The Great Jackalope Stampede (48 page)

“Why?” She stood, brushing her hands off on her skirt.

“The way I figured it, Joe stole that pocket watch. You and your family were left to clean up his mess. Since none of you were trying to gain financially from it, it was a matter of returning it and wiping your hands of it. Now nobody knows where to come looking for more.” His eyelids narrowed. “Unless there is more.”

Not gold pocket watches, no. Just a diamond hidden in an eyeball, and maybe a few more in that little box she had snatched after convincing Jessica to go back to the General Store yesterday afternoon and tell her mother about skipping school.

“Thank you, Grady.” She clasped her hands together, tempted to touch him, show him how much she appreciated what he had done for her family. She glanced at the star.
He’s one of them.
“Thanks for all of your help with the watch and the Feds.”

He nodded slowly, seeming to study her. “What is it, Veronica?”

“What is what?”

“What is it that is keeping you from coming over here and kissing me?”

She felt her eyes widen, then tried to hide her surprise with a quick laugh. “You think I want to kiss you?”

“I can see it in your body language,” his focus drifted downward. “But something is holding you back.”

She thought about denying it, but he’d probably read that lie on her, too. “They teach you that at the police academy? Lust Detection 101?”

“It’s something I picked up on the side.” He placed his hat upside down on a shelf half filled with folded bar towels. “So, is it the hat? You frown at it a lot.”

“I do?”

He nodded. Then he reached for his star. “But not nearly as often as you do this.” He pulled it off and dropped it in his hat. “That piece of metal really irks you, doesn’t it?”

Hells bells, yes!
“It looks sharp and pokey,” which defined her experience with lawmen in general up until now. She watched him unbutton the top two buttons on his shirt. “Are you going to strip down to your birthday suit in front of me, Sheriff?” she jested, sort of.

He unbuttoned several more, revealing the white T-shirt underneath it. “Maybe.”

“Isn’t that against some ethics deal for you guys?”

“Us guys?” he shucked the shirt and draped it over the supply room window, hooking it on the metal corner joints in the molding. “I’m just an officer of the law in these clothes, Veronica.” He reached for his belt buckle. “I’m not out to hurt you.” He pulled his belt free in one tug and placed it next to his hat.

“You’re not?” The lust simmering in his gaze made her want to do wicked things with him. Things they absolutely did not teach in her etiquette classes.

“Not unless you want me to,” he said with a grin. “But I promise I’ll kiss it better.”

Holy shit!
It suddenly registered. Grady was stripping for her. No man had ever taken his clothes off in front of her, not even Lyle when tipsy on his expensive wine. She wasn’t sure where to look, what to say, or what to do with her hands at that moment.

“What’s next?” he asked.

He was giving her a chance to stop him. Did she want him to stop? This was Sheriff Harrison, the hardass in uniform who had given her a speeding ticket she still hadn’t paid.

But damn if she didn’t want to see more of what he had to offer.

“Your T-shirt,” she told him, holding out her hand for it. She wanted to breathe him in while she ogled.

He pulled it off and tossed it to her. “More?”

She buried her nose in the warm cotton, filling her lungs with the heady scent of his skin.

“Are you sniffing my shirt?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been wearing that since last night.”

“I know. It smells like you.” She sniffed again, shivering.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a woman want to smell my clothes before.”

“Their loss.”

“It makes me want to do things to you.” He stared at her mouth. “Things that will make you quiver even more than my shirt.”

Her smile felt wicked on her lips. “Did you bring your handcuffs, Sheriff Hardass?”

Surprise flickered over his features. “Hardass?”

“Handcuffs?”

He pulled them out from his back pocket and held them up. She moved closer, reaching for them. His hand snaked out and captured her arm, spinning her around, backing her against the door. She felt the cold metal on her right wrist just as she heard the click of the handcuff. There was another click, but she didn’t feel that one. She looked down and saw why—he had the other handcuff on his left wrist.

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