Chapter 13
Thirteen
Cole
My head is swimming. I'm trying to keep my shit together for Lacey's sake, but it's a tough ask. It's like that saying about ducks: above the surface, they look chill, but under the water, their little feet are paddling like crazy. That's me, right now.
She drops a fucking nuke on me and here we are in my office, looking at my cold case files. But then, with shit this heavy, you need to take a break from it, or it'll consume you, drown you.
The department is quiet, this early on a Saturday morning.
The night shift is wrapping up their paperwork and getting ready to go while the morning crew trickles in.
Velasquez, manning the front desk, hurriedly pretends he's not shoveling donut holes into his face at a frantic pace when I waltz in with Lacey beside me.
"Mornin’, sheriff," he says, brushing at his salt-and-pepper goatee.
"Those fresh or from a deputy special?” I ask, jutting my chin at the box of donut holes from Big Joe's.
"Um. Fresh?" Velasquez says. "You, uh…want some?
" He sounds like he'd rather chop his own arm off than share his donuts, which has me suppressing a grin.
Velasquez is a bit of a walking, talking cop cliche, right down to the douchey mustache, overdone belt buckle-grabbing swagger, and a propensity to do more donut eating than policework.
He's a nice guy, though, despite all that, and everyone around the department likes him.
If I could get him to stop referring to me as "Champ" and "Boss-Man" and "Chief" and, worst of all, "bro-ski," I'd be pretty fucking happy, but then, you can't win them all.
I take pity on the man. "Nah, Skezzy, we're just popping in for a few minutes, we're gonna grab something later. But thanks for the offer."
He hates being called Skezzy with a passion, and I know it, and I know he knows I know it. I think that may be one too many layers of who knows what, but you get the gist. It's a test, is the point.
"Here if you need me, bro-ski—err, Boss-man. I mean. Um. Sir."
I hold a serious face as long as I can before bursting into laughter. “You just can't help yourself, can you, Velasquez?"
He reddens, which is kind of a neat trick for someone with that Hispanic skin tone. "You're not a nice man, Sheriff. I don't care what everyone else says."
I clap him on the shoulder as I go past, and then pause, reach back, and snag a donut hole and toss it into my mouth.
Lacey takes one, too, and then dips at the knees and gives Velasquez a chaste little peck on the cheek.
"Thank you!" she chirps, laughing when Velasquez bats her away, grumbling under his breath in Spanglish.
"What is it with cops and mustaches?" Lacey asks me in a stage whisper as I lead her through the bullpen to my office at the back of the station.
I stop, frowning, turn, and assess the deputies—of the four visible officers, three of them sport mustaches. "I mean, mustaches are the thing right now."
"No, I know," Lacey says, "but it just seems like, for some reason, the mustache-to-cop ratio is higher than in the regular civilian population."
I shrug, shaking my head. "I dunno. An interesting and not incorrect observation," I say. "I don't have an explanation for you, and no, I will not be doing a ‘stache anytime soon. Or ever."
Lacey wipes pretend sweat off her brow. “Whew. Thank god for that. I was worried for a second."
I frown. "I'm pretty sure you're joking."
She grins. "Oh, I am. Some guys can pull off a mustache, but not many, and most guys who think they're rocking the ‘stache…aren't." She reaches up and trails her fingers along my jawline—my heart skips a beat at her touch. "I like this. It really suits you."
I shut my office door behind us and close the blinds, then grab her by the waist and yank her against me, nuzzling her ear. "You just like how it feels on your thighs."
She shudders, sucking in a breath. "Cole. Not here."
"Well, I wasn't going to do anything, but now I am." I step into her, walk her backward until the edge of my desk hits her thighs.
Her thighs part, and I fit my hips between them, lean into her. Wrap her hair around my fist and tug her head back. Bend over her. Kiss her, hard.
She exhales into my mouth when we break after a few seconds. "Cole. A deputy could come in here at any moment."
"Not when I close my blinds they won't. That's my do-not-disturb sign."
She plants her palms on my chest and pushes me backward, but weakly. "Cole," she whimpers. "Not here."
She dressed in dark-wash blue jeans that have to be at least eighty percent Lycra with the way they mold to her ass. I ease her zipper down a millimeter at a time.
"No?" I murmur.
I fit my fingers into the elastic of her panties—she whimpers quietly.
I slip my hand down, fingernails skritching over the close-trimmed stubble above her sex.
I feel her tense all over, feel her breathing choke to a halt.
