Thank you for your continued support.
Standard disclaimer.
"Sex is like air...it's not important, unless you aren't getting any."
Mercedes Jones
Sam's week was an exhausted blur.
His counterpart, Antonio Lopez, had been taking a lot of time off, because, he had a brand new set of twins.
So Sam was overworked and facing too many double shifts. And as a result, he wasn't in the best of moods, when he should've been getting off duty, instead of heading into an all-nighter, where he found a car parked oddly on the side of the highway, beneath a grove of trees.
Sam exited his vehicle to check out the car, but it roared to life, speeding off, tires squealing, and just narrowly missing two cars passing by.
'Bonehead move,' Sam thought, as he jumped back into his vehicle, flipped on his lights, and pulled the car over.
There were two guys in the front seat, and Sam didn't see anything suspicious inside the car, so he wrote a ticket for reckless driving.
The driver bitched about it, then proceeded to pull away, once again squealing his tires and laying down tread, barely missing yet another car.
Well, Sa,m was just pissed off enough to pull him over again, calmly issuing the Idiot of the Day his second ticket.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" the driver yelled. "Another ticket?" He thrust his car into gear.
"Careful," Sam warned him. "I have all night."
The guy muttered 'asshole' beneath his breath, but pulled onto the highway more carefully this time.
From there, Sam was called to traffic duty.
There were construction crews working on the main street in town and because of that, they had closed the road.
There'd been a flashing sign all week long warning people, and the crew had carefully barricaded the road in several places, posting 'road closed' signs, as well as detour signs.
And yet, several people still managed to drive around the barricades and then get angry with Sam, because they couldn't get through.
"This is ridiculous!" one woman screamed at him. "I can't get out of this mess to save my life. You're all assholes!"
Sam shook his head. She'd had to drive on the wrong side of the road to get passed the barricades...and he was the asshole.
"See that barricade you ignored and drove around?" he asked her. "You have to drive back the way you came. Go by each of the road closed signs that you passed...I believe there were three...and follow the detour directions."
Flipping him off, she turned around and headed back the way she came.
The next person to come through the barricades, was...Trent.
He had been questioned after the diner incident as a matter of course and hadn't reacted well. And he'd been running his mouth in town, telling anyone who would listen, that Sam was abusing his power, and he was going to bring him down.
The guy wanted a fight, but Sam wasn't going to give him one. There was no way was he going to allow him to jeopardize his job, or be a menace to innocent people.
It had been years...it was time for Trent to get over himself and get his life on track.
Unfortunately, Sam knew better than anyone, that you couldn't make a person do what they didn't want to do. He couldn't save Trent, any more than he could gain his own father's approval.
There was just some things, that had to be let go.
"What the hell's going on?" Trent asked, not bothering with his usual charm, not for Sam. "The road is closed? Why can't you douche bags do this at a more convenient time?"
Sam didn't respond to the fact that, he wasn't actually working on the roads. He was simply attempting to direct the idiots driving on them. Not to mention, it was midnight, so how much more convenient of a time could they get?
"How the fuck do I get out of here?" Trent asked.
Sam flicked his flashlight into the cab of Trent's truck, knowing he wasn't going to get lucky enough to find a bag of dope in plain sight.
"Well, here's the thing, Trent. If you can't follow the detour directions you've been passing, I don't know how you're going to be able to follow the directions I give you, to get out of here."
"Fuck you, Evans. Or maybe I'll just go fuck Mercedes."
Sams jaw clenched and he had to work hard, at not reacting at that one.
"Yeah," Trent said, knowing Sam enough to see right through him. "She's a sweet piece of ass, and you know what? She's hot for me."
"Stay away from her," Sam warned.
"Or?"
Or I'll kill you wasn't exactly the way to keep his job. And he'd never even had this problem before, the urge to say fuck the job and dive through Trent's window and strangle him.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Trent said on a grin. "Behind the badge, you're all pussy." He shoved his truck in reverse. "Think of us tonight, cozy in my bed while you're out here playing hall monitor on the roads."
Sam gritted his teeth and worked the rest of the night, doing his best to remind himself, that Trent was just an angry asshole.
An asshole who knew which buttons to press.
