When he turned to her, he had a first aid kit in his hand and an expression that gave nothing away. She wondered if he had to practice his stoic face or if it came naturally. Natural, she decided, when he nudged her toward the backseat. Cool, contained Officer Donovan wasted no words or movements.
Just before she reached the door, she turned and made a last-ditch effort to avoid returning to the confines of the cruiser. “I’m fine.”
Not true. Her heel ached, and the trace of citrus in his soap or aftershave reminded her she hadn’t had a bite to eat since the dried apricots she’d called breakfast hours ago. But she’d rather crawl the rest of the way to Bluelick than voluntarily get in the police car. Authorities tended to pigeonhole her right away as a stray. Someone who had been damn near everywhere but belonged nowhere. They also tended to meet that status with a lot of displeasure and suspicion. So far, she’d picked up plenty of both from this particular representative of Bluelick’s finest.
“We’ll see.” He crowded her until he had her trapped between the vehicle and his body. “Sit.”
Then somehow, without even touching her, he succeeded in making it happen. She stumbled and landed on her ass in the backseat. The impact dislodged the knot from her hair. She raised her hands to brush it away from her face, and her bracelets tinkled down her arm in a musical cascade.
A trio of ugly, faded-to-purple bruises adorning her wrist reminded her of a couple important truths. Namely, a woman in her position couldn’t afford to let her guard down, and she wasn’t always the best judge of character. As casually as possible, she lowered her arms. The bracelets tumbled down, hiding the bruises. She risked a glance at Officer Donovan. His body completely filled her view, blocking the door and creating a big, insurmountable barrier. Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the car. Pressure built in her lungs, and her pulse skittered. They were out here alone. He had all the power. Anything could happen, and no one would miss her.
“Relax,” he said, as if sensing her rising paranoia. He didn’t offer any additional words of reassurance, simply crouched in front of her, head bent, and concentrated on working her boot off. She stared at the top of his head and then bit her lip to keep from groaning when he pulled the boot over her raw heel.
“I am relaxed.” Lie. “Why would I be tense?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t glance up. His short, damp hair stood on end in places and looked as soft as sable. “Why would you?”
Because she’d been caught hitchhiking? Because everything she owned in the world was currently in the trunk of a police car? Because, technically, she’d resorted to the five-finger discount to retrieve Gibson from a pawnshop owned by one of the most notorious loan sharks in Nashville before boarding a bus to Kentucky? Instead of voicing any self-incriminating responses, she said, “You could be some kind of deviant cop who picks up stranded women, shoves them into your trunk, and nobody hears from them again. I read the news. It happens.” Even as she put the irrational thought into words, she fought an impulse to run her fingers over the close-cropped hair at his temple and find out if it felt as velvety as it looked.
“My trunk is currently full of your sh—stuff, so consider yourself safe, but for someone who puts her trust in the hands of strangers by hitchhiking, you have a very dark view of human natu—Jesus, Roxy.”
The last bit drew her attention to her foot, currently cradled in his hand. Her size seven look positively dainty in comparison. Dainty and fragile. The impression unsettled her enough to lift her foot out of his hold, and that’s when she realized the cause of his outburst. Blood darkened the heel of her sock.
The scarred leather motorcycle boots she’d bought yesterday from Music City Pawn & Loan probably hadn’t been the smartest use of fifty bucks. Forty-five plus tax to be exact, but she hadn’t hung around for her change because the purchase had been a diversion—a way to distract the clerk while she’d liberated Gibson and hauled ass. She should have chosen something cheaper, but the tough black boots had spoken to her. They’d said, “We take no shit.” She definitely needed to take less shit, so she’d bought the darn things. At the time, she couldn’t have guessed she’d end up wearing them to hike the final leg of her journey to Bluelick. “It looks worse than it is.”
Eyes as gray and turbulent as Kentucky storm clouds commandeered hers. “We’ll see.”
That’s all the warning she got before he tugged her sock off. She sucked in a breath and willed herself to keep still.
He scanned her face. “Okay?”
“Yes.” She held out her hand for the sock and tried to pretend she didn’t want to curl up into a ball and whimper.
He placed the sock in her open palm, and their fingers touched for an instant. The pain in her heel subsided as the small contact set off a flurry of quakes throughout her body. Fantasies filled her mind—those same enticingly callused hands dragging her clothes out of his way. Removing her panties with one hard tug.
She glanced at his face in time to see his eyes darken with reluctant hunger. A muscle tensed in his jaw.
No. Uh-uh. Absolutely not, Roxy. Tangling with any man, much less a surly lawman who looked at her with alternating degrees of distrust and disapproval, ranked low on her to-do list. Her system craved the chemistry, that’s all. And chemistry had a way of blowing up on her.
Officer Donovan cleared his throat. “Nice tat.” With the pad of his finger, he traced the small flock of black birds winging their way up her ankle. Even his fingers looked official. Long, squared, with clean nails trimmed in neat, no-nonsense lines.
“Thanks,” she managed, while nerve endings all over her body reacted as if he’d stroked far more personal areas. An uncomfortably vivid scenario popped into her mind. Her, lying in the back of this very cruiser, floating just below consciousness while those official fingers carefully but thoroughly roamed over her body. Not another fantasy, her fired-up nerve endings assured her. A memory. He’d frisked her. The realization brought instant heat to her cheeks. She’d like to call the reaction mortification, but the sad truth was the idea of Officer Donovan touching her so intimately had her hot and bothered for all the wrong reasons.
Maybe he realized he’d set off an erotic chain reaction with his casual touch because he released her as if he’d been burned. “Lift your foot so I can bandage your heel.”
“10-4, Officer.” If she was any kind of a grown-up, she’d tell him to hand over the first aid kit and tend to herself, but she’d already had the woozies once today, so she raised her foot closer to his eye level. “Good?”
He dipped his head to get a better angle then froze, let out a strangled groan, and looked away. “Ah…no. Not good.”
That’s when she realized her position offered him an unobstructed view up her skirt. Immediately, she lowered her leg
while an offended part of her insisted, Hey, some guys think it’s pretty good.
“I’ll do it.” She held out her hand for the first aid kit.
“Let’s try this instead.” His voice returned to the calm, sure tone she already thought of as normal. “Turn around and kneel on the seat.” Before she could fully process the instructions, he took hold of her and positioned her how he wanted her.
She grabbed the headrest rather than end up on all fours across the seat. The notion introduced a whole new montage of unbidden images into her overheated imagination. Him shoving her skirt up, raking her underwear down, and dishing out his own personal brand of punishment for hitchhiking. Her hormones went wild at the prospect.