by Sarah Hegger
He pressed her closer, wanting to feel the fullness of her breasts against his chest, needing it at an elemental level that shattered his control. A kiss had never gotten him so hard so fast before. He discovered her soft curves with his hand, the delicious dip of her waist that swelled into her hips.
She moaned and writhed under his hand.
No stick insect, Bella was made for his touch. He ground his erection closer to her core. They stood in the middle of her store, fair game for anyone walking past, and Nate didn’t give a shit. All he wanted was more Bella.
He backed her into the counter behind her. A pencil holder clattered onto the floor. Her hands dug into his hair, holding him in place as if she wanted him to never let her go. If he could separate from her enough, he would tell her not to bother; he sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere.
He stroked his tongue into her mouth.
Her nipples pressed into his chest, hard and demanding his attention.
Cupping the full weight of her breast, he stroked his thumb over her nipple.
Bella arched into his touch, her hands tightening in his hair.
He could lift her onto the counter and drive into her. He bet she was wet under that prim skirt, wet and ready for him. His dick throbbed at the idea. It took him a second to register she was pushing him away.
Bella ripped her mouth away from his. “We have to stop.”
He knew she was right, but he stood still a moment, fighting his urges back down to normal. “You need to make a decision.” His breath rasped. “Or this heat between us is going to make it for you.”
Bella dug her fingers into the counter to keep herself from running after him, dragging him into the back and demanding he finish what he’d started. Every time she saw Nate, he left her more confused and so in lust she was about ready to explode.
She’d broken new ground here, wandering into unfamiliar territory. Wandered, her sainted butt; she’d gone running and leaping where angels feared to tread. She needed some expert advice.
Liz agreed to meet her for drinks after work. She insisted they go out and not prop up Bella’s kitchen table again. “We still need to stick to our list of ten,” Liz insisted.
Which was how Bella ended up at Ed’s later that evening, threading her way through people she’d gone to high school with. She stopped several times to say hello as she made her way over to Liz. A depressing number of former classmates were married, most of those with children.
Liz caught sight of her and pulled a face.
Yeah, her friend looked as out of place as she felt. Ed’s catered to a far more relaxed set than Liz in her tight blue cocktail dress.
“Now I remember why I never come here.” Liz stood and kissed her cheek. “Is it me or did you go to school with everyone in here?”
“Just about.” Bella levered herself up onto the barstool. Damn things weren’t made for pencil skirts. “All except the old-timers, and you went to school with them.”
“You’re a bitch,” Liz said and sipped her martini.
“That must be the first time someone’s called me a bitch.” Bella motioned to Jo. Did she tend every bar in Ghost Falls? “Most people insist I’m supersweet.”
Liz grinned at her. “Are we getting to the good stuff right away?”
“May as well.”
Smiling, Jo appeared across the bar from them. “We don’t see you in here much.”
“You seem to be working hard.” Talking about Jo’s brother with her behind the bar might get awkward.
“No.” Jo tucked her hands into her back pockets. “Some of the time I study.”
“I never understood the nautical theme in here.” Liz peered around her with her lip curled. “I mean, we’re not even close to a mud puddle, let alone the ocean.”
“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” Jo wiped the bar counter. “Now, are you girls drinking or just polishing the barstools?”
“Oh, we’re drinking.” Liz tapped the side of her glass. “You better get me another one of these, and something for Bella that a good girl very definitely wouldn’t drink.”
“I smell girl talk coming on.” Jo grabbed a bottle of vodka from the shelves behind her. “I think a dirty martini should do the trick.” She winked at Bella. “But don’t tell Nate. He told me not to let you get hammered.”
“Seriously?” Bella’s blood pressure spiked and she dropped her forehead onto the bar. “That man is hounding me.”
“Hounding?” Jo stopped shaking for a second before resuming.
“We’re here to dissect your brother,” Liz told her.
