“Brody and I are going to have a baby,” Ashley whispered just as Sean came back into the bar.
“Oh my God,” Shelby breathed, delight for her friend filling her. Cora shushed her and Shelby grabbed Ashley’s hands under the bar, squeezing them.
A few people came back into the bar just as Sean pushed two Old Fashioneds and a Sprite toward the three women.
They lifted their glasses in thanks and all took sips. The drink was strong and sweet and Shelby took a big swig of it, feeling celebratory and grateful and sad all at the same time. Grateful for her friends, for this community that she was a part of. That a wonderful couple like Ashley and Brody were starting a family. That they could pull off an event like this without warning for a man none of them knew very well.
But the thought that she might not get to know Ty any better was a sad one. Repellant, even.
She had to convince him that she wanted nothing to do with Joe.
That she only wanted Ty.
“To Bishop,” she said, drawing surprised glances from everyone, just as police cars pulled up outside.
Chapter 18
Crap. The noise ordinance. Ty had hoped they’d gotten in under the wire, but apparently not. Most of the crowd had gone back inside the bar, so it was just him, Gordon, and Cliff the auctioneer still out on the asphalt. But soon word got out that there were cops in front and a small group of men and women stood at the door watching.
Some of the guys inside the bar had a long and complicated relationship with law enforcement, and after a couple of drinks that relationship got pretty volatile. The last thing this night needed was anything volatile.
Ty turned to face the cruiser just as the two officers stepped out.
Jenkins and Debreau, who’d given him the gears the other day at Cora’s.
Great. Just great.
“We meet again?” Jenkins said without much of a smile.
“Sorry if we got too loud,” Ty said, trying to cut off the good cop/bad cop routine before it got started. “Sean warned me about the ordinance, but I lost track of time.”
“The neighbors called,” Jenkins said. Again the officers split up, Jenkins coming to stand in front of him, Debreau strolling around to check out the bike behind him.
Sean and Brody came out, followed by Ashley, Cora, and Shelby. “Hey, sorry, guys,” Sean said, jogging out to the curb where they all stood. “The time kind of got away from us.”
“That’s the fifth complaint this month, Sean. You said you’d stick to the ordinance,” Jenkins said. “We’re going to have to start fining you.”
“It’s my fault,” Ty said, trying to keep Sean from getting in trouble. After all the guy had done for him tonight, it seemed the least he could do was handle the flack from the neighbors. “Honestly, mine. If anyone needs to be fined it’s me.”
“What’s going on here?” Debreau asked. Ty turned to face the cop, who was crouched down looking at the bike.
“I’m auctioning off the bike,” Ty explained.
“It’s a nice bike,” Debreau said, standing upright again. His knees popping. “Where’d you get it?”
Ty crossed his arms over his chest. “Bought it in pieces mostly.”
“Yeah?” Debreau shifted his belt, getting comfortable with his foot up on the curb. “Like on those TV shows?”
“Sure.” Lying was easier than explaining how all those Learning Channel shows did was make things look easy and fast when they were in fact the opposite.
“So you fix this kind of stuff up and then auction it?”
“Yes.” He glanced over at Brody. Shelby stood beside him, soaking all of this in. The gold of the streetlight washed over her, gilding her hair in sparkles.
Debreau whistled, forcing Ty’s attention away. “You do good work. Real good work. I’ve got my dad’s old Harley growing rust in my garage. Maybe you want to take a look at it?”
“I don’t take clients.”
“Why not?”
Ty shrugged. Because I don’t like working for assholes like you, he thought, and though he didn’t say it, Debreau clearly got the point. He sniffed and stiffened and got back to remembering he was some badass small-town cop on a power trip.
“You got the permits for this auction?” Debreau asked.
“Permits? What do I need a permit for?” Sean asked.
“I have a license,” Cliff spoke up, reaching into his wallet. “And the sale is private—”
“This area here is still public property,” Debreau said, pointing to the blacktop that Sean was planning on making patio space. “Your zoning hasn’t been approved yet, has it, Sean?”
“Are you kidding me, Max?” Sean asked, his hands on his hips. “You know I filled out the paperwork. We’re just waiting for everything to go through. It’s not my fault City Hall works on a skeleton staff.”
Debreau shrugged. “You need permits for this sort of thing, Sean.”
“Look, I’ll go into City Hall tomorrow and take care of everything.” Ty tried to placate everyone. “I’ll pay fines or fees or whatever you need me to do.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work retroactively.” Jenkins pulled out his ticket book. “Sean, I’m going to have to write you a ticket for the noise and the auction.”
Sean started swearing but Brody put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, calming him down. Jenkins handed the ticket to Sean, who wouldn’t take it, so Brody did.
“Your son here tonight?” Debreau asked.
“My son?” Ty jerked backward at the question, the sudden change of subject. “No. I didn’t bring him to a bar.”
“You got someone watching him?”
“A friend.”
“A friend like these guys?” He pointed toward the bikers in the doorway.
“Jesus, man,” Ty breathed. “What is your problem?”
Debreau stepped forward, but suddenly there was Shelby. Shelby smelling of barbecue and bourbon, with a halo of sparkles in her hair.
