Maybe he’d be lucky and she would be happily married with kids, therefore not the least bit interested in getting sweaty and dirty with him.
She was lost in conversation with the female deputy manning the front desk when he approached. The glance she shot him was cursory, just as his had first been with her. Then it snagged. Her focus zeroed in, sliding over his body from the top of his head down to his scuffed work boots and back up again. When her gaze collided with his, she sucked in a breath and licked her lower lip.
Fuck. He was screwed. His brain was screaming at him to turn his ass around and take his chances with the sheriff instead. Assaulting the local authorities for getting on his last nerve would garner him less trouble than playing with the sizzling awareness arcing between him and the sexpot fire inspector.
“Here he is,” the deputy said unnecessarily, pointing at him.
Jared thrust out his hand and introduced himself. The moment his palm touched the bombshell’s, his blood rushed south and gave him a semi. He looked at her left hand almost desperately, cursing the lack of a wedding ring. A simple gold band would’ve killed his interest right then and there.
“Darcy Michaels,” she replied, in a voice pitched high enough to be this close to girlish. “I’m a fire inspector with the Lion’s Bay Fire Department.”
The pretty blond deputy at the front desk smiled at him with the same invitation she’d given him when he first walked in. “Darcy’s the one who asked me to put out the information about the arsonist.”
The blonde was the type of woman he preferred to fuck—attractive enough to stir the most superficial interest and easy enough to want nothing more than a good time. Darcy Michaels was rousing something far deeper, igniting a hunger that was full-bodied and complex. The kind that overrode a man’s better sense.
Giving himself a mental kick in the ass, Jared caught the inspector’s elbow and steered her toward the exit. “Let’s go.”
They’d barely stepped outside when she said, “You got here quick, Deputy.”
He considered her voice. It was a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Jennifer Tilly. If anyone had asked him that morning what he thought of girly voiced women, he’d have said they annoyed the shit out of him. It was just his damn luck that Darcy Michaels was the exception. Every time she opened her mouth, his mind went straight into the gutter.
Harder, Jared. Deeper…
Christ. His teeth grit.
“We have to move quickly,” he bit out, trying to regain his focus. “If he keeps to his pattern, he’ll burn something else before the week is out. What have you got so far?”
She gestured down the street to a brick-faced fire station. “My office is over there. Do you have a suspect in mind? You came because you recognized the MO, right?”
“It’s similar to a known arsonist, yes.”
“We’re three weeks in with him. Where was he four weeks ago?”
“No clue.”
Frowning, she persisted, “So there are intervals between bursts? How long?”
“Twenty years. Give or take.”
She stumbled to a halt. “Are you kidding?”
He scowled for a variety of reasons, one of which was that her arm had slipped free of his grasp when she’d stopped abruptly. “Why would I?”
“Is he a recent parolee?”
“Escapee,” he corrected. “Seventeen years ago. He torched a bathroom in the courthouse during an appellate hearing and escaped in the ensuing clusterfuck. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since. But the supervisory deputy marshal in the Seattle office helped to apprehend Merkerson the first time, and she recognized the pattern.”
Darcy’s frown cleared. “Merkerson. That’s it! I’ve been trying to place the MO. He was way before my time, but we studied him briefly in school. What the hell has he been up to all these years? How has he stayed under the radar?”
“He might have been incarcerated under a false name or out of the country. Or he might have trained a junior asshat to follow in his nutjob footsteps. It doesn’t matter. We’re going to nail the bastard.” Grabbing her elbow again, Jared urged her toward the fire station.
“The hell it doesn’t matter. In just three weeks, he’s torn this town apart.”
He heard the fury underlying her words and made note of it. Personal involvement clouded judgment. One of the many reasons why spending time with her was a really bad idea. He was already feeling the effects. While his brain was working the case, his body was straining toward hers, wired and revved and hot to screw her raw.
They were about to cross the street to the fire station when he urged her into a corner diner instead.