Jo put two martini glasses on the counter. “Then I’m staying because I’ve got more stories about my brothers than anyone.” She put olives in each glass and pushed them across the bar. “Are you going to sit up, Bella, or should I get you a straw?”
“She’s overwrought.” Smacking her lips, Liz sipped her martini.
“Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day.” With a clatter, Jo emptied the shaker’s leftovers into a sink below the bar. “And Nate is the reason she’s overwrought, I’m guessing.”
“Smart and beautiful,” Liz said.
Jo snorted. “Isn’t Nate the reason most women in Ghost Falls are overwrought?”
There! Bella sat up. That there was exactly the issue. “Yes.”
Liz and Jo stared at her.
Bella took a fortifying slug of martini. It tasted like formaldehyde, or what she imagined formaldehyde tasted like. “Ugh! That’s horrible. How do you drink these things?”
“You don’t want to be sweet, you’ve got to drink like a bitch.” Liz savored her next sip.
Jo slid her glass away. “Why don’t I get you something else?”
“Put a frilly umbrella in it,” Liz called after her. “Now, let’s have the dirt.”
“Did you have to tell Jo we were talking about him?” Bella squirmed on her stool. The Evans brood were a tight-knit bunch.
“Yes, I did.” Liz grinned back at her. “I believe in transparency.”
“You’ve got a big mouth.”
“That too.”
Bella waited for Jo to return with a glass of white wine. Straight out of the box and still flavored with cardboard, but better than the martini. For a girl who never drank, she certainly seemed to be doing a lot of it lately. She could lay the blame for that at Nate’s feet too. “It happened again.”
Liz blinked at her.
“He kissed me again.” Not wanting anyone to hear her, Bella leaned far forward. Everyone in this bar had gone to school with Nate as well.
“Was it good?”
“Amazing.” Bella hauled her head out of the past. “So not the point. I don’t know what to do.”
Liz reared back. “I’m not teaching you how to kiss.”
“Liz.” Bella fixed her with a glare. She was having a hard enough time as it was without wisecracking.
“Okay, okay, sorry.” Liz waved her hands in front of her. “Why do you have to do something?”
She regretted not calling Pippa now. Even though Nate was her brother-in-law and Matt always tagged along. “Of course I have to do something. I have to decide do I want to have . . .” She checked for any flapping ears. “I have to decide if I want to have sex with him or not. But on his terms.”
Liz’s eyes lit with amusement. “Can you say sex without being scared someone might hear you?”
“No, I can’t.” A humbling realization, but there you had it.
“If you can’t even say sex, how the hell are you going to have it?” Liz motioned to Jo for another martini. “You’re driving, by the way.”
“Why am I friends with you again?” Right now, she had a hard time remembering.
“Screwed if I know.” Liz shrugged. “You must have incredibly shitty taste.”
“So, either I have sex with Nate on his terms or I walk away and stop all the kissing him.” A thought that depressed her even further.
Liz turned to f
ace her. “Now, I suck at advice generally, but I’m about to lay some good stuff on you. So listen up.”
Bella nodded obediently and sipped her wine.
“First off, if you think you can stop kissing Nate, you’re in la-la land. You’ve had it hot for that man since before you knew what your vajayjay was, and now it looks like he’s got a hard-on for you. Do you honestly think you’re going to be able to tell him no next time he lays a hot, wet one on you?”
She had trouble not wincing through Liz’s speech, but she managed. “I’m not some kind of mindless sex maniac.”
“Well done; you said sex without checking,” Liz said. “And it’s not being a sex maniac, it’s a natural response to something you’ve always wanted. Suddenly, someone is saying you can have this thing you crave.” She shrugged and thanked Jo for her new drink. “You’re going to grab it with both hands, regardless of what we discuss here tonight.”
“I might not.” She didn’t fool Liz any more than she fooled herself. Grabbing Nate sounded like a better and better idea. “I’m in so much trouble.”