“We appreciate you coming out,” Shelby said, calm and level, a bucket of water on a growing fire. “The Chamber of Commerce is going to be looking into the issues with permits, and we’ll set up a better system so this doesn’t happen anymore.”
“That’s a good idea, Ms. Monroe,” Debreau said, backing off, but those sharp brown eyes didn’t leave Ty’s. “Why don’t you see what you can do about keeping these people out of trouble tonight.”
“No one is getting in trouble,” she said. “I promise.”
Jenkins and Debreau stepped back into their cruiser and after a moment pulled away from the curb and headed back out into the night and whatever passed for crime in Bishop, Arkansas.
“Thank you, Shelby,” Sean said, and Cora and Brody all chorused their thanks. Ty just looked at her.
“You keep stepping in,” he said, amazed and irritated all at the same time. He wanted to cup his hand around her neck, pull her in close to him, rest his weary and tired body against hers. Work out the giant mixed bag of emotions that had been dogging him all night with her. In her.
Hell. He wanted to celebrate with her. Put his arm around her. Kiss her in front of her friends and his. Thank her for being a part of this night; whether she was doing it for him or for Sean didn’t matter.
She was here. She’d stayed.
But he couldn’t forget the look on her face when that Joe guy grabbed her hand.
“Holy shit!” Sean yelled, looking at the tickets. “That’s half of what we made tonight!”
“Look, guys,” Ty said, shaking free of his Shelby thoughts. “I’ll pay the tickets.”
“No,” Sean grumbled. “I agreed to do this. It’s my fault.”
“Sean.” Ty stepped closer to the guy, surprised that he was being so noble about the whole thing. “Do you know how much I made on the auction tonight?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sean said.
“Thirty grand.” Sean blinked. Shelby’s mouth fell open. “Give me the tickets. I’ll pay them.”
Sean handed them over and Ty shoved them in his pocket. “I’m sorry things ended the way they did here,” he said. “But I really appreciate the way you accommodated us. On the fly like that, too. You did a great job.” He glanced at all of the people standing behind Sean. Brody, Cora, Shelby, and Ashley. “All of you. I know you chipped in to help Sean, but it was a big deal for me. And I really appreciate it.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Sean said, sticking out his hand, and Ty shook it. “It was an amazing night. And you know if this is something you do a lot of, we can work something out. A collaborative thing.” He turned to Shelby. “Can you imagine the draw we’d get for the Okra Festival if we had one of his bikes to auction off?”
“It’s not something I do a lot of,” Ty said, ending the conversation. “And I’m not for hire.”
“Thirty thousand dollars?” Sean asked, totally ignoring him. “In what, like four minutes? And this crowd? With advertising, we’d have double, probably triple!”
“It took me a year to build the bike, Sean. It’s not like it was easy money.”
“The Chamber of Commerce can take care of the permits,” Shelby said. “If you joined—”
“I’m not interested in the Chamber of Commerce,” he said, a little too quickly. A little too roughly. She paled slightly but didn’t back down.
“That’s too bad,” she said. “Because you could be a real asset.”
“Asset?” He hadn’t been an asset. Ever. “To what?”
Shelby and Cora exchanged a quick glance. Brody wrapped his fingers around Ashley’s. A small raft of community around him.
“To us,” Sean said. “Bishop.”
Ty laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“No,” Shelby said. “We’re not.”
“Look, guys, I’m not interested in a Chamber of Commerce or helping this community. I appreciate what you’ve done tonight, but I’m going to head home and check on my kid. Sean, I’ll take care of the tickets and come back tomorrow to settle up the bill.”
Ty went back inside to say goodbye to the people who were still left. Jimmy said he’d be following him home in a little bit, but he was finishing up a conversation with one of the locals, who had turned himself into a mess over his ex, and Jimmy was being a kind ear.
Ty made a quick circle of the bar, making sure the guys who’d had too much to drink had a way home that didn’t involve them getting behind the wheel. He shook hands with Sean and Brody once more and then made his way out to his truck, which Jimmy had parked around the corner on another dark street.
And there, leaning against the driver’s side door, was Shelby.
She heard the crunch of his boots over the asphalt and pushed herself away from the truck.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his face in hard lines that only reinforced the misgivings that this had not been her best idea.
He needed a chance to cool down; she should have waited until tomorrow. But no, she’d ignored the reasonable voice. For the first time in her life she ignored the reasonable voice. It was highly uncomfortable.
“I’m hoping for a ride home.” She lifted her chin, braving it out.
He glanced around at the shadows of the street. “You don’t have your car?”
Her breath stalled in her chest. He was not going to make this easy. “I do.”
“You drunk?”
She shook her head.
“Where’s Joe?”
“He went home.”
The streetlight slashed across his face, shadowing his lips, illuminating his eyes, cutting him into pieces so she could not be sure of the whole of him. He reached past her and unlocked her door.
“Get in,” he said, holding open the door for her. She climbed into the cold cab and he shut the door behind her. She watched as he walked across the front of the truck and wondered how this had happened. How this wild man had stepped so thoroughly into her life. And how it seemed he wanted to be there. What in her narrow and rigid world could possibly be keeping him?
