Sheriff in Her Stocking (4 page)

 “You were on your way last night in this storm?” 
Mark folded his arms over his chest. “I hope you got here before it hit.”

Delaney’s face
brightened and her eyes glinted as if recalling a very pleasant memory. “No,
Rick rescued me when my car skidded off the road.”  Warmth colored her
words along with a hint of hero-worship. His heart swelled in his chest and he
suddenly had an insane urge to stand up, beat his chest and yell like Tarzan.

 Rick
glanced at Delaney and her gaze locked onto his. He remembered their tumble in
the snow, the feel of her warm, womanly body beneath his and the light squeeze
of her fingers on his package. His relentlessly stiff penis twitched inside his
pants. Unwelcome heat spread up his neck. He shifted in his seat and looked
away; mortified she might be able to read the direction of his thoughts.

“Glad you’re
okay.”

Mark’s comment
brought Rick out of his carnal thoughts back to the present.

“What’s in New
York?” Mark asked.

She smiled. “A
job as a window designer for Taylor’s Department Store.”  Pride rang in
her voice.

Mark whistled.
“Good for you. Taylor’s is pretty hoity-toity. The best thing we have around
here is the Glamour Box over on third.”  Mark stood up from the desk. “I
need to go open the store in case anyone needs something to get through the
storm. Nice to meet you, Delaney.”

“Nice to meet
you.”

He slipped on
his gloves and headed toward the door. Suddenly, he stopped and spun on his
heels. “I almost forgot why I came by.”  He looked at Rick. “Some signs
have blown down on Willis Road and a street light is out on seventh.”

Rick nodded.
“The mayor already called about the traffic light. Thanks, I’ll take care of
it.”

With a quick
wave, Mark opened the door and was gone.

* * * * * 

The phone rang
and Rick picked up the receiver. “Sheriff’s Office.”

He listened for
a moment then smiled. “Hi, gorgeous.”  He switched the conversation to a
rapid stream of Spanish.

Delaney’s heart
sank as she busied herself cleaning up the remainder of Rick’s mess. He had a
girlfriend. Of course he did. So what?  Or maybe even a wife. She looked
at his ring finger once more as she threw away the trash from their breakfast.
No ring and no tan line either. But some men didn’t wear a wedding ring. Maybe
Rick was one of them. If she ever got married she wanted her husband to wear a
ring so every woman he met would know he was taken.

With a deep
sigh, she left Rick alone while she freshened up. When she returned, she heard
him say, “Te amo tambien
.
”  She remembered enough from her high
school Spanish class to know that he said I love you. Would a man ever say
those tender words to her?

Rick replaced
the receiver in the cradle and looked up as she walked into the room. His gaze
gave her a quick once over and her skin tingled.

“That was my
mother.”

A flood of
relief washed through her. Why was she relieved?  She would be on her way
to New York in a couple of days and would never see Rick Cruz again.

Delaney nodded,
walked over to a window to the left of the office door and looked out at the
steadily falling snow. A man shuffled past holding tight to his little girl’s
hand. She was dressed in a pink snow suit with matching boots and mittens. Red
curls had escaped the hood of her jacket and waved sporadically in the wind. The
child laughed at something her father said as they hurried along the snow swept
sidewalk. Seeing them caused an ache to nudge a tender spot in her heart, but
she pushed the feeling away. “Are you close to your family?”

Rick laughed, a
warm sexy sound that seeped into her blood. “Yeah, whether I want to be or not.
What about you?”

Delaney thought
about her own family. Her parents were fine people and had provided a good life
for her, but she’d never felt she could share the secrets of her soul with them
or that they would be open to listening to her. “We have an okay relationship I
guess, but we’re not all that close.”

“That’s too bad.
Family is important.”  His voice rang with sincerity.

She turned and
looked at him. “Yes, I suppose it is.”  She walked back to her chair in
front of his desk and sat down. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

He leaned back
in his chair. “I have a younger sister who just got married. So naturally my
mother thinks I should do the same. She calls at least once a week with advice
concerning my love life. Do you have any siblings?”

