The sheriff’s eyes roamed over her, dipping lower, and Lily was suddenly aware of her little white satin panties and bare legs. Leotards and skintight spandex were her regular uniform. Nonetheless, a flush of embarrassment swept over her body. Oh well. She needed his help. There was no way she could undo this thing by herself.
She swallowed hard and looked up. “It’s cinched in the back,” she said, embarrassed by the waver in her voice and the strange molten heat unfurling between her legs. Slowly. Insistently. “I can’t… can you…” She turned slightly, cheeks flaming, even as her body shivered from the cold.
What was wrong with her? He was a stranger, and not all that nice of one, either. She should be frozen with fear or wrung out from shock, not humming from heat that had no business being there.
One black eyebrow arched on the sheriff’s face, and she blushed even harder. He didn’t say a word, just gave a curt nod. His silence unnerved her even more than anything he could’ve said, but she was increasingly, painstakingly, aware of every breath, every tiny shift in the air between them in the tight space.
Did he feel it too? This strange awareness between them?
She shot a quick glance up, but his expression revealed nothing. Swallowing hard, she turned around, bracing her shaking hands against the icy tile in front of her. It was just adrenaline. Cold and adrenaline. She concentrated on her breathing, which was coming in shallow pants now. It was the corset. The damn thing was like a cage around her lungs.
The first tug at the laces sent a shiver of relief down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold or the tingle of lust from his knuckles brushing against her back. Each loosenedrung felt heavenly, and she took increasingly deep breaths until he pulled the sopping wet garment free and tossed it outside the stall.
“That’s better.” She sighed, turning automatically—then colliding with him. Her bare breasts pressed against the hard wall of his chest, and she froze, her skin electrifying where it touched his.
He was warm. Too warm for the blizzard outside. Long-legged, broad-shouldered, blocking out the flickering flashlight like a cement wall. Something primal, hot and electric, thrummed through her again, scattering the last of the cold and numbness.
What are you doing, Lily?Step back. Say something funny.
But she didn’t.
She tilted her face up, tracing the droplets on his long lashes, the hard line of his jaw, the inscrutable eyes pinning her in place. They were darker gray now—watching her intently.
And then she saw it. A flicker, a change in his energy, as something hot simmered to the surface between them. She leaned forward, driven by a strange involuntary desire, swaying against him lightly.
The first brush of contact sent a bolt of something wild through her, scattering what was left of her confusion and cold. She dropped her gaze, shy and yet bolder than she had ever been before. It was exhilarating to know that he wanted her, too, that she hadn’t lost that feeling of desire and being desired.Thank God.
She pressed even closer. Delicately. Deliberately. Letting the hard muscles of his thigh press tighter against the warm ache at the top of hers. Her breathing stuttered and came back in a quick, shallow pant. What was this? Whatever was happening, she knew she had never in her life felt this much heat for another person.
And that scared her more than anything.
The sheriff’s body was long and lean—around the same height as Tucker’s—but hard with the muscle of a man who didn’t sit behind a desk all day. She catalogued the differences between Tucker’s softer, rounder body and Sheriff Callahan’s, and shivered involuntarily, rubbing against him just a little more. The dark hair on his chest teased her nipples into tight little peaks.
He pressed closer, molding his body to hers from chest to hips for a fleeting, too-brief second. An impression of a thick, hot-as-fire erection pressed into her stomach, branding her with its heat.
Oh my God.
Her breath caught, and her eyes snapped to his. He was already looking at her, and for a breathless moment, she saw her own surprise reflected in the slate gray of his eyes. But just as quickly, surprise melted into something else. A slow, pulsing current between them sparked like a live wire.
His hands slid back, big, bold, possessive, cupping her ass and pulling her flush against him. Against the undeniable, thick, rigid length of him, branding her stomach through the thin fabric of his shorts. A fleeting press of scalding heat and hardness.
Too brief. Much too brief.
Then he was gone, easing them apart carefully, and leaving every nerve ending in her body straining toward the place where he’d been. She felt the loss of his heat sharply, and she had to fight not to follow it.
“Warmer now?” he asked gruffly. His cheekbones were flushed, but his eyes were shuttered again. “Tank won’t last much longer. Do you want to wash up while there’s still hot water?”
Embarrassed, Lily nodded. “Yes.”
He slid the glass shower door open. A long, angry scar raked his thigh, half hidden by his Jockeys. She quickly slammed her eyes shut and turned her face into the spray. What was she even doing?
She found a bar of soap and some no-frills drugstore shampoo in the shower and scrubbed briskly as she listened to the muted sounds of him drying off.
Where had that come from? She hadn’t felt anything close to it in years. Maybe ever.
The thought of Tucker made anger bubble inside her, but she scrubbed harder, as if she could wash him away. She’d wasted enough years thinking about him, convincing herself that what they had was enough, that what their relationship lacked in passion, it made up for in comfort.
At twenty-seven, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever felt raw, electric desire before. That truth unsettled her almost as much as who had ignited it.
