I can't open my eyes. The light is too bright. Spotting a pair of sunglasses hooked onto the sheriff's shirt pocket, I grab them, but he is faster, and before I know it, he's captured my hand in his, my palm lying flat against the powerful thud of his heart, his gaze locked on mine.
For some weird reason, my own heart hammers in my chest. The immense size of his hand covering mine makes my knees quake. The calluses scrape against my skin, making my clit swell and throb.
"Are you trying to steal from me again, Ms. Evans?"
"Yes."
I'm sure his lips turned into a slight grin, but it was fleeting; I could have imagined it.
He drops his hands, and I immediately spring into action. I swipe his sunglasses and put them on my face. I'm too early for all of this.
But then I see a cup of coffee in his hand, and I make a grab for that too. I take a big sip and nearly spit it out onto the sidewalk.
"Ugh, what is wrong with you?" I splutter. It's tar, all right.
The sheriff chuckles, and I wish I were a dragon so I could incinerate him with a single breath.
"Can we get some coffee first, please? Even just normal coffee?"
"No time," he says and guides me along.
"Whatever happened to small-town hospitality?" But then I remember the pizza and milkshake he brought me, so I don't push it.
If everything else weren't bad enough, I have to lift my skirt to avoid tripping over it. His sunglasses are a little too big for my face, and I have to hold my head up, so they don't slide off my nose.
"Rough night?" he asks with that uninterested tone of his.
"Shut up," I say, highly aggravated. As if he doesn't know what kind of night I had. Thankfully, I'm already looking up, balancing his sunglasses on my face, so I merely turn and offer him a deathly glare. No one should look that good this time of the morning.
The town is unsurprisingly empty as we walk a little further up the sidewalk. Maybe all the townspeople are still asleep. Maybe they understand how life should work.
"So when are you getting married?"
"What?" he asks, and I hear his inaudible sigh as if it's my own.
"You and Ms. Grumpy, Deputy Slinger. She thinks the sun shines straight out of your butt, you know. And she never just says your name; it's always 'Under Sheriff Smith.' You should totally marry her; you'll have a bunch of mini grumps. She loves you," I tease, dragging out the word 'love.'
There's no ring on his finger, but maybe he'll tell me he's already married with a bunch of mini grumps or is dating someone.
"Are you jealous, Ms. Evans?" he asks instead, without looking at me, and I'm irked at the offhand way he directs the questionat me. Of course I'm not jealous. I wouldn't date the good ol' Sheriff if the fate of the human race depended on us mating for procreation. I would rather lay myself down on a bed of bees and—
"Howdy, Sheriff Smith." A stocky man comes rushing toward us and stops just as we're about to cross the street. "I heard someone died at the Richards' cottage? Utter carnage. What in tarnation is going on, Sheriff?"
The man switches his attention from the sheriff to me and stares. In the back of my mind, I know I look terrible. I'm not a morning person, and I can't hide it.
But now I also can't get the image of me procreating with the sheriff out of my mind. His body covering mine, his cock inside me, my hand on his heart....
I need to erase the thought at once. This is what happens when I don't drink orgasmic-tasting coffee in the morning. Aurelian has a cup delivered to my apartment—delivered to my apartment—at eight every morning. My concierge brings it up to me and doesn't flinch when I answer the door with my eye mask still covering one of my eyes, and all I can offer him is a grunt as a thank you.
As the sheriff assures the man there have been no murders of any kind, I'm fixated on the thermos in his hand. It must contain coffee, and it must absolutely be better than what the sheriff drinks. Desperate measures.
"Do you mind?" I say, giving him my biggest smile. "May I have a small sip, please? Or I could buy it from you. When I get my purse, that is."
"You don't want to drink that," the sheriff says.
"You don't know me," I say and turn on the charm until the man, quite gobsmacked—I don't blame him—looks at the thermos in his hand, then at me, then at the thermos and hands it over.
"Thank you," I say, give the sheriff a victorious, arrogant smirk, and unscrew the steel container. I tip the contents into my mouth. So many things happen to me at once. A physiological warfare of epic proportions. My tongue is going to explode. My entire digestive system is going to implode. My face contorts so horribly I would scare children, and I panic when I can't twist my features back.