Just passed dawn, Sam drove to the B&B.
It was now seven in the morning, and he'd been up for just over twenty-four hours. But he told himself he needed some of Tessa's coffee.
"You look like shit, man." This helpful statement was from Noah, who was out of his Jeep and putting on his tool belt.
"Damn!" Sam said. "And I was planning on going straight to a photo shoot from here, too."
Noah grinned and whistled softly.
His three-year-old brown Lab was snoozing in the passenger seat. She scrambled to her feet and barked. But when she saw that nothing exciting was happening, she collapsed like a wet noodle, closing her eyes again.
"Come on, lazy girl," Noah said.
The dog cracked open one eye and stared at him balefully.
"Tessa will have breakfast," Noah coaxed. And with that, the dog leaped out of the Jeep and trotted to the B&B's front door.
Sam shook his head.
"You working on the day spa?" He looked around for Maylene's car. "Or are you and Maylene just going to play Contractor and the Missus again?"
"Hey, you're not supposed to know about that. Maylene hates it when people know about our sex life."
"Is that right? You're the ones who got caught by Mavis and her damn camera phone."
"Fucking Facebook! You know, I'd lost a bet with Maylene and the deal was, I had to strip. It's not like I do it all the time, but hell, when a pretty woman tells you to drop 'em, you drop 'em, you know?"
"Just be thankful, Mavis stuck her head into the attic, before you stripped down to just that tool belt," Sam said.
Noah sighed.
"She didn't even get Maylene in the shot. Just me, doing the strip dance and waving my shirt around. Someone should lower her estrogen dose or something."
"Or you could keep your strip tease to your own bedroom."
"What fun would that be?"
Noah closed his Jeep door and took a longer look at Sam.
"Rough night?" he asked.
"Long night."
"You stopping by to catch a glimpse of Mercy, under the guise of getting coffee?"
Sam narrowed his eyes.
But his friend gave him the same bland stare, that his dog had given him a moment before.
Sam blew out a breath but admitted nothing.
He hadn't been here in two days.
He'd told himself several things...that he was cutting back on caffeine, that he was late, and that he didn't need to waste the extra gas. And the list went on.
He told himself whatever he'd needed to, in order to make it work in his head.
But it didn't work. His main reason for going to the B&B, was in fact, to see Mercedes.
Noah walked into the inn's kitchen with Sam and got a very friendly kiss from Maylene, then headed to the sun-room.
Sam went and got coffee, casually looking around the kitchen for signs of Mercedes, but found none.
"Looking for anything special?" Tessa asked, from her perch at the stove.
Sam glanced out the window. No Vespa.
"She's not here," Tessa said dryly. "She's been sneaking away for a few hours here and there, needing to regroup." She paused. "It's because, she lets things build up inside of her. She tries to hide it, and pretend nothing gets to her. But things get to her. And people get to her."
"Tessa," Maylene said quietly from the kitchen table.
"He gets to her," Tessa said to her sister, pointing at Sam with a wooden spatula.
Sam released an exhausted sigh.
"What's wrong?" he asked. "What's happened?"
Tessa shook her head.
"Nothing. At least nothing specific."
"Any idea where she might be?"
She shook her head again.
"She said she goes somewhere that gives her peace and quiet...a place where she can think."
At that, some of the tension left Sam's shoulders, because, he had a decent idea where she might be.
"Sam?"
"Yeah?" he answered. Impatient to be gone, he looked back at Tessa.
Her eyes were fierce and protective.
"Don't make me sorry I told you."
There was an unmistakable threat in her voice.
Normally, that would irritate the hell out of him, but he kept his gaze level with hers and shook his head.
"I won't."
As he walked out, he heard Maylene say to Tessa,
"Look at you, meddling like a mother hen."
"She won't thank me," Tessa replied.
"Depends on what happens next," Maylene said, which was the last thing Sam heard as he left the inn.
Sam drove through town, hoping he was right about Mercedes' location.
Somewhere that gives her peace and quiet.
Hell, if he thought about it too much, that could be anywhere. The mud springs. Tenny's house. Yoga. Rock climbing...
He shuddered and hoped she wasn't doing anything like that, but when it came to her, one never knew.
