She nodded, clutching him closer. She didn’t care if it was socially acceptable or not. All she cared about was that right now, she felt something. Something that wasn’t fear. Something that wasn’t loneliness. Something that wasn’t frozen.
She was greedy for it, starving for it. Starving for him. It was almost embarrassing how much she wanted him, how safe and wild he’d made her feel in the past few minutes just with his lips against hers.
He would think she was crazy if she tried to explain it, but yes, yes, she wanted him.
“Yes. Come upstairs with me.”
Her eyes fell closed as he kissed her again, his tongue playing havoc with her mouth, teasing, torturing. She was drowning in sensation, and she loved it. For the first time ever in her adult life, she didn’t have to worry if a man was interested in her for her fame or money. She didn’t have either.
Gavin wanted her.
“Tell me one thing first.” His lips pulled away from hers.
“What?” She kept her eyes closed and tried to pull his head back down to hers. When it didn’t return, she opened her eyes.
His brown eyes stared down at her, but they weren’t filled with the same passion and gentleness they had been a few minutes before, when they’d been kissing outside.
These were the cold, focused eyes of the lawman. The soldier.
“I won’t be a sucker a second time, Lexi. Not even for someone as beautiful as you. You want me to go upstairs with you? Tell me, why are you here?”
Every part of her that had thawed under the gentle touches and brushes of his lips froze solid again. She dropped her hands to her side and withdrew so no part of her was touching him.
She’d been wrong. He didn’t want her, he wanted answers.
Interrogation hadn’t worked, so he’d switched to a different tactic.
She pulled every bit of strength she could muster around herself and tilted her chin up. “I think I already answered that question, Sheriff. Mac had a job, I needed one, and this seemed like a nice enough town with decent people.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Although, obviously that last part wasn’t fully correct.”
He flinched slightly. “Lexi—”
“Thank you for walking me home, Sheriff, and making sure I stayed out of trouble. But now it’s time for you to leave.”
6
Gavin had fucked up.
He’d known it the moment Lexi’s door had slammed in his face, and he still knew it now a month later.
Things had gone completely off track that night. He’d wanted answers. Wanted to figure out her MO. Wanted to delve into all the reasons why her green eyes could go from feisty to haunted like they were on a switch.
He’d been prepared to use multiple methods of interrogation to get to the bottom of Lexi Johnson. Kissing hadn’t been one of them.
Burning nearly to ash when their lips touched definitely hadn’t been part of any plan.
Sitting here in a booth at the Eagle’s Nest, at the thought of the heat between them, he still had to shift to make himself more comfortable. He’d never been that turned on in his entire life—especially not just from a kiss.
Yes. Come upstairs with me.
Those words falling from her sexy lips had haunted his dreams for the past month. The breathless way she’d said them. The little sigh that had accompanied her words.
The same little sigh she’d let out when he’d held her at that bar in Reddington City. That’s what had snapped him out of his lust-induced haze to remember that Lexi wasn’t trustworthy.
Knowing that, regaining his focus, and remembering why he was there with her had taken every bit of strength he had. For the first time in his life, he’d been tempted to forget about right and wrong, lies and truth, and just go with what he was feeling.
But he couldn’t. That wasn’t who he was. Redwood—his code name from the Special Forces, still used occasionally by the guys—didn’t operate in the gray. Didn’t ignore that there was a threat because said threat had a pretty face and gave kisses that blew his damned mind.
Lexi was lying, and he needed to know why. Needed to get to the truth about why she was here in Oak Creek.
But he could’ve handled it better. Not interrogated her in the middle of foreplay.
Gavin wasn’t known for being friendly. He could fully admit he was gruff even on his good days. What he was known for was his solidness and consistency.
But there was something about that woman that shattered his focus.
They hadn’t spoken since she’d slammed that door in his face. Every time he’d tried—because he admittedly owed her an apology—she’d turned and walked in the other direction.
She seemed to get along well enough with everyone else. Business at the Eagle’s Nest had been steady and good. Mac looked more relaxed than he had in years. They’d even started serving lunch. Gavin knew because he’d been here every single day.
And every single day, he’d expected to find Lexi gone. Expected to hear some sheepish tale from Mac about how she’d grabbed the register’s cash and split. All his gut instincts told him she was about to run and never be heard from again. And he trusted his gut—it had saved his ass way too many times for him not to.
But evidently, his gut was wrong when it came to Lexi Johnson because she hadn’t run. She was here every day when he showed up for lunch and here most evenings when he couldn’t seem to keep himself away.
“You’re staring at her again,” Zac said from across the booth as he took a sip of his beer.
“Fuck off. I’m not staring.” He was so staring.
“I’m assuming Lexi never gave you your two hundred dollars back?”
“She offered. But said she’d have to do it in installments, so I told her not to worry about it.”
Zac nodded, neither of them stating the obvious: that if someone couldn’t afford to pay back two hundred bucks in one shot, then they were in definite financial distress.
“Does she look familiar to you?” Zac said, turned his mug around on its coaster. “Sometimes when I look at her from a certain angle, I feel like I know her from somewhere.”
“Maybe.” Everything about Lexi had Gavin all backward, so he wasn’t sure he could trust any feeling when it came to her. “I ran her name through our network at the sheriff’s office. Nothing came up. No arrests, no convictions.”
“That’s good, right? Nothing is good.”
Gavin shrugged. “Just means she doesn’t have a record. At least not one under that name.”
“You think she has a fake name?”
Gavin scrubbed a hand over his face. “Hell, I don’t know. Something about this woman doesn’t add up. I don’t know what it is or why I feel that way, but I do.”
“Gavin, you’ve spent the better part of this year working in law enforcement. On our team in the army, you always did the questioning and interrogating. You were like a damned bloodhound, able to get to the truth of things.”
“And?”
“And it’s in your nature to be suspicious. That’s how you come at things.”
“But at least I used to give people the benefit of the doubt. Now I’m not sure I do that anymore.”