Her pussy throbbed greedily, the tender folds slickening with her growing hunger. She’d known the man less than twenty minutes, but she was suddenly quite committed to knowing him even better. Well, his body, at least…“You’re on. My workday ends at six.”
The deputy’s nostrils flared. Anticipation sharpened the blades of his cheekbones and made the precisely drawn lines of his beautiful mouth harsh. She could say, in all honesty, that he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.
“I’m gonna regret this,” he muttered, scowling at her.
Oddly, his reluctance about wanting her only spurred her desire to have him. It betrayed how intense his attraction to her was, so much so that he couldn’t fight it even though he wanted to. And she responded as any red-blooded woman would to the ferocious sexual need of a deliciously handsome, potently masculine creature: she provoked him.
Leaning forward, she whispered, “No, you won’t. You’ll be seeing stars when I’m done with you.”
“Christ.” Grimacing with discomfort, he arched his hips up from the seat and adjusted the fit of his jeans.
“Back to the shoptalk,” she said, inwardly smiling with female triumph and heated expectation. “Ginny spent money she likely doesn’t have on safety precautions that won’t do her a damn bit of good. You know how Merkerson works. If he goes after this diner, he’ll do it in the bright light of day right under her nose.”
And later, after the diner closed and the streets were quiet, the devious little time bomb would explode and engulf the structure in flames within moments.
“You heard what she said,” Jared argued, rallying. “She feels better. And whether or not the modifications she made were necessary in this particular instance, they were still smart.”
“It’s my job to help make her feel safe, and clearly she wasn’t feeling that way.”
“Right.” His gaze bore into her. “And people should sleep with their doors open because we have law enforcement.”
“Not quite the same thing.” The residents had been horrified at the first fire but trusted her and Jim to deal with it. The second fire had made things a little shakier, but they’d still been sure an arrest was imminent. By the third fire, people stopped thinking the authorities were just a step away from catching the arsonist and they started thinking about fending for themselves.
“Get over yourself, Darcy. Unless you totally fucked up the evidence collection and analysis, you’ve done your job and you’re continuing to do your job by sending for help when you need it. Pat yourself on the back and give props to the people who are thinking forward instead of backward.”
“I’m not sure if I like you or not.”
“Don’t like me. Let’s keep this simple.”
She nodded without hesitation. After all, she was willing to indulge herself with him precisely because he was just passing through. Anything more than sex was beyond her at this point in her life. “Works for me.”
He was on his feet before Ginny reached their table with a takeout bag of food and a cardboard drink carrier. “Let’s go, Inspector. We have a lot of work to get through between now and six o’clock.”
JARED SET THE take-out bag down on the desk in Darcy’s office and swept the narrow room with an examining glance. As he dug out his foam box, he considered the logistics of nailing her on the six-foot-long folding table set beneath the window that looked into the firehouse’s heavy apparatus bay. Unfortunately, its flimsiness wouldn’t hold up to the abuse, and it certainly wouldn’t be professional, although a quickie would do a lot to restore his concentration. He didn’t trust her desk, either, with its ultramodern glass top artfully balanced on a network of thin chrome bars.
“Miller’s bark is worse than his bite, by the way.” She reached around him for her shake, and he breathed her in, smelling warm clean woman.
The sheriff was in his mid-thirties and an obvious devotee to free weights, but he was no threat. Jared had spent six years with Delta Force before he’d joined the U.S. Marshals Service’s elite Special Operations Group. There wasn’t a human alive he couldn’t severely maim or kill.
“My partner will deal with Miller. Even if she feels like killing him, she’ll restrain herself.” He took a bite out of his burger before occupying one of the two chairs in front of her desk. Pausing midchew, he mumbled an awed, “Holy shit.”
Her lips curved around her straw. “Damn good burger, isn’t it?”
He swallowed. “Insanely.”
It was nearly as good as she looked when she smiled. You’ll be seeing stars when I’m done with you. Fuck of it was, he was inclined to believe her. She was doing a number on him already without even trying. What would she do to him if she put some effort into it…?
She rounded the desk and pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet. His gaze moved from her to the wall of cantilevered glass and chrome bookshelves behind her. Either the city invested a lot in the comfort of their civil servants or she’d spent her own dime dressing the space up. He was inclined to think that the utilitarian gray metal folding table and chairs were provided courtesy of the city. The run-of-the-mill filing cabinet, too. But the bookshelf unit and matching desk were all her—strong, eye-catching, and sexy. And the indulgence suggested that she spent a lot of time working…or felt the most at home in her office.
His gaze caught on a silver-framed picture on a shelf behind her. It was a snapshot of her when she was younger, wearing a cheerleader uniform and standing with her arm thrown across the shoulders of a mirror image of herself dressed in a band costume.
“You’re a twin.”
She pushed the drawer shut and returned to the desk, setting three manila folders on the glass. “Yes.”
He wondered if her sister was anything like her. Maybe Darcy was the naughty twin. The thought made his overeager dick harden all over again. The word “naughty” thought of in conjunction with “Darcy” seemed to have that now-predictable effect on him.
“Shall we start with the first fire?” she asked, moving right along.