Sexy Lexy Read online

  “I love men in uniform,” she whispered, her voice laden with innuendo. “I especially like the butts of men in uniform. It does something to me.”

  Joey imagined her shuddering with delight at her new discovery. He was about ready to handcuff her. Then she wouldn’t be able to play games with his mind. Or his body.

  His brain went completely blank as she edged her fingers between his legs and squeezed his balls. The touch was electrifying. He would never have expected a woman to take advantage of him.

  With a roar, he began to back out of the car, but the erotic titillation had dulled his reflexes and slowed him down. SXY LXY was far too quick for him. She dislodged the handcuffs from his belt, pulled his hands behind his back, and he was suddenly her prisoner, his mouth open to shout at her, but nothing came except for a helpless sound.

  She leaned closer over his back. “What were you about to say, sheriff?” Her hand was no longer between his legs but settling over his spine with feather light caresses.

  “I have no idea what to say,” he grumbled. “Whatever would come out wouldn’t be appropriate for a lady’s ears.” A sex starved lady.

  “Oh, how sweet, calling me a lady.”

  How was he supposed to extricate himself from this situation? Never before had he felt so helpless in the hands of a woman. Oddly, he wanted more of SXY LXY’s silken touch and arched his back.

  His gaze fixed on the small piece of paper on the passenger seat. The registration card was startling white against the red leather.

  Joey read, “NAME: AMBER ALEXANDRIA WYETH” on the card. His heart sank. If this was the Amber Wyeth he’d stood up on prom night, he was in a boatload load of trouble.

  Amber heard Joey read her first name as if it had cost him a great deal of effort. Finally, he’d discovered who she was.

  “You want to come out and play with me, sheriff? You have a really nice ass.” For good measure, she firmly squeezed his cheeks one at a time.

  “Amber?” he pleaded without glancing over his shoulder at her. “It’s getting hot in here. Can you let me out?”

  She couldn’t imagine how much self-control he’d exerted to beg.

  “Why should I?” she asked, keeping her voice light and seductive. She wasn’t just saying anything that came to mind. Joey really did have a tight ass, one she would love to see naked and riding her with his unleashed energy.

  His voice was small. “Amber, why are you doing this to me?”

  He didn’t have a clue, which really surprised her.

  “Why don’t you think about it?” She didn’t like the hard edge to her voice or the hurt and anger that were once again, rearing their ugly heads. She wasn’t a vindictive person, was she? But she certainly enjoyed seeing Joey handcuffed while she felt him up. He had a big cock, big balls, big muscles, big everything.

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “I’ll give you a clue. Prom night.”

  Her pointed question was met with stony silence. His breathing was ragged and shallow under her palm.

  “Come on, Joey,” she prompted in her sweetest tone. “Think about it. Prom night, dumped, alone.”

  “I couldn’t come,” he replied evasively, shifting under her light touch.

  “Why don’t you look at me, Joey, and tell me that?” she dared him. Men just didn’t have guts, even if they were men in uniforms.

  Sure enough, he didn’t bother.

  “Why don’t you just tell me, Joey Hansen, that you were ashamed to take me to the prom?” Her voice rose, and she tried to quell the anger, but failed. Why couldn’t she let go of the misery he’d caused her, and the epiphany that had come to her that night. Men didn’t want her because of how she’d looked, so she’d changed her look. Light brown hair had gone to blonde, overweight had slimmed down to a hundred and five pounds, and she wore contacts to create blue eyes.

  Men loved her for her looks now, but she was still afraid to date, still afraid men would hurt her emotionally. She’d grappled with that for years, unable to think of ways to overcome her fear. She needed to confront the prom standup, to get past it. If she didn’t, she’d be trapped. There was no freedom without conquering the beasts of the past. Now, she was out here in the middle of nowhere, close to a town she’d left years earlier, a town she hated for its vile childhood memories.

  “Please, Amber, let me out, and I’ll explain.” This time, he looked over his shoulder with blatant contrition in his gaze. He was sorry, too little, and far too late.

