Some Girls Lie

  Chapter Five

  Ethan wasn’t on her couch when she let herself in at just before midnight on Sunday night and JJ breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he’d come to his senses after his ridiculous statement this morning. She’d spent a good hour trying to talk him out of the need to pretend quite so realistically about their engaged status.

  She doubted even Shane would be stupid enough to try anything with the protection Ethan had implied this morning. Shane had always disliked Ethan, and particularly her friendship with him; it had been one of the sticking points in their marriage, as Shane had become more and more possessive. But he’d always had a healthy respect for Ethan as a cop. Even more so when Ethan had hunted him down after the assault. She really didn’t think Shane needed the keep out message spelled any clearer.

  She kicked off her shoes, navigating the darkened interior as she headed for her room and a much longed for shower. She hauled her T-shirt over her head and tossed it on the ground outside her door. The button on her fly came next as she strode towards the light spilling from the ensuite. She usually left it on so she could see where she was going when she stumbled in at half-past-stupid o’clock.

  The zip sounded loud in the silence as she pulled it down. She paused in front of the doorway and hooked her thumbs in the waist band, eyes downcast preparing to wiggle out of her skin-tight jeans. And almost leapt out of her skin when Ethan said, “Evening, JJ.”

  She gasped as she looked up, her heart crashing in her chest as the adrenaline in her system skyrocketed to stroke levels. “Holy shit!” she swore at him in a loud whisper. “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “Sorry,” he said, but didn’t look remotely contrite.

  “What are you doing here?” she hissed.

  She didn’t know why she was still whispering. Maybe it was the night. Maybe it was the advanced hour. Maybe it was that he was naked beneath his towel.

  And she wasn’t exactly the most dressed she’d ever been either.

  A fact she was only too aware of as his gaze drifted to her bra. Her very see-through bra. Her belly heated. Her nipples froze to tight hard points.

  She caught the slight widening of his eyes as he abruptly pulled his gaze back to her face and valiantly attempted conversation, like he hadn’t just seen sexual arousal in action. She supposed she should have covered up, placed her hands over her breasts. But the man had already seen them naked. Touched them, tasted them.

  It was a bit late to act like a blushing virgin now.

  He cleared his throat. “I needed a shower.”

  Which still didn’t explain why he was standing in her bathroom. Looking all big and broad wrapped in nothing but one of her practically threadbare towels. Water dripping from the ends of his scraggly hair. Running down his chest. Following the central furrow that bisected his abs and led all the way down to …

  She too dragged her gaze back to his face. His gorgeous face with his salt-and-pepper whiskers and the sexy little indent in his chin. “Is the shower at your place broken?” she asked sweetly.

  He shoved his hands on his hips. “I told you, I’m staying here while Shane is in the area.”

  JJ tried really hard not to notice how narrow his hips were or the outline of what she knew to be a very impressive piece of his anatomy, but his stance wasn’t exactly helping. “I told you I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  His jaw clenched and his beautiful lips thinned out. “It is, trust me. Why don’t you have a shower and then we’ll talk? There are some things you need to know.”

  JJ blinked. That sounded ominous. Part of her wanted to argue just for the hell of it, but it was midnight, she was tired, and they were both nearly naked. Not the wisest dress code given what had happened between the two of them in the last twenty-four hours.

  “Fine,” she said.

  There was a moment of awkwardness as he went to move out of the bathroom and she went to move in. Their bodies brushed together in the narrow opening—the tips of her nearly naked breasts against his fully naked chest. His towel grazing the front of her jeans.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, as he stepped out onto the carpet flooring.

  And then he was gone and she was reaching for the vanity, sagging against it, drawing in a shaky breath. She inspected her face in the mirror and didn’t like the sappy, indecisive look she saw there.

  Like a woman who’d taken leave of her senses.

  “Get a grip,” she told her reflection, before turning away, shucking off her jeans and underwear, sliding the door open to the shower and stepping inside, turning the spray onto cold.

