Free I Caught the Sheriff by Cerise DeLand Page B

Mr.
Coltrane—”
    “Lex.”
    “Lex. I’m hungry and I take my time eating.”
    I do, too. He narrowed his eyes just to keep from
running them down that toned, come-to-papa body. Down, boy. She’s looking
for company not a hook-up. “I’ve got money.”
    “Oh, I’m buying,” she announced, her mouth twitching when he
questioned her with raised brows. “Wouldn’t want anyone to think you could buy
me things and get any special treatment.”
    What if I want it? And I just come and get it?
    “You’ll be safe with me,” he reassured her, while he scolded
himself for X-rated visions of her bare-ass naked and spread-eagle on his
kitchen counter.
    “No temper tantrums today?” she tossed the challenge at him
with raised brows.
    “None. Just tell me what you do want and I’ll be a good boy
and oblige.”
    She picked up the reins of her mount and gestured to him to
walk beside her toward the oak trees where the sheriff department’s other
horses were being tied and hobbled. “Thanks.” Her gaze danced over him like
twinkling blue-white diamonds. “That’s an offer I’ll take from the most
powerful rancher in the county.”
    Damn. He was in trouble. He couldn’t tell if she was
teasing him or flirting with him. Been so long without a woman, Coltrane,
you can’t be friends with a lady you find hot as sin? “What is it you do
want from me?”
    She stopped and faced him, her gaze frank, bold and
seductive. “Aside from lunch?”
    “Yeah.” A man could always hope for big things. He nodded,
enjoying the way she pouted her lush lips. “And companionship on the Fourth of
July.”
    “An introduction to the movers and shakers in the county.”
    What did you expect, Coltrane? An invitation to her bed? His cock said yes . His eyes said why not . “You’ve forgotten them
from your childhood?”
    She finished tying her horse to the tree limb and turned to
face him, leaned really close and brushed those firm, hard nipples against his
chest. “I have. People change in more than a decade. I need to get
reacquainted.”
    With me, for certain. Twenty years ago I was a wild-ass
guy at Texas A&M. And you were a kid here in elementary school. He
inhaled, took her elbow and looked over her shoulder, away from all that pretty
temptation. “Then I’m your man.”
     
    She had as much chance of landing Lex Coltrane in her bed as
there was rain in the forecast. Both were zero. But hope sprang eternal and if
getting next to him was as good as she got, she would chalk up her discretion
as a job requirement. She needed to make friends here in this county where only
last month she’d been appointed to replace the deceased sheriff. So hooking up
with Lex Coltrane was an urge she should keep under wraps. In her panties. Her
very damn wet panties.
    But few men ever challenged her. They were too stunned by
the combination of her looks and her job. Yet since this man had walked into her
office the other day and shown her his own hot determination and fiery good
looks, he had obsessed her. His swagger in tight jeans and his broad-as-a-barn
shoulders made her as horny as hell. The coal-dark hair and deep purple eyes
made her purr just to look at him. The big hands weren’t bad, either. Oh lord.
Could he put those hands on her? Please?
    Hold on there, Sheriff! Lana patted her horse’s mane
and fell in step with the most luscious man in the county. He was a widower,
too, and unattached to any one female, she’d learned from her deputy.
    “What’s your pleasure?” Lex interrupted her reverie as he
led her toward the food stands. “Sausage? Tacos? Corn dogs?”
    “One of each.”
    He whistled. “Sheriff, ma’am, you better plan to work all
that off fast.”
    She so liked his easy manner, all smooth-talking Texas charm
and tough rawhide. “Advice from a man who knows women?”
    “I had a wife who watched every morsel she put in her mouth.
Loved her to bits, but she drove me nuts counting calories.”
    Lana chuckled. Word was