Page 5 of Cash’s Trouble

“I didn’t say you caused trouble. I said you were trouble.”

“For you?”

I look at her bruised wrist, then her mouth. “You already know the answer to that.”

“No, I don’t. You never gave me anything except the occasional nod across the street.”

“Because I knew anything else was a bad idea.”

“You figured that out without even speaking to me?”

“I know you watch me.” Her cheeks warm, but she holds my gaze.

“You noticed me.”

Her breath catches as I move closer, slowly enough that she has every chance to step aside. She stays against the dresser, her hands curling around the edge behind her.

“And my chest,” I continue. “Sometimes the tattoos. Mostly when you think I’m busy looking somewhere else.”

“That is an impressive amount of arrogance.”

“It’d be arrogance if I were wrong.” I stop close enough to feel the heat of her body. “You keep looking at me like you’re wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

I lower my head until my mouth is near her ear. “What happens when the bad man your father warned you about stops being polite.”

A tremor moves through her. Her eyes are clear and fixed on mine when I straighten. “You don’t know what I want.”

“Then tell me to move.”

She parts her lips, but no words come. I give her one more second.

Instead of telling me to leave, she grips the front of my cut and pulls me down. The first touch of her mouth strips away every month of restraint built through stolen glances. I catch the back of her neck and kiss her the way she has been asking me to without ever speaking. The kiss is deep, hard and certain enough to make the dresser knock against the wall behind her. She opens for me with a sound that goes straight to my cock, and I take her mouth until neither of us is pretending this is curiosity anymore.

Her fingers tighten in my cut. I slide one hand around her waist and pull her against me, feeling every soft line beneath the thin blouse and skirt. She fits close, breasts pressed to my chest, one thigh shifting between mine as if her body has already decided how much closer it wants. I kiss the corner of her mouth, her jaw and the pulse racing beneath her ear. She turns her head to give me access, and the sheriff’s good girl daughter makes a breathless sound when my teeth scrape her skin. The sound nearly ends the last of my control.

“Cash.”

Hearing my name in her voice hits harder than seeing Doran’s marks, and in an entirely different way. I cup her ass through the skirt and lift just enough to seat her on the edge of the dresser. Her knees part around my hips, and I step between them, pressing hard against the heat I can feel even through our clothes.

She arches into me. I take her mouth again, slower for half a second before hunger wins. Her hands leave my cut and slide beneath it, over my ribs and the fitted T-shirt underneath, learning the body she’s watched from across streets and through bank windows. I let her because I want those careful hands everywhere. Then my thumb brushes the bruise on her wrist. The image of Doran dragging her toward that SUV cuts through the heat. I stop with my forehead against hers, breathing hard enough to feel her answering breath against my mouth.

“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t stop now.”

I close my hand around the edge of the dresser instead of her. “Not tonight.”

Her eyes flash. “Because my father told you not to?”

“Your father doesn’t decide who I touch.” I ease back far enough to see her properly. Her lips are swollen, her blouse open one button lower than it was in the yard and desire still shaking through her body. “I can still see those men putting their hands on you. I’m not mixing that with this.”

The anger in her face shifts, though the heat doesn’t. “You think I don’t know the difference?”

“I think you do. I also think you’ve had enough taken from you tonight.”

She studies me for a long moment. “That sounded almost decent.”

“Don’t tell anybody. I’ve got a reputation to keep up.”