Jill Shalvis - Head Over Heels

She touched him, just a light stroke of her fingers over his shoulder, and though his body tightened, he felt himself breathe a little easier.

Her mouth slowly curved. Her eyes were warm, with a hint of challenge and quite possibly concern.

He didn’t want the concern.

But the challenge…yeah. He’d take that.

“You’re tense,” Chloe said. Standing up, she moved behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders. She dug her fingers into his tight muscles, working them with a surprising strength, until he melted into a puddle at her feet.

“Better?” she murmured against his ear, making him nearly groan when she pressed her breasts against him.

Was she kidding? The only way for this to be better would be for them to be alone and naked. But someone called her name, and she moved away to talk to friends, leaving him staring after her while pretending not to be. Yeah, they were playing at something new these days, some sort of cat-and-mouse game, and he was pretty sure that he didn’t have a complete set of the rules.

She was laughing at something someone said, her red hair gleaming like fire beneath the lights. Her gaze drifted to his. Yeah, definitely something had changed between them. Again. At first he’d thought it was his imagination. After all, she had always baited him, and he’d done the same to her. But he’d always been able to shrug it off, knowing they were just messing with each other.

Nothing more.

Never anything more.

But now they were one spark away from a fire that could burn them both to cinders, and that couldn’t happen. He’d worked too damn hard to make this life of his. Every day, every single day, he had to walk the straight road. Discipline was the only thing that he could count on. Not even his friends could help him if he went off the rails as an adult. Coburn was dead, his father didn’t count, and Ford and Jax were busy starting new lives. They deserved to be happy and not have to worry about him. That was logic and reason.

But whether it was exhaustion, or the memories stirred from tonight’s fatal accident, logic and reason didn’t make a dent in his insatiable, drumming, unrelenting need to have Chloe Traeger.

Normally Chloe loved being at the Love Shack when it was full like this. She loved the warmth and connection of the people that lived here in Lucky Harbor. She enjoyed the easy camaraderie, especially after being gone for the past few days working. Usually sitting on a barstool listening to stories filled her with a sense of calm. Like she could belong in this place.

Not tonight. She’d been in San Francisco for a few days, and it’d gone well. She had new orders for her skincare line, and she’d even managed to work in some fun, visiting friends she hadn’t seen in a while. They’d wanted her to stay a few more days, and she could have easily stretched the work to justify it. But for the first time, she’d been anxious to come back to Lucky Harbor.

Home.

On the drive, she’d started to think of ways to stick closer to home next time and alleviate some of the travel time.

The idea wasn’t new. It’d first come to her a few months ago, and it wouldn’t leave her alone. She wanted to be more to the inn than just the token dishwasher or night watch for their guests. She wanted more than just filling in. She wanted to be a part of the place in the way Maddie and Tara were. She’d even thought of a perfect way to do that-open her own day spa at the B &B. Several times in the past she’d treated the occasional guest to a complimentary facial in the sunroom, but this would be different. Every day. Officially.

No doubt her sisters would remind her how much time she spent away, but why couldn’t she come up with a compromise? Why couldn’t she have it all? There was nothing to say she couldn’t slowly ease into it, proving she could pull it off. Hell, she could still travel on the days she didn’t have anything booked. That would be the best of both worlds, keeping one foot here in this place but being able to get out and spread her wings when she needed.

She’d like that.

Sawyer’s name pulled her attention back to the bar. Jax was serving Lucille, telling her a story about his own wild, misguided youth, one that happened to include Sawyer. Apparently the good sheriff had also been a wild, misguided youth, which shocked Chloe. But at the tender age of fourteen, Sawyer had been running a little fake ID business. He’d made both himself and Jax a pair of fake IDs, which they’d attempted to use to buy alcohol.

It hadn’t ended well.

Lucille, wearing her customary eye-blinding, neon-pink sweats and white headband, cackled in her been-smoking-for-seventy-years voice. “Oh, honey,” she said to Jax. “Do I remember that. Sawyer’s daddy was furious. He gave the both of you boys a stern what for.”

“Yeah, more than a what for,” Jax said with a remembered wince.

Sawyer appeared to be paying no attention to the story. He was finishing up his French fries with singular concentration, chasing them down with the last of his beer.