“Yeah, you are.” Liz nodded. “Because take it from me, the only thing you ever change on a man is his diaper. Nate isn’t going to suddenly see the light and settle down and raise kids with you. He’s going to leave you crying but hopefully rock your world before he does it.”
“Is there any good news in your advice?” Bella could really do with some right now. As much as she wanted to tell Liz how wrong she was, honesty wouldn’t allow her to. It sucked being a good girl. You didn’t even get the luxury of lying to yourself.
“You’re human. He’s human. For whatever reason, the fates have aligned, Mars is rising in Venus.” Liz pulled a face. “Or who knows what else, but you two are on a runaway train straight to O land.”
Liz had a way with words. Not a good way, but a way. “That’s enough to kill the spark.”
“You might fumble around a bit and tell yourselves you’re not gonna go there, but you will. Someday you’ll find yourselves alone.” Liz widened her eyes and pressed her hand to her chest. “However did you get there? Hormones.” She snorted. “Mating heat. Call it what you will, but you’re gonna do it.”
Bella didn’t buy all this. It seemed a horribly jaded way of looking at people and love. “What if we resisted? If we both decided it was a bad idea and walked away?”
“Bam!” Liz smacked her palms together. “You’ll only make it more intriguing. What person in the history of the world resisted?”
Not at all what Bella wanted to hear. “Maybe that’s because they don’t write stories about them.”
“No, they don’t.” Liz nodded. “Because who wants to read a story about some stick-up-the-ass self-righteous dingbat who had a chance for a taste of something good and settled for water.”
“Ever heard of a little thing called free will?”
“Buck up, sweet cheeks.” Liz gave her an evil grin. “The good news is that you’re going to get laid.”
She’d been abstaining for too long not to get a little cheered by that. “You’re saying this thing is beyond my control?”
“Nope.” Liz puffed up her cheeks. “I’m saying you’re human and you won’t control it. You’ll make up some justification for why it’s okay. But here’s what you can control.”
“I’m all ears.” Bella had trouble keeping the snark out of her voice.
“You’re not going into this blind.” Liz upended her empty glass on the bar and motioned Jo for another. “You know what he is and who he is. You’ve known him your whole life. Don’t go in there expecting turtledoves and rings and you won’t be disappointed. Go in there knowing that you’re gonna take what you can when you can and pick up the pieces later.”
Chapter Seventeen
Nate checked out the run-down apartment complex Daniel had texted him the address for. He grabbed the six-pack of soda from the passenger seat and climbed out of his car. Sitting here like a pussy wasn’t going to bring him any answers.
Daniel had invited him to watch the Broncos game. Something they always used to do but in a different time, when he was a different man. Daniel claimed he’d changed, and it seemed like he’d changed. It surprised Nate that a part of him still believed in miracles enough to believe it could happen.
He stepped over an upturned garbage bin that had hurled its contents all over the sidewalk in front of the apartment block. Four days’ past collection day and nobody had made any effort to pick it up. Over the token patch of grass beside the entrance, a woman walked a scraggly mongrel. Catching his eye, she nodded and glanced behind her.
In a place like this, the sheriff showing up wouldn’t go over well. The front door hung ajar and he let himself in. Not trusting the battered elevator, he walked the three flights up to Daniel’s apartment. The hallway stank of cigarettes, stale beer, and piss.
Daniel’s door opened before he got there. “Hey. I expected you to change your mind.”
“You live in this dump?” Nate sidestepped a threadbare stroller.
With a grin, Daniel shrugged one shoulder. “Where I just came from, they don’t let you out with a trust fund.”
A woman yelled at someone called Reese from the closed doorway across the hall.
The smell stopped inside Daniel’s apartment. An old, sixties-style kitchen opened onto a living room. The generic brown furniture looked clean but bashed up.
“I see you took care of priorities.” Nate nodded at the big-screen dominating one side of the room.
“Yeah.” Daniel rubbed the back of his neck. “I couldn’t resist. They didn’t make them that size when I went away.” He nodded at the soda. “You could have brought beer; it doesn’t bother me.”
