She rolled her thumb over the plump head of him, rubbing the wet drop of semen all around his crown. She’d given oral sex before, but it had never been her favorite. Now her mouth watered at the idea of bending down and bringing this man’s cock into her mouth.
In that moment, she faced the glaring truth and accepted it. She had it bad for the sheriff of Sweet Hill. Her libido took one look at him and gave a resounding, “YES, THIS MAN CAN PLAY IN YOUR GARDEN.” Who was she to fight the demands of her heretofore dormant libido?
“For you it is,” she gasped as she freed him. Her hands resumed their grip on the back of the couch and she ground down against his naked cock, only the thin silk of her panties offering any barrier. And that wasn’t much.
She felt every inch of his length, the hard ridge gliding against her barely covered sex. It was wondrous.
And then she was lost.
She went to work, grinding on him in a simulation of sex. It was like she was a teenager again, making out in the back of Rex’s truck. Her panties were soaked with her juices and it only made his cock move faster, sliding wetly along her seam, the head of him bumping her sensitive clit.
She was making all kinds of embarrassing sounds, but she didn’t care.
He didn’t say anything, but his breathing increased, and his body tensed under her like a tightly wound coil, ready to snap. Spring. Attack.
She hoped he did. She wanted that. Wanted the unyielding sheriff’s resistance to break at last.
Her hands moved from the couch to his shoulders. She clung to the bands of muscle, whimpering and crying out as she writhed wildly on top of him.
Suddenly he came up off the couch, taking her with him. “Fuck this.”
She squeaked and clung to him. The mountain was moving.
Wait . . . he was moving?
“What are you—”
“We’re not doing this where you’ve had other men,” he growled as he spun her around and pinned her against a wall.
Fury spiked through her. He was the worst. He thought she was no better than a prostitute.
Even burning outrage didn’t stop her though because now he was fully participating, pumping his hips and rubbing his huge cock against her, bumping into the opening of her sex, the tip of him slightly prodding her soaking panties and pushing in slightly. Just the tip of him.
“Oh my God.” She didn’t even recognize her voice. It sounded like she was dying.
It would only take a small tug to push that scrap of fabric aside. She could have him impaled deep inside her then.
If he did it, she wouldn’t care. She wouldn’t try to stop him.
“I’m close,” she choked, pushing into his driving cock, frustrated because as good as this was, it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.
As though he could read her mind, he pulled them from the wall and relocated to the chair. He sat down with her on his lap. But when she moved to close the distance between them and continue riding him, he stopped her. Kept her at arm’s length.
His gaze dropped to her crotch. His hand followed, moving in quickly. He didn’t ask, simply pulled the white strip of her underwear aside and bared her. He rubbed his fingers, soaking the tips in her wetness. “Fucking hot.”
She whimpered, a shudder racking her at this man—a man she had thought so cold and emotionless—touching her and playing with her sex like it was his new favorite toy.
“Pretty pussy,” he husked, driving a finger deep into her channel, giving her the more she craved. “Christ, you’re tight, sweetheart.”
She bit her lip, a fine edge of pain bordering the pleasure. And this was just his finger. What would it be like to have him inside her?
He pulled out and drove deep again, curling his finger up in a move that brushed against some hidden part of her and sent her careening over an edge. Moisture rushed between her legs as a violent orgasm crashed through her. She screamed and his mouth was suddenly there giving her the kiss she had craved, smothering the sound.
In the far back of her mind, she knew he was trying to silence the cry, but she didn’t care. She was starved, her body far too horny, too hungry for this thing she’d been missing. She was a twenty-five-year-old virgin who needed sex.
She kissed him back, hungry and desperate and not nearly done with him. She continued to ride out her orgasm as her tongue tangled with his.
Seeking another one, she rode his hand, using that finger still wedged inside her. She pumped her hips forcefully, pushing toward her goal, feeling it hovering there close again. He rubbed at that spot again. God, how did he know just where to touch? She was going to have a second orgasm. The man was amazing.
A loud burst of music spilled into the room from the outside as the door opened. She squeaked and flattened against him, stilling all movement.
“Out,” he growled. “Give us a minute.”
She snuck a glance over her shoulder to see Marty scowling.
“It’s fine,” she promised in a shaky voice.
The bouncer hovered for a moment before turning and leaving the room.
She sat back for a moment and stared at the sheriff’s face. The sheriff. She should probably start thinking of him by his name after . . . everything.
Hale.
Heat burned her face as she realized his finger was still buried deep inside her. It was shockingly intimate in this moment of cold reality.
She pulled away, extricating herself from him. Standing on her feet, she hurried to snatch her bra off the floor. In her effort to prove to him that he wasn’t too good for a lap dance from the likes of her, she had lost control.
She needed to take it back.
“Thanks, Sheriff. Not every dance I give is that . . . pleasant.”
“Piper—”
“Half hour is up,” she said, snapping her bra into place and turning to face him again.
He was holding out her dress. She took it from him and slipped it over her head, trying to act normal. Like she did this all the time. It’s what he thought, after all.