Tease my touch over her clit, and she bites down on her lip to muffle a shrill gasp.
"Cole!"
I ease my fingers away. "No?" I say. "If you're not comfortable with this, I’ll stop."
Her fingers circle my wrist and halt their movement. Her eyes are wide and pale blue and wild on mine. "I don't want your deputies to think—"
I press the tip of my middle finger to her clit, swallowing her gasp.
Her knees shake, and she dips as I circle, the dip of her knees in time with the circle of my finger.
She pants in time with my touch as well, and I keep my mouth pressed to hers as I bring her to the quaking cusp of climax—and then thrust that same finger inside her channel.
I barely catch her scream, fusing my mouth to hers and growling as she gyrates into my touch, coming hard and fast. My girl has a hair trigger.
Wait—my girl?
I push that errant thought aside and lock in on her as she dips at the knees and pants into my mouth.
My fingers squelch inside her tight, wet pussy as I finger her, and she locks her arms around my neck and hangs onto me for dear life as she comes apart.
She buries her face in the side of my neck and screams into my skin as she shakes through the orgasm, and then her knees give out altogether and her weight is momentarily borne entirely by her arms around my neck and my fingers inside her.
I grab an ass cheek in my free hand and hold her up until she regains her footing, and then I slip my fingers out of her.
She stares up at me with a vacant, dizzy, almost stupid expression for a moment. "Jesus, Cole."
I lick my fingers clean while she watches. Press my lips to her ear. "Never christened this office, personally." I pat her ass. "’Til now."
She sags back against the desk, panting softly while staring at me with a lascivious look on her face—a sexual version of a lioness about to pounce on her prey. "You still haven't, technically. Christening a room or piece of furniture means having sex. You fingered me. Not the same thing."
I grin, bracing my hands on the desk on either side of her hips, arms barred beside her. "You volunteering to go for the full christening right now, Sweet Thing?"
"Maybe when there's no one in the office," she answers.
"It's a sheriff's department, babe. Someone is always here."
She surges away from the desk and pushes me into a backward walk, around the desk, and shoves me none too gently into my chair. "Then you'll have to settle for this." Before I know what's going on, she's unzipped my jeans and has my cock hardening in her fist.
"Oh—shit," I hiss. "Lacey, fuck."
She covers my mouth with a hand. "Hush, Sheriff, wouldn't want your deputies to hear you moaning my name like that. Might ruin your rep as Three Rivers’ most eligible bachelor."
I go to answer—I'm not sure what I planned to say, though, because all mental capacity is abruptly erased when she sinks to her knees between my thighs and wraps her lips around my cock.
"Don't stop me this time," she whispers.
"Unh-uh," I grunt, eyes crossing as her tongue swirls over my tip.
She's grinning as she licks up the shaft like it's a triple scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream. "Men. So stupid when you're getting your dick sucked."
"We're kinda stupid all the time," I mutter, "And you didn't see the look on your face just now, after you got done orgasming all over my fingers."
“But that's not normal for me," she murmurs, lips moving against my shaft. "You're just that good at eating my pussy."
Or maybe I'm not all that good; she's just used to either subpar cunnilingus or none at all. I'm not about to say that right now, though.
Not when she's caressing my cock at the root with soft, slow, twisting strokes and sliding her lips all over the tip of my cock.
Not when she slides her fist up my length until the head vanishes, presses her mouth to the top of her fist, and then takes me into her mouth and down her throat all at once, mouth and hand moving in perfect unison.
"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," I breathe. "Lace. God, that feels so fucking good."
"You gonna be all noble and self-sacrificing again and stop me before you come?" She asks, gazing up at me through lowered lashes as she gives my cock slow, lazy strokes from tip to root.
"Not a fucking chance," I breathe.
"Did you think about me doing…this…to you, Cole?" She whispers, and then takes my length into her mouth and down her throat, gazing up at me without blinking, swallowing around my cock as her nose nudges my belly.
"Yes," I gasp. "Every—fuck. Every single day."
"Tell me," she whispers. “Talk to me."
"You really want to hear?" I rasp. "Fine."
She hums happily, eyes glittering and heated—there's no mistaking the fact that she's doing exactly what she wants to be doing.
"I tried so fucking hard not to," I murmur. "I watched porn. I looked at nudes. I thought about other…partners. But every single time I stood in my shower and grabbed my dick, the only person I could picture was you."
"Mmmm-hmmm?" she hums.