Page 50 of Tethered

Shepard looks up at me, a look of exasperation on his face as I try to look innocent.

“Hey, Sheriff.”

“Poppy.”

I narrow my eyes at him. He knows how I feel about him using that nickname when I’m still mad at him. When his eyes drift from me to Austin, I wince. I’m being unfair. If I can forgive Austin for what he did, I can forgive Shepard. What Austin did was far worse. The only difference between the two is that I’d been building something with Shepard when he shit all over it.

“Someone want to tell me what the fuck is going on here?”

“That prick was about to put his hands on Cece,” Austin snarls.

Shepard’s eyes lock on mine. “Cece?”

I look at Austin and see his lips twitch. It was a deliberate move after hearing Shepard call me Poppy. Damn these fucking men.

“Austin took me to run some errands. We came here to eat, and then Porter turned up and started spewing shit about wanting Dawn and Hannah back. Or hisproperty, as he referred to them. And then he called me a whore.”

Shepard presses more of his weight into Porter’s back, making him cry out. “Is that right?” He pulls out a pair of cuffs and snaps them around Porter’s wrists before dragging him to his feet and reading him his rights. He hands him off to one of his officers before walking over to me.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reassure him.

He reaches up and tucks my hair behind my ear before he leans in and asks in a quiet voice, “Want to explain why it looks like you’re on a date with a man you wanted to murder a month ago?”

I huff and pull back. “I don’t murder every man I meet, Sheriff. Give me some credit.”

He rolls his eyes at me. “You know what I mean.”

“I was hungry, that’s all.”

“Yeah?” He dips his head, his lips skimming over mine. Someone gasps. Or maybe it’s me. “Then why do you smell like sex?”

I blink in surprise before I feel my cheeks heat up. “We didn’t—” I snap my mouth shut. We might not have had full-blown sex, but what we did was about as close as you can get. I bite my lip, unsure how to respond.

He shakes his head, looking amused. “It bodes well for me that you forgive easily.”

“I haven’t spoken to you for months until recently. How is that forgiving easily?”

“If I know Austin, he fucked up big, maybe even bigger than me. And yet here he is, alive and kicking. So like I said, I like those odds. Now I’d better go book Porter. I’ll get your statement later at dinner.”

“Fine.” My shoulders slump. I don’t have it in me to fight anymore. At least not today.

“Good girl. I’ll see you at dinner.” He kisses me lightly before pulling back and tipping his hat to Austin. “Dyer.”

“Sheriff,” Austin replies. There is a weird undertone between them. I don’t know if it’s because of me or because they are on opposite ends of the law. Either way, I keep my mouth shut until Shepard has gone before whirling on Austin, hands on hips, ready to lay into him.

He places a kiss on my temple. “So what time is dinner?”

Chapter Fifteen

The house is quiet when I walk in. I silently make my way upstairs, hoping I can jump in the shower before I find Riggs and talk to him. I walk into the bedroom and strip out of my top and bra, tossing them in the laundry hamper before I kick off my boots and wriggle out of my skirt—they end up in the hamper with the rest of my clothes. I walk into the bathroom to flip on the shower before I head back to the bedroom to pull out clean clothes. I freeze four steps in whenRiggs appears in the doorway. His gaze moves over my naked except-for-my-panties body.

The look on his face can only be described as carnal. Yet there is something else there too, just beneath the surface. Something possessive that makes my pussy throb.

“You were gone longer than I thought. Everything go okay?”

“I…” I swallow, fighting the urge to back up. “A lot happened. Some of it good, some of it not, but I need to talk to you first about something else.”