The Naughty List Bundle - Kylie Adams [126]
Misty gave a loud sigh. “Now what are you scowling about? I insult you and you laugh, I compliment you and you start glowering at me.”
Morgan didn’t move. She had an impish look about her that intrigued him. “Come closer and I’ll tell you why I’m frowning.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.”
“Afraid of me, Malone?”
She made a rude sound, refusing to be drawn in by his obvious challenge. “Not likely. You’re as big as an ox and built like a ton of bricks, but you don’t beat up on women.”
He made his own rude sound. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” He lowered his voice to a suggestive rumble. “You’re afraid if you get too close, you won’t want to move away again. But this is my office and I don’t do hanky-panky here. At least, not any serious hanky-panky. So you’re safe enough.”
“And what constitutes the serious stuff?”
He looked at her breasts and felt his heartbeat accelerate. “Anything below the waist?”
She swallowed and he could see the thrumming pulse in her throat. “Howard and Jesse are right outside.”
“Not for much longer. I only let them work for a few hours a day, mostly in the morning because the afternoon heat is too much for them.”
“Then why have them doing that job at all?”
She was bound and determined to distract him, so Morgan let her. The last thing he wanted was for her to be wary of him. “Their pride is important to them, and to me. Already they’ve told anyone who’d listen that I’ve given them such a hard, impossible job, then they come here and have a great time futzing around, proving that they can do it. In fact, they complain about the short days I insist on, because Jesse used to be in construction and Howard was a farmer. They say they’re used to the heat, but—” He realized he was rambling and ground to a halt.
“You’re pretty wonderful sometimes, Sheriff, you know that?”
He unfolded his arms, letting them hang at his sides. In a rough whisper, he said again, “Come here.”
She took one step toward him, then halted. “This is crazy.”
Morgan nodded in agreement. Crazy didn’t even begin to describe the way she made him feel.
She looked undecided and he held his breath, but she turned away. She pretended an interest in the office. Her voice shook when she started talking again. “This is your desk?”
She picked up a framed school picture of Casey and studied it.
“You know it is. My office is the biggest room. The cells are in the basement, though they seldom get used—and yes, I’ll take you on a tour in a bit. The kitchen has been rearranged into a lobby of sorts, and there’s always coffee there for anyone who wants it. The family room faces the kitchen through open doorways across the hall, and that’ll be where you work. There’s a lot of office equipment in there. I’ll have my deputy, Nate Brewer, show you where he keeps things and how to use the file system. The upstairs has been turned into conference rooms for different community events.”
He watched her inch closer to him to look at a plaque hanging on the wall. Not wanting to scare her off now that she was almost within reach, he said, “That’s my mission statement.”
“Mission statement?”
“My intent for holding office as sheriff. The community got to read it prior to the election.” He was thankful she didn’t read the whole thing. His patience was about run out and he just wanted to taste her.
“You had the plaque made?”
“Nope. The advisory board did.” He saw her start to ask and said, “They’re a group of citizens that bring concerns to me. Sort of a community awareness system.”
She leaned closer to the plaque. “It says here that you founded the advisory board during your first term in office.”
He shook his head. “I was the one who suggested a voice in the community, so they’d all feel more involved in decisions. But they’re the ones who organized the board and set up the structure for it. Now they have these big elections to decide who gets to serve in the various advisory board positions.”
She moved closer still, examining a trophy on the mantel beside him. Morgan tried to block it with his shoulders, but she inched