Mate Marked(14)

She was wearing jeans, a button-down denim shirt and hiking boots. She’d pinned the sheriff’s star on her shirt. She’d been told that the sheriffs here wore civilian clothes, but she figured that her frilly, lacy outfits would be pushing it.

She was hauling along the non-lethal weapons she’d selected from the arsenal dropped on her desk the previous afternoon, courtesy of the mayor. She had refused the silver bullets; she wasn’t killing anybody.

She stood in the clearing and surveyed the camp.

There was a group of tents clustered together, and others scattered throughout the surrounding woods. There was a big ring of stones circling a fire pit. There were picnic tables with benches. The tents were all big and sturdy, canvas draped over criss-cross log tent poles, and elevated with wooden platforms. Everything looked well-constructed and solid.

She moved closer to the tent on the hillside that she knew was Roman’s. Erika had introduced her to some of the outlaw groupies, shifter girls who liked to visit the camp and have a good time with the bad-boy outlaws. For those girls who didn’t want anything serious, the fact that the guys would be moving on in a few months was part of their appeal. One of the girls, who was mad at Roman because he’d turned her down, had described the layout of the camp to Chelsea.

Fortunately, his tent was set a little distance from the rest of the tents. If she was lucky, she’d be able to disable him and get him into town without any of his packmates noticing.

She could hear sounds coming from his tent…sounds of sex. Roman was having very loud, enthusiastic sex.

She felt an odd sensation of anger and frustration curling up inside her, and she paused for a moment to get it under control. She envisioned her dark feelings as a spinning ball of matter, and she wrapped it in a white gauzy substance and then shrank it, smaller and smaller, until it was nothing but a point of light.

Then she began striding towards the tent.

When she reached it, she yanked the tent flap back and tossed in a small pepper spray bomb that the mayor had given her.

Within seconds she heard shrieks of rage, and a big, naked man and a woman came staggering out of the tent. Even better, they were tangled up in sheets, which made it easier for her to run over and slap copper handcuffs on the man.

The moon swam out from behind a cloud, and the sheet fell off of the man.

Chelsea looked at him.

The woman looked at him at the same time.

The man was tall and lean and muscular, and had close-clipped black hair and a hawkish nose.

“You’re not Roman!” Chelsea and the woman both exclaimed at the same moment.

Then the woman shrugged. “Whatever. It wash pretty good,” she slurred drunkenly. “I think.”

“Hello, sweetheart. And there I thought you weren’t interested.” Roman came strolling up, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and looking highly amused.

* * * * *

Well, well, well, this was a fun turn of events. The hot redhead from town had come back.

Roman had to admit, she’d been drifting through his mind surprisingly often since he’d first laid eyes on her. It wasn’t just the fact that she hadn’t rolled right over for him like most women did. It wasn’t her lush, full figure, with its sexy rounded tummy and broad hips that he wanted to grab hold of and pull up against him. There was something more, some mysterious quality that sent his pulse racing every time he remembered her fiery amber eyes glowering at him in that alleyway.

“Good evening.” He grinned at her. “You’re on my territory now, which means we play by my rules. I see you brought handcuffs. Ready to play?”

Then he caught sight of the five-pointed star on her shirt. She was wearing jeans and a button-down denim shirt which did things to her curves that made him slightly dizzy…and a sheriff’s star.

“Oh, come on. You’re the new sheriff?” he said as her face fell. He couldn’t help it. She was the sheriff of Silver Peak? This was the best they could come up with? God, that town was so screwed.

He burst out laughing. He laughed harder and harder as her expression grew more and more unhappy, and then suddenly she burst into loud, noisy tears, burying her face in her hands.

Oh, hell. She was crying so hard her shoulders were shaking.

He heaved a huge sigh, walked over and patted her on the shoulder. “Sweetheart, I don’t mean to be an asshole—well, yes I do, because I am. Which is why you shouldn’t be here. Bigger, stronger, meaner people have tried to arrest me, and they’ve all failed.”

In the blink of an eye, she’d slapped handcuffs on his wrists and looked up at him with an enormous grin. Copper handcuffs, so he couldn’t shift. Her eyes were completely dry; she’d faked the whole thing.