I laughed, just loud enough for the horses to flick their ears. “You gonna frisk me, Sheriff? Might need a warrant for that.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he said, but it didn’t come out as a joke. It landed somewhere between a warning and a plea.
The sun slanted through the window, turning the floating dust into a white-out. For a moment, we were the only two things in focus—the battered roan in the stall, and the two men pretending not to remember everything they’d done to each other before the world taught them better.
I let the silence stretch, enjoying the way it made him fidget, then tipped my head toward the back of the barn. “You wanna see if the perp’s hiding in the tack room?”
His eyes narrowed, reading for subtext, but he nodded. “After you.”
I led the way, deliberately slow, making him follow. The tack room was barely big enough for two, maybe three if you liked each other. The door shut with a damp click and cut off the outside light, so we were left in the afterglow of a single dusty bulb overhead and the sour-sweet reek of old leather.
Floyd leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “You always this cooperative, or am I just lucky?”
“I like to make the sheriff feel special,” I said, leaning opposite him, palms flat on the rough wood.
He let his eyes drag over my arms, the curve of my back, the tattoos that snaked up my left bicep and disappeared under my sleeve. He was looking for a weak spot, but I was done hiding them.
“So,” he said, “you really haven’t seen anything suspicious?”
“Depends on your definition,” I said. “Some folks in this town think every time I breathe it’s a crime.”
He smirked. “Maybe if you didn’t advertise so hard, they’d let you be.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I pushed off the wall and closed the gap between us, slow and deliberate. He braced, but didn’t move. Our bodies almost touched—his uniform and my sweat-dark flannel, his badge and my ink, his careful order and my practiced chaos.
“Careful, McKenzie,” he said, and I heard the catch in his throat. “That’s resisting a peace officer.”
I grinned, all teeth. “You gonna cuff me?”
I watched his eyes, watched the pupils blow wide. I could feel the heat off him, the charge that’d been building for weeks, maybe years.
“Do you want me to?” he said, voice gone hoarse.
And that was it. The last sandbag against the flood. I pressed him into the wall, hard enough to knock dust loose from the planks. He made a noise—half protest, half hungry—and grabbed my shoulders, but I was stronger. Always had been.
I pinned his wrists over his head, one hand gripping both with ease, and leaned in until our mouths were a hair apart. His breath was hot, laced with coffee and the metallic tang of adrenaline.
“You got something you want to say to me, Floyd?” I whispered.
He glared, but it was already over. He let me have him.
I crashed our mouths together, rough, teeth knocking before we found the angle. His lips were chapped and tasted like desperation. He kissed back, hard enough to bruise, and then let out a shudder when I pressed my thigh between his legs, pinning him to the wall from chest to groin. His badge dug into my sternum, cold and sharp, and I liked the way it felt—like evidence, like proof.
He tried to break the hold, but I just squeezed his wrists tighter. He moaned—actual, honest-to-god moaned—and I used the free hand to grab his belt, yanking him flush against me.
“Fuck,” he gasped, but he didn’t tell me to stop.
I worked his wrists higher, grinding our bodies together, and let the weeks of wanting pour out. I bit his jaw, licked the sweat off his neck, felt him buck under me. He was rock hard, no hiding it, and he shoved his hips up to meet me, the friction making both of us gasp.
He turned his face, trying to get a breath, but I caught him by the chin, forced his mouth open and kissed him until he whimpered. I knew what he needed. I’d always known.
When I finally let his wrists go, he left them up, fingers flexed like he didn’t know how to use them. I slid my hands down his chest, found the buttons on his shirt, and popped the first one.
He grabbed my wrists, but I just stared him down. “You really want me to stop?”
He didn’t answer. He just let his hands fall away, and stared at me like he wanted to eat me alive.
I grinned, all triumph and want, and pressed him to the wall one last time, badge cutting into my ribs, every muscle in my body singing with it.
