Joe continued. “It’s not working out. Some girls just aren’t cut out for this line of work. The sheriff agrees—”
“Wait, what? He told you that you should fire me!” Instantly, the numbness.
Joe looked uneasy. “Now, Piper, he’s just looking out for your best interests.”
“Unbelievable!” She dragged in several breaths, trying to calm herself when what she really wanted to do was storm across the room and slap him across the face.
She shot an accusing glare at Hale where he stood, oblivious to her. Was the man out to ruin her life? First he gave her a taste of what she could never have last night in his arms . . . and then he got her fired from the job she desperately needed.
“This wasn’t my fault,” she insisted.
He shrugged. “Trouble always seems to follow you.” He shook his head. “Probably should have known when I hired a Walsh. Your daddy, for all his ways, I considered a friend. Liked to think I was doing him a solid by giving you work.”
She stared at him numbly. “Yeah? Well, now you’re not.”
He shrugged. “You can come by and pick up your last paycheck next week. Good luck to you.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to shout at him that this wasn’t fair, but that would be pointless. Life wasn’t fair. She had long ago learned that lesson. Crying about it didn’t get you anywhere.
He left the room, and she turned her attention back to Hale and the other couple. The wife, Beth, wasn’t covering her nose anymore but blood dribbled down her chin to stain her shirt. For the first time, Piper noticed her T-shirt. In big block letters, it read GOD PUT THE AWE IN AWESOME. Piper wondered if God approved of her attacking another woman.
Beth was still irate, throwing her hands up in the air as she talked. Every other word was “whore” and “arrest.”
The deep rumble of Hale’s voice carried across the room, but Piper couldn’t make out any of the words. Finally he looked at her and there was a grimness in his eyes that sent an uneasy tremor through her.
He left them and approached her. The couple watched, the wife crossing her arms over her bloodied shirt, a smug tilt to her lips.
“Ms. Walsh.” She started. It was Ms. Walsh again now?
“Yes?”
“I’m going to have to take you in.”
Fourteen
The asshole was arresting her.
As they walked through the club, all eyes fixed on them and mortification swept through her. Her face burned and it had nothing to do with an irate wife slapping her. She wasn’t in handcuffs, but everyone knew. She might as well be wearing steel bracelets. Piper Walsh was going to jail.
There was a time when she thought this would ultimately be her fate. Turned out, she was right. She might not be going to jail for a heinous crime, but she was headed there nonetheless.
She held her chin high and tried to look dignified, even though she was trailing after Hale like a scolded child. She tried to look composed even though her feet were killing her in her stilettos.
Suddenly Serena was in front of Hale. Hands on her hips, she glared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding? What did she do?”
“Please step aside,” he said evenly, politely, voice void of emotion. It was his cop voice, she realized, and more often than not he didn’t use that voice on her. She wondered what that meant.
Serena’s eyes sought hers over his shoulder. She shook her head in obvious disgust and reached around Hale to hand her a small card. “This is my lawyer. He’s a good guy. For a lawyer. Tell him I referred you.”
Piper took the card, grateful for the gesture if nothing else. She wasn’t completely without people who cared about her. “Thanks.”
“Call me,” Serena said loudly as they continued through the club.
Outside, he walked her to his Bronco, leading her to the passenger side.
Facing him, she held out her hands, wrists close together. “Go ahead,” she invited, her voice ripe with challenge. She knew she could have a more deferential air at this point, but she was pissed and raring for a fight.
“What?” he asked, looking genuinely confused, and that only infuriated her more.
“Cuff me.”
Something danced in his eyes and she felt its echo deep inside her belly, a snap of heat that curled and bloomed. Damn him. Why did he have this effect on her?
She shook her wrists. “Go on. Do it.”
The barest chuckle escaped him, but it was mirthless and grated across her quickly fraying nerves.
“Nothing about this is funny,” she bit out, her temper spiking. “Believe it or not, I’ve never actually been to jail.”
“I know,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Of course you do,” she sneered. One click of the keyboard and he could pull up everything on one Piper Walsh of Sweet Hill, Texas.
Almost as though he read her mind and knew it annoyed her, he said smugly, “I know everything about you, Piper Walsh.”
Not everything.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she countered, leaning in close and stabbing a finger in his rock-solid chest.
He stepped closer, reaching for the door handle, very deliberately brushing his chest against hers. She took a sudden step back, but didn’t get far. Her back collided with the wall of the Bronco.
He was so close she could actually feel his breath on her cheek. Could actually see the striations of navy blue in his gray eyes. “Get in.” That crazy hot voice of his rolled through her.
She splayed her hands on the cold metal of the vehicle. “Shouldn’t I get in the backseat?”
“Piper, get in.” His words came out clipped. She was clearly trying his patience.
“I don’t want special treatment. Don’t think because of what went down between us you need to give me special treatment. Treat me like any other criminal.”
“God, you’re fucking stubborn. Just get in the damn car.” He took her arm and practically lifted her up into the seat.
He closed the door after her, sealing her in. She watched as he walked around, his strides angry and hard. Once in the driver’s seat, he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. She crossed her arms and fumed beside him.