  Unfortunately it didn’t really help her heated thoughts and she closed her eyes against the image of a naked Ethan in her shower. His scent closed in around her in the confined space and the hard, cold spray stinging her nipples set up a swirl of longing in her abdomen.

  She turned her back to the spray and the unwanted sexual stimulation, leaning her forehead against the tiles. For God’s sake it wasn’t as if Ethan hadn’t been in her shower before. He’d used her facilities several times over the years.

  But this was different.

  He’d kissed her, slid into her, pounded into her, come long and deep and hard inside her.

  She was aware of him in ways she’d never been before.

  And the images of him joining her beneath the spray just wouldn’t quit. Sliding his arms around her waist, pulling her back into him, his erection nudging her buttocks as one big hand glided up her stomach, over her ribs, claiming a breast, squeezing it, torturing a nipple already excruciatingly aroused.

  The other hand heading south, slipping between her legs.

  JJ groaned as she turned around and let the full force of the shower hit her square in the face. Do not think about Ethan doing you in the shower.

  What the hell was wrong with her lately? She was acting like a teenager on heat. Erotic fantasies in the shower. Hot daydreams at work. Wet dreams at night. She was thirty-freaking-five for crying out loud, not fifteen.

  But it had been a long time.

  And weren’t female sex drives supposed to peak in their thirties?

  Either way, her sex drive had picked a hell of a time to get loud. Go into overdrive.

  And she would not give it any satisfaction tonight.

  She joined Ethan ten minutes later. “Make it quick,” she announced as she headed to where he was making coffee in the kitchenette. “I’m tired.” And really freaking horny. “I’m desperate for a little shut-eye.”

  Actually, with him in only a pair of boxers riding low on his hips, what she was desperate for didn’t remotely involve shutting her eyes, although being horizontal on her bed was definitely part of it.

  But denial wouldn’t kill her.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  She shook her head. As if she wasn’t going to have enough trouble getting to sleep with him out here in nothing but boxers. She didn’t need to add a hit of caffeine into her hyper-aroused state.

  He regarded her for a moment over the rim of the mug. He studiously avoided looking anywhere else other than her face and JJ felt about as sexy as tooth decay in her oversized T-shirt that came to mid-thigh and advertised Four X beer.

  “I had a dig around in Gallagher’s past today,” he finally said.

  JJ frowned. “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “A known criminal is moving into my jurisdiction. That’s called being prepared.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “He did time in a Sydney prison for assault and battery.”

  “Who?” she asked, a cold hand squeezing her gut at the knowledge that she’d once thought him charming and funny.

  How could she have been so wrong about him? Had she been that desperate she’d been blind to his mean streak?

  “Some guy in a pub. Beat him unconscious.”

  JJ shut her eyes at the thought of it. She opened them again. “How long?”

  “Six years. He served four and got out on good beha
viour.”

  Much longer than he’d ever gotten for assaulting her.

  “His parole period was up two weeks ago.”

  It didn’t take long for the implications to settle in. He’d been a free man for two weeks and had immediately headed north. To Jumbuck Springs. To her? “I see.”

  Ethan cocked an eyebrow. “Do you? Do you really understand what a threat he is? I know you pride yourself on your independence, but I don’t like him being here one little bit. I don’t think you’re safe while he’s around.”

  She swallowed at the note of impenetrable granite in his voice. “Of course I understand,” she said irritably. “I might like my independence but I’m not going to be stupid about it.”

  “Good,” he nodded. “So I’m here for the duration. Better get used to it.”

  JJ bristled at his declaration, no matter how much safer she felt. “Fine,” she huffed. “But I can defend myself, you know. I own a gun and I know how to use it.”

  “Your shotgun under the bar isn’t going to help you up here, is it?”

  “So I’ll bring it up every night,” she said, crossing her arms, staring him down.

  His gaze dropped and lingered on the way her breasts pushed against the fabric of her shirt, tightening her nipples. When his eyes returned to meet hers he was frowning, his gaze stormy.

