A Sheriff in Tennessee (15 page)

Her eyes half closed, her mouth half open, she breathed, “Mmm?”

“Just to get things straight. At the station today?”

She nodded.

“You didn't kiss me. I kissed you.”

When she smiled, he did it again.

 

B
ELLE HAD FOOLISHLY
exercised too much and eaten too little. The dizzy rush of deprivation imitated power. The false sense of inner strength was as addictive as drugs.

Her head had been spinning even before Klein walked into her apartment. She'd been reading the script for her show, which had been crammed into her mailbox sometime that day. The show
was Baywatch
meets Mayberry and she wasn't sure what she was going to do about it. She wanted to cry.

So when he'd strode into her room she hadn't exactly been at the top of her game. She'd blabbed her newest secret because of her oldest. If she wasn't careful, he'd get every last one of them out of her. All he had to do was ask.

His mouth on hers was firm and warm; the hands tangled in her hair were gentle. She enjoyed kissing, probably because she never got enough of it. Men usually wanted to see for themselves what they'd seen enough of already and touch what they'd only been dreaming of. They always moved on to stage two long before she was ready.

But Klein made love to her mouth slowly, reverently, as if he had an eternity just to kiss her, as if he enjoyed the melding of lips and tongue and teeth as much as she did.

When he lifted his head, she sighed, disappointed, but before she could lead him to the bed, he buried his face in her hair, then sweetly kissed her neck, her jaw, the corner of her eye.

His hands wrapped around her waist, and she
waited for them to surge upward, cup her breasts, feel their weight. Instead, he kept his hands right where they were, thumbs tracing the quivering muscles of her belly.

The juice she'd drunk began to work. As her head cleared, she chastised herself for comparing past to present. How many times already had Gabe Klein demonstrated he was unlike other men?

Enough for her to trust that he wasn't.

As if to prove her every thought true, his mouth returned to hers and time lost its hold on them. His lips nibbled and caressed, nipped and suckled. The man could certainly kiss. He practiced innovations of old favorites, even as he invented seductive novelties with her as a willing partner.

She unbuttoned his uniform shirt, discovered the white cotton beneath it. Her fingertips fluttered over his chest, his belly, rubbing the T-shirt against the ridge of muscles, the strength of bone. When she shoved the shirt from his shoulders it hung trapped by his heavy utility belt. Her palms slid up his arms, until the sleeves of his T-shirt tickled her hands and answered her earlier question about the nature of his underwear.

Her lips curved against his, and she yanked the shirt free of his belt, then did what she'd been wanting to do from the beginning. She touched her hands to his skin.

His indrawn breath tightened the muscles of his stomach. She ran her fingers up his rib cage, tangled them in the soft hair across his chest. Then she tore her mouth from his.

“Off,” she muttered, and pulled up his T-shirt.

He obliged, tugging the garment over his head. And then he stood before her in khaki trousers, his utility belt filled with sexy cop tools, his chest even more beautiful than she had imagined.

Copper skin enhanced by crisp black curls glistened in the lamplight. She trailed her fingers across his chest, over the spike of his nipples, then through the path of hair that disappeared into his pants.

She hooked her fingers in the belt and tugged. “Off,” she repeated.

He grinned, and she had to smile, too. She felt as though she could demand anything of him that she desired. How was it possible that she had known him less than a week?

He unbuckled the belt, removed his gun from the holster and the clip from the gun. Then he put the gun on top of the refrigerator and everything else on the table.

“Safety first,” she murmured, and lifted her mouth toward his.

He swore.

“Excuse me?”

“Safety.” He ran his hand through his short hair. Leaned down and grabbed his T-shirt. “I'll be right back.”

“Like hell.” She took a fistful of his shirt and tugged. He wouldn't let go. “You're not going anywhere.”

“I have to. I don't have anything, Izzy.”

“You've got everything, from where I'm standing.”

He laughed. She loved making him laugh. He didn't do it often enough.

