He hadn't felt such a loss of control of his genitals since he was a teenager. He intended to take her out once or twice and exorcise her from his mind and body, and then she could go back on her merry way to the big city and he'd probably never see her again.
In deference to his deputy, he was going to do his best to keep it just straight vanilla sex, leaving his more interesting peccadilloes for another time, another woman, despite the fact that he was literally itching to bring her hard to heel. He knew, for a fact, that she was still driving that completely impractical little convertible all over the place; he'd seen her in it enough times, cheerily waving at him, no matter what the road conditions. At least she had adopted a more practical outfit, though. They'd passed each other on their way in and out of the small pharmacy in town, and she had been wearing everything she'd been missing that night.
He'd be willing to bet, though, that if he pulled her over, the next time he saw her speeding around town, she hadn't gotten one piece of the emergency equipment for her car that he'd mentioned to her when he'd pulled her out of that snow bank. And he'd noted the speeding, but didn't have the time to spend chasing her down
"Dinner?" she repeated.
"Yes. We could go into the city –"
She snorted, unable to stop herself. "You can't possibly be referring to Bangor?"
"Well, it's the closest thing we have up here."
Rissa leaned back against the pillows, allowing her hand to drift down her body, over the t-shirt she wore to bed that said, "What Would Gemma Do?" over her achingly peaked nipples and down her slightly rounded tummy to settle where she desperately wanted him to – between her legs.
She smiled. "You're right. But that's a bit of a drive. Is there anywhere you'd recommend that's closer?"
There were a ton of good restaurants in the area, as a matter of fact, but he wasn't at all sure she would approve of any of them. He had mentioned Bangor so that they could go to a nice restaurant, the caliber of which was hardly reflected in any of the places that he could take her to in town. Even the annual tourist invasion hadn't had much effect on Midland's small handful of eateries.
"Sure, if you don't mind slumming."
Her laugh washed over him like a wave of lava, setting fires where it oughtn't. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, thankful that his office door was closed. "Now, if I minded that I wouldn't have come all the way up here at all, now would I?"
Dodge frowned. He wasn't much in favor of people who ran down his town.
"Is Twin Lights still in business?" she asked.
It was a bare bones seafood place, situated right on the rocks facing the open ocean, that used paper plates and plastic silverware. What was up with this woman? He knew she'd grown up here because his deputy couldn't seem to stop talking her up to him, but she didn't act like it much, and he'd had her pegged as an expat city woman, which had its advantages.
But here she was, asking to go to a place where the locals hung out.
If that didn't beat all. "Yeah. It's hanging on. The from-aways haven't found it yet – even in the summer – so it's still a hole in the wall, but the best damned cherrystones you'll ever eat."
Rissa wrinkled her nose at that idea. "Onion rings – I remember their onion rings from when our daddy used to bring us there after school, when he thought Mama wouldn't notice that we were too full to eat our supper."
Dear God, when she spoke like that, all warm and soft and he knew he'd gotten her out of a sound sleep, all he could picture was her lying back on that same guest bed he'd occupied on occasion and driving himself inside her until she screamed.
And she was quite likely to, the first time, especially if he did it with no care for her, which, granted, was highly unlikely.
"Let's go there."
"You're a cheap date." It slipped out before he could stop it, and he cringed for a moment, hoping he hadn't insulted her, but her full-bellied laughter told him that she hadn't taken offense.
"Well, you never know what I'll order for dessert, though," she warned in a sexy, teasing voice, then ruined the effect with, "'Specially if old Bert is still making that luscious chocolate cheesecake with the Heath Bar crust."
"Had some just the other week. We should go on Thursday, then. You're right – Bert's even older now and he only works one day a week. If we go any later, there won't be any cheesecake of any kind."
"It's a date," she agreed. "That won't interfere with your job?"
"Huh?"
"Well, if we're out late…" She carefully didn't say, 'up late, having sex.' "It won't be a problem?"
"Hell no. I can pretty much work when I want."
"Ah, the perfect job, eh?" Her hand had moseyed off while they were discussing food, but wandered back as she kept him talking. "And you like it? It seems to suit you, if you don't mind my saying."
"Suit me?" He knew damned well it did, but he wanted to hear her take on it.
"Yeah. Not that I'm any expert, of course, I've only really met you once, but you're definitely a take-charge kind of guy. You're no metrosexual."
She heard his derisive snort at her use of that term and knew she'd struck a bull's eye, not that she needed the confirmation, really. "Ex-military?"
"Yes." Was he hallucinating, or had her voice deepened somehow, not a lot, but slightly, and become a bit huskier?
"I thought perhaps," she seemed to drawl. "What brought you up here?"
When she wasn't being a brat, she was surprisingly easy to talk to. "Needed a change of scenery."
"I know the feeling." Rissa's empathy was heartfelt. "Bad breakup?"
"Something like that." He would swear that her breathing had quickened, but he couldn't be absolutely sure.
"And you're happy with your job?"