“I missed lunch,” he explained, hoping low blood sugar, not his hormones, was responsible for handicapping his common sense. He could fix the former.
“I just ate. But I’ll grab a shake.”
Another mark in her favor, he thought. A woman who might not be counting every damn calorie she put in her mouth.
He nearly groaned as visions of other things she could do with her mouth swept through his testosterone-muddled mind. If he’d needed any proof that he was working too hard and not playing enough, he had it now. He should take the blond deputy up on her offer and ease himself down a notch.
Reaching the counter, Jared grabbed a menu from beside the register and ran a quick glance over the limited offerings. It was a burger-and-fries joint, with a couple salads thrown in for the calorie-conscious.
A waitress in a ’50s uniform with “Ginny” embroidered over her heart approached with her notepad and a smile. “Hey, Darcy. You brought the Fed with you. Bet Miller’s in a snit. I know how he gets when outsiders come in.”
“How do you know everything?” Darcy looked genuinely impressed. “I just found out that the Marshals Service was here not more than five minutes ago.”
Ginny shrugged. “Prime location for news. Welcome to Lion’s Bay, Marshal.”
“Deputy,” he corrected, his attention returning to the menu. “Thanks.”
“How are you doing?” Darcy asked Ginny with the easy familiarity of old friends.
“Better. Just had a new security system installed this morning. It’s supposed to sense heat and alert the alarm company. And I had our existing fire alarms rechecked a couple days ago to make sure everything is working properly.” Ginny jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the bulky-looking chef visible through the kitchen pass-through. “Tim joked about retiring on the insurance if the place burned. He slept on the couch last night for that one.”
“Oh, hell. Ginny, I’m sorry. I—”
Jared stepped into the conversation before she could say anything further. “Proactive, thoughtful steps, Ginny. Good job. If your burgers are half as good as your planning, I’ll order a double.”
Ginny grinned at the praise. “Big strapping man like you, absolutely.”
“Suggestions?”
“Depends. Hot or sweet?”
“Both. I’m starved.”
“One chipotle bacon BBQ double-cheeseburger and fries coming up. Everything on it?”
“Yeah. And two of whatever kind of shake Inspector Michaels wants. All to go.”
Jared paid the bill, waving off the five-spot Darcy pulled out of her pocket.
Closing the register, Ginny stepped away to make the shakes, leaving Darcy standing there with a grim expression. He gestured her over to a red vinyl booth by the window.
“So,” he began when she sat. “How often has Lion’s Bay had cause for the Feds to come in?”
One of her brows arched and she sized him up. The caveman in him beat his chest at the challenge. Damn it, he hadn’t been this interested in a woman in a long, long time.
It was a good thing she had some fire to her. When he got her beneath him, he wasn’t going to be gentle…
Fuck that. What the hell was he thinking? He was not going there.
“Just once,” she answered.
“When?”
“Three years ag
o.”
“Why?”
She hesitated just a second, but he caught it. “A local woman was murdered.”
“What made that interesting?”
Her lips pursed and her eyes took on a hardness that startled him.
“Don’t glare at me, Darcy. It’s a valid question. The Feds have bigger fish to fry than a small-town murder. What caught their interest about this one?”
She exhaled in a rush. “The MO was a match to a serial killer they were looking for.”
From the moment Darcy had spotted Jared Cameron in the police station, she’d known he was going to tear through her orderly life like a whirlwind.
His looks had knocked her back first. It had taken everything she had to keep her mouth from falling open when he’d walked up to her epitomizing the description of tall, dark, and dangerous. Then, he’d swept her right out the door, his touch sending tingles racing up her arm and through her body. Now she was sitting across from him, faced head-on with how seriously freakin’ delicious he was. Her mother would call him a “cool drink of water,” but Darcy wouldn’t. Every time their eyes met, her mouth went dry. Despite his purely professional discourse, the way he looked at her with those electric blue eyes was with raw animal hunger.