  She sniffed. “Okay, but no funny stuff.”

  He wriggled his fingers. “I’m the one in handcuffs, remember?”

  Relieved, Amber nodded and stepped back, keeping her hands to herself this once. He wiggled out from the seat and gracefully rose on his feet. She loved the way he moved, like a sinuous cat, ready to pounce at any second.

  Joey faced her and pressed his lips together in a tight, grim line. Uh-oh. He wasn’t about to explain after all.

  “What good explanation could you possibly have?” she asked, dismayed that her voice was tremulous and expectant.

  Joey’s eyes met hers without flickering.

  “You’re really gorgeous,” he said, his gaze suddenly hot and hungry.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and waited. Patience wasn’t part of her mental makeup. “I’m still waiting for the explanation that will beat all explanations.”

  She wasn’t the only one who’d changed in ten years. Joey was much taller, more muscled, more sexy, more—

  “I wasn’t ashamed of you.” He swallowed hard. He lowered his voice. “I’ve never admitted this to anyone before. I was ashamed of me. Here I was graduating from high school with no money and with nowhere to go when all the other kids had somewhere they could escape to.”

  Unwilling to believe his stumbling confession, Amber continued to wait. He’d wanted to escape Cedar Ridge like everyone else did? Why hadn’t he then? Why was he still here then?

  “I left.” With a one-way bus ticket and a lot of bravado to a big city where she knew no one.

  He nodded. Sorrow and regret appeared in the taut lines of his handsome face.

  “I needed to keep an eye on my mom. Dad rarely came home anymore that he didn’t find some fault with her and beat her.”

  Amber began to understand the turmoil that had been Joey’s life. She remembered seeing the bruises one time, but hadn’t questioned him about them, thinking he’d hurt himself at roughhouse play as teenagers do.

  “He beat you, too, didn’t he?” she asked softly. Sympathy gripped her heart. She’d gone to school with him, but had never realized how his life outside of school had traumatized him. The hurt that had spiraled in her heart for years began to slip away as understanding took a firm hold on her. Being stood up hadn’t been about her being fat or unwanted, but about Joey.

  “Just once. He drank heavily. I turned on him and let him have some of his own medicine. He never laid a hand on me again.”

  She read between the lines of what he wasn’t saying. “But he continued with your mom when you weren’t around.”

  Joey nodded and hung his head. When he lifted his gaze, tears shimmered in his dark brown eyes. “I decided to train as the new sheriff, but it still didn’t keep mom from dying.”

  Amber closed the distance between them, snagged the key from his belt and uncuffed him. “What happened?”

  He rubbed his wrists gingerly. “I was away on a call. That night, he was drunker than usual. Who knows, maybe at his age, he couldn’t hold his liquor like he used to.” A pained grimace passed along his lips.

  The sympathy turned into ice-cold pain for Joey’s sake. She gently stroked his upper arm. What man could beat his wife on a continual basis?

  “He shot her. Then he turned the rifle on himself. End of story.”

  It rarely was the end of the story. Life went on, and so did the memories along with the feeling of vulnerability.

  Amber stroked his arm and felt the pain he’d gone
through. Not only had he been unable to save his mom, but he’d also lost his father.

  “I’m sorry about handcuffing you,” she told him, sincerely apologetic. Her cheeks burned with shame. “I should have left you alone, never come back here.”

  She tilted her face up and caught his hungry gaze. Deep in her stomach, she felt herself respond and lifted her mouth. He didn’t disappoint her. His warm lips settled on hers, and ever so gently, like a butterfly descending in a spray of outstretched wings and vibrant color, he kissed her.

  Her arms looped around to the back of his neck. He pressed the length of his hard body against hers, from chest to toe. Greedily, she took him as their lips mated in a dance as old as man himself. Amber had returned to Cedar Ridge for revenge, but she was about to get a whole lot more.

  Chapter Three

  Joey broke the kiss first and held Amber away from him.

