Page 7 of The Policeman Bidder
His gaze drops, and for a second, I freeze.
I'm not the kind of woman who graces magazine covers. I've got curves and softness and hips that don't lie—but I've also got insecurities that whisper when the lights are low. What if I'm not what he expected? What if all this buildup leads to disappointment?
But Weston?
He looks at me like I'm the Sistine Chapel and he's seeing it for the first time.
"God, you're beautiful," he says, his voice all gravel and reverence. His hands span my waist, thumbs brushing the soft skin just below my ribs. "You have no idea what you do to me."
My breath catches as he reaches behind me and unhooks my bra with one smooth motion. It slips down my arms, and then his hands are on me—gentle, then not so gentle. Cupping, caressing, thumbs brushing over nipples that harden at his touch.
He lowers his head and takes one nipple into his mouth, tongue flicking, sucking, teasing until my knees threaten to give out. My fingers dig into his shoulders for support, and I arch into him, shameless and aching.
"I've thought about this," he murmurs against my skin, moving to pay equal attention to my other breast. "Dreamed about you."
"Show me," I whisper, tugging at his still-damp shirt.
That's all it takes.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, my legs wrapping instinctively around his waist, and carries me down the hall. I expect him to ask which door leads to my bedroom, but hedoesn't hesitate, finding it unerringly—as if he's mapped out my entire home in his mind.
The way he looks at me—it's not just lust. It's something deeper. Something that scares me almost as much as it thrills me. Like I'm a mystery he's been dying to solve, a case he can't close.
When he lays me down on my quilt-covered bed, he takes his time undressing me, kissing every inch he reveals. The curve of my hip. The soft flesh of my belly. The inside of my thigh where a pulse beats wild and urgent. And when it's his turn, I sit up, unbuttoning his shirt slowly, needing to feel the heat of him. His body is everything I imagined on those nights when anger gave way to other emotions—hard muscle, golden skin, and that little trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his waistband.
When he's finally naked above me, I take a moment just to look. To appreciate the broad shoulders, the taut abdomen, the proud evidence of exactly how much he wants me.
"You still sure?" he asks, even though he's already sliding a hand between my thighs, making me whimper at the first touch against where I'm already slick and ready.
"Yes," I breathe, spreading my legs wider in unmistakable invitation. "God, yes."
What follows isn't gentle.
It's raw, needy, built from two years of unresolved tension and a whole lot of craving. He fills me completely, stretching me in a way that walks the exquisite line between pleasure and almost-pain. But it's also careful—his hands never stop touching, grounding, reminding me that I'm safe, that this is real. That I'm with a man who sees me—really sees me—not just as the angry environmentalist or the town troublemaker, but as a woman worth wanting.
When I finally fall apart beneath him, clenching around him as waves of pleasure crash through me, it's not just from the way hemoves inside me or the clever circles his thumb makes against my most sensitive spot—it's from the way he whispers my name like a prayer, like something sacred.
And when we're tangled together afterward, bodies still humming, sheets damp with sweat and rain and release, he presses a kiss to my forehead and says, "I meant what I said, Junie."
"About dreaming of me?" I ask, drawing lazy patterns on his chest, marveling at how comfortable this feels. How right.
"About wanting more than one night."
I close my eyes and let myself hope. Just a little.
Six
Junie
Iwakeuptothe sound of morning rain against my windows and the weight of a very large, very warm arm draped across my waist.
For a disorienting moment, I forget where I am. Then I remember: my bed, my house, Deputy Weston Carter breathing softly against my neck like he belongs there.
My chest tightens with something that might be panic or might be hope. I'm not sure which is more terrifying.
I ease out from under his arm, bare feet silent on the hardwood floor as I make my way to the kitchen. My reflection catches in the hallway mirror—hair wild, lips still slightlyswollen, wearing nothing but his button-down shirt from yesterday. I look thoroughly ravaged and stupidly happy about it.
The coffee maker gurgles to life as I try to process what happened last night. What's still happening, technically, since he's still here, still warm and naked in my bed like some kind of beautiful, complicated gift I'm not sure I deserve.
