Sweet Hill Homecoming (Sweet Hill 1)

Jesus Christ what had he been thinking!

He knew exactly what he’d been thinking: Mia, in a skirt and boots, running that tempting mouth and goading him on.

It was the same thing he’d been thinking about for the past few days. He had lost his mind. The woman made him crazy and tapped into a side of Tate he didn’t even know was tappable. Then she literally tapped him.

She never faltered, never called him sweet or nice. Didn’t elude to his campaign or his worth as a potential Sheriff and town contributor. She just grabbed him by the cock and treated him like a man.

That stupid tremor he’d been trying to outrun shot back up his spine. A woman like Mia wasn’t sorry for a damn thing. Not that he wanted her to be. She obviously went for what she wanted. But he should have been more controlled than that.

When he wasn’t thinking about his lapse in judgment, or how her turquoise eyes went wide and starry when she came, or how she felt hot and wet all around him—cue tremor number two—he thought about how she left.

There was a few seconds of breathing. A couple brief heartbeats they clung to each other, then it was over. No exchange of numbers. No sweet goodbyes or promises to call. She simply slid down his body, and left him. With his damn pants down and walked away.

So…did he call her? It would be the gentlemanly thing to do, getting her number wouldn’t be difficult. Or maybe she specifically didn’t give him her number because it was just a fun Saturday night for her. Then again he hadn’t asked for her number either—

That’s it! He was disconnecting his phone! This battle of whether to call or not was ridiculous. Mia wasn’t his, problem, woman, or otherwise. But he needed to pound something. So he went with the pavement.

“Man, you are pissed about something,” Luke said, huffing and keeping pace as they made their way down Main Street.

The cold air burned Tate’s lungs and while the road was pretty quiet, Mrs. Moberly waved as they jogged by her jam shop.

“Just have a lot on my mind,” Tate said.

“Yeah, like Mia Blake?”

Tate shot Luke a look and upped his pace a fraction.

“I saw the way you were looking at her. How you got all grouchy and moody and stormed out the other night.”

“She’s got an attitude that irritates me,” Tate said honestly. “And a mouth that…”

That he wanted to bite. Kiss. Devour. He did all those things and it was the only damn image his mind kept churning out. He shook his head, hating for the millionth time in three days his thoughts.

“Oh, I know what kind of mouth she has. It looked like half the guys at the bar the other night knew it too.”

Tate’s blood heated and he knew Luke was fucking with him. Trying to get him to admit, what? That he liked her? No, actually at the moment, he couldn’t stand the thought of her. Mostly because the thought always turned into him trapping her against the nearest wall and kissing her so hard she took back her accusation of him “being on a power trip” then begging him for more.

Begging him for more? Jesus, maybe with her he was having some kind of power trip.

Fuck you brain. He internally cussed when more images from that night flashed again. He suddenly had the need to display the power he had. On her. It wasn’t just the sex he couldn’t stop thinking about. It was everything that came before.

Even from across the bar he had noticed the way her green eyes swept over him in appreciation. How her gaze paused on his chest, then his belt and back up to his face. In between shooting some mean glares his way, she was looking her fill last night and he knew it.

It was a game of wills. And Mia got the upper hand.

“That woman should come with a storm warning,” Tate growled, remembering how she licked a little bit of sugar from her bottom lip after finishing drink number two last night. Free drink number two he might add. He had his share of beers and if he were lying to himself, could blame his lapse of judgment on that. But he knew it was bullshit.

That kind of woman had no problem making friends, rather, man servants wherever she went. That much was clear. And Tate would be damned if he fell into that trap, only to return to being a sad sack hanging on her every demand.

Yet he was already a sucker. She demanded everything from him, and he gave it to her. Screwing a woman outside a bar where anyone could have seen wasn’t exactly electoral behavior. He was running for Sheriff for god sakes and how he acted was…

Primal.

More importantly, it couldn’t happen again.

“I think you should cut her some slack,” Luke said. “I guess the move back hasn’t been easy on her.”

Tate frowned. With each hit of his feet to the assault, his shins vibrated just enough to take notice on how hard he was actually stompi