She bit her lower lip. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Why?”
“You can’t be seen by anyone.” She winced. “I sort of maybe just put paint on your ass. On purpose.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry, you’re going to pay for it.”
“Uh-oh.” She looked both worried and intrigued. “What’s the punishment?”
Pretending to consider that, he stepped toward her and she stepped back, reaching the kitchen wall. Her hands slid behind her, covering her own ass. “I’m not into kinky stuff,” she said, then hesitated. “At least I don’t think I am. What did you have in mind?”
He smiled at her, and she let out a shaky breath.
“Get your inhaler, Chloe.”
She took a hit. Then she settled back against the wall again, looking up at him hopefully. “Ready.”
God, she was sweet. So sweet and so hot.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked breathlessly.
“Keep breathing. That’s your only job, got it?”
She nodded solemnly. “Got it.”
“Good.” He cupped her breasts in his hands, and she gasped. When his thumbs rubbed over her nipples, she let out a shaky moan, and her head thunked back against the wall. Slowly her legs gave out, and she slithered down to the floor. Somehow, they both ended up on their knees facing each other.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She smiled sheepishly. “I guess I just really liked that.”
He smiled. “You won’t in the morning.”
She broke the eye contact and looked down at herself, finding the two large painted handprints, one on each boob. “Hey, I borrowed this shirt from Tara! And when I say borrowed, I mean stole.” Reaching past him, she once again dipped her hand in the paint.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned.
“Take your medicine like a man, Sheriff.”
“Depends on where you’re going to put that hand.”
She palmed his erection and squeezed, and he let out a soft groan as her fingers did the walking. “Defacing personal property,” he managed.
They both looked down at the handprint she’d left on him.
“What’s the punishment for that?” she whispered.
“What’s with you and getting punished?”
She grinned. “I don’t know. I think it’s your handcuffs. I can’t stop thinking about them. Can I deface you some more?”
“Only if I get to return the favor.”
Again she grinned. “We are so drunk.”
“This is a true statement,” Sawyer said carefully, and she snorted, falling to her back right there on his floor. Staring up at the ceiling fan slowly swirling above them, she said, “We should keep painting.”
“That’s a really bad idea.”
“Why?” she asked. “Haven’t you ever pulled a drunken all-nighter?”
“Sure, when I was a teenager.”
“Was this before or after the flaming bags of poop?”
“After.”
She grinned. “Hard to believe. You seem so…”
“If you say sweet,” he warned, “I will get out the cuffs.”
She snorted again, and he pulled her into his lap.
He gripped her ass, feeling the drying paint on the soft material of her skirt. “Hope you didn’t steal this, too.”
She wriggled a little, and the hem slipped up her thighs to her hips, giving a nice view of her black panties. He slid a finger over the silk, stopping short when he heard her wheeze. “Chloe.”
“I’m okay.”
Suddenly very sober, he slid out from beneath her. “No, you’re not.”
“Dammit! One little asthma attack and now you’re scared of me.” She pushed up to her feet and staggered to the refrigerator. She came back with two more beers and offered him one.
He looked into her eyes and beyond the fresh bravado saw unease. Whatever she said, however she acted, she was no more ready than him to push their luck.
“I thought we were sharing.” He took both bottles from her and put one back. She snatched the other one and opened it, even though he hadn’t intended on doing so. She took a sip, and he reclaimed the bottle, downing half the beer in one gulp so she wouldn’t.
Things got hazy after that.
At some point, Chloe reasoned that since there were no overnight guests at the inn tonight, she was free and clear. She texted her sisters that she’d gone camping and wouldn’t be back until morning. And though she and Sawyer kept painting, nothing seemed to get accomplished.
This was probably because Chloe kept stopping to touch him.
Or maybe that was him touching her.
Yeah, probably it was him touching her. He couldn’t seem to control it. He, of the famed self-control, couldn’t stop and he didn’t want to.
Chapter 16
“Multitasking means screwing up
several things at once.”
Chloe Traeger
All Chloe knew was that one minute she was blinking sleepily at their handiwork on Sawyer’s walls, and in the next, they were on his sole piece of living room furniture-his huge, comfy couch. He was lying lengthwise, and she appeared to be playing the role of his blanket, sprawled over the top of him like she belonged there.
She had no idea how much time had gone by, but it was still dark outside. She lifted her head and met his gaze, and there came the sort of timeless moment that you read about but never really experience. It’d have probably been more classically romantic if Sawyer hadn’t had a possessive hand palming each of her butt cheeks, his fingers meeting in the middle, running up and down the Great Divide, but she’d never been all that into the classics.
Their faces were so close that the tips of their noses brushed, and she hoped like hell that he was extremely far-sighted because she was pretty sure she was a complete wreck.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, reading her mind.
Chloe ducked her head and dropped it to his chest, but he fisted his hand in her hair at the nape of her neck and tugged until she looked at him again. “You are,” he said in his brook-no-argument cop voice.
Actually, he was the beautiful one. Not in a pretty boy way, he was far too rugged and weathered for pretty. But there was an absolute beauty to his tough, edgy exterior, and she soaked him up. He always moved with such innate grace and ease that she tended to forget what a big guy he really was.
But his poise was gone tonight, which made her smile dopily. She’d relaxed him, which was quite a feat. “We should have a paint party every night until your house is done.”
He took his gaze off her and stared at the walls around them, seeming a little befuddled. It was such a shock to see his expression anything other than his usual imperturbable calm that she looked around, too, and winced. “Do the walls seem to be missing a few spots to you?”
He looked at her, then down at himself. “I think we’re wearing the missing paint.”
His expression cracked her up. “I’ve never seen you all discombobulated before,” she said.
“I’m not discombobulated.”
But he was. His hair was standing on end, cemented into place by some paint that might or might not have come from her fingers. His strong, lean jaw was dark with a full day’s growth. And his eyes, those mesmerizing warm chocolate eyes, were glossy. But most telling of all was the adorably sexy, bad-boy smile on his face. She grabbed his face and gave him a smacking kiss. “You’re so cute.”
“Cute.” He repeated this slowly, like what she said didn’t compute.
At some point, he’d stripped out of his shirt and gun. Both were on the floor next to the couch, both covered in paint. She had no memory of how any of that had occurred but suspected she was at fault. She really wished she remembered the stripping off of his shirt, but between the wine and beer and her silly low tolerance for booze, she wasn’t exactly clearheaded. “You are cute,” she said with conviction.