“Why are you so angry?” She was the one who should be mad.
“It always pisses me off when a person lands herself in a stupid situation.”
A person? She was just a person to him? He got mad at everyone he arrested, then? “You must get pissed a lot, then, given your line of work is to put stupid people in jail.”
“You could have been hurt,” he accused, sending her a sharp glance. “It could have been worse than a slap across the face.”
So it was because she’d put herself at risk? That’s why he was mad?
She shook her head and turned to stare out the window. She didn’t buy it. He couldn’t be too concerned for her welfare. He was dragging her to jail, after all.
After a few moments of staring out the window, she quickly realized he wasn’t taking her to the sheriff’s department. “Where are we going?” She looked back at him, studying his stern profile.
“I’m taking you home,” he replied without taking his gaze off the road.
She processed that, turning it over in her head. He was taking her home. Not to jail. Home.
Of course he knew where she lived. He claimed to know everything about her. And while she knew that wasn’t true, thankfully, she knew her address would be an easy enough piece of information for him to access. After several moments, she found her voice. “Why?”
He slid her a look, his gray eyes piercing. “You really think I was going to arrest you?”
She frowned. Well. Yeah. He’d said so. To do anything else seemed too nice for him. “I don’t understand.”
“That lunatic back at the club wasn’t going to shut up until I agreed to arrest you.” He shrugged. “It got you out of there. She thinks she got her way. She’ll go home with her husband. It’s done. All’s well.”
She stared straight ahead, blinking at this news. He wasn’t hauling her to jail. He had lied for her. Only one person in her life had lied for her before and that was her brother. Cruz did it because he loved her.
She didn’t know why Hale had done it.
She should probably thank him. Any other cop would have arrested her, and then she’d be up to her neck in trouble. She didn’t have the money for a lawyer. She’d have to rely on a court-appointed attorney to defend her in a town where the name Walsh was mud. No one would believe she was struck first and it was self-defense on her part. Something told Piper that that lady had the resources and good name to win. It would be a losing battle.
Then she remembered that she had lost her job tonight. Because of him. He wasn’t totally a hero here.
“I guess all’s well except that you got me fired,” she reminded him.
“That wasn’t all on me. Joe—”
“No, but you certainly didn’t help matters, did you?”
He adjusted his grip around the steering wheel, and she took that as an admission of guilt. “You didn’t want to work there,” he countered.
“I had to work there, but you lead too privileged a life to understand anything about anyone having to do something they hate in order to get by.”
He made a growling sound and quickly pulled the Bronco over onto the shoulder of the road. He turned in his seat in a swift move, his eyes blazing, incinerating her where she sat. “Maybe I was trying to help you.”
“By getting me fired? Wow. Such a good friend.”
“Maybe I am.”
“You’re not my friend,” she shot out with a brittle laugh.
Something passed over his face and then he nodded slowly as though coming to a realization. “You’re right. I’m not your friend.”
That gave her pause. It actually stung a little, and she didn’t know why since he was just agreeing with her. Piper Walsh and Sheriff Hale Walters friends? Uh, not likely. Not smart.
“Okay,” she mumbled, looking down at her lap where she twisted her fingers. “Glad we agree on that.”
“I don’t do this to women I’m friends with.”
Alarmed, she looked up just as he reached for her. She caught a flash of those blazing eyes a second before he wrapped a hand behind her neck and pulled her to him.
She would like to say she shoved him away. Slapped him. Called him a jerk. Something. But she wasn’t as strong as that. Or as smart.
Their mouths crashed together like two bullet trains meeting head-on. He hauled her into his lap, forcing her to straddle his bigger body. Their mouths devoured each other, lips and tongues mating in wild fury.
The steering wheel was right against her back so she could only sit leaning forward with her breasts mashed into his chest. One of her knees was wedged uncomfortably against the armrest of the door, but she didn’t care. It was a small discomfort when she had him.
His delicious mouth.
His big hands sliding under her dress to grip her bare cheeks.
He groaned into her mouth, his hands flexing and squeezing her bottom. “Your ass is a wet dream.”
She moaned, her sex clenching in pulsing contractions searching for something, searching for him. She was desperate to be filled. To have him deep inside her where she’d had no man before. Her body might be untried, but it knew. It recognized what it wanted.
She sucked on his tongue and pulled back slightly to speak against his mouth, her voice an unrecognizable purr to her ears. “Do you dream about me, Sheriff Walters?”
“God, yes. I can’t close my eyes without seeing you.”
A whimper escaped her at this confession.
She buried her hands in his hair, scraping her nails against his scalp. Her hair fell around them in a dark veil as she kissed him harder, deeper, loving that she was sitting up high over him. She felt powerful. Like she held this big, strong man and his desire in the palm of her hand.
She tried to rock against him, but movement was limited in the cramped space. She could only growl in frustration and rub her breasts against his chest as they continued to kiss like two teenagers who finally figured how to use their mouths.
She made wild sounds as he continued to massage the plump mounds of her ass, her desire growing to a desperate, feverish pitch.