  “I wanted to kiss you in high school,” he said, his throat choked with emotion, awestruck that this gorgeous female was someone he already knew. He wondered if she’d changed from the good-hearted girl she’d been, the one who would share her PB and J sandwich with him after she saw he had nothing to eat. Or the girl who used to furtively pass him the answers to the math quizzes Mr. Boson had sprung on them in ninth grade.

  Her blue eyes glittered. “I’d never have guessed.”

  “I’m off shift in a few minutes. Where are you staying?”

  Confusion flitted across her beautiful features. “Mrs. Hubert’s motel. Why?”

  Joey didn’t often deal with Mrs. Hubert, except for a few times when her patrons were disorderly and drunk. “I was thinking you could come to my place.”

  Her thin brow arched upward in question.

  He immediately knew what she was thinking and attempted to ease her hesitation. “It’s not my parents’ old house. I moved across town and into a new place. With a dog.”

  “Do you mean the place came with a dog?” she quizzed him. Her chest rose and fell with what Joey assumed to be excitement.

  He laughed self-deprecatingly. “I meant the dog came after the house. A cocker spaniel.”

  Suddenly, tension rose between them at her unusual silence. She moistened her bottom lip with the pink ribbon of her tongue, and he almost lost it right there and then.

  “I know you’re still mad at me,” he told her, hoping to salvage some of what they’d shared the last couple of days, even though it hadn’t placed him in as good of a light as he’d have wanted.

  Adamantly, Amber shook her head. “No, I’m actually mad at me now.”

  The mischievousness was gone replaced by melancholy. Or was it self-doubt? He wasn’t sure.

  “Hey,” he gripped her shoulders. “At least you’re back. If you hadn’t returned, we would never have discovered…” His voice trailed off.

  “Discovered what?” Her focus was sharp now, no longer dreamy.

  “Discover how I want to make love to you.” He’d put his foot in his mouth this time for sure. “I mean you could come back to my place, and I could cook us dinner,” he said hopefully. He tried for funny. “Or do you only eat veggies with such a slender figure?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean by that? I’m not a vegetarian.”

  Uh-oh. Now he’d slammed his foot in his mouth. His shoulders tensed. “I don’t do vegetarian, either. I’m more of a meat and potato kind of guy myself.”

  “Aren’t you going to explain what you meant with the veggies?” she asked, uncrossing her arms.

  She looked delectable in the black lace bodysuit that hugged every one of her curves but discreetly covered her nipples and her mound. Joey’s cock began to harden again. There was nothing like old memories to energize his sexual fantasies about SXY LXY.

  Amber watched as Joey closed his eyes tight.

  “It’s sure your day for explanations,” she told him as his eyelashes fluttered and his hungry gaze took her in from head to toe and back up again.

  He shrugged nonchalantly. His shoulder muscles rippled with the movement. “Dinner?”

  She shook her head. “I’m going home.”

  Her voice was filled with regret. It might have been fun to continue playing with Joey and actually landing him in bed, but she couldn’t do it. Not after what she’d learned about him. The revenge factor was dead, and there was no point in going on, except for that one, lingering kiss. The kiss that had blown her mind and wet her very thin, silk panties.

  Joey glanced at his wristwatch. “Only a few seconds left.”

  A few seconds left for what?

  “Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

  Before she could ask him why he was counting down, he gave her a wry look and suddenly, leapt forward with the handcuffs. Her hands were behind her and immobile as Joey spun her around. “I’m placing you under arrest, Sexy Lexy.”

  Her heart jumped into her throat. This time she’d stepped way over the line with her provocative clothes and behavior.

  Joey worried that Amber was taking him seriously. Her glittering eyes widened in shocked surprise, and her lips quivered as she asked in a low, still sultry voice, “What did I do wrong?”

  He might as well play her as she had him. She was smart, and she’d figure it out in short order. He gave her the wickedest smirk he could manage without giving himself away. “Messing with an officer of the law to start with.”

  She groaned and blinked as if she were about to cry, but she didn’t try to vociferously defend herself, as most people whom he arrested did.

