Chapter Nineteen
With an apology, Shepard leaves me in one of the interview rooms, a cup of shitty coffee in hand, while he goes to make his calls.
I take a sip of the bitter bean juice and gag. How anyone can stomach that is beyond me. Perhaps it’s how cops force a confession.
I lean back and let my eyes slip closed.
The day started so well and ended up in a royal shitshow, but then, I guess that’s usually the way things work out.
I try not to worry about how Riggs will react.
The man seems to get extra pissed when shit happens and he’s not around to protect me.
He’ll find a way to blame himself. I also have a sneaky suspicion that I’m going to find myself cuffed to him for the foreseeable future.
I don’t know how long I wait, probably not as long as it seems. I can still feel the heat of the coffee through the Styrofoam cup. When the door opens, I crack open an eye at Shepard as he walks in and runs his hand through his hair.
“I see your phone call to Riggs went well.”
“I forget sometimes, with how laid back he is, just how intense he can be.”
“He’s protective of women by nature. But when it comes to me, all bets are off.”
“I can’t say I’m not feeling the same way. I know this is bullshit, but if I don’t play it by the book…”
“They’ll fire you,” I finish. He said something to that effect before, and I’m not mad at him for it.
Hell, I’d rather someone like him call the shots around here than the previous sheriff.
Or worse, his son. “I get it, Shepard. I’m not mad.
I want this done right, for not just our sakes, but Sarah’s too. ”
“Good. I called Jen, by the way. I thought that call would be worse than the one to Riggs, but she was cool and calm about it all.”
“Well, this isn’t my first rodeo, Sheriff,” I tease. I might be pissed, but I don’t want to take it out on the wrong people.
I look around the room. It’s nothing fancy.
The walls are bare, no two-way mirror as you’d see in the movies.
The carpet is dark gray, the walls perhaps two shades lighter, and then the plain wooden table with a single chair on my side and two on his.
After years of being incarcerated in a room around the same size as this one, I might lose my mind if I have to stay cooped up for too much longer. What I need is a distraction.
“Did you call Austin?” I ask as I get to my feet.
He sighs and shakes his head. “Riggs is already a wild card. I’m not sure I want both of them going on a rampage.”
“He’ll be pissed you didn’t tell him,” I warn him as I walk around the table to him.
“I know, but I’ll deal with it later. Right now, you’re my priority.”
“Well, that’s good to hear.” I smile and get up on the table, swinging my legs around so they are on either side of him, and lean back a little. “You ever fuck someone in here before?”
It’s hilarious how scandalized he looks for a second before he gets to his feet between my legs and presses up against me. “Are you soliciting a police officer, Miss Hart?” he murmurs as his hands slide up my bare legs under the hem of my skirt.
“That depends. Is it working?”
He yanks me into him so I can feel the evidence of his arousal pressing into me. “What do you think?”
I reach up and grab his collar, pulling his mouth down to mine.
He doesn’t hesitate. The second our lips meet, he takes control, and I willingly cede my power to him.
When his hand skims over my now-wet panties, I widen my legs in invitation.
Shepard, the wise man he is, doesn’t miss it.
He tugs the lacy material aside with one hand before thrusting two fingers inside me with the other.
I moan into his mouth as he starts fucking me with them. When I’ve adjusted, he adds another. I’m writhing all over the table, soaking his hand and the wood beneath me, before he pulls away and starts unbuckling his belt and pants.
“You know someone might walk in, right?” I tell him.
“I don’t care. Nothing is stopping me from getting inside you. I don’t give a fuck if the precinct burns down around us.”
“Almost makes me wish there was a two-way mirror in here.” I smirk as he frees his cock and strokes it before pressing inside me.
“You like the idea of someone watching us, Poppy?”
“I like the idea of Mr. Black and White becoming a dirty shade of gray.”
He thrusts into me as his hand wraps around my hip, anchoring me in place. I hook my leg around his thigh and grip his shoulders as he fucks me hard, letting my head fall back so he can kiss his way up the column of my throat.
“I’m starting to find I’m incapable of telling you no.”
I moan loudly, probably deafening the poor guy, as I feel the rush of my orgasm racing toward me. “And yet I’m the one ready to shout yes, yes, god yes.”