Her idea of peace and quiet, was decidedly left of center.
But her partner in crime, Tenny, had been seen all over town with his new girlfriend, which hopefully meant, they'd all been too busy to get into trouble.
So Sam headed home for his own peace and quiet.
In the middle of the night, with no traffic and no red lights, it took fifteen minutes to get through town and up the hill to his house. This morning, as the sun rose above the tall mountains cradling Port Townsend, bathing the town in a golden glow, he made it in seven.
He idled in his driveway, staring at the Vespa parked there.
Not wanting to examine the odd feeling in his chest, the one that felt suspiciously like relief and also something more, he got out.
But he didn't go inside. He walked around the side of the house.
He flicked a glance at the outdoor shower, and as it had, every other time since he'd been in there with Mercedes, his dick twitched at the memory of her soft brown skin gleaming, water running in rivers down her curves...
He moved to the cliff and took the stairs to the beach.
The sun had risen a little more, casting the overhang in black shadow, making the rocks indistinguishable from one another.
At the bottom of the stairs, Sam kicked off his boots and socks and turned to face the cliffs.
The sun was in his eyes, blinding him to anything but the outline of the granite.
He noticed that the beach was utterly empty and completely isolated, which usually happens, especially at this time of year.
There was a salty breeze but the waves were subdued, soft and quiet...a lullaby, gently rolling against the rocky sand.
Somewhere, a bird squawked. And its mate squawked back.
But there was no sight of a pretty, curvy, wild beauty named Mercedes.
When Sam saw the single-track of small, feminine footprints, he sucked in a breath of pure relief.
"Gotcha!" he murmured, and followed the prints up the beach and around a large outcropping of rock, heading towards the cliff, where they vanished at the face of the rock.
If it hadn't been for the footsteps, he'd have missed her entirely. Because, even tilting his head back as far as he could, she was invisible to him.
But he knew she was up there.
He could feel her.
Shaking his head at himself, he began to climb, telling himself that this would be a hands-off talk.
Halfway up, Sam levered himself over a large, flat rock that jutted out, and found Mercedes.
She was sitting silently, her gaze hooded, and her arms clasped around her knees. Her lovely face was in profile, but still projecting a loneliness and darkness that called to him.
Because it matched his own.
He crouched in front of her.
"Hey."
Mercedes turned her head and studied him, from his bare, sandy feet, to his wrinkled uniform, and finally, his face.
And whatever she saw there had a small smile curving her mouth.
"Long night, Sheriff?"
"Noah asked me the same thing."
"It's because you look like shit."
"Yeah, he said that, too."
She nodded and scooted over, a wordless invitation to join her. So he crawled in next to her and mirrored her pose.
Earlier, he'd gotten the feeling from Tessa, that she had been upset, but he wasn't getting that vibe from her at all.
Just that same sense of needing and yearning for something, that he felt deep in his own gut.
Together, they sat and watched the waves for a few minutes in easy, companionable silence. And then, he asked,
"Are you all right?"
"Always." Mercedes smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "And now, I'll throw the same question back at you, Samuel."
She didn't often use his given name and he found that he liked the sound of it coming from her lips, way more than he should.
"Your sisters are worried," Sam said.
Mercedes blew out a sigh and sank farther back against the rock.
"They shouldn't be."
"Want me to take you home?"
"Are you asking, or planning on cuffing me and dragging me back?"
"If I cuff you..." he said, "...the inn is the last place you'll be headed."
She laughed softly.
"You're such a tease. You climb up here in uniform often?" she asked.
"Almost never."
She looked at him, that damn concern in her eyes again.
"You really do look beat."
"I am." He unbuckled his utility belt and set it on a rock.
"Don't stop there," she said.
"Right, and end up on Facebook."
Mercedes laughed.
"Mavis wouldn't do that to you."
"Only because she knows I'd arrest her."
"Sure you would."
Her smile faded, and was replaced by a thoughtful frown.
"Why is that, I wonder?"
"Why what?" Sam asked.
"Mavis loves to shout to the world what you do as Sheriff Evans, but the private life of Sam seems to be off-limits. She never outs you about anything."
"There's nothing to tell. I'm always on the job."
