Which he’d clearly done earlier in the evening, as he was now in the middle of entering a combination. He opened the locker without turning in her direction, though she knew damn well that he’d heard her come into the room. He was a cat when it came to that stuff, seeing behind his back, sensing things.
She watched as he pulled his utility belt from the locker and slid it around his waist, clicking it securely in place. Next he bent over and clicked the leg strap around his muscular thigh. Selecting his gun next, he carefully held it up and eyeballed something on it. Satisfied, he placed it into the holster on his hip, snapping the small band in place to secure it.
Chloe stood rooted to the spot, shocked to find that watching him arm himself to the teeth was turning her on.
Still not acknowledging her in any way, Sawyer pulled out a knife, sheathed it on his leg, and then slipped another gun into the small of his back.
Whew. Suddenly it felt a little hot in here. “Isn’t that a bit of overkill for the kind of calls you get here in Mayberry, USA?” she asked, her voice annoyingly husky. “I mean, sure the traffic jams are irritating, and the occasional drunk stumbling along the pier probably takes up time, but are they really that dangerous?”
Sawyer didn’t start at the sound of her voice in the quiet room. He merely slid a jacket over his entire ensemble that had DEA in bold white letters on the back. He shut the locker, spun the lock, then slowly turned to face her. “I’ve been doing extra projects as part of a special task force.”
Dangerous projects, from the looks of things, and she felt a prickle of fear for him. “Oh. So you…”
“Like to be prepared.”
She nodded, keeping her concern to herself because he wouldn’t want it. She liked to be prepared as well, or at least the semblance of it. And at the moment, she wasn’t even close to prepared for what just looking at him was doing to her, so she backed up, right into the door. Wincing, she grabbed the handle. “Well,” she said, far too brightly, “sweet dreams.” She left the room without another word. She walked straight through the bar, got onto her Vespa, and rode to the B &B in the dark, dark night.
Sweet dreams? Had she really told the man to have sweet dreams? What was going on with her? And dammit, she hadn’t even asked about his father. She’d been too busy being distracted by his job, and how good he looked doing it.
Only when she was on the porch of the little owner’s cottage behind the inn did she take a deep breath. She was all alone. Alone was good. She really liked alone…
An SUV pulled around the back of the B &B and parked next to her Vespa.
Sawyer, of course. He exited his vehicle and strode up the steps to the porch, looking especially big and bad in the dark. Her knees did an odd little wobble, and she locked them in place, leaning back against the porch railing. “What are you doing here?”
“Wanted to make sure you got home okay.”
“Do you follow every woman home from the bar, Sheriff?”
“No. Just the ones who are most likely to go sneaking around late at night near Black Ridge.” He braced an arm on the railing at her side and leaned in. “Since I’m too tired to go after you tonight, I thought I’d head you off at the pass.”
“You saw us,” she murmured, refusing to be intimidated by the size of him looming over her. However, her body didn’t fail to get a little thrill from the close proximity. “Lance and I, the night before I left for San Francisco.” They’d gone up there because the old Whitney house was scheduled for demolition next Monday. It was out there on thirty acres of thick, remote woods and hadn’t been lived in for decades.
Except for the homeless. There was always a small number of them seeking shelter in the place, especially in late fall like this, when the nights got cold. Chloe and Lance, and several others from town, including Lucille and her blue-haired posse, had driven them to various neighboring shelters, to make sure everyone had a place to go before the house came down.
“Got there just as you were leaving.” His gaze was hooded. “You help everyone find a place to go?”
Something inside her got a little mushy, which she ruthlessly squelched. “Yes.” She drew in a sharp breath as he stepped even closer. For someone who’d been working all day long, he still smelled delicious, like whatever masculine soap he’d used, and man. All man. “So we’re back to that Eagle Scout thing,” she said. “Stalwart and charitable, worrying about the homeless and women getting home safe and sound.”
He gave her a single head shake. “There’s nothing stalwart or charitable about how I feel for you, Chloe.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Her every nerve was on high alert screaming: Run don’t walk! But there was also something else. The man willingly put his life on the line every day in a thousand different ways, for people like her. It was an odd and uncomfortable realization. But he was dangerous, if to nothing other than her heart. She should go inside and lock the door, not because she was afraid of what he might do, but because she was afraid of what she might do.
Instead, she found herself taking that last step, closing the gap between them, so that they were toe to toe, only a breath away from each other.
He looked down into her eyes. “What are you up to?”
“No good.”
He shook his head and ran a finger along her temple and down her jaw. A little startled by the power of his touch, she covered his hand with hers and held it in place against her. Something flashed in his eyes, an aching hunger that held her captive.
Because it matched hers. She was shocked at the strength of it, at how difficult it suddenly was to breathe. But she wasn’t shocked when he nudged her backward until she bumped up against the door. His mouth skimmed her jaw, then her throat, his teeth grazing her skin as he pressed a thigh between hers.
Heat skittered through her belly, then directly south. “Sawyer.”
In answer, he brought his head up and kissed her. Deep, hungry, tasting her in a purposely slow, thorough manner before pulling back to once again look into her eyes.
Oh, God. “Sawyer, what are we doing?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No fucking clue.”
She let out a low laugh. “Maybe we should do it some more.”
He obliged, pulling her in for another kiss, which grew rougher and more demanding, until she was vibrating with need, making little whimpers in her throat for more.
When he stepped back, eyes black as the night, she staggered for balance. “What?” she managed. “Why did you stop?”
“Your phone’s going off.”
Right. That was what was vibrating. Touching her still tingling lips, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and read the incoming text.
Can you come relieve me at the B &B?
Tara. “I gotta go,” she said, blood still rushing through her veins.
Their gazes met. Disaster averted, at least for now. And sleeping with him would be a disaster. Well, it’d be an amazing disaster. And possibly an out-of-body-experience disaster to boot. And now that she was thinking about it, she’d really like that…
“Behave tonight,” he said.
That made her laugh, and even he smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “I figured that might be a stretch.”
“I do occasionally behave, you know.”
“Is that right?”
His voice was low, husky. Playful. It was almost as much a turn-on as big, bad Sawyer had been. With the silent night all around them, she tapped her iPhone screen and accessed her Magic Eight app. “You heard the man,” she said to it. “Will I behave tonight?”