The answer to his questions about how she was acting finally dawned on him, and he found himself wanting to snap her out of it. He didn't want her pleasuring herself when he wasn't there to watch and control it. "Yes, young lady, I am. Except when I come upon damsels in distress who haven't the sense to keep even the most rudimentary of emergency equipment at hand."
There was no mistaking the reprimand – or the sheer dominance – in his tone. She didn't know what had changed, and as much as she didn't want to – especially now – Marissa decided to straighten up and fly right, for once. She buried her errant, sticky fingered hand under the covers and left it there.
Like the good girl she most definitely wasn't, most of the time.
"So. What time Thursday are you going to pick me up?"
He chuckled indulgently, as if he knew why she had changed the subject, and noticing to himself how much less throaty she sounded. "How about six?"
"That's fine with me."
Dodge leaned over his desk and held the phone very close to his mouth. "Tell me, Miss Marissa, have you bothered to get any of the things I suggested you should for your car?"
"Hat, gloves, winter coat, boo –"
"For your car, Marissa," he repeated.
"Boots," she finished lamely, looking down and wishing she had a phone cord to twirl around her finger. How could he possibly have known that she hadn't acquired one bit of that long list, most of which she couldn't even remember.
"You know I'm going to check, don't you?"
He heard her swallow hard and nearly exploded in his uniform pants. What a mess that would be, underwear notwithstanding.
"Thursday at six, Marissa. Don't be late. You won't be happy if you keep me waiting."
When the phone went dead, she played back his last sentence in her mind several times, noting how he had phrased it. Not that he wouldn't be happy, but particularly that she wouldn't. It made her shiver and wish she hadn't stopped the titillating things her fingers had been doing while they spoke…
That was Monday morning. On Thursday, he arrived on her sister's doorstep precisely at six – not a moment earlier or later. Although she had thought that she was going to have to step over her sister's cold, dead body in ord
er to get out to him – Sophie was just that unhappy about the idea of her dating Dodge – she wasn't anywhere to be found when Rissa made her escape into the warmth of Dodge's huge truck. Rissa figured that Sonny, who was all for this relationship, had dragged her off to have his way with her.
She had to admit she was impressed by his manners. He'd even gotten out as soon as he'd seen her, to help her in, lifting her up into the seat as if she weighed nothing at all, frowning at her highly impractical – if extremely sexy – platform heels, before closing the door and coming around to scoot under the steering wheel.
As he pulled out of the driveway, he leaned over and turned the heat on, arranging all of the vents so that they aimed towards her, but left his window down a ways.
"Don't mind me. I tend to run a little hot."
He didn't miss her sly smile at his unintentional double entendre. "I don't doubt that one bit, Sheriff."
But when he saw her car parked in the street, he pulled up beside it and opened it, somehow knowing she wouldn't have bothered to lock it in a town she considered to be in the hinterlands, going even so far as to pop the trunk, then closing it all up.
"You have your keys on you? I'm going to lock it."
Blushing furiously, Rissa nodded.
When he got back in and got them back under way, he said, "As a single woman, it's probably better to always lock your car, even here in Mayberry." All he got in response was a growl, which had him laughing. "I told you I was going to look, now, didn't I?"
It wasn't him checking that she worried about. It was what he thought he might do about what it was that he definitely hadn't found that had her growling.
"I can't have you thinking that I say things I don't mean, or that I'm not going to follow up on," he almost whispered, which had her leaning just slightly towards him in order to hear him instead of stiffly away from him as she had been. Dodge cast a sidelong glance at her, and watched – surreptitiously – as she reddened even brighter, which he would have bet was a physical impossibility. But she wasn't making any of the usual protests about what he was saying, and that added to the hunch he had that they were deeply compatible in that area, too, along with several others.
"Because I don't, you know." He reached over and slipped his fingers between hers, not letting her pull away, which he felt he knew she was doing out of embarrassment more so than anything else.
Against her better judgment, Rissa looked up at him questioningly.
"Say things I don't mean. If I tell you that the sky is brown, then you can bet that it is, Rissa." They were at the town's one, notoriously long, stoplight, when he leaned over and whispered, "And if I tell you that I'm going to spank you, then you can bet that, at some point during the evening, you're going to get your bottom blistered. And I can promise you exactly that right now, Marissa Hamilton."
When he straightened, still keeping a hold of her hand, he asked her about how she had come to leave town originally and what had brought her back, wondering aloud how it was that they had managed not to get know each other better, considering the size of the town.
"Must have something to do with the fact that I'm a from-away, myself, huh?"
When they pulled into the small parking lot at Twin Lights, he switched off the truck and turned to her. "So. Do you still want to go to dinner with me?"
She looked surprised at his question, and he took that as a good sign. He'd misread the occasional woman's responses and had ended up taking them home when he'd made a declaration like he had to her. But she didn't look like she'd even considered that possibility, which only made it harder for him not to pull her over his lap right then and there.
But that wouldn't have been seemly, in the parking lot of a local hang out.
Damn it.
"As opposed to?"
