Page 86 of The Harborer
“I did not!” Laughing, she rolled back onto her side.
“I swear, you did. Deputy’s honor.”
“No lie, it was kind of hot.” She wiggled her ass against him shamelessly.
He let out a groan, then laid his mouth against the shell of her ear.“Whatwas kind of hot?”
His sexy rumble made her suddenly shy, and she was glad to be facing away from him, yet close at the same time. “The whole knight in shining armor thing.”
“I’m no knight.” He lay back down with a grunt. “You thought it was hot, though, huh?”
“Hot. As. Fuck.”
He busted out a laugh, his breath puffing against her hair. “Councilwoman Caufield, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you use that kind of language.”
“Hey, when it calls for it, I use it. And this whole knight situation calls for it.”
“Is that right?” His hand snaked under the T-shirt and traveled to her breast, where it paused to fondle. His other hand inched between her legs and cupped her. “I forgot you’re not wearing panties.”
“You did?”
“No, of course not.” He kissed her neck, her shoulder, her ear, his whiskers a delicious scrape against her skin. His long, tapered fingers began doing magical things that turned her body into a landscape of goose bumps and made her buck against him.
She was lost in a world of bliss when he breathed against the spot right below her ear. “Wanna show me how hot you thought it was?”
Sitting up, she pulled the T-shirt from her body and reclined on her side, facing him. His eyes had widened in surprise theinstant she’d bared herself, and they were still wide when she slid her hand below the waistband of his pants and took his hard length in hand. “I’d love to,” she purred, “but first you need to get naked.”
In less time than it took to blink her eyes once, his pants were sailing through the air, and his mouth was crashing down on hers.
Chapter 28
Pieces
Shane spent the restof that day in unhurried, uninterrupted bliss. Early on, he fielded a call from Chesterton, who mostly wanted to know if he was okay and to arrange a sit-down for the following day.Protocol. This was followed by a text from Marjorie telling Shane people had dropped off meals, which she’d left at his back door. Hailey had put up signs at Mountain Coffee announcing the store was closed indefinitely due to a family emergency. The signs would stay up until the lab techs from a neighboring county had completed their work. When Amy had asked why they needed to get inside, Shane had explained that they had to make sure it was safe for her, her staff, and her customers. “Even in small quantities, those drugs are lethal, and those guys weren’t exactly treating it with hazmat kid gloves.” While she understood after he explained, she couldn’t help but worry about the café’s future after customers saw hazmat trucks in the parking lot and peopledecked out in astronaut suits going in and out of her place.
“Nothing we can do about it,” Shane had said as he’d laid a kiss on her head. “If I don’t get reinstated and your business tanks, we’ll move to Hawaii and surf all day, eat pineapples, and blow each other’s minds all night.” He’d pulled a laugh from her. “Do you even surf?” she’d asked. “No, but I’ll have lots of time on my hands to learn.” She hadn’t questioned the blowing-each-other’s-minds part, and that was reason enough to make him smile.
Truth was, he still had SAR to keep him busy, and paid administrative meant deposits would continue showing up in his bank account. Until the investigation was wrapped up, though, worry over the final findings would lurk in the back of his mind. But he wasn’t going to dwell on that today. Not while he had Amy to himself and they had nowhere to be.
Most of their day was spent unhurriedly lolling in bed without a stitch on, exploring each other, talking, cuddling, laughing. God, he loved that. He loved how comfortable she was in her own gorgeous skin, and how she seemed to want him as much as he wanted her. They couldn’t get enough of each other. And it was about so much more than sex. He’d never felt so connected before, so complete, so fulfilled, yet somehow larger at the same time, as if having her in his world had expanded it exponentially. He’d finally found hisreason. Was it wrong that it had come on the heels of ending a man’s life?
No. Not when it also came on the heels of almost losing her.
He suspended the horrific events of the last twenty-four hours and savored making love to her until they dropped from exhaustion and drifted off in contentment, their limbs and hands entwined.
A few times during the night, she awakened him with whimpers as she slept. He pulled her into his arms, and she clung to him with a fierceness almost too big for her body. To the best of his ability, he soothed away nightmares he expected would haunt her for a while. She didn’t know it yet, but heplanned on being the one beside her every night to chase away the bad dreams.
The following morning foundhim showered, shaved, and dressed in civilian clothing in the parking lot of the Sheriff’s Department. He felt naked without his service weapons and the badge he’d had to turn over. Emotions knotted like a fist in his chest. He sucked in a breath and steeled his spine, unsure how his co-workers would react to him. Would they be pissed he was getting paid and siphoning off their staffing budget while they had to pick up the extra load from his “leave”? He would understand if they were upset. Would they look at him and judge? Label him trigger-happy or as an unbalanced law enforcement officer who shot first and asked questions later?
He sucked in a lungful of cold, crisp air and stepped into the office that had been his home away from home for ten years. As usual, the place was sparsely staffed. Gunderson manned the admin desk again—did the guy really have nothing better to do with his time?—and Shane spied Donna behind her window.
Gunderson stood, and just as Shane thought he was going to extend his hand for a shake, he began clapping instead. This brought more people from other parts of the office, and they clapped too. Even Donna got up from her post and beamed him a huge smile. The clapping grew louder, with a few whistles and cheers in the mix. Someone shouted out, “It’s Hawkeye O’Brien!” Shane gawked, overwhelmed and overcome.
Chesterton rounded the corner from his office. “That’s enough! What if a civilian were to walk in here right now and see you all acting like nutburgers? Get back to work.” He stopped and looked around. “Why are all of you here anyway? Are we having a staff meeting no one told me about?”
“We came to show Hawkeye, er, Deputy O’Brien our support,” one of the senior deputies announced.
“Yeah,” another one laughed. “He saved our favorite coffee shop owner and the rest of us from terrible coffee.”