“Piper—”
“Be sure to leave your money with Joe. Unless you want to buy more time.” She dipped her gaze, noting his pronounced erection pressing against his jeans. “Looks like you could benefit from that. We could finish . . . things.” She held her breath at the outrageous offer, hoping he refused. Hoping he just left her alone.
She couldn’t bear another moment of this. She was shaken and rattled and needed to hide in a closet somewhere so she could start the process of forgetting about tonight. Because she and the sheriff—the sheriff damn-it-to-hell!—could not be a thing. It would never work. It was doomed from the start. Even before the start. There was more than the problem of her last name between them. So much more.
The heat in his eyes extinguished. “No. I’m fine. I got more than I paid for, after all.”
She flinched. If his intention was to make her feel like a whore, he had succeeded. But then, she guessed that had been her intention, too. She’d wanted to cheapen the moment and push him away. Because that’s what she had to do. It was the only smart thing in this situation. She’d made enough mistakes for one night.
“Good night, Sheriff. Enjoy the rest of the bachelor party.”
With those parting words, she presented him with her back and exited the room.
Twelve
After finding Joe and pulling him aside for a brief exchange that involved Hale emptying his wallet, he returned to his seat, his heart still racing and his dick still aching from his thirty minutes with Piper. Thirty minutes and his world had been blown to bits.
How had this happened?
How had he let this happen?
He only knew he had lost control. He’d gone inside that room with the best of intentions and ended up with his cock out and his hand buried between her legs.
He’d lived in this town all his life. Even as a teenager, he’d never played around much. When your father was the sheriff there were expectations. It wasn’t okay for
him to fuck around with girls in the back of his truck. In fact, he hadn’t gotten laid until he’d entered the Marines. He’d been eighteen years old, but then he’d sown oats, enjoying sex finally and frequently. For the first time, he had been his own man and not the sheriff’s son, not a high school football star, not the town’s golden boy.
When he returned to Sweet Hill and took office as sheriff, he’d returned to his self-restrained ways, never taking the bait as women flirted and threw themselves at him. Getting entangled with women in the community he served was one complication he wished to avoid when he had no intention to settle down and marry any of them. He could do without the drama. That’s why he reserved his hookups for out of town.
Tonight he had not been self-restrained. He’d been the opposite of that.
In one night, he’d cast his principles aside and caved like a house of cards. He’d been one minute from driving his cock inside her tight heat. In a back room of a strip club, no less. Yeah, it sounded seedy, but it had been the singularly hottest and most gratifying encounter he’d ever had with a woman.
And then she’d coolly dismissed him with the reminder of payment. Unless he wanted to buy more time with her. She’d offered that with no shame. Like she was something to be purchased . . . a bit of horseflesh. It’s like she wanted to drive a wedge between them. She wanted him to view her as a prostitute. Damn her.
“Hey, Hale! How was she?” Evan asked upon his return.
He grunted a response and scowled, not about to share a word about the encounter with his prick cousin.
Evan looked concerned for a moment. “That bad, huh?” Then he shook off his disappointment. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.” He rose from his chair. “Well. My turn.”
Hale turned on him with a snarl. Grabbing his shoulder, Hale shoved him back down in his chair and leaned over him. “If you or any of your other friends take one step near her, I’m going to fuck you up. Understand? She’s off-limits.”
Evan’s eyes bulged in his face.
“Understand?” Hale pressed.
Evan nodded once. “Yeah. Understood.”
“Good.” Then, even though he had stayed well over an hour and he had been fantasizing about escaping this place all night, he dropped back down in a chair and scanned the room, searching for her.
Clearly he was out of his mind.
He couldn’t get the sensation of her skin against his hands out of his mind. He couldn’t forget how tight her pussy had felt. Her scent. Her taste. That one searing kiss they shared was imprinted on his brain like a brand.
They’d just had that one kiss, he realized with a stab of regret. Not enough.
He shook his head at that unacceptable thought.
All of it was unacceptable. Getting embroiled with Piper Walsh might be the dumbest move on his part. Yeah. Time to get out of Dodge. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. He needed to get out of Sweet Hill.
Except not right now.
Right now he wasn’t moving from this chair for the rest of the night. Right now he had to make sure no one bothered her and she stayed out of that back room.
“What’s this?” Piper looked down at the cash in her palm. It was the end of the night, the place was empty except for employees and she was dead on her feet. She blamed the shoes. She didn’t know how the other girls managed it. Three-inch heels were not for sissies. Right now she just wanted to kick off these shoes, take a shower and slide into bed beside Malia.
“Can’t you count? Four hundred dollars. It’s your cut.”
“I just did the one lap dance.” She shook her head in confusion.
After the half hour in the room with Hale, she couldn’t bring herself to go back into that room with anyone.
She’d told Joe she was done for the night the instant she had emerged, and she didn’t regret it despite Joe’s scowl.
“I’ll do more tomorrow,” she had promised.
“You better have done a good job and given him his money’s worth.” He’d wagged his sausage finger at her. “That’s the first lap dance the sheriff ever took in here. We want him on our good side.”
