by Marie Jermy
The Andersons 4
Lust in the First Degree
Matt Anderson is a cynic when it comes to romance. The words love and relationship are not in his vocabulary. Then volcanologist Darcy Forbes strolls into his hometown, and it’s not long before he loses his heart and soul to the audacious beauty. Is Darcy “The One” that his brother is always on his case about?
A bad experience at the hands of Kurt Forrester, her ex-boyfriend and a cop, has left Darcy Forbes distrustful of the law. No way is she going to fall for a man in uniform ever again. However, her resolve shatters the moment she arrives in Silver Creek, Montana. With his carnal physique and presence, Officer Matt Anderson is not easily ignored, but can she trust this cop with her heart?
Forrester then arrives in town. Will he and his AK-47 turn the hot love that Darcy and Matt have found with each other into ashes?
Genre: Contemporary, Interracial
Length: 46,001 words
LUST IN THE FIRST DEGREE
The Andersons 4
Marie Jermy
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
LUST IN THE FIRST DEGREE
Copyright © 2012 by Marie Jermy
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62241-931-9
First E-book Publication: December 2012
Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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LUST IN THE FIRST DEGREE
The Andersons 4
MARIE JERMY
Copyright © 2012
Chapter 1
As a police officer, good and bad shifts were guaranteed. At ten in the morning, and an already hectic two hours into his shift, Matt Anderson decided the remainder was going to be shit. He was up to his neck in paperwork. There was a court case in Helena to attend. And to top it all, Mark Raven was being a jerk again. It was bang out of order that in this day and age people were still prejudiced toward gays.
Matt took one final glance at the handover sheet from Officer Jezebel Sucre, who along with himself and Chief Peter Connors was permanently stationed in Silver Creek, placed it on top of the stack of files in front of him, and then pushed the whole lot away. He sighed heavily. The report detailed an incident the previous night involving Raven and a group of men having a stag party at Rustlers, one of those men being gay.
Pulling open the bottom drawer of his desk, he propped his booted feet on it and turned his thoughts back to when he and Raven had been friends.
Born a week apart in the same year and living within a half mile of each other, Matt and Raven had grown up together, played together, and as the best of friends had shared everything, including to some extent dating the same girls, although not at the same time. In his line of work, Matt talked to people from all walks of life, including those committed to ménage relationships. He didn’t have a problem with that. He just wouldn’t be joining the ménage set any time soon. When it came to women, Matt was not a sharing man.
Matt’s friendship with Raven became strained a year ago when Tommy Lucas moved to the town. Right from the start, and unlike Raven, Matt really liked Lucas. He was the type of guy who was the life and soul of any party, friendly and always willing to lend an ear or a helping hand.
Matt smiled when he recalled the letter Lucas had sent him a week earlier. In his usual happy-go-lucky style, Lucas had described patrolling the streets of war-torn Basra in his voluntary role as a United Nations peacekeeper as akin to a stroll down Main Street on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon.
Lucas was also gay.
And that was the reason why Matt’s friendship with Raven had come to an end.
For Lucas’s last day in Silver Creek before going to Basra, the residents had thrown a party for him at Rustlers. Everybody had been there, including Raven, who seemed to put aside his dislike for Lucas, clamped a lid on his constant snide remarks about gays, and genuinely wanted to wish Lucas good luck and to come back alive.
But, of course, with the drink flowing, sooner or later something was bound to happen.
And it happened when Matt and Lucas found a quiet corner to discuss where to forward Lucas’s mail while he was in Basra. A glass of beer in his hand, Raven had staggered over and either deliberately or accidentally spilled it over Matt. Matt would have waved it off as just an over-the-top display of drunken behavior, but then Raven said something that made him lose his hot temper big-style. Raven asked if the beer had short-circuited his AC/DC tendencies.
Matt couldn’t remember how many bloody punches he and Raven had traded, but he certainly remembered being pulled away by Chief Connors, who told him he either cooled off or kissed his career good-bye. He loved his job, being a cop was in his blood, and it had taken every ounce of his control to cool down. It also helped that Connors had thrown Raven’s ass in the cells for the night.
From that day onward, apart from the night when Raven attempted to rape Samantha, one of his sisters, Matt had kept a wide berth from him, which was
n’t easy in a town as small as Silver Creek. It also wasn’t easy when Raven continued to shoot his mouth off about gays.