I feel him grin against me as he picks up speed.
His hand snakes between us so he can play with my clit, stroking and flicking it when I gasp and shudder against him.
Just when I think I can’t take any more, he pinches it hard enough for me to scream his name.
He comes with me, both of us wrapped around each other as we ride out the storm, ignoring the chaos outside this room.
While our breathing slows to normal, he kisses me, this time keeping it soft and light until the little aftershocks have worn off.
Reluctantly, he pulls back and tucks himself away before dipping his fingers inside me and swirling them around in our combined cum.
He smears it over my pussy and into the skin around my thighs, leaving me a hot, sticky mess that stinks of sex.
“The fascination you three have with cum would be disturbing if it weren’t so damn hot.”
He grins against my mouth, covering my pussy once more with the lace. “It’s a man thing.”
“Bullshit. I think it’s because there are three of you, and this is the equivalent of peeing in a circle around me.
“And yet I don’t see you complaining.”
“This is me complaining.”
“Me thinks the lady doth protest too much. You fucking love wearing each of us on your skin. You like that your soaked panties remind you every time you move that each of us has come inside you, claiming you in the most primitive of ways. I bet if we were anywhere but here, you’d close your eyes and relive the moment as you slipped your fingers inside yourself and fucked my cum back into you. ”
My breath stutters at his words, my womb spasming at the thought. I want to tell him he’s wrong, but we’d both know it was a lie, and I don’t want to give the smug bastard the satisfaction.
“You know what else I think, Poppy?” he murmurs, pushing me to lie back so he can slide my T-shirt up, exposing my stomach.
“I think you might have a breeding kink. I think you like the idea of us all fucking you and filling you until it’s almost painful.
You’d swell with our child, and you wouldn’t know which of us was the father.
That shouldn’t turn you on, of course, but it does.
A little game of eenie meenie miney mo—the paternity edition,” he teases.
Though I make a sound of protest, I feel how wet I am, and it has nothing to do with his cum this time.
“The kicker is, none of us would care either. Seeing you round with our baby would be such a fucking turn on, watching your tits fill with milk that drips as they bounce on each of our cocks…” He ends on a growl, and I feel how hard he is once more.
Seems like I’m not the only one with a breeding kink.
“We’d keep getting you pregnant, of course. How could we resist?”
“And you really wouldn’t care who they were biologically related to?”
“They’d be all of ours. Love trumps blood every damn time. Could you imagine how protected they’d be with a crook, a cowboy, and a cop looking out for them?”
“You need to work on your labels,” I tease to deflect, liking the image he’s painting just a little too much. “We have more than one crook, you’re all a bunch of cowboys, and I think there is far more to you than just being a cop.”
“Only because of you.” I shake my head, but he tugs me up and cups my jaw.
“I made being sheriff my whole identity. You’re the one who reminded me that there is more to life than just work.
I spent so long hoping to make a bunch of ghosts happy that I was living half a life myself.
I’ve never craved anything more than I do you, but only an idiot wouldn’t notice the shadows in your eyes. ”
I still at his words. I should have known he’d notice.
He might be the most moral of all of us, but I’d bet he’s seen as much ugliness as the rest of us, perhaps more.
And yet every day he gets up, puts on his badge, and does it all over again.
He leaves parts of himself with every family he tells that their loved one isn’t coming home, or he makes an arrest and knows they’ll be out and hurting someone else before he’s even finished his paperwork.
He does his job because in people’s worst times, he is their shield against it all.
“I’m proud to be your girlfriend, you know.”
He blinks at the word girlfriend. I have to marvel at how easy it comes to me after I’ve broken the seal by saying it to Riggs.
“What you do…I couldn’t do it. Neither could Riggs nor Austin.
I know you think I have more in common with them than you, and perhaps that’s true to an extent, but you stabilize us.
It’s so much easier to slip into those shadows you noticed because the world doesn’t see us there.
It doesn’t judge us, set expectations for us, or ask anything of us.
It’s far harder to be a good person these days than to be an asshole. ”
He snickers at that but doesn’t argue.
“You, Dawn, and Hannah— you’re my Jiminy Crickets. You make me think before I react. I’m not sure I like it sometimes,” I admit, making him grin. “But I appreciate it.”