“Not okay. Sit.” He sternly pointed at the chair she had vacated.
“It’s time you left, Sheriff.”
“If you don’t let me check your foot, I’ll feel that it’s my professional duty to take you to the hospital. Then the whole story about the raccoons and the window-peeper scare will be the topic of conversation at the beauty parlor tomorrow and—”
Sunny’s fanny landed hard in the chair.
“That’s better,” Ty said, and smiled. “Give me your foot.”
She didn’t actually offer her foot for his inspection. He bent forward and picked it up off the floor, unbalancing her so that her bottom slid almost to the rim of her seat. Bracing herself with stiff arms and hands that curled over the edge of the chair, she watched as his large, tanned hands enfolded her foot.
He turned it up and examined the sole. “Here?” He touched the crescent-shaped wound on her heel. She winced. “Sore?”
“With you mashing on it, it is.”
“Helluva bruise. You’re lucky it didn’t break the skin. Almost, but not quite. You don’t need a tetanus shot, but you might want to watch it for the next few days.”
“I will. Thanks.” She tried to pull her foot away, but to no avail. He closed his hands around it, enclosing it firmly and snugly between his palms.
“They’re a little skinny, but otherwise you have very nice feet.”
“Is this part of your official duty, Sheriff Beaumont?”
“My duty is to aid and abet the citizens of Latham Parish. Right now, I think this citizen needs a foot rub.”
She squirmed in her chair when his thumb drew a sizzling line down the center of her sole. In a bizarre and titillating correlation, the caress tickled the back of her throat.
“I was in Japan once.” He brushed his thumb over her toes and examined each glossy toenail. “They give fantastic foot rubs there. This geisha—”
“I’m really not interested.”
“—used a lot of lotion on her hands. Got any?”
“We’ll do without.”
“Suit yourself. Anyway, this geisha had a way of squeezing each individual toe between her fingers. Hard, but not enough to hurt. Kinda like sucking.”
He matched action to words by wringing Sunny’s middle toe between his strong fingers. She felt the caress in every other part of her body, especially the erogenous ones. The caress even looked erotic. The backs of his fingers were sprinkled with fine blond hairs. His hands looked dark, manly, and masterful against her slender foot.
In quick succession, forbidden sensations rippled out of Sunny’s middle. When he massaged the base of each toe on the underside of her foot, she almost sprang out of her chair. “I don’t think this is proper.”
He grinned unrepentantly. “I bet it isn’t. But it sure as hell feels good, doesn’t it? Let’s treat ourselves. After all, you suffered a scare and I saved your life. I think we’re due some R and R. I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Sunny found his coaxing voice and bedroom expression almost as hypnotic as the foot massage. She offered no resistance when he wedged her heel into the notch between his thighs.
“Then this geisha, after milking each muscle and bone in my foot, massaged only the very tips of my toes. Like this. Tiny circles. Sometimes so light I thought I was imagining her touch.”
Sunny actually gasped at the startling sensations that shot like rockets up her leg. Reflexively, her foot moved, pressing itself more firmly against his fly. She dared not think of what was filling her high arch.
“Of course, they say,” Ty continued in that mesmerizing voice, “that the most delicious sensation is to have them tongued.”
Sunny’s eyes slid closed.
The next thing she knew she was catching herself to keep from falling off her chair. He had peremptorily lowered her foot back to the floor and was dusting his hands as though he had just completed a chore.
“But tonguing cost extra and I was just a poor G.I. low on cash, so I can’t claim to have experienced that particular pleasure firsthand. Can you?” he asked guilelessly.
Furious over her own culpability, Sunny bounded out of her chair and said coldly, “It’s time you left.”