The quacking of Matt’s cell phone brought him back to the present. He located the cell on his desk. The name flashing on the screen told him it was his other sister, Ramona, calling. He punched the answer button. “Yo, Mona. What’s up?”
“I think you should put in an appearance at CC’s. Raven’s gonna kick off. And I’m too little to stop Rex from slam-dunking the bastard.”
“Then don’t.”
“If anything happens to Rex, Matt, I’ll never forgive you. So get your ass over here!”
“Jeez, not you, too!” Matt exclaimed with disgust at hearing Ramona apparently going all starry-eyed. First, Ross had caught the love bug, then Samantha, and now Ramona. Or had Ramona caught the bug first? Even though Ramona had called Rex Latimer, her co-partner at the vet’s practice, a smug SOB more times than he could count, he’d seen the sideways, longing glances between them on many occasions. Not to mention the wandering hands. He knew he was right in believing that they were fucking each other silly. “Have they put something in the coffee at CC’s that I don’t know about?” he asked, half to Ramona and half to silence. She had cut him off.
He growled under his breath, pushed to his feet, and grabbed his hat from the coat pegs by the door. Jamming the hat on his head, he marched out of the station, down the street, and into CC’s Coffee Shop. And just in time. With his left hand grabbing the front of Raven’s shirt, his right fisted and poised, Rex Latimer looked like he was about to take Raven’s head off, which in itself was unusual because Latimer was supposedly a pacifist.
“You cocky pissant!”
Now, Matt really couldn’t argue with Latimer’s choice of description and couldn’t have put it any better himself. He also really didn’t want to stop Latimer from detaching Raven’s head from his shoulders, but felt he had to. He was an officer of the law, after all. “That’s enough, Rex. Let him go.” Once Latimer had done what he’d asked, Matt turned to Raven. “Beat it before I run you in.”
“Run me in for what?” Raven’s lips curled into a sneer. “I only came in here for a fuckin’ coffee!”
A CC’s monogrammed Styrofoam take-out cup suddenly materialized on the counter. Matt just about contained the urge to throw it at Raven. “Then take it and go.”
With a death stare at everyone within the shop, Raven took his coffee and left. The yanking open of the half glazed, half wooden door caused the little brass bell above to clank angrily while the ensuing slam rattled the glass and the woodwork.
After checking the door for damage, which there was none, Matt turned to Ramona, whose saintly expression was ruined by the sly smile. “All right, Mona, what was that all about?”
“I may have called him a rapist.”
“Jeez.” Matt shook his head. “Can’t you keep her on a tight leash?” he asked Latimer.
Latimer gaped. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Now haven’t you two got some dogs’ dicks to see to or something?” He grimaced when Ramona and Latimer left the shop holding hands.
“The usual?” a woman asked in a voice full of flirty fun.
Matt turned around. A brilliant-white French maid–style apron tied around her dainty waist, Emily Coy stood behind the counter, giving him the sort of smile reminiscent of her surname. Despite Emily being more than ten years older than him, he never thought twice about flirting back with her. Not when, with her chin-length, silken curls of rich brown hair and twinkling blue eyes, she was very pretty.
He decided to stay for a coffee. The mountain of paperwork would still be on his desk when he got back, unless the work fairies completed it for him, and he couldn’t see that happening anytime soon. He removed his hat. “Yep. And…” His tone dipped huskily for the forthcoming innuendo. “…I like plenty of cream.”
“In or out?”
His tone dipped further. “Oh, definitely in.” Emily burst into laughter, and he watched her making him a latte, not having the heart to tell her his usual was a cappuccino.
After twenty minutes of some seriously hot flirting and a really creamy latte, Matt left CC’s Coffee Shop. Outside the door, he donned his hat and took one pace toward that waiting pile of paperwork, but then stopped dead in his tracks.
Getting out of a dusty, rust-colored Jeep parked in front of his black-and-white outside the police station, her brown sugar–colored skin in perfect harmony with the cream, sleeveless T-shirt and peach Capri pants that she wore, was the most ravishing woman he’d ever seen. He instantly envisaged a snowy winter’s night and curling up beside her in front of a roaring fire. Too bad it was going to be another sweltering day, or he’d get busy with chopping wood.
