His Private Pleasure

by Donna Kauffman

  “So you came home again. And now you rescue cockatoos from trees.” She didn’t know why she poked at him, and she’d said it gently, with a smile, but she guessed she just enjoyed seeing him respond. It was never in a way she’d expect.

  He smiled in return. “Yeah. But it’s not always so exciting as all that. You just caught me in action.”

  She laughed. “So you’re telling me it’s all ho-hum and pushing paper? This is as rewarding as busting some drug lord or pimp?”

  “You push paper no matter where you work. And no, I don’t miss dealing with scum. I appreciate the sameness of life here, the fact that bodies don’t end up in alleys and pushers don’t deal crack on the playground. I actually enjoy dealing with the town council and the mayor on whether or not a new traffic light will slow down the occasional speeder, whether we need parking meters on the town square and what type of security measures we need to take to keep the kids safe at school. And just to make things exciting, I still get to throw the occasional drunk in jail and lock up the occasional crook. I also fingerprint kids at the school fairs and investigate who stole someone’s bike from in front of the drugstore.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever get tired of that sameness?” She realized she was asking as much for herself. She was looking for a new path in life and was interested to hear from someone who had done it and succeeded.

  There was a brief flicker, as if she’d said something that reminded him of something he’d rather not recall. But then he looked at her and she was surprised by the avid and clear purpose in his eyes. “No. It’s my town. My people. I’m responsible for them, and while it’s occasionally frustrating, I like being the one who keeps their peace. Frankly, more than I ever believed I would.” As if realizing an edge of fervor had crept into his tone, he banked it with a short laugh. “It’s your typical town ruffian–turned–sheriff story.”

  “That’s right. The original Canyon Springs bad boy.” She leaned forward. “So, tell the truth, were you really all that bad?”

  “Let’s just say when I left this place I had no intentions of ever coming back, and the town was probably hoping that wish remained fulfilled.”

  “And yet they elected you sheriff. Go figure, huh?”

  He grinned and she spied a little of that bad boy behind the man who now wore a badge. He shrugged. “Life hands you some unexpected lessons. It’s all in what you do with what you learn, I guess. I consider myself lucky.”

  “I imagine the town feels the same way,” she said, and meant it, envying him his clear sense of purpose. She wondered if she’d ever feel that confidence in herself again.

  He laughed. “Depends on who you ask, on what day.”

  She smiled and nodded, but her attention continued to drift inward as she swirled the remains of her wine in the bottom of her glass.

  “Life handed you some unexpected lessons, did it?”

  He’d poked gently, too. She only wished she could answer as directly and honestly as he had. “A class load of them.”

  “Seems like you’ve done pretty well by them, from the looks of things.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, I’m guessing you didn’t walk away from your business because you had to, but because you wanted to. Or needed to. Two different things.”

  She tilted her head. “Since when did small-town sheriffs turn into psychologists?”

  He didn’t duck the question, but then he probably never ducked anything. “Actually, any Psych 101 abilities I have were learned pumping witnesses for information in Vegas. I discovered I got a lot more by paying attention to who I was asking, and acting accordingly, than by lumping them together into a faceless entity to bully information from.”

  She smiled a little. “I bet that comes in handy with the town council and the mayor.”

  “Don’t forget the ladies auxiliary.”

  “No,” she said in all seriousness, “I don’t think we can ever forget them.”

  He grinned and downed the rest of his wine, but didn’t leave the subject alone as she’d hoped. “The reason I assumed you’d chosen to leave was arrived at more simply.” He gestured with his wineglass over the railing. “We’ve already deduced your ride didn’t exactly roll off the used car lot. And I’m willing to bet those spikes on your feet didn’t come from Payless.”

  “Ah, well, any good detective knows that things aren’t always as they appear. Maybe I had family money. Maybe I just played at being a businesswoman.”

  “I don’t think so.” He grinned. “Instinct. When Psych 101 and deductive reasoning skills fail me, I rely on instinct.” He set his glass down and folded his arms on the table. “So, am I right?”

  “Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not some perp you’re trying to pump.” He merely lifted an eyebrow and she couldn’t help it, she began to laugh. “You’re terrible.”

  He stood, and with an easy smile and complete humility, said, “No, I’m quite good, actually.”

  He walked over to retrieve their steaks and potatoes from the grill.

  “That you are,” she murmured, finishing off her own wine as she studied the continually confounding Sheriff Dylan. “Too damn good for me.”

  6

  “THAT WAS REALLY FABULOUS,” Liza said as she finished her last piece of steak.

  Dylan nodded and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Nothing tastes better.”

  He watched those eyes of hers twinkle. “Well, I could beg to differ, but as dinners go, you do have a point.”

  He’d forgotten how stimulating verbal foreplay could be with a woman who knew what real foreplay was all about. He swallowed a laugh at his own expense. Like he knew so much about women. But he did know that women in Canyon Springs didn’t come with that kind of built-in savvy. And the women he’d met in Vegas had savvy of an entirely different sort, learned from a different set of circumstances.