“Nah.” Nate put the soda on the counter. “I’m half on duty anyway. Jeff ’s got a sick baby at home and he might need to take off.”
Daniel nodded. “Okay, then. Shall we watch the game? You can tell me what I missed.”
Leaving the big recliner for Daniel, Nate took a seat on the sofa.
On the small table in front of the TV, Daniel had laid out a bowl of chips and some salsa.
Daniel laughed and rubbed his hands on his thighs. “I was never much of a cook; that much hasn’t changed.”
“It’s all good.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching the Broncos’ defense annihilate the Seahawks.
Daniel waited for the ad break to storm the heavy silence. “So, how long have you been sheriff ?”
“Not long.” Fetching a soda, Nate handed one to Daniel. “I was working up in Salt Lake City when I got the call the town wanted me to run.”
Eyebrows raised, Daniel stopped with his soda halfway to his mouth. “They asked you to run? This town?”
“Yeah.” Nate had to laugh. Could have blown him over at the time as well. He’d have thought they had the pitchforks at the ready for him. “After Sheriff Wheeler died, they brought in someone from Bitter River, but Ghost Falls didn’t take to him. The diva suggested me as a replacement and somehow managed to convince the rest of the town and the county to get on board with her.”
“She still alive?”
“Oh yes.” It would take a force of nature to kill Diva Philomene St. Amor. “Alive and as much the diva as ever.”
“Huh.” Daniel watched Siemian take the field. Incomplete. “She wrote to me when I was inside.”
“She did?” It didn’t much surprise him. The diva had her own way of doing things, and she never allowed anyone else to form her opinions for her.
“Once a month, like clockwork.”
He turned to keep Daniel’s face in view. If Phi had written to him, Daniel would have known everything she knew, which meant pretty much everything that went on in Ghost Falls. “So, you already knew how long I’d been sheriff.”
“Yeah.” Daniel pulled a face. “But I was sitting here hunting for a topic of conversation and that seemed like a good one.”
It never used to be like this. Back in
the day, he and Daniel almost never ran out of shit to say. Even better, they’d had that rare kind of friendship that often meant not needing to talk.
“And you wanted the job?”
“I did.” Another incomplete ended the drive and Nate hissed his frustration. Damn Broncos’ offense left all the work to defense. “I was working a tough detail up in Salt Lake City. Special Victims Task Force. It got to me.” It had taken him a long time to come to his next realization. “And I missed it here. Missed the people. Mainly my brothers and Jo, but I wanted to come home.”
“And Matt married Pippa Turner?” Chuckling, Daniel shook his head.
True. Nate hadn’t seen that one coming either. Still didn’t get what the glamorous Pippa saw in his hick of a brother. Still . . . “Matt’s a good guy. He deserves some happy.”
Daniel nodded, and they watched the Broncos’ defense come out again and put more hurt on the Seahawks.
Nate let the ads start again before he asked one of the burning questions. “What’s the plan now that you’re out?”
“Not sure.” Daniel threw him a look that said how much he knew Nate wanted to hear his answer. “Not what I was doing before I went in.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I’m sure.” Daniel leaned forward and grabbed a handful of chips. “I finished high school while I was inside. Even did some courses through an online college.”
Daniel and studying weren’t two things Nate ever thought he would hear in the same sentence. “Studying what?”
“Social work. Counseling.” Daniel went a bit pink. “I know it’s a cliché and all, but we had this counselor who used to run a weekly group. He got me thinking about how someone like me is well positioned to do that sort of thing.”
Daniel might not have liked school, but he never lacked for smarts. If they’d ever needed a plan, back in the day, Daniel had been their go-to guy. “So you’re going to get your degree?”
“Um.” Daniel stuffed his mouth full of chips. “Already got it.”
“You’re kidding me.” Nate didn’t bother to hide his surprise.
“I had nothing but time on my hands.” He cleared his throat. “So, Siemian, huh?”