"No, seriously. Remember that day you changed her tyre? She was telling me all about your younger years, then totally clammed up when she got to your teens."
He wasn't tabloid material anymore, thank God. And he owed a big thanks to Mavis for that.
"I'm too tired to have that conversation with you right now."
'Or ever,' he thought.
"So...you're off duty."
"Yes, finally."
"Good."
Mercedes rose to her knees at Sam's side and tugged at his shirt, indicating she wanted him to lose it.
He really shouldn't, but he must have been even farther gone than he'd thought, because, he peeled out of his Kevlar vest, his uniform shirt, then the T-shirt he wore beneath, setting everything on top of a growing pile.
And she ran her gaze over his chest with frank appreciation.
Then, he shivered, realizing he hadn't really considered the weather. It was forty-five degrees max, but she was giving him a go-on gesture with her hand.
"All I have left is my pants," he said.
"That too, please."
"It's cold, Mercedes."
She tilted her head.
"Are you worried about shrinkage?"
'Well, I am now.'
"I've already seen your goods, remember? And trust me, Sheriff, you have nothing to worry about."
Sam laughed in spite of himself, then went still when she straddled him. And before he could so much as blink, she'd bent and kissed his collarbone.
Then his chest.
She touched her tongue to his skin, and he shivered again. This time, not from the cold.
"Mercedes..."
That was all he managed to get out, as his hands went to her hips, gripping her tight, when she shifted over an inch and licked his nipple.
Sam sucked in a breath.
"It looked cold," she whispered and blew a warm breath over his damp skin.
He shuddered, but the cold air the last thing on his mind now, as she rocked slowly over the obvious bulge behind his zipper.
"I thought I wanted to be alone," she said, grinding on him, until his eyes rolled to the back of his head.
"I know," he managed, tipping her face up to meet his gaze. "But I didn't want you to be."
She smiled.
"I like that about you. You listen to everyone, but then come to your own conclusions and do whatever the hell you want."
"If you knew what I wanted to do right now, you'd probably be shoving me off this bluff," he said.
"Don't count on it," she replied, then rose a little and covered his mouth with hers in a scorching kiss.
The kiss knocked Sam's socks off. Or it would have, if he'd been wearing any.
He pulled back and looked into her eyes, noticing, she was definitely no longer feeling lonely or sad, or anything negative at all.
In fact, her eyes looked soft and dreamy.
And dreamy was troubling, because it was more than just lust. Dreamy meant things he couldn't deliver, such as his own emotions.
It wasn't that he couldn't feel things for her.
He could, and he did.
God, he did.
He just had no idea what to do with them.
"Mercedes..."
"I was thinking about your shower," she said, nuzzling her face against his jaw. "I was sort of hoping to find you there."
"We never did finish what we started that day."
Mercedes smiled against him.
"Maybe 'we' didn't finish, but I sure did."
He laughed and so did she. And then somehow, they were kissing again.
"Hold on," Sam said, regretfully pulling back. "We can't."
"Sorry. That word doesn't compute."
He let out another low laugh and tightened his grip on her, when she nipped at his throat.
"I'm not risking you having another post-orgasm asthma attack, while we're way up here on the rocks," he murmured, then groaning, when she rocked the hottest part of her, over the hardest part of him.
"I have a better idea," she whispered.
'Thank God! At least one of us can still think,' he thought.
"What?" he asked.
She pulled her inhaler from her back pocket and waved it at him.
Leaning over him, she lightly kissed first one corner of his mouth, then the other.
"And I want you," she whispered, her mouth brushing his with each word. "So much. Please? Please, Sam..."
This was her idea?
To beg?
Because first, that really worked for him. And second...hell...he couldn't remember.
Sam shook his head to clear the fog, that was clouding his mind. What could he say to such a request?
Apparently nothing, because he brought her face to his and took her lips in a deeply passionate kiss.
And Mercedes lost herself in his embrace.
It wasn't a surprise,because, the man could kiss like nobody's business.
She was floating on waves of pleasure and desire when he pulled back.
"Not here," he said. Then, he began putting his gear back on to climb down. "Not on a sandy rock in fifty-degree weather."
Stay safe!