She squared her shoulders. Given that she had just stopped short of having sex with him, she was pretty sure he’d got his money’s worth.
Now she was holding more cash than she’d ever held at once in her hand and she didn’t know why. “I don’t understand. What’s this for?”
“Sorry I doubted you.” He chucked her under the chin. “You must have done a good job with the sheriff tonight.” Joe waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Marty said he thought you two might have gotten . . . uh, carried away.”
Her face went from hot to scalding. “Nothing happened. Just a lap dance.” And an orgasm. She had used his body to get herself off . . . just like Serena warned her could happen.
At least that would never happen again. Hale had been the key component. She couldn’t imagine letting anyone else touch her like that. Revulsion skated across her skin at the mere idea.
“Well, whatever you did, keep it up.”
She looked down at the money in her hand, knowing she needed it, but still feeling sick. Maybe it would get easier.
When had life ever been easy?
Shaking off the dismal thoughts, she went to get her things from the back. Serena was there changing clothes. “Hey, how’d it go?”
Piper forced a smile. “I survived.”
“Of course you did.” She fished a piece of candy out of her giant bag and tossed it into her mouth. “And it will get easier. You’ll see.” She offered a piece of hard candy to Piper.
Piper took it and popped it in her mouth. She didn’t know if that was true . . . or if she even wanted that. She didn’t want this to become normal for her.
“What are you doing now?” Serena asked. “How about you come back to my place? I’ve got leftover pizza in the fridge, plenty of beer and the last two episodes of The Voice on DVR.”
“That sounds great, but my sister is home alone. I need to get back to her.”
Serena nodded. “Okay. Another time, then.”
“Yes, I’d like that.” And she meant it. She was always so busy working to stay afloat she didn’t have a lot of downtime, but it would be nice to just have pizza and watch TV with a friend. Maybe now that she was making more money, she could afford to do that.
When she emerged from the club, there was just the bartender and one of the waitresses cleaning up at the bar. All the other dancers were gone. Serena had hightailed it out of there, claiming she had a hot date.
Piper waved at the employees and pushed through the door, heading into the parking lot. There were only a few cars there, but she was almost to her car when she noticed the Bronco and the man sitting inside the driver’s seat. Hale.
Her heart skittered before picking up a hard beat. Swinging her tote bag around her shoulder, she stalked over to where he was parked. She knocked hard on the glass, waiting as he rolled down the window.
“What are you doing? Stalking me?”
“It’s late. You shouldn’t be out here alone. I’m just making sure you got to your car.”
She processed that, clinging to her indignation even though she felt some of it slipping away. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been working here a long time and no one ever worried about me getting to my car before.”
All the girls walked to their cars on their own. Joe wasn’t exactly someone that worried about the safety of his female employees and had them escorted out at night.
“It’s not safe.”
She cocked her head. “You’re really taking that protect-and-serve thing far, huh? Thanks for the gesture, but you can’t do this every night, can you?”
He stared at her a long moment. A gnat buzzed by her ear and she swatted it away. He leaned forward, one strong arm draped over the steering wheel. “You could quit. You shouldn’t be doing this job, Piper.”
He was the worst. Still judging her even though he had been quite complicit
in that back room with her.
She held his gaze for a moment as a brittle smile took hold of her lips. “You didn’t seem to have any objections to my job earlier. I think you appreciated my talents.”
His nostrils flared and eyes sparked and she recognized the heat in there again. The same heat she had seen from him in that room. Her belly tightened in response. She crossed her arms over her chest, needing a buffer between them. Suddenly the space separating them wasn’t enough.
“You can’t like this job—”
“Well, no shit,” she exploded. “I hate it.” Stupid, frustrated tears pricked her eyes.
“Then why do you—”
“You think I want to work here? I don’t have any choice. I can’t get any other job in this town. Who’s going to hire Piper Walsh? Cruz Walsh’s sister? Dominic Walsh’s daughter? Nina Walsh’s daughter? Want me to keep going? The reasons people have not to hire me are pretty endless.”
“Then has it occurred to you that maybe you should make it easier on yourself and move to a different town?”
The fact that he sounded like her brother only pissed her off more. She tilted her head back and looked up at the night stars for a moment before lowering her gaze to him again. “You sanctimonious ass. You think you have all the answers.”
He shrugged. “Just a suggestion.”
“You don’t know the first thing about me. There’s a reason I’ve stayed in Sweet Hill.”
“Let me guess? It has to do with your proximity to Devil’s Rock Penitentiary?”
She jerked back a fraction. Okay. Maybe he did know a little about her motivations. Not that it made her like him more for that. He still didn’t know the biggest motivation to drive her. He knew nothing of her guilt.
She spread her arms wide. “You think I want this. You were my first lap dance. Not that you’ll believe me, but you were. I was just a waitress up until tonight, but I need the money. You think I would have done the things I did with you, with anyone, that I didn’t feel—” She stopped abruptly, compressing her lips as horror washed over her.
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