And damned if she didn’t want him right back. It was a primal response she couldn’t suppress. Socially, he was gruff and abrupt, so she was inclined to imagine him screwing her senseless without talking. Sweaty, grasping, grinding fucking. That’s what he radiated with his agitated energy and fierce gaze, and she was sold. It had taken his force-of-nature energy to make her realize she’d been dead for a while. A no-holds-barred one-night stand was just what she needed to knock the dust off.
“Which serial killer?” he asked in that clipped rough voice that brought to mind golden whisky in a crystal tumbler. He brushed back a lock of inky black hair with a careless hand, and she couldn’t help but notice the veins coursing along his powerful forearms and biceps. He was perfectly built to her tastes—lean, ripped, and not the slightest bit bulky.
“Some guy from the Midwest who carved Mayan symbols in his victims’ torsos.”
“The Prophet.” Jared leaned back in the booth, the casual pose doing little to soften him. “Counting down to doomsday. Sick fuck.”
Her brows rose. “Is that your professional opinion?”
“In my professional opinion, he was a whack job. And so is this guy torching your town.”
She almost smiled. Jared Cameron was a blunt object, no doubt about it, but it made her feel better knowing he was here. She couldn’t fathom anyone getting anything over on him.
“Listen.” His fingertips drummed on the table. “You can’t carry around guilt and blame for these fires.”
“I’m not.”
“Bullshit. The waitress tells you she’s taking steps to protect her property and you start apologizing like it’s your fault.”
Darcy’s hackles rose. “This is a small town, Deputy. People around here aren’t exactly rolling in the dough. She spent—”
“The name’s Jared. Use it.”
“You’re just full of charm, aren’t you?”
“You don’t want charm, and we’re talking shop.”
“How the hell would you know what I want?”
“Because I want the same thing.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, his blue eyes burning like flame. “I want it so badly my dick’s been half hard since the moment I saw you.”
Arousal swept through her like a sudden fever, flushing her skin. No man had ever talked to her so crudely, so there’d never been a chance for her to learn it turned her on. Now she knew, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be vocal in bed. Just thinking about him growling raunchy and obscene statements while screwing her made her ache with desire. She struggled not to squirm, but she couldn’t resist goading him for more. “And what is it we both want, Deputy?”
He didn’t move a muscle for a moment. Then his lips curled on one side in a wickedly carnal smile. His eyes glittered with fierce, hard lust. “You want a sheet-clawing, back-arching, mind-blowing fuck, and I want to pound my cock into you until I’ve come my last drop.”
Darcy sagged into the seat back, her hand lifting to her throat. “Whew.”
Her pussy throbbed greedily, the tender folds slickening with her growing hunger. She’d known the man less than twenty minutes, but she was suddenly quite committed to knowing him even better. Well, his body, at least…“You’re on. My workday ends at six.”
The deputy’s nostrils flared. Anticipation sharpened the blades of his cheekbones and made the precisely drawn lines of his beautiful mouth harsh. She could say, in all honesty, that he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.
“I’m gonna regret this,” he muttered, scowling at her.
Oddly, his reluctance about wanting her only spurred her desire to have him. It betrayed how intense his attraction to her was, so much so that he couldn’t fight it even though he wanted to. And she responded as any red-blooded woman would to the ferocious sexual need of a deliciously handsome, potently masculine creature: she provoked him.
Leaning forward, she whispered, “No, you won’t. You’ll be seeing stars when I’m done with you.”
“Christ.” Grimacing with discomfort, he arched his hips up from the seat and adjusted the fit of his jeans.
“Back to the shoptalk,” she said, inwardly smiling with female triumph and heated expectation. “Ginny spent money she likely doesn’t have on safety precautions that won’t do her a damn bit of good. You know how Merkerson works. If he goes after this diner, he’ll do it in the bright light of day right under her nose.”