She was tall—about five ten, maybe a smidge more—and with his six-four height, he liked tall women. A thin-strapped and minute, tan-colored purse hung crossways down her body, drawing his attention to a pair of high, pert breasts and the flare of her hips. He liked women’s hips. Tits and ass, too, but definitely hips. He wandered down the street toward her, openly appraising her, but then frowned when it registered just where the woman had parked. “Miss?” he called as he approached, noting the California license plate. “I’m sorry, but you can’t park here.”
“Why not?”
He pointed to his black-and-white and then to the signpost. “Because it’s for police vehicles only.”
“And who are you?”
Incredulous, Matt ran an eye down his uniform. Then, tipping the brim of his hat back, he looked the ditzy beauty straight in the eye. She had dark-brown eyes that softly whispered, “You. Me. Roaring fire.”
“Take a wild guess, sweetheart,” he said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm behind his perfect Humphrey Bogart impression.
“And there was me thinking you were in costume. I meant your name, bonehead!”
“Bonehead?” he echoed. Okay, he’d called her “sweetheart,” but even so, she was calling him stupid? Come to think of it though, and in a somewhat different context, Matt did notice his uniform pants were becoming uncomfortable due to a blossoming boner. With extreme effort, he ignored the way her darkest-brown, chin-length, wild twists of Afro hair blew about in the breeze that had kicked up. “Lady, you’re not exactly fully loaded in the brains department, either.”
“As an officer of the law, are you supposed to insult a member of the public?”
“And as a member of the public, aren’t you supposed to respect the law?” The audacious beauty arched her lips into a smile, showing a gap between her top two front teeth. That smile had the wow factor, so much so that it took Matt a couple of moments to realize she was holding her hand out.
“Miss Darcy Forbes. Officer…?”
“Anderson. Matt Anderson.” He returned her smile and clasped her hand in his. Her grip was strong and sent sparks of heat shooting up his arm.
She frowned. “Anderson? You’re not by any chance related to Samantha Anderson, are you?”
“I’m her brother,” he said slowly. He was going to have some serious words with Sammy for not introducing him to Miss “Wow Factor” Darcy Forbes sooner. “You know her?”
“No. But my pain-in-the-ass sidekick does. Danny Ferris. We work together,” she explained further on seeing his puzzled expression.
“Oh, right.” Matt grinned. “Then, Miss Forbes, I owe you an apology. You are definitely fully loaded in the brains department.” Her smile had the wow factor, but her laughter, suggestive laughter that bordered on dirty, damn well knocked his socks off.
“So where can I find him?”
“Find who?” he asked, trying to locate his missing socks.
“Danny.”
“Danny?”
She again laughed. “Danny Ferris.”
Damn, her dirty laugh evoked images of equally dirty fucking. Matt found his socks and a bucket of ice-cold water, too, which he promptly and mentally tipped over his head. “Danny Ferris, of course. Yeah, he and Sammy
went back to LA yesterday.”
“Damn. Oh, well, I guess I will be moving my Jeep then.”
“No!” The look Darcy shot him at his barked command did make him feel like a bonehead. “Um, I mean, er…What do I mean?” Now, he was a total bonehead. His brain had ceased to function. He looked around for another bucket of water. No, scrap the bucket and better make it a tanker. Was his brother Ross right when he’d told him what would happen when the right woman came along?
“Never say never, little bro. I guarantee you’ll feel the same way I do when the right woman comes your way.”
But surely it took more than a minute to fall in love? Didn’t it?
Stop!
Matt checked himself. He had not fallen in love. He’d just developed a serious case of lust, the kind that involved him screwing a woman seven ways to heaven. But if it was lust, why was his heart nearly banging out of his chest? The tanker of ice-cold water arrived and not a second too late, either. He was going starry-eyed over a woman. It was time to get that brain of his out of his pants and into his head.
He cleared his throat and flashed a friendly smile, yet his tone denoted “Don’t mess with me.”
“As I’ve said, parking outside the station is for police vehicles only. So yes, you will have to move your Jeep. Unless you want a ticket? I thought not,” he said at the almost frantic shake of her head. His tone then turned informative. “If you are going to be staying for a couple of days, though, then take a room at the Slumberland Hotel. It’s just around the corner on First Street, and there’s plenty of parking at the rear.” He gestured to the turnoff to the relevant street behind her. “The bedrooms are very comfy, and you’re guaranteed a good night’s sleep. There’s also a tasty range of home-cooked food on the menu.”