Chloe had never seen him drink alcohol before.

And she’d sure as hell never thought that the guy behind the badge would have once upon a time had a fake ID business going, stupid kid or no. It was hard to reconcile the two very different images she had of him.

Sawyer pushed his empty plate away, nodding at the waitress who took it for him. Clearly distracted, he rose to his feet and moved behind the bar, vanishing into the back room.

Chloe watched him go, then saw Ford exchange a look with Jax. Obviously, they knew something was up, which was good because she didn’t feel that tangling with Sawyer tonight would be the wisest move. And dammit, she was trying to make wise decisions.

And yet…hell. Neither Ford nor Jax were going after him. She waited another minute, remembered the careful blank look on Sawyer’s face and knew that it meant he needed the mask tonight. Heart squeezing, she drew a deep breath and went herself.

He stood alone in the far corner of the back office, in front of an open locker. She remembered Maddie telling her once that the guys kept a locker for him so that he could come from work and unload his weapons in a safe place and be off duty.

Which he’d clearly done earlier in the evening, as he was now in the middle of entering a combination. He opened the locker without turning in her direction, though she knew damn well that he’d heard her come into the room. He was a cat when it came to that stuff, seeing behind his back, sensing things.

She watched as he pulled his utility belt from the locker and slid it around his waist, clicking it securely in place. Next he bent over and clicked the leg strap around his muscular thigh. Selecting his gun next, he carefully held it up and eyeballed something on it. Satisfied, he placed it into the holster on his hip, snapping the small band in place to secure it.

Chloe stood rooted to the spot, shocked to find that watching him arm himself to the teeth was turning her on.

Still not acknowledging her in any way, Sawyer pulled out a knife, sheathed it on his leg, and then slipped another gun into the small of his back.

Whew. Suddenly it felt a little hot in here. “Isn’t that a bit of overkill for the kind of calls you get here in Mayberry, USA?” she asked, her voice annoyingly husky. “I mean, sure the traffic jams are irritating, and the occasional drunk stumbling along the pier probably takes up time, but are they really that dangerous?”

Sawyer didn’t start at the sound of her voice in the quiet room. He merely slid a jacket over his entire ensemble that had DEA in bold white letters on the back. He shut the locker, spun the lock, then slowly turned to face her. “I’ve been doing extra projects as part of a special task force.”

Dangerous projects, from the looks of things, and she felt a prickle of fear for him. “Oh. So you…”

“Like to be prepared.”

She nodded, keeping her concern to herself because he wouldn’t want it. She liked to be prepared as well, or at least the semblance of it. And at the moment, she wasn’t even close to prepared for what just looking at him was doing to her, so she backed up, right into the door. Wincing, she grabbed the handle. “Well,” she said, far too brightly, “sweet dreams.” She left the room without another word. She walked straight through the bar, got onto her Vespa, and rode to the B &B in the dark, dark night.

Sweet dreams? Had she really told the man to have sweet dreams? What was going on with her? And dammit, she hadn’t even asked about his father. She’d been too busy being distracted by his job, and how good he looked doing it.

Only when she was on the porch of the little owner’s cottage behind the inn did she take a deep breath. She was all alone. Alone was good. She really liked alone…

An SUV pulled around the back of the B &B and parked next to her Vespa.

Sawyer, of course. He exited his vehicle and strode up the steps to the porch, looking especially big and bad in the dark. Her knees did an odd little wobble, and she locked them in place, leaning back against the porch railing. “What are you doing here?”

“Wanted to make sure you got home okay.”

“Do you follow every woman home from the bar, Sheriff?”

“No. Just the ones who are most likely to go sneaking around late at night near Black Ridge.” He braced an arm on the railing at her side and leaned in. “Since I’m too tired to go after you tonight, I thought I’d head you off at the pass.”

“You saw us,” she murmured, refusing to be intimidated by the size of him looming over her. However, her body didn’t fail to get a little thrill from the close proximity. “Lance and I, the night before I left for San Francisco.” They’d gone up there because the old Whitney house was scheduled for demolition next Monday. It was out there on thirty acres of thick, remote woods and hadn’t been lived in for decades.