2. Sutton
Sutton
“ T hank fuck,” I muttered to myself after sealing the final envelope that would get me out of debt. I tossed the mail atop the pile on my right, eyeing the evidence of hard work and dedication toward rebuilding my bank account and reputation.
Of course, if Darla hadn’t seriously fucked me over two years ago, I wouldn’t be feeling this satisfaction over getting my life back in order.
Shaking my head, I shoved up from the kitchen table, ready to shower and hit the sack. I’d spent the day at the station, dealing with one headache after another paperwork-wise. At least the officer patrols around town had been quiet.
But having to make apologies to investors, bankers, and contributors for fundraisers and attempting to right all the wrongs Darla had done had been tougher than anything I’d faced in law enforcement.
I’d known Darla was a liar from the day she’d gotten me drunk and suggested I take her virginity out beneath the stars that summer night between our junior and senior years of high school.
We’d been each other’s firsts experience with intimacy of any sort, and although Darla had lied to me, manipulated me into getting her out of her dad’s clutches through pregnancy, she’d gifted me the best thing in my life—my son Jamie.
I’d set aside dreams of playing football in college and had taken care of my family as any good man would have done.
Our marriage hadn’t been the greatest, but it was peaceful at least.
Until she’d gotten caught siphoning off town fundraisers she’d headed up as the chief’s wife, ruined my credit, and accumulated various accounts of bank fraud. She’d hightailed it out of town like her ass was on fire.
But being the caring bastard I was, I hadn’t gone after her for damages. Sure, she could have been sitting in a jail cell, but the hurt she’d endured throughout her childhood, the trauma she’d carried into our marriage, had been enough.
“You’re soft.” I snorted at myself in the bathroom mirror, eyes tired, beard in need of a trim. Should have pressed charges and let her pay the consequences of her actions.
But I feared fucking up our son in the process and figured letting her simply disappear from our lives would be less painful. He would be sixteen this spring, and I’d decided it was time to sit him down and tell him the truth of why she’d abandoned us.
He’d been livid. Pissed at me for not throwing her in the slammer.
A smirk curled my lips.
My boy intended to play in the NFL someday, but he would have made one hell of a cop with his preference for truthful communication and doing the right thing. At least he’d gotten that part of me rather than his mother’s lack of ethics.
Hot water beat on my shoulders a short while later, and I heaved a sigh, my shoulders sagging.
I was officially debt free.
The shit of my existence that had been Darla was officially gone, and for the first time in I couldn’t remember how long, I had the house all to myself since Jamie was spending the night over at his best friend’s.
Quietness hovered over the house, and I couldn’t wait to crash face-first into my pillow instead of staring in the darkness long into the early morning hours over financial crises.
Rubbing a weary hand over my face, I set my thoughts on scrubbing so I could maybe catch up on the sleep I’d lost over the too-long months since she’d left.
Only two people had managed to thoroughly manipulate me, and I wasn’t unhappy the first no longer looked to me for support of any sort. Darla’s lying ass could stay gone forever as far as I was concerned.
The other?
A grimace marred my face even though I chuckled while sudsing my underarms.
Jimmy Riley rarely accepted help even though almost every single one of his actions screamed of desperation to be seen, heard, and comforted.
He’d done all sorts of scheming over the years, and even though he was still a bit of a runt, his power of persuasion and getting his way when it came to Pippen Creek’s Chief of Police was often snickered over by the townsfolk.
I didn’t really care what people thought. It was his constant fibbing that irked the hell out of me.
I’d spent years looking out for Jimmy since DHHS had deemed his dad capable of parenting and the house livable.
Jimmy had been the first kid to insist on ride alongs, and I’d gotten to know him pretty well—or, at least, what he allowed me to see through the facade of confidence and cockiness he wore as a shield to protect the tender boy beneath.
He’d been deprived of and needy for attention, often crying wolf after that first time I’d gone over to check on him and his dad.
Made it hard to trust the kid, that was for damned sure.
More often than not, he got in trouble at school, and a real wide smile would stretch his lips when he saw me striding in like the hero he’d claimed me to be since his father couldn’t be bothered to answer the principal’s call.
A soft spot in my chest had remained after we’d split our first chocolate bar, a weakness that didn’t allow me to brush him aside as the years passed.
I kept a supply of Snickers in my console during the cooler months, because the one person I could count on to be in constant need of me was that boy.
His smile remained in my mind when I finally crawled between the fresh sheets of my bed.
He would be eighteen tomorrow, and although he told me once he dreamed of having an emotional connection with a man someday and riding into the sunset toward his happily ever after, I wondered over his plans for the immediate future.
He’d assured me that didn’t include college of any sort. Other than working at Mary Wallace’s consignment and gift shop, he didn’t seem to have any thoughts on pursing anything greater for himself.
The boy could be a con man, take his skinny ass down to Boston, and make a killing schmoozing his way into rich men’s lives and their wallets. No doubt he would thrive under a sugar daddy’s care, but the idea of him leaving to pursue his desires didn’t sit right in my guts.
