Page 55 of Wreck Me
Megan pushed open the door to the employee lounge that held lockers and an area for the employees to take a quick breather. It was an area Megan appreciated and while small, was nicer than other bars she’d worked in.
She went to her locker and pulled out the blouse she’d brought to change into. “I guess you’d call it that. I don’t know. He told me about the pumpkin challenge and offered to take me to the festival tonight to see the reveal.”
Charley sat on the bench, straddling it. “See? I’m telling you. He likes you.” She clapped her hands. “This makes me so happy. We could be sisters!”
Megan pulled her T-shirt off and pulled the snug, scoop-neck blouse over her head. “Charley, you have sisters,” she said with a wry smile, sticking her arms through the sleeves.
“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”
“Also, I’m leaving in a couple of weeks. Once my car is done.”
“Yeah, but what about long distance?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t talked about that. We’re just having fun right now. Enjoying each other’s company.”
Charley sighed and looked down, rubbing her hands over her knees. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. “Aidan took care of me after our father died. He shielded me from a lot of things, and with my other brothers being so much older, he was like my brother-slash-father figure.”
She looked up at Megan, the same blue eyes as the brother she loved so much shining with unshed tears. “I just want to see Aid happy. And he’s happy with you, Megan.”
Megan’s heart broke for the young woman in front of her and her family that lost a man that meant so much to them way too soon. It was a feeling she knew well having been so young when her parents had died. And she understood Charley’s bond with Aidan because she had the same bond with Nate. Though they’d never really gone into great detail about their stories, it was as though she and Charley recognized kindred spirits.
She pulled her purse and jacket out, shutting the locker with a metal clang before going over to Charley. Megan pulled Charley to her feet and hugged her.
Neither spoke for a few minutes while Charley clung to her. When Megan pulled back, she smiled at Charley and brushed a wayward hair out of her eyes. At that moment, Megan’s heart swelled with something like love and longing for her own sibling. “Thanks for saying that. Aidan makes me happy too. We’ll just see what happens, you know? My life is in such disarray right now, I’m just trying to take things one day at a time. But for now, I gotta go.”
They said their goodbyes and Megan waved at the incoming crew as she hustled out the door.
But she couldn’t help but think about what Charley had said as she walked along the square on her way to the station. Whatwerethey going to do once her time in town was over? There was an ache in the back of her throat when she thought about leaving. Leaving the town, Charley, and most of all, Aidan. The thought of not seeing him every day left a hollow feeling in her gut that she didn’t care for at all.
But she’d lived her life long enough for a man. For the first time in her life, she was unattached, untethered to a plus one, and she wanted to give that life a chance before she hitched her wagon to someone else. She needed to figure out who she was without a man.
Didn’t mean she couldn’t have some scorching hot sex with a hot-as-sin small town deputy sheriff in the meantime though.
The thought of said man made her smile, and she picked up the pace, the station just a block away. The outside lights burned bright in the fading daylight, acting like a beacon for her.
The door was open as always—since there were no “closed” hours for law enforcement—but the tiny lobby and front office area were empty.
“Hello?” she called out, walking toward the front desk. She craned her neck and found the door to Aidan’s office at the end of the hall was closed.
She called out again a little louder this time, and his door opened. The man who had dominated her thoughts for nearly three weeks—ever since she’d met him—filled the doorway. He had his cell phone at his ear and a frown marred his lips.
God, even with a frown, the man made her heart rate accelerate.
But when he realized it was her, his lips curved into a glacier-melting smile and he gestured for her to come on back.
Megan walked toward him, her eyes never leaving him.
There really was something about a man in uniform. From the Madison Ridge Sheriff’s department black polo that stretched across his chest, down to the khaki cargo pants that made him look impossibly tall and rugged, to the ass-kicker combat boots he wore on the job, Aidan Reynolds made her blood run like molten lava.
He interjected a “yeah” or “no” here and there, but his gaze blazed a trail over her from head to toe, causing her belly to jump at the heat in his eyes that lured her in. When she walked past him at the doorway, she made sure to brush close to him, give him a little taste of his own medicine.
The man made her feel like she had a one-way ticket to Lustville. Hell, at this point she was the mayor and permanent resident.
The door shut with a quiet click that ricocheted in the small office. She turned to face him as he stood behind the desk, his eyes never leaving hers, but he lifted a finger signaling for her to give him a minute. With a smirk, she nodded but turned on her heels and walked over to the one window in his office. With a glance over her shoulder and a yank of the cord, the slats of the blinds folded, closing off the view of the town.
He tilted his head in question and said something into the phone. The primal thump of her heartbeat in her ears drowned out everything. She wanted him in her mouth, wanted to be in command of the man who was in command of the office they stood in and the town beyond the walls. She wanted to break his control that he held on to so tightly in a place other than the four walls of the cabin.
She wanted to be a bad girl and have him punish her for it in the way only Aidan could.