Dodge pressed himself into the corner of the cab so that he faced her as best he could. "Well, if you're offended or affronted by what I've said to you, then you're certainly free to go. I won't hold you against your will – well, unless I'm spanking you. I can take you home." Dodge began to arrange himself in the driver's seat again and reached for the key.
"No," she said surprisingly quickly, definitely avoiding his eyes. "I'm hungry; I don't know about you."
When he turned to her again, he was wearing a broad, shit-eating grin that he wisely hid in a hurry. Then he reached out and tugged her towards him when she hadn't seen it coming at all, and she fairly fell into his arms, her lips melding onto his in a kiss that had the windows permanently fogged.
He was an incredible kisser, and Marissa found herself immediately willing to ignore the way her stomach was growling – and her bottom was tingling – in order to indulge in much more than that, but apparently, her date, either didn't think she was so great in that department, or perhaps his stomach was even more demanding than hers.
She sincerely hoped it was the latter as she wondered if she had been too eager, or if her breath wasn't what it should be, despite repeated brushings, or if she had just blown it altogether, somehow.
Then he appeared at her door, helping her down and into his arms, going so far as to carry her to the doorway, since she was – as he pointed out – again wearing inappropriate attire for a Maine winter.
"They're too expensive to be inappropriate, Dodge."
As they were seated, he mumbled, "Expensive won't keep you from getting pneumonia, Marissa Jean."
How had he found out her middle – oh. She had a brother-in-law with very loose lips.
"Yes, but it also means I probably have good insurance and thus will recover quickly," she returned, sticking her tongue out at him as they were seated.
The waitress apparently knew him; she was hanging all over Dodge as she spoke, pretty much just to him. "It's good to see you here again, Sheriff. What can I bring you?"
"I'll take a Bud Light, Sadie, and my lady will have…" He glanced over at her questioningly.
"The same," she replied.
Marissa detested beer, but somehow she doubted that they had Patron, or even Hornitos in this establishment. The waitress left menus when she returned with their drinks, and Rissa dove into hers, although her companion didn't touch his.
It looked much the same way as she had remembered it, and her onion rings were still there, she was glad to see.
"What're you going to have?" came the query from behind the menu, which prevented her from seeing him across the table.
"All I can really remember is the onion rings," she confessed in a conspiratorial whisper, after lowering the menu.
Dodge laughed. "Well, their fried shrimp is good, as is the all you can eat fish and chips, which is haddock that's probably so fresh that it's still flopping around just before they fry it. The lobster is pretty damned good, too, but too much work for too little reward, as far as I'm concerned." His expression told her that he felt that way about other things, too.
Rissa wiggled surreptitiously in her chair, folding the menu decisively before replying innocently, "Well, sometimes the rewards are worth the effort…"
Dodge leaned back in his chair and watched her avidly. "Most definitely, Marissa. Most definitely."
The stout waitress appeared almost immediately.
"And what will we be having tonight?" she asked, her gaze raking up and down Dodge as if he was on the menu and she was famished.
Dodge nodded at Rissa, apparently oblivious to the waitress' interest. "I'd like the fisherman's platter, please." It was the most expensive item on the menu, but offered a sampling of everything that the restaurant offered, except for lobster and steamers, neither of which she wanted, anyway. This way, she'd get homemade fries and homemade onion rings, along with scallops, clams, shrimp and haddock – more than enough for several meals, if their legendary portions were still in effect.
"Fried shrimp, please, substitute onion rings for the fries."
When they were alone again, he asked, "Where are you going to put all that food, Marissa? You're much too skinny to
eat that whole platter."
"Oh, you'd be surprised how much food I can pack in," she replied, glad he hadn't noticed her somewhat rounded belly. "But I wanted to have a little of everything, you know? And there'll be leftovers for a midnight snack or Sonny's lunch tomorrow." She hadn't thought about the fact that he might not be able to afford the expensive meal and had no idea of what a sheriff in a small town like this made, so she quickly offered, "I can pay for it."
He looked the same way he had when she'd offered him money for rescuing her—thoroughly affronted at the thought. "You most certainly will not," he practically snapped.
"Fine. I ordered without thinking about the price."
"As well you should. You needn't worry about how much we spend this evening, or any time we're together, Marissa."
But it was her turn to lean earnestly forward. "I'm sorry about offering you money when you helped me before. I didn't mean to insult you." She added as an afterthought, "Either time."
He reached across the table and took her hand, which was so cold her fingers were nearly blue. "You're freezing. Let me warm your hands."
His were like an oven, one on either side of hers.
He sensed she was more nervous than she acted and got her talking about neutral topics – what did she read, what movies had she seen, what television programs did she watch. They found they tended to like the same things, with the exception of the fact that he enjoyed cop dramas – if only to point out the fallacies, but she considered that an occupational hazard.
Dinner was better than she had imagined, and she told him so. They began to talk about things from childhood that had turned out to be disappointing as an adult, and he was glad she enjoyed her meal. He asked for a scallop, which she hand fed him, and then a fry, until she put the entire platter in the middle of the table so that they could both eat off of it. His shrimp had disappeared quickly before he began to graze off her plate.
Her Knight In Faded Denim Page 5