“I was talking about safety. I need to go buy some at the five-and-dime.” He cursed again. “Or not. If I buy condoms downstairs, I won't be able to come back up here afterward. Although by morning, everyone in town will know that the sheriff bought condoms, and they'll be speculating why.”

He sighed. “Sorry. Most guys keep safety in their wallets, but I always figured if I did it would fall out when I was paying for my groceries. Maybe it's for the best. This is probably a mistake.”

“No.” She yanked on his T-shirt, and this time he wasn't holding on, so the thing flew across the room.

“Isabelle, be reasonable. No condom, no sex. I might not be a new millennium Casanova, but I know that much.”

Funny that he could know that much, yet not even consider that she might have a condom or two. She was almost embarrassed to say so, except that the reason she had them was she'd never used them. She hoped the things didn't disintegrate with age. Besides, if she didn't admit to condom possession, he was going to take that incredible chest and innovative mouth out of her apartment, and knowing Gabe Klein, she'd never get him undressed again.

“Don't move.” She ran into the bathroom, grabbed her cosmetic bag and returned. He was bending over to retrieve his T-shirt. “Freeze,” she ordered. “Drop it!”

He did, then turned to her with an amused tilt to his lips. “Cop talk, Izzy? Did you want me to keep the handcuffs close?”

She ignored his jokes as she pawed through the
jumble of tubes and bottles, then upended the thing with a growl. “I own every shade of lipstick I might need for any occasion. There's
got
to be a condom in here somewhere. Aha!” She snatched two packets from the depths of the mess. “I knew it.”

She raised her head. He still held his T-shirt loosely in one hand. The way he looked at her made Belle uneasy. Did he think she had a case of condoms stashed somewhere so she could take a lover in every city where she stopped? It was a common opinion, one she usually shrugged off because she knew the truth. But she didn't want
him
to think that.

“My jokester brothers gave me these the last time I went home. I—I had to hide them from my mama. In there—” She waved vaguely at the empty cosmetic bag.

“I don't care where you got them.” He dropped his shirt, and she let out the breath she hadn't known she held. “I'm just glad you found them.”

He crossed the room. Her mouth watered in anticipation as she watched. For a man his size, he moved with uncommon grace, comfortable in his skin, in a way that she could never be in hers. When he reached her he held out his hand. She placed the packets in the center, and he pocketed both.

“Now—” he skimmed his palm down the side of her face, and she rubbed against him like a cat “—where were we? Oh, yeah, I was just about to do this.”

He dropped to his knees and pressed his mouth to the skin between her shirt and her shorts. The
arousal that had faded during her mad search and their conversation came thundering back. His tongue circled her belly button, and the shudder that racked her body made her knees tremble. He steadied her with his hands on her hips, then drew a taste of her skin into his mouth and suckled.

Her fingers on his shoulders clenched. His skin was hot and smooth; she touched his back, caressed his hair, then held his mouth right where it was.

His hands lowered, cupping her rear, sliding down her thighs, then his fingers explored the tendons of her calves and his thumbs stroked higher and higher until he traced the quivering skin just beneath the ragged hem of her cutoffs. She held her breath, waited for him to go higher still, but he didn't. Instead, he pressed one last openmouthed kiss to her belly and stood.

Without a word, he took her hand and led her to the bed, then lifted his fingers to his zipper.

He saw her watching and hesitated. “Should I wait?”

“No.” She placed her hands over his. “Let me.”

Surprise, then pleasure, lit his eyes. “Whatever you want, Izzy.”

“You,” she said. “I want you.”

“And I'm right here.”

Emboldened by his assurance, she caressed him through his trousers, ran her finger over his tip. He went still, but a glance at his face revealed he enjoyed the way she touched him; he didn't want her to stop. So she made quick work of his zipper, then slipped her hand inside.

He was hot and smooth, pulsing against her
palm. She looked up once more, and his mouth took hers. No longer gentle, she didn't mind. She stroked him with her hand as his tongue mimicked the movement within her mouth.