  “Secondly, you’re clothing, or lack thereof, is indecent for a public place.” He held his breath. Had she figured out he was kidding her? He was a terrible actor, but she seemed to be taking the bait—hook, line and sinker.

  Sweet mercy, but he badly wanted to make love to her, to cup her breasts in his hands, to drive deep into her slick pussy. Her nipples jutted out against the black lace, and she was quivering from head to high heel. His cock was so damned hard for her.

  Glistening with tears, her blue eyes searched out his gaze.

  “Are you going to take me to jail?” she asked, her tone quiet and afraid.

  Unable to speak for fear of revealing himself, he nodded.

  “Oh,” she breathed, but he found even that sexy.

  “Are you going to book me and fingerprint me?”

  He nodded again. Most everyone knew what happened to criminals after they were arrested, thanks to TV, but Amber’s only crime had been to arouse him to fever pitch. And she kept it up. She rubbed her thighs together and gazed off into the distance. What could she be thinking about? Sex with the sheriff? Or more likely the disquieting knowledge that she was being arrested.

  A soft sigh escaped her lips. “Um, sheriff, I’ve got an itch that I can’t get to.”

  Maybe he should just let her go instead of struggling with himself and playing a losing game of one-upmanship. Joey hesitated but couldn’t help wanting to touch her, even if it was only to scratch an itch.

  “Where?” he asked, surprising himself that he’d asked in a higher pitched voice than was normal.

  “On my upper thigh.”

  He pursed his lips, wondering if getting any closer to Amber was a good idea. Probably not, but he’d go for it. He sank to his knees, and sweet mercy, did he have a view of her.

  “Almost right where my thigh meets my pubic bone,” she whispered in encouragement.

  Why didn’t he loose the handcuffs so she could get at the itch herself? Joey was playing on dangerous ground, and he knew it. If he got any more worked up than he was already, he’d explode right in front of her. He reached tentatively toward her thigh.

  “Um, yeah, close to there,” he heard from above him in a breathy tone.

  If he touched her, he’d have to do more than lightly scratch. He sucked in a breath. This had to be the hardest thing he’d ever done. His fingertips landed on her thigh, very close to her black-covered mound. Did she shave those tiny, curly hairs?

  “Um,
a little closer to the other side,” she murmured.

  The other side meant closer to those parts that made her female. Joey imagined the hard nub glistening with her moisture, and his pulsating cock toying at the entrance of her wet channel. He reached closer, and itched a little more, far too close to territory he wanted to explore with Amber naked and under him.

  “Oh yeah, that’s better.” She sighed and tilted her pelvis closer to his face and his nose. She smelled all female and of musky arousal.

  Good. She’s satisfied. I can let go of her now.

  “Um, Joey.”

  Joey gazed up the length of her body, past the hot, slick area he wanted to explore, her flat belly, and her tantalizing breasts. “Yes?” he croaked.

  “Are you going to do a strip search?”

  He mumbled something incomprehensible. A wicked smile curved those delicious, kissable lips.

  Then he realized he’d been had. Again.

  Chapter Four

  Amber couldn’t get enough of Joey’s fingers edging along her upper thigh and heading toward that hot, wet spot that demanded satisfaction. She’d laid aside her sympathy and decided that, in the short run, Joey might enjoy a little foreplay before actually making out. She liked the idea. On one hand, she’d get revenge, although it now had a hollow, empty ring to it, and on the other, she could ease her curiosity about him.

  Suddenly, he rose, his expression unreadable, and said, “I’ll take you to the station.” More as an afterthought, he added, “For that strip search.”

  Had he figured out she’d been toying with him about that itch, that she’d spoken a little white lie? To tell the truth, the itch hadn’t been that far away. She gulped. “Station? Strip search? Are you serious?”

  His face was still unreadable. “Deadly serious, Sexy Lexy.” He gave a frank look, and added, “Thirdly, which really ticks me off, you were driving with without due care and attention as you drove from one lane into the other.”