“I dream about taking you like this. With you riding me and my hands cupping your ass, guiding you just how hard to fuck.”
Ohh. Those words. That voice. The hands kneading her. She was five seconds from climax. Who knew the town’s golden-boy sheriff had a dirty mouth and dirtier mind? The residents of Sweet Hill would be horrified. She should be horrified and running as fast as she could to get away. Instead, she was galloping straight toward an orgasm.
He squeezed her cheeks and then released one, giving it a sharp slap that made her sex twist so tightly it edged pain. Oh. My. God.
She cried out as that twisting tightness snapped and pleasure knifed through her. Her body convulsed as she came in a blinding rush. A rush of moisture dampened her panties. She ground down on him as much as she could, riding it out.
“Damn. That gets you off? You really do need to be fucked, don’t you, sweetheart?” he growled. “You’re aching for it.”
She nodded mindlessly, lost as the aftermath of her climax rippled through her.
Then his hands were gone from her ass and she could have wept. She made a keening sound of disappointment at the loss. Her displeasure was short-lived because then his big hands moved to her breasts, fondling them through her dress just shy of too rough. It was like he knew just how to touch her.
She gasped, shooting up straight, the throb between her legs back again, clenching and demanding fulfillment.
“You like everything, don’t you, sweetheart?” he rasped, watching her face as he played with her breasts, his thumb brushing over her nipples, back and forth, back and forth, each swipe making her shake.
Like? Her long-neglected body loved this. Loved everything he did.
She nodded. “Everything . . . you do . . . to me,” she panted.
He added his forefinger then, pinching and rolling the hard tips.
“Hale!”
“That’s it. Say my name.” He pinched her nipples harder and pleasure speared straight from the arrow-hard tips of her breasts to her core.
Dimly, she realized it was the first time she had called him by his first name. She opened her eyes and feasted on his face. His beautiful face with its gray eyes and luscious lips, the bottom almost too full for a man. “Hale,” she breathed, saying his name slowly, savoring it, gratified when she watched his eyes grow more hooded . . . when she felt his cock swell under her.
With a curse, he dipped his head and closed his mouth over one breast, sucking the pebble-hard nipple deep, even through the material of her bra and dress.
Then he bit.
She gave a sharp gasp, but killed it, biting her lip. Other embarrassing little noises fought to break free as she arched atop him, thrusting her breast closer, but she bit herself harder to contain them, not even caring when she tasted the copper of blood.
“Don’t,” he commanded. “I want to hear every sound you make.”
She released her bottom lip on a shriek, obeying him, letting the sound out. God help her. This man could do anything to her. Everything. She wanted him to. She wanted him to take her and use her body until she couldn’t walk.
Suddenly lights flashed and a siren chirped. Her eyes flew to the rear window. “Oh my God! It’s the police.”
“Sweetheart, I am the police,” he said dryly, moving her off him and depositing her in her seat.
She smoothed her hands over her hair, tugged her dress from where it clung to her chest and caught him watching her. The hunger in his expression brought her to a halt. She’d never seen a man look at her with such need. For her. And she stoutly believed that it was strictly her he wanted, not simply a vessel to slake his lust. In his eyes, she read his desire for
her. For her and no other.
“Wait here,” he grumbled, his deep voice all kinds of disgruntled.
Opening the door, he hopped out. She released a pent-up breath, glad for the momentary reprieve from him. The distance. He was too much. Too much man who made her feel too many things.
She turned and watched as he moved to greet the deputy. They shook hands and talked for a moment. Hale laughed lightly, the sound casual and not at all like the intense beast of a man who had been unraveling her in the front seat moments ago. Then he was turning back for the truck and the deputy was walking away. She whipped her gaze straight ahead.
He climbed in and settled his weight in the seat beside her. Her nostrils flared at his closeness, at the heady musk of him. Her body was still aching, yearning.
“Everything okay?” she asked, her voice regrettably breathless.
“He was just checking. Thought I might have car trouble.”
She nodded jerkily.
Hale sighed and she wondered what that sound meant. What was he thinking? Was he thinking what she was? That it was a good thing they were interrupted before things went any further?
“Please take me home now.”
He turned, staring at her from hooded eyes. Nodding, he faced forward again and put the Bronco into drive and pulled onto the highway. They didn’t talk the rest of the way home. When he pulled up in front of her unit, she flung open the door and hurried to her apartment without saying goodnight.
The moment she reached the door, she realized she had left everything at the club. She didn’t have her key. Hale had discombobulated her that much. She’d left it all behind, too flipped out that she was being arrested.
Great. She was going to have to knock on the door for Malia and explain why she didn’t have her keys or her car. Claire was spending the night, too. The two of them had planned on watching movies and eating frozen pizza. Thanks to Hale’s generous payment last night, she had been able to buy groceries.
She was on the verge of knocking when footsteps sounded behind her. Whirling around, she faced Hale. “What are you doing?” she demanded, already suspicious. Did he think she was going to invite him in so they could pick up where they left off in his front seat?
Beautiful Lawman Page 12