He climbed in on the driver’s side and shut the door behind him, but didn’t start the truck. Their breath fogged slightly in the cold air; the shadows made everything stark.
And clear.
She didn’t want Joe. Not even a little.
“Ty—”
With one hand he reached over and cupped the back of her neck, pulling her toward him, and she went. She coiled and sprung and launched herself at him. His lips met hers in a bruising kiss that barely held onto civility. On her knees beside him she buried her fingers in his hair, feeling the shape of his head in her palms.
His hand slid over her hips, grabbing her ass with force. With intent. His fingers slipped down between her legs, pressing hard where she wanted him most.
“Ty—”
“Don’t talk.”
Fine. Yes. Like that. Exactly like that. She put a hand against his jeans, the faded spots where the buttons of his fly had worn into the denim. He was hard under those buttons. Hard for her.
She shifted her weight, sitting back against her knees, trapping his hand between her legs. She rocked against him, using his fingers to push her higher. Make her wilder. Quickly she undid the buttons of his fly, finding the heat of his flesh beneath layers of clothing.
She was dying. Dying for him, so empty inside it was all she felt. Vacant and blank and waiting. For him.
Somehow he got his hand free from the trap between her legs and he put it in her hair, pulling out the rubber band, tangling his fingers until it stung. She gasped, tilting her head back to alleviate the sting.
His other hand cupped her throat, her chin, pulling her face down to his. Looking into his eyes, she wrapped her hand around his dick. Jacking it slowly up and down its length while his eyes burned into hers.
They didn’t kiss. Open-mouthed, they breathed into one another. Eyes locked, bodies inside coats, and clothing straining toward the other.
“I want to have sex,” she whispered.
“No condom.” He took her lower lip between his teeth and she cried out in pleasure and pain. Between her legs, her arousal pounded, and she had to have him inside of her. In any way.
Scooching backward, she eased down into the foot well, her body over his leg, and she took him into her mouth. Sucking him so hard and so fast his hands flew back against the seat, as if to keep himself steady.
“Oh God. Shelby,” he moaned, his hips pushing up against her, and she eased off. She found a rhythm, hard and fast, and then slow and teasing.
His laughter had an edge that sent her blood sizzling through her. With one hand, he grabbed her and pulled her back up onto the bench seat. She pulled away from him, about to ask what he was doing, but he stopped her with a hand at her chin.
“Keep going,” he breathed.
She arranged herself as best she could on her stomach and he reached his hand down the back of her pants, finding her where she was empty and aching and wet. His fingers stabbed into her and she arched backward against him.
It was messy and fast and frantic, but soon she was shuddering against the worn nap of the bench seat, breaking into a thousand dark pieces. A thousand dark and wanton and needy pieces. And then he was, too, holding her head in his hands, arching against her, moaning her name as he came.
In the silence of after, she pulled away slowly. Her mouth, then her face. She got to her knees very carefully, because she felt in some ways like she’d been broken and put together with an unreliable hand.
As she moved, his hand slipped away from her and she felt the scrape of his calluses and blisters against the tender skin of her hips, caught between her skin and the fabric of her jeans. She twitched, then shifted, wanting to keep him there. His large palm, warm and firm against her flesh.
His hand could stay there forever. In fact, the two of them could move into this truck and never leave. Pizza could be delivered. They could just have sex and live in this moment without anything but them—no reputations, no sons in trouble, no
mothers slipping farther and farther from shore.
Just them. And the sex that turned her inside out.
He squeezed her cheek as if he understood that, but still he pulled away, and then there was nothing to do but sit up, wipe her mouth, and try to make sense of what had happened. Of what this was between them.
The windows were foggy; the air, chilly only ten minutes ago, was now humid, smelling of bodies and sex. And part of her was thrilled to find herself here, as if she’d been waiting for just this sort of invitation to be opened to her, while the other part of her was astonished that she wanted this.
Wild, nearly out-of-control sex in a car with a man whose anger toward her was something she felt in the air. Like a coming storm.
She pushed her hair away from her face and found him watching her. His lush lips red, as if he’d been biting them, and she reached out to touch them.
But he caught her fingers in his hand.
“I don’t share.”
She blinked, curling her fingers against his.
“Did you hear me, Shelby? I don’t share.”
“What a ridiculous thing to say.”
“If you want to date Joe, you don’t get to fuck me.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“I have no clue what you’re doing.”
“I don’t want to date Joe.”
He began to do up the buttons of his jeans, lifting his hips to tuck himself back into his boxers. She watched as his pink flesh, slick with her saliva, disappeared.
“I only want you.” The words were a surprise. To both of them. His hand stilled on his pants and she held her breath, feeling like she’d just changed the game between them. Shoved them into unfamiliar territory. All the guards they wore, the masks and personas, fell away, and she felt suddenly more naked in this moment than she had with him ever.
“Then what were you doing with him?”
“I was finding out that I don’t want to date him. For a lot of years I thought he was exactly what I wanted. But he’s not.” She thought of how Ty never got scared. He met her head-on, every single time, with his own damage in tow. “You are.”
Between the Sheets Page 21