  This…this was refreshing. And damn if he wasn’t ready to move past the verbal and on to the physical. He had a feeling Liza liked to move things along at her own pace and that most men didn’t care as long as they had her undivided attention. Well, she already knew he wasn’t “most men.” Now she was about to learn that he had his own ideas about pace. Besides, it might be fun to see how she liked being pushed.

  He stood and picked up their plates. “Why don’t you bring the glasses inside? Grab the rest of the wine, too.”

  He saw her eyebrow flicker just the tiniest bit, but she merely nodded and scooped up their glasses and the bottle of wine. “I should tell you,” she said as they entered his living room, “in addition to not being a chief cook, I’m also not much in the way of a bottle washer. But I load a mean dishwasher if you have one handy.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Guests don’t cook or clean.”

  “I like that rule.”

  She followed him as he wove through the living room into the kitchen and set the plates in the stainless steel sink.

  “This is nice. Warm. Cozy.”

  “I put a lot of thought into this room.” He imagined she’d seen places a lot snazzier than this, so he liked that she appreciated what he’d been going for in here. “I spent a great deal of time in our kitchen growing up. It was my favorite place. The one place the flock didn’t intrude. Even my bedroom had brooders in it half the time.”

  “Brooders? Flock?”

  “My mother’s home is more aviary than house. Mango isn’t her only baby. Avis Jackson is the original bird lady of Canyon Springs. We started with parakeets and finches when I was two. She was breeding them by the time I was five. I was seven when she took the neighbor’s sun conure after the noise got to them.”

  “And Mango?”

  “We ended up with him permanently when another neighbor developed an allergy to the cockatoo dust their feathers create. Then came Harris the blue-fronted Amazon, who was found in a gas station garage, all filthy and underweight, living in a rusted out cage. Pippin the African gray and Laslow the greenwing maca
w were both found in a basement closet with a blanket thrown over them because the kids hated the noise they made. And well, before long she was the expert on bird rescue. When the Internet came into play, she linked up with several people in the Southwest who also do rescues. Many of the birds get placed with other owners, some go to a sanctuary in Arizona. And some, like the gang I mentioned, she keeps.”

  “Wow, sounds interesting.”

  “It’s her passion. The birds are her whole life.”

  Liza cocked her head. “But not yours, I take it?”

  He smiled dryly. “She does great work and it’s sorely needed. But let’s just say I was glad to stop being chief cage cleaner and vegetable washer when I graduated from high school and left town.”

  “What did your dad think of having his house taken over by exotic birds?”

  “He was killed in Vietnam when I was a toddler. Actually, I think she got into it when he first went overseas. It gave her something to do, and I think she needed to feel needed. By more than me, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m the last one who should make assumptions about family units.”

  “That’s okay.” Dylan remembered Liza had said something to that affect earlier today. He didn’t bother reminding himself that he wasn’t trying to get to know her better, just to get her into bed. But damn if she didn’t interest him. “I don’t remember him at all,” he added, “but Mom kept his letters and some of his things, so I got a sense of who he was. His folks were my only grandparents and we were close while I was growing up. I’ve got a couple of aunts and uncles and more cousins than I can name. It was one of my uncles who got me interested in being a cop. He’s a retired captain out of Albuquerque.”

  Dylan grinned. “I think my mom put him up to that particular rescue mission. She was better with birds than people. Still is. But Uncle Pete knew from boys, having four of them himself. If it wasn’t for him, God knows how I’d have turned out.”

  Liza smiled, and there was something a bit wistful in it that made him wonder. “Big family. Sounds wonderful.”

  He shrugged. “It gave me a place to go when I needed to escape the jungle, anyway.” Again he wondered about her family. He wondered where they fit into her sabbatical.

  He opened his mouth to ask, but she said, “Avis never remarried?”

  “She gave her love to the flock. It makes her happy.”

  Liza’s gaze sort of penetrated him for a second, leaving him feel oddly vulnerable. “Sounds like you all found what you needed. That’s good.” Then she smiled and turned her attention back to the kitchen. “It’s obvious you love this room,” she said, clearly changing the subject. It was in the part of the house that snugged into the mountain, so he’d wanted to make sure it didn’t look cavelike or dark. The walls were a rich yellow and the floor a warm, honey-gold tile. The cabinets were light pine with glass fronts and the center island, half stainless steel, half butcher block, had padded stools on one side and was ringed overhead with copper and stainless steel pots and pans.

  “A lot of gear for a single guy,” she observed. “You have a lot of parties up here?”

  “I like to have the right tool on hand when I want it.”

  She had a delightfully rich laugh. “I won’t even touch that one.”

  He closed the distance between them. “We’ll see about that.” She shifted ever so slightly and set the glasses down on the center island, but he took the bottle from her hand before she could pour, and set it down as well.

  “I thought we might have another glass,” she said, not moving away from him, but doing what he’d bet she typically did—steering the course of events back to her preplanned path. Or trying to.

  “And I thought I’d see if your mouth tasted as sassy as it sounds.”

  “Oh.”

  He liked that little blink of surprise. It encouraged that bad boy part of him that had never completely gone away. So he tucked her small, tight body between him and the island and slowly pushed his fingers into her soft curls. “Oh,” he echoed. “Yeah.” Then he dipped his head to kiss her, only to stop just before making contact. “Do you always keep your eyes open during a kiss?”