Wasn’t sure why, because I’d have been better off not having to deal with his lies on an almost weekly basis.
Soft.
I snorted at myself and rolled over, burrowing my face in my pillow and allowing sleep to finally claim me.
A loud knock pulled me from a dream of Darla of all fucking people. Guessed paying off her debt hadn’t rid me of her memory like I’d hoped for.
Grumbling, I blinked at my alarm clock to find it was only a few minutes after midnight.
The rap reached me through the house again. It couldn’t be Jamie—he had his own house key.
“If that’s Darla, I swear to fucking God…
” I muttered a few more curses, thankful I’d changed the locks.
The last thing I needed was her crawling back and begging for forgiveness or a second chance.
While I felt bad for the woman’s upbringing, I wanted nothing to do with her.
Once bitten, twice shy and all that shit.
Wouldn’t ever trust her again. She hadn’t only left my heart jaded, but my thoughts turned suspicious toward just about everyone else too.
A peek out my bedroom window showed a beaten-down vehicle I was well acquainted with parked by the curb and its blond owner below on the stoop.
Frowning, I pulled on a pair of sweats but didn’t bother with a shirt before hurrying down the stairs.
The knock came again, more persistent.
I yanked the door open, and a rush of cold air slid over my sleep-warmed skin.
Jimmy huddled in tight jeans and a long-sleeved shirt like he usually wore to hide his scratched arms. His hair was an artful mess of blond waves as though styled even though it was past midnight.
I had expected disingenuous tear-filled eyes, but his blue irises were bright, lacking the haze of alcohol I tended to see more often than not these days. Pink flushed his cheeks, and he shifted on his feet. The boy was up to something…
A knot twisted my stomach as I stepped outside onto the stoop with him. “Everything all right, Jimmy?”
“Fine,” he breathed the word with a smirk I’d been receiving a lot over the previous year or so.
My gaze narrowed, lips pressed flat. I should have invited him in from the cold, but my sixth sense and enhanced suspicious nature kept us in the night air. “What trouble are you up to tonight, boy?”
His smile faltered, and a hint of vulnerability flashed in his eyes before disappearing completely. The usual facade of confidence he wore slid into place, and I readied for whatever shit he was about to spew. “I want to give you something.”
Darla had said the exact same words on the night she’d manipulated me into sleeping with her.
Surely, I’d heard Jimmy wrong.
“What?” I snipped through my tight jaw.
Jimmy trailed a fingertip from my sternum to my belly button before I realized he’d moved.
I caught his wrist, electrical charges skittering up and down my spine.
He closed the distance between us, and I stood my ground, the cold settling into my bones. His wrist was thin, small in my wide palm, and the look he gave me after tilting his head up to hold my gaze hit me like a boot to the groin.
I’d known Jimmy was gay for years, but this was the first time he’d peered at me with blatant hunger.
“Let me get on my knees for you, Chief,” he whispered, already starting to sink.
I yanked hard on his arm, keeping him upright.
“Or you can bend me over.” He shrugged, his flirty smirk in place as he pressed fully against me. “I’ll spread my cheeks, and you can wreck my virgin hole.”
“Jesus—” I choked and released my hold on him, stumbling back a step.
He moved closer, insistent as always, hell-bent on getting his way.
My silence must have led him to believe I toyed with the idea of accepting his gift, because he grabbed hold of my cock, which lay limp inside my sweats—until his hand closed around me.
“Let me have this, Sutton.”
Hissing, I jerked away from him as my dick continued to swell. And why wouldn’t it? Two-plus years had passed since anyone had touched me below the belt. A simple reaction. Nothing more.
“I don’t want you like that,” I told Jimmy.
He opened his mouth to argue, but I swung the door shut in his face, cutting off whatever other deviousness he’d planned.
Rock in my gut and ears straining, I stood in the entryway, staring at the oak separating us.
What the fuck had just happened?
And why the hell had I shut him out like that?
The boy hadn’t worn a coat.
Or hat.
And it was January for fuck’s sake.
Guilt crept in, and I reached for the door handle.
His piece-of-shit car started up, and I listened as he drove away, leaving me in stifling silence.
Had I unknowingly groomed the boy? Led him to believe his hero was interested in pursuing a sexual relationship once he was of legal age?
“Fuck.” I ran both hands through my hair before spinning on my heel and stomping up the stairs.
My dick remained wide awake, my first goddamned hard-on in months .
I refused to take care of it before trying to sleep again though, because I feared Jimmy’s face would be in my mind no matter how I tried to erase the memory of those needy blue eyes.
Hopefully, tomorrow the boy would pretend as though he hadn’t propositioned me, grabbed my cock, and felt it begin to thicken with interest before I severed the connection between us.
But the next day, Mary informed me that like the other liar in my life, Jimmy had left Pippen Creek. Unlike Darla’s disappearance, however, I secretly mourned the loss of the kid who’d weaseled his way into my heart, woken something new inside me, and taken off without a backward glance.