the floor.

“What the hell?” Applying the brakes, he looked around for some kind of justification for her actions. But there didn’t appear to be anything amiss. The only thing different about the Henhouse was the silver BMW parked right in front.

He glanced down at Brianne huddled on the floor and waited for an explanation. He should’ve known it would be a crazy one.

“I lost a contact,” she said. “In fact, I think I left it at your house. So if we could just go back and look, I would really appreciate it.”

Dusty placed the car in park and turned off the engine before he took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “Try again.”

The next lie only took a second. “I’m against women selling themselves for money. And even though the hens are retired, I don’t want to promote that kind of backward thinking so I’d appreciate it if you took me to a hotel—any hotel.”

He stared at the Texas license plate on the BMW. “Since the only thing different about Miss Hattie’s is this car right here, I would say that it’s the reason behind your floor dive and why you don’t want to stay at the Henhouse anymore. Or not the car, as much as the person who’s driving it. And since I can’t see one of your brothers in a little BMW sports car, I’m going to have to make a guess and say it’s an ex-boyfriend that you’re not in any hurry to see.”

He glanced down, and for once she wasn’t giving him the sweet, innocent look that always seemed to precede a lie.