Moments later he lifted his head and stilled her caress. “I need to lie down before I fall down.”

His voice was breathless; his hand atop hers trembled. The idea of making this strong man need, of making such a serene man yearn, aroused her.

She shoved his trousers and his briefs from his hips. To stand there fully clothed while she removed every last stitch that he wore felt strange. Strange, but at the same time empowering and seductive.

He didn't care that he was naked and she was not. He didn't tug at her clothes; he didn't yank her onto the bed. Instead, he lay down and let her look at him.

For days she'd been nearly senseless with desire at the mere thought of what was beneath his uniform. Now, seeing him, she knew that her imagination had not done him justice. Even his feet were perfect—long and slim and pale—and his hands… From the first she'd adored his hands—callused from work, yet tender when they touched her, they were the hands of a man, and he knew what to do with them.

“You're going to give me a complex if you keep staring at me like that,” he murmured.

She raised her gaze and caught a flicker of uncertainty in the depths of his sky blue-eyes.

“You're the most beautiful man I've ever seen,” she whispered.

He gave a short bark of laughter, then held open his arms.

She sank into them gladly. Having his arms around her was almost as good as having her hands all over him. She hadn't realized how much she needed a hug until he'd started hugging her. She hoped he would hug her a lot—every chance that he got.

His palm kneaded the soft skin at her waist. His fingers played with her rib cage. His breath tickled across her neck as his mouth warmed the skin just below her ear. He appeared inordinately fascinated with the bones beneath her skin.

She shifted, restless, needing him to touch her where her body tingled and begged. Surely his hand would move upward soon. He had not touched her breasts once, and in her experience that was very unusual. Ordinarily men's fascination with her breasts bored her. Right now, all she could think was that he was never going to touch them, and if he didn't she might explode.

“Do you want me to take off my clothes?” she asked.

“Only if you want to.”

She'd found his patience comforting, but the tension in her belly, her breasts, her being, was past soothing. She sat up and yanked her T-shirt over her head. She had no idea where it landed, because her gaze returned to his face.

She expected him to be staring, even ogling, the impressive size of her breasts, but was surprised to discover he was watching her face, as well. Would
she ever learn that he did nothing the way she expected him to?

Her fingers lowered to her cutoffs, but his hands were there before her, easing the sweatpants over her hips, sliding them down her thighs and dropping them over the edge of the bed and onto the floor. Her white, cotton granny underwear sagged. His lips twitched, and he drew a fingertip across her belly. She arched into his touch.

“I take it you don't get too many free samples at work.”

“Ever had a wedgie?” she managed, even as her body shrieked for him to lower his fingertips to the place where she wanted them the most.

“One or two.”

“If you took a peek at the underwear in those catalogs, you'd know I've had one for five years.”

His smirk turned into a full-blown grin, and she couldn't help but grin, too. How could she feel at the edge of reason one minute, then be laughing with him the next? Because in his arms she felt everything was all right—whatever she said, whatever she did, whoever she was.

The last thought sobered her. She needed to be a part of this man who made her feel special and distinct, and she wanted him to be a part of her.

Taking his hand, she placed it on one breast. “Touch me, Gabe. Look at me. Please.”

Even then, he pressed a kiss to her temple first before he leaned back and lowered his gaze. The brush of his eyes was a near physical thing; heat spread over her body.

“You're a very pretty girl, Isabelle.”

For some reason his words disappointed her, or maybe it was his use of her professional name and not the “Izzy” she'd begun to crave.

Then he lifted his gaze, and she was captured by the intensity on his face. “But the most beautiful thing about you is that you're aware how very little
pretty
means in the scheme of life.” He pressed his palm against her heart. “It's what's in here that counts.” He lowered his head to kiss the skin that his hand had covered. With his breath warm on her breast he murmured, “The longer I know you, the more I see that you're even more exquisite inside than out.”

He was wrong. Inside she was a whirling, dark storm of lunacy—weak and confused and stupid. Ugly beyond redemption.