  “Depends on the kiss.” She hadn’t pulled away or stiffened when he’d moved against her. Nor had she opened up or invited him to go further. It was like she was hovering outside the intimate little circle he’d created, gauging, planning.

  Well, he’d see about that.

  “You’ll have to let me know which kind this is, then.” And he lowered his mouth the rest of the way. She tasted…warm. There was the spice of the wine and something else that was pure Liza. She tasted every bit as sassy as her personality, and it made him want to lap up each part of her. Something he might just be able to work out. He didn’t push the kiss into anything heavy, nor did he try to seduce her into it. He merely took, tasted, tested…and enjoyed.

  Not that she wasn’t kissing him back, but there was a sense of gauging in her kiss, and he discovered he was a bit irritated by her somewhat removed, observatory attitude. At the same time, he was forced to admit he was anticipating what kind of counterassault she’d mount when it was her turn. And there was no doubt she saw this as a campaign of some kind, a strategic battle to be guided to a conclusion that would be most satisfactory for her. And perhaps him as well. He doubted she suffered many complaints.

  But, just for the hell of it, he thought maybe it was time Generalissimo Liza discovered she couldn’t command every soldier to follow her lead.

  He explored her mouth slowly, enjoying the soft interior, the heat of her, the flavor. Then, just when he felt the slightest shift in her mouth, the tiniest tension in her tongue, a subtle move to turn control of the kiss her way, he moved from her mouth to the line of her jaw, robbing her of the opportunity.

  He trailed the tip of his tongue along it, nipping gently at the point of her chin.

  The slight stiffening he felt in her body, the quiet gasp he felt rather than heard, was immensely gratifying. He imagined most men were more than willing to let Liza do to them as she wanted. What man in his right mind would stop her?

  Well, him, apparently. Not to annoy her, but more to provoke her into…well, he didn’t know quite what. His instincts just told him it would be really gratifying to find out. And other than going another night without sex, what did he have to lose?

  She moved her hands, which had been resting loosely on his arms, up along his shoulders, and slid her long fingers into his hair. He let the shudder of primal delight roll through him. He loved having someone’s fingers on his scalp. And hers were particularly skillful. He felt her smile against his cheek as he pulled her earlobe into his mouth and bit gently, smiling himself when he felt her shudder in return.

  She slid her hands down his back, then around his waist, and tugged lightly at the back of his shirt. He reached back and gripped her wrists to still her actions. “Not yet,” he said against the skin of her neck, the skin he was busy kissing and nibbling.

  She tipped her head and nuzzled his neck. “If you think my fingertips felt good stroking your head, I can guarantee you’ll like what else I was planning to stroke.”

  He chuckled and pulled her hands to his chest, where he covered them with his own. “Of that I have zero doubt.” The very part of him begging to be stroked twitched as he spoke, and he was pressed tightly enough against her for her to know it, too.

  “Then what, exactly, are we waiting for?”

  “I like to build the anticipation.”

  “Oh, excuse me,” she said, untangling her fingers from his grasp so she could lightly scrape her fingernails over the soft cotton covering his nipples. “I thought we’d done that during dinner.”

  “You’re doing a pretty damn good job of it now.”

  She merely smiled.

  He pulled her hands from him altogether and pushed them back, pinning them on the counter behind her. “So, we’ll just slow things down a bit.”

  Despite his grip on her, s
he leaned forward and pulled his bottom lip into her mouth, suckled on it for a moment, then let it go. “Will we?”

  His body had hardened almost painfully at that unexpected little piece of action. Sliding both of her wrists neatly into a single-handed grip, he used his free hand to cup the back of her head, and angled his body against hers, giving her no choice but to look up at him. “Yeah,” he said, his voice low and a bit rough. “We will.” He ran his tongue along her lower lip, holding her head right where he wanted it when she tried to shift and come after him with her own pink-tipped weapon. “Uh-uh,” he cautioned. “My turn.”

  “Says who?” she asked slyly, then ran that wicked pink tongue along her lips.

  “Me.” He swooped in and took her in a hard and fast kiss, snagging that tongue of hers and pulling it hotly into his mouth. He kept her head pressed to his as he worked her over…and over again. Not so much dueling as sampling at will, taking what he wanted. The instant she tried to turn the tables, he released her, sucking her bottom lip on his way out, then sliding his hand from her hair.

  Surprised, she was left breathless, and swayed back before she could catch herself. So he followed her down, taking her mouth in another hard, drugging kiss. He kept moving her back until she was arching over the hands he still had in a grip behind her back. He moved his mouth down her chin, nipped her there, then kept on, running his tongue along her throat and the edge of her sweater, stopping at the glassy little button that held it together. That fell prey to his teeth, and the sweater fell open, leaving the deep V of her silky shirt bared to him…and his tongue.

  She arched up and tried to lift her head. So he took that as a sign to pull one pouty, silk-covered nipple into his mouth. She rewarded him with a sharp gasp, followed by a long moan when he continued to work the wet silk and hard nub with his tongue.