Why isn’t he
married?  A guy like him should have been taken a long time ago. “No, I’m
an only child.”  She suddenly remembered her car. No doubt it was
completely buried in snow by now. “About my car, is there someone I can call to
have it towed?”

“I already took
care of it for you.”

A warm, liquid
sensation pulsed through her veins. The man took care of a lot of things. He
gave her a place to stay, he bought her food and he had her car towed. Even in
her dream, he’d taken sexual care of her, at least with his lips and hands.
Unfortunately he’d woken her up before her little dream/fantasy could continue
with him shoving deep inside her. Arousal gathered between her legs and she
shifted in her seat.

No man she’d
ever been romantically involved with had ever done those things for her. But
she wasn’t involved with Rick, romantically or otherwise. Still, it felt nice.
“Thank you. Where was it towed?”

“Your car’s at
Linc’s Service Station but he won’t be able to take a look at it until
tomorrow.”

The liquid pull
of desire eased inside her. Thank God, he’d thrown her a life line. With her
libido sliding recklessly out of control she had to put some much needed
distance between her and Rick. She popped up from her seat. “He won’t have to.
My dad’s a great mechanic and he taught me everything he knows. I can fix
anything from a flat to a busted radiator hose.”  At least in that area
she felt confident. She glanced toward the window at the snow still falling at
a steady rate then turned back toward Rick.

He raised his
brows in question. “Problem?”

There was most
definitely a problem. If she tried walking to the garage in this storm she’d
freeze to death. “Could you give me a ride?”

* * * * *

Rick leaned
against the side of the red car and watched Delaney. She was clad in a heavy
jacket but the hem lifted up from where she leaned over under the hood giving
him a nice view of her luscious fanny covered in faded jeans. A few tools lay
at her feet. He heard a soft curse.

“Got a phantom
in your manifold?”

Delaney
straightened from beneath the hood with a wrench in her right hand. The
florescent light inside the garage highlighted her bright, blue eyes and shone
down on her blonde hair she’d gathered into a messy pony tail. She smiled and
he fought the urge to touch her. “Not exactly but the engine does have a couple
of problems.”

Rick folded his
arms over his chest. “Such as?”

She lifted her
right hand and brushed a strand of blonde hair from her eyes. She raked her top
teeth over her bottom lip then rubbed it with her tongue. A long, slow curl of
lust arrowed from his gut to his groin. God, the woman made him hot. He wished
to hell he could figure out why so he could stop it.

Delaney cocked
her head to the side and raised her right brow. “Are you curious about
engines?”

Not about
engines, about her. He’d never known a woman who was interested in the inner
workings of a car. As long as the vehicle started when they turned the key,
they didn’t care. “Let me put it this way, I can change the oil, battery and
spark plugs but beyond that I rely on the experts. But you seem to know a lot
more. I was wondering why.”

She laid the
crescent wrench on the roof of the car and looked at him. “I was the son my
father never had.”

Her eyes clouded
briefly with an emotion he couldn’t read then it was gone.

“He taught me
about cars so I wouldn’t be taken advantage of by a mechanic who figured I was
a dumb blonde who didn’t know anything about engines.”

“So what’s wrong
with your car?”

She sighed. “The
radiator has a leak and there could be a problem with the crankshaft.”

“What’s in the
crankshaft?”  He knew but he wanted her to tell him.

“It contains
pistons that basically move up and down. . .in and out.”  Her voice was
matter-of-fact as if she was teaching an automotive class, but for him a
sensual image formed in his mind. He clasped his palms around Delaney’s bare
buttocks and lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he pressed
her against the side of the car, moved his hips forward and plunged deep within
her.

“Are you okay?”

Delaney’s
question snapped Rick out of his sexual haze. Damn it, he was acting like a
teenager caught up in the confusing excitement of male hormones. He was a police
officer who needed to get his brains out of his pants. “Yeah, I’m fine. How do
the pistons work?  Show me.”

She touched the
smooth, pale column of her throat as her eyes sent him a silent message of lust
and longing. He suddenly had an irresistible urge to lick her neck plus a whole
lot more. “The pistons are tubular in shape and they fit inside the cylinder.”

Heat bloomed in
his belly and slid lower. She was killing him and didn’t even know it. Well,
damn it, he didn’t want to be the only one to suffer. “Is it a tight fit?”