  “What if he ends up using it on you?”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “I know that,” he acknowledged, which took some of the sting out of his doubt. She wasn’t used to Ethan treating her like some fragile little flower. “I just don’t like the idea of you waving some firearm around.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t like the idea of you living here.” Walking around in next to nothing. “So we’re even. And what the hell are you going to do when Connie gets back from Paris? She going to move in here too?”

  His gaze shifted away from hers and she knew he wanted Connie embroiled in this farce as little as she did. “I’m hoping Gallagher won’t be a problem by then.”

  “He said he was going to be around for the next couple of months,” she pointed out. “They’ll be shearing right through November until just before Christmas, you know that.”

  “I know. Let’s just say I’m going to see if I can’t make him see the sense in moving on.”

  “Now that definitely sounds like police harassment to me. And that is illegal.” The last thing she wanted was to get Ethan into trouble with his superiors because, sure as God made little green apples, Shane would bleat long and loud about unfair treatment given any provocation.

  “Don’t worry, it won’t come to that,” he assured, but JJ wasn’t.

  She’d never seen Ethan angrier than he’d been that night when the doctor had taken one look at her face and distress and state of shock and called the police. The rage coiling his muscles rigid had been palpable and his eyes had turned an arctic shade of obsidian, like black ice. Deadly. Lethal.

  He hadn’t stopped for three days until he’d tracked Shane down and dragged him back to Jumbuck Springs in cuffs. And his fury when Shane had gotten off in a Brisbane court with only community service, because it had been his first offence, was legendary.

  “Just promise me you’ll be careful. You’ll stick around town. You won’t go anywhere alone.”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die,” she said, drawing a cross over her heart, which drew his gaze like a homing signal and for a moment they just stood there, her hand on her breast, his eyes burning a hole in the place where fingers met fabric.

  He seemed to take a big deep breath in, his chest expanding, his belly tightening.

  Crap.

  How was she ever going to survive living with him when he had a chest that should be bronzed and hung in an exhibit for perfect male specimens? When he was all big and broad and … Ethan. All protective and territorial. All big bad cop.

  When the memory of him inside her thrummed through her blood with a persistent back beat.

  “Anyway …” she said, dragging her gaze off the neatly portioned sections of abdomen, like little parcels of heaven, “I’m pooped. See you in the morning.”

  She didn’t wait for him to acknowledge her. She needed to get away from him before she did something really foolish like fall to her knees and lick those delicious pillows of man muscle.

  Jesus—she was going mad. Her libido was out of control. If she didn’t do something about it soon she may just end up taking little old Mr Applegate up on it next time he tipsily propositioned her.

  Thank God for Dennis.

  With the bathroom light illuminating the path she strode to her bedside drawers, trying to remember the last time Dennis had come out to play. He was probably the most neglected artificial penis in the entire universe. She frowned, trying to remember—a year?

  Did the batteries even work anymore? Did batteries corrode inside those things?

  It was state of the art, with all the bells and whistles, but even high-quality toys were only as good as their batteries.

  Okay, she wasn’t going to use it now, but she wasn’t sure how long she could last without some relief so it needed to be in good functioning order.

  She pulled open the drawer and scrabbled about in the clogged space that was filled with useless bits and pieces. She located the much-neglected Dennis—because if she was going to have intimate relations with an object then it at least had to have a name—right at the back.

  She looked down at it—him—and flicked it—him—on. Dennis gave a few pathetic trembles. She flicked it up to high and Dennis fibrillated a little more, but not in any kind of way that looked like it might be remotely satisfying.

  JJ tried to remember where the batteries went as she moved closer to the bathroom light. She clawed at the cylindrical bottom and made a note to duck down to Smithy’s Hardware for some new ones first chance she got in the morning. He’d probably want to know what she wanted them for because Smithy loved to know the ins and outs of everyone’s lives, but she was sure they took the same size as the average torch so Smithy should be easily distracted.

