9
Though he’d seldom played standard investigator games throughout his career, in the few times he’d done so, Dean had always found himself in the role of bad cop. His naturally stern, unsmiling demeanor and size made him the tough guy, the ball-breaker. He was the one ready to throw the book at a suspect, the angry official who’d convince the perp he’d spend the rest of his miserable excuse of a life in a ten-by-ten cell if he didn’t cooperate.
Today Stacey was bad cop.
And it was just about the sexiest thing he had ever seen.
“Don’t shoot me for saying this, okay?” he said as they entered her private office a few hours later, after having interviewed most of the people at the tavern. Except her brother and his friend, whom Stacey wanted to deal with on neutral turf.
She pushed the door shut behind them. “What?”
“When you grabbed that guy playing pool by the front of his shirt, and told him you were going to dig into his past until you found out if he’d stolen a piece of bubble gum as a kid, I almost got a hard-on.”
Surprised laughter erupted from her mouth. She probably wasn’t as surprised as Dean. That kind of frankness hadn’t been part of his vocabulary in a couple of decades. His ex hadn’t exactly been the sexy-innuendo type. She’d been a combination of Martha Stewart and Fran Drescher. Domestic wannabe with an annoying voice. And no interest in snappy verbal foreplay.
But with Stacey, he didn’t feel as though he had to watch his mouth. In fact, he felt capable of saying absolutely anything. It was, after all, only the truth.
She hung her hat on a peg and slipped out of her uniform jacket, revealing a few more of the curves she usually kept buttoned up tight. “I guess most women wouldn’t know how to react to that. But since I’ve been pretty damn hot to see you handle the Glock on your hip, I think I get it.”
“Does that make us a couple of violence-loving wackos?”
Shaking her head, Stacey stepped closer. Closer. Until the tips of her boot-clad feet touched his shoes and their clothes brushed. The place was wrong; the timing was even more wrong. But everything else about the moment felt utterly right. So no way in hell was he going to put an end to it.
“No. I think it just proves what we were talking about earlier in the car. That we’re attracted.”
Then she proved the attraction. This time, his was the shirt bunched in those slim, capable hands. He was pushed until his back hit the door.
And he was being kissed.
Her mouth connected with his, hot and hungry. She parted her lips, deepened the kiss, all warm, spicy woman. Stacey tasted so damn good to him after the long drought of personal connection; she quenched his thirst, emptied and refilled him at the same time. That slender body, pressed against the length of his, emphasized her femininity, despite her undeniable strength. The combination intoxicated him until he was almost out of his mind with the need to touch every inch of her.
He let her have control for a few seconds, then took it back, turning her until she was the one backed into the corner. Their mouths continued to meet; they exchanged kiss after kiss. Each sweet, wet thrust of her tongue sent another surge of lust coursing through him and refilled the dry, empty well of physical need that had tormented him for so long.
Groaning low in her throat, Stacey pressed herself harder against him. “God, I’ve wanted this,” she mumbled against his mouth. Tangling her fingers in his hair, she kept kissing him, as if once she’d started she couldn’t possibly stop.
Not that he wanted to. Huh-uh.
Dean dropped his hands to her hips, sliding his palms across the generous curves to tug her even harder against his aroused body. When she felt the rigid proof of that arousal, Stacey sagged a little in his arms, as though her legs had suddenly lost all their strength. His hands and the office wall kept her upright, pressed against him, exactly where he wanted her.
Finally, though, voices from the vestibule pierced the hazy cloud of sensuality filling his head. With utter regret, he let go of her, ended the kiss, and stepped back. They stood staring at each other for a good thirty seconds, both sucking in ragged breaths, both asking a million silent questions, and answering them with only their eyes.
“You are going to come over for that beer, right?” she asked once they both seemed to have gotten it under control.
He nodded, then had to at least pretend to play the gentleman. “I don’t expect-I mean, just a beer is fine.”
“Yeah, uh, I don’t think so.”
Wondering how this woman could so easily work him straight from pulsing desire into pure amusement, he had to laugh. “I bet you were hell on wheels growing up.”
“I didn’t play with dolls, if that’s what you’re asking.” Her lashes half lowered, her mouth suddenly twisting down. “Except when I babysat Lisa.”
She’d been a passionate, wild woman in his arms a moment before. Now the regret almost visibly washed over her. She’d allowed herself to forget for a moment. But he knew those snatched bits of happiness wouldn’t drive away the guilt until this case was solved.
Still, she made a concerted effort. “Enough. My brain is ready to explode from the defensive ramblings of a dozen drunks. And I am sure I reek from having been inside that place for so long.” She glanced at her watch, then bent over her desk and scrawled an address and directions on a small sheet of paper. “Let me go home and shower. Then you can meet me at my place in forty-five minutes or so.”
“Sounds good.”
“Wait.” She straightened, not yet handing him the paper. “Do you have a way out? Didn’t your boss take your car back to D.C.?”
“Yeah, but Jackie and Kyle drove out in two cars so we’d have an extra vehicle.”
“Oh, good. That means I can get home and take out a couple of steaks for us to throw on the grill, and still have time to wash the tavern smell out of my hair.”
Her hair. He was very much looking forward to seeing it down around her face, knowing it would softly frame her fine features. “Leave it down,” he murmured.
She lifted a questioning brow.
“Please.” After their sensual encounter, he shouldn’t have felt strange making the request. But he did. Because it seemed intimate. Something a lover would ask.
She swallowed hard, her throat quivering, as if she knew how often he’d pictured wrapping those strawberry blond strands around his fingers, then whispered, “All right.”
He left the office without another word, without a touch. Because if he reached for her, or she reached for him, one of them would be backed against the wall getting their lips kissed off.
“You’re taking a cold shower,” he told himself as he left the sheriff’s office and walked toward the inn.
It was only after he’d reached the corner that he began to wonder what, exactly, he was going to say to Stokes and Mulrooney about why he wasn’t joining them for dinner. But, hell, the truth was as good as anything. Because if they hadn’t noticed the tension between him and the sexy sheriff, then neither of them deserved to carry a badge.
Fortunately, though, when he got back to the flea trap a few minutes later, he saw a note taped to his door. The two of them had gone to check out the steak place just outside of town. So he didn’t have to explain a thing.
Or maybe he was right: They were good enough agents that they’d definitely noticed and were giving him a night alone without requiring excuses or explanations.
Dean’s cold shower lasted a long time. He felt every bit as grungy after their day as Stacey did, and he had extra incentive. Not having had sex in more than a year, he needed to bring his body temperature back within normal range; otherwise he was likely to go up in flames if she touched him at her front door.
This wasn’t how he was supposed to get back in the saddle. Stacey wasn’t a mindless bar hookup. But he just couldn’t bring himself to care.