A gleam of
sensual interest filled her gaze. She stepped closer to him.

Oh, yeah, come
to daddy.

“It
isn’t...tight exactly.”  Her silky voice stroked his male desire with a
seductive touch. Quiet filled the garage in a thick blanket of hopeful
expectation. Rick stared at Delaney, the tawny glow of her hair under the
light, her blue eyes gleaming with a curious, unresolved longing. Her full,
pink lips beckoned him to slide his tongue inside her mouth and satisfy them
both.

With the tip of
his finger, Rick touched the indentation above her top lip then stroked his
finger down over her lips. She parted her lips and closed them around the end
of his finger. He felt the tip of her tongue flick over his skin. He kept his
finger there hoping she would do it again and she didn’t disappoint him. What
the hell was he doing?  He knew it was wrong but he couldn’t seem to stop
himself. “Snug?  Close?”

Her gaze lowered
to his mouth. “Uh, huh.”

Oh yeah. It
would definitely be snug. Her tongue nudged against his finger again. He felt
the blood leave his brain and gush in a torrent to his groin. “What happens
next?”

Her eyes locked
onto his. “Next?”

Rick slid his
finger from between her lips and trailed a damp path down her neck to the
hollow of her throat. “Once the piston gets inside the cylinder, does it lie
still?”  No way. “Or does it move?”

Her breath
shuddered out. “It moves back and forth.”

Damn right. He
wanted to slip his hand inside her coat, beneath her sweater and bra if she was
wearing one until he cupped the warm, soft flesh of her breasts. “What makes it
move, Delaney?”

Hot, nervy
tension formed a thread between them. She swallowed and tilted her head as if
she were going to kiss him. “Force.”  Her voice was husky and soft.

Yes, it would be
a force of pure, sexual lust and energy, the kind generated between a man and a
woman. His gaze skimmed her face. Dreamy eyes, nice nose and a mouth that
promised untold pleasures. He wanted to stroke his hands over every inch of her
body. Was she as soft and pampered between her thighs as the rest of her skin
looked?  Would her breath hitch and a moan glide from her throat when he
slipped inside her?  Would she react to him the way she did during her
dream?  “Does it move fast or slow?

“It starts sort
of slow then it pumps more rapidly.”

Hmm. Hard, fast
and deep. Oh, God. “All that pumping’s bound to cause some friction.”

Her eyes
darkened slightly. “Friction?”

“You know, heat,
Delaney.”

She nodded.
“There’s a lot of heat.”

There would be
fire, hot licks of it drenched with sweat. “With all that heat being generated,
a piston probably needs some kind of lubrication.”

He could imagine
the lubrication involved. “Tell me, Delaney, about the lubrication. Is it slick
and hot, coating everything to insure smooth, deep penetration?”

Her lips parted
on a sigh and her eyes glazed as if in passion. “Uh, huh.”  

Rick dipped his
head, until his mouth was a fraction away from hers and their breath mingled.
One taste. All he needed was one taste and he could hand cuff his insane desire
where Delaney was concerned.

When his lips
barely touched Delaney’s, he heard footsteps.

“Need any help?”

Chapter Three

Delaney read the
same page for the third time not comprehending a single word. This was a romance
novel by her favorite author and yet the words barely registered in her brain.
She closed the book with a snap and tossed it onto the end of the cot in the
jail cell. On the way back to the sheriff’s office, Rick had been quiet and had
avoided even looking at her much less talking to her. All she’d seen of his
face was his profile and the clenching and unclenching of his jaw. She couldn’t
imagine what she’d done to make him so angry.

Back at the
garage, he’d sent her the same super charged signals that he wanted to kiss her
as much as she wanted to kiss him. When they’d arrived at the office, he’d
practically pushed her out of the truck then driven away as though the hounds
of hell were after him.

Despite his
anger, all she could think about was Rick and the kiss they’d almost shared.
Every time she thought about his tempting mouth her heart raced, her skin
tingled with invisible warmth and she grew wet between her legs. If only Linc
hadn’t interrupted them she would know the exact taste and texture of Rick’s
lips and how his tongue felt rubbing over hers.