And later, after the diner closed and the streets were quiet, the devious little time bomb would explode and engulf the structure in flames within moments.
“You heard what she said,” Jared argued, rallying. “She feels better. And whether or not the modifications she made were necessary in this particular instance, they were still smart.”
“It’s my job to help make her feel safe, and clearly she wasn’t feeling that way.”
“Right.” His gaze bore into her. “And people should sleep with their doors open because we have law enforcement.”
“Not quite the same thing.” The residents had been horrified at the first fire but trusted her and Jim to deal with it. The second fire had made things a little shakier, but they’d still been sure an arrest was imminent. By the third fire, people stopped thinking the authorities were just a step away from catching the arsonist and they started thinking about fending for themselves.
“Get over yourself, Darcy. Unless you totally fucked up the evidence collection and analysis, you’ve done your job and you’re continuing to do your job by sending for help when you need it. Pat yourself on the back and give props to the people who are thinking forward instead of backward.”
“I’m not sure if I like you or not.”
“Don’t like me. Let’s keep this simple.”
She nodded without hesitation. After all, she was willing to indulge herself with him precisely because he was just passing through. Anything more than sex was beyond her at this point in her life. “Works for me.”
He was on his feet before Ginny reached their table with a takeout bag of food and a cardboard drink carrier. “Let’s go, Inspector. We have a lot of work to get through between now and six o’clock.”
JARED SET THE take-out bag down on the desk in Darcy’s office and swept the narrow room with an examining glance. As he dug out his foam box, he considered the logistics of nailing her on the six-foot-long folding table set beneath the window that looked into the firehouse’s heavy apparatus bay. Unfortunately, its flimsiness wouldn’t hold up to the abuse, and it certainly wouldn’t be professional, although a quickie would do a lot to restore his concentration. He didn’t trust her desk, either, with its ultramodern glass top artfully balanced on a network of thin chrome bars.
“Miller’s bark is worse t
han his bite, by the way.” She reached around him for her shake, and he breathed her in, smelling warm clean woman.
The sheriff was in his mid-thirties and an obvious devotee to free weights, but he was no threat. Jared had spent six years with Delta Force before he’d joined the U.S. Marshals Service’s elite Special Operations Group. There wasn’t a human alive he couldn’t severely maim or kill.
“My partner will deal with Miller. Even if she feels like killing him, she’ll restrain herself.” He took a bite out of his burger before occupying one of the two chairs in front of her desk. Pausing midchew, he mumbled an awed, “Holy shit.”
Her lips curved around her straw. “Damn good burger, isn’t it?”
He swallowed. “Insanely.”
It was nearly as good as she looked when she smiled. You’ll be seeing stars when I’m done with you. Fuck of it was, he was inclined to believe her. She was doing a number on him already without even trying. What would she do to him if she put some effort into it…?
She rounded the desk and pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet. His gaze moved from her to the wall of cantilevered glass and chrome bookshelves behind her. Either the city invested a lot in the comfort of their civil servants or she’d spent her own dime dressing the space up. He was inclined to think that the utilitarian gray metal folding table and chairs were provided courtesy of the city. The run-of-the-mill filing cabinet, too. But the bookshelf unit and matching desk were all her—strong, eye-catching, and sexy. And the indulgence suggested that she spent a lot of time working…or felt the most at home in her office.
His gaze caught on a silver-framed picture on a shelf behind her. It was a snapshot of her when she was younger, wearing a cheerleader uniform and standing with her arm thrown across the shoulders of a mirror image of herself dressed in a band costume.
“You’re a twin.”
She pushed the drawer shut and returned to the desk, setting three manila folders on the glass. “Yes.”
He wondered if her sister was anything like her. Maybe Darcy was the naughty twin. The thought made his overeager dick harden all over again. The word “naughty” thought of in conjunction with “Darcy” seemed to have that now-predictable effect on him.
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