Jed Had to Die

“Sorry, I swear I’m not laughing about the Tasing thing. I just remembered how I used to follow you around school all the time and try to smell your hair. You always smelled like fresh coffee beans, and you still do. Best smell in the world,” he admits with a small smile.

Yep, it’s official. Pretty sure he just got me pregnant.

“Oh, no! Nice try, buster! Don’t you come in here after one of your deputies Tased me on your order and say all kinds of sweet things that will make me all mushy and forget I’m mad at you!” I yell, pointing my finger at him and refusing to let him get under my skin.

“I make you mushy?” he asks in a low, deep voice, closing the distance between us until we’re standing toe-to-toe. “Funny. You do the exact opposite to me.”

He brings his point home by grabbing my hip and pulling the lower half of my body against his and there is NOTHING mushy about what’s poking into me right now.

“It’s not going to work,” I tell him indignantly, keeping my arms pinned to my sides before I do something stupid like pull his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans and run my palms up the skin of his stomach and chest.

“What’s not going to work?” he whispers, dipping his head down next to mine to slide his lips around along the edge of my ear.

I clench my hands into fists when he tugs on my earlobe with his front teeth and then kisses his way down the side of my neck.

“This little seduction scene you’ve got going on. I’m immune to your charms,” I inform him, even as I tilt my head to the side to give him better access.

“Twelve years of fantasies…You taste better than I ever imagined,” he breathes against my collarbone after using one of his fingers to pull the collar of my shirt back just enough for him to place a kiss there.

“Oh, hell no!” I shout, finally pulling my head out of my ass and shoving him away from me. “I know what you’re doing, Leo Hudson! You’re saying all this shit about dreaming of me for twelve years just to distract me. You did it last night and it might have worked then, but I’m onto you now. There’s no way in hell you’ve held a torch for me after all this time and have been pining away for the day I might come back to town. No. Freaking. Way. Who does that? Someone who’s guilty of something and just wants to cover it up, that’s who!”

My hands are on my hips and my chest rises and falls rapidly with the heat of my anger.

“Are you finished?” Leo asks casually, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans against the hallway wall, his eyes flickering down to my boobs that are straining against my shirt each time I try to take in a deep, calming breath.

“Am I finished? AM I FINISHED?” I shout, my anger boiling over that he can stand there all calm and laid-back when I just got knocked up with a few kisses to the neck from him. “ONE OF YOUR DEPUTIES TASED ME!”

Of course I scream something stupid instead of saying what I really want to say: That I know he’s been lying and totally using me to keep his own ass out of jail, and it stings a hell of a lot worse than fifty thousand volts of electricity to the gut. All of this just makes me angrier because why in the hell do I care if he’s been using me? It’s not like I’m in the market for a man since I’ve sworn off men for the rest of my life after getting another voicemail from Benjamin today asking me how many people were on my side of the guest list so his parents could book their country club. And it’s not like I didn’t have the fleeting thought of doing the exact same thing to him and try to distract him with my feminine ways. The point is, I didn’t do it. I mean, I’ve been avoiding him and too busy spitting on dogs, stealing coffee, and having the whole town accuse me of murder, and I haven’t had time to dazzle him with my charm today, but still. I wouldn’t have done it because I have morals!

Well, aside from that one time I baked a pie filled with toilet bowl cleaner…

“I’m sorry Buddy Tased you. I swear I didn’t tell him to do that. I knew you’d be difficult, and he must have taken me literally when I told him to bring you in with force,” Leo apologizes.

“You knew I’d be difficult? Oh, you haven’t even SEEN difficult yet!” I argue.

“MUSKRAT!” Emma Jo yells from the laundry room down the hall where she made herself scarce after Leo got here.

Technically, I made her go and hide in another room as soon as Leo walked in the door and sent Buddy back to the station. And thankfully she understands stuttering just as well as I understand her drunk slurring since all I whispered in her ear was “P-P-P-P-IE!”. Even drunk as hell, she was able to realize what I was saying and knew she needed to get away from Leo until she sobered up a little since she’s reached a level of drunk I like to call “I have the inability to lie and it’s going to be soooooooo funny when I tell you how we killed Jed!”.

Going by her shout from the laundry room, followed by a loud giggle, she’s not doing a very good job of sobering up in there.

“Pay no attention to the drunk chick. She’s had a rough week,” I explain to Leo when he leans around me to look in confusion down the hall where Emma Jo’s voice is coming from. “How about you just focus on what’s important here? You’re a jerk and your lips have now been placed on my Do Not Call list.”

Leo sighs and runs his hand through his hair, making it stick up all over the place in the most adorable way until my hands itch to reach out and smooth it down for him. Then I catch a glimpse of the cuts and bruises on the knuckles of his right hand when he slides his palm down the front of his face and I have no problem telling my ovaries to shut the hell up and stop trying to cause trouble.