  The battery latch finally gave and she almost cheered as the two heavy items fell into her hand.

  “JJ?”

  JJ’s heart almost stopped at the voice behind her, then did a strange leap into her mouth as her hand tightened around Dennis. “Y-yes?” she said, desperately trying to think of a way of getting through this.

  “JJ?”

  She cringed a little more as she choked poor Dennis in a death grip. Then she took a deep breath and turned around, hiding Dennis behind her back like a two year old would hide contraband—with the accompanying guilty look. “Yes?”

  He looked at her and frowned. “What have you got there?” he demanded.

  “Nothing,” she denied. Probably a little too quickly. “Just … checking the batteries in the torch.”

  Ethan narrowed his eyes at JJ. She was blushing. JJ never blushed. The woman had run her parent’s pub since they’d retired to Noosa for some sand and surf a few years ago. She could drink like a fish, swear like a sailor and arm wrestle seventy-five per cent of the general male population into submission. Her word was law in The Stockman.

  And yet here she stood, blushing, looking guilty as hell. She was hiding something. And he knew in his gut—the same gut that had kept him alert and alive in a profession that could be hazardous even in the back of beyond—what it was.

  She had another gun she wasn’t telling him about.

  Christ! She was probably going to kill herself and him at the first thing that went bump in the night.

  He strode towards her. “No,” he said holding out his hand for the offending item. “No gun, JJ.”

  “It’s not a gun,” she said, stubbornly refusing to give up her contraband.

  But he didn’t believe her. Her guilt was so obvious she might as well have it written in big, black Nikko pen all over her face. He reached behind her, grasping her biceps and dragging them out from behin
d her. She resisted all the way, but it was useless against his superior strength.

  She glared at him, her cheeks pink, as her hands revealed the true nature of what she was hiding. Ethan stared at the giant silicone phallus in the palm of her hand. Actually no, no way was it small enough to fit in anyone’s palm. He blinked down at it in all its hot pink glory.

  Or maybe that was garishness.

  “Bloody hell,” he murmured as he let go of her arms and took in its gargantuan length and girth. A lesser man may have been intimidated. But Ethan felt his loins stir. Felt the tickle of titillation stroking light fingers over his belly and thighs. And he wasn’t exactly dressed in clothing that would camouflage his arousal. “You pick the biggest one they had?”

  She blushed even deeper. “I have needs,” she defended hotly. “Needs which, might I add, weren’t exactly fulfilled recently, unlike somebody else in this room.”

  Ethan couldn’t dispute her argument. He had taken what she offered and not returned the favour and that was something he never did. But short of repeating what had happened, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. And now in particular, with them living in each other’s pockets, crossing that line again would just be plain stupid.

  Especially if he still wanted JJ as his friend after all this was over.

  And he did.

  He sure as hell wasn’t going to get that by throwing away that damn stupid piece of equipment and showing her how much better the real thing was.

  Nope. Ethan was all for women taking charge of their sexual needs. God knew he’d done that enough himself. In Jumbuck Springs masturbation was the only safe, gossip-free sex there was for a single-father, divorcee, chief of police.

  He took his hat off to JJ. Even if it was something he’d never wanted to know about her. Even if she was going to be getting off in the next room while he lay out on that awful couch wondering …

  “I’m … sorry … I really am …” he said, dragging his head out of JJ’s sheets and back into the conversation about his lack of manners last night. “I don’t usually—”

  She held up her hand in a stop signal. “I told you I could take care of my own orgasms thank you very much. Dennis and I have been doing just fine for the last few years.”

  Ethan blinked at the totally limp name she’d given her vibrator. “Dennis? You call him Dennis?”

  “Yes,” she bristled. “You have a problem with that?”

  Ethan shrugged, not quite believing that he was having a conversation with JJ—JJ—about the pet name for her penis substitute.

  My, how the last twenty-four hours had changed things!

  “Seems a little beige. I would have thought something this impressive,” he said indicating the equipment she still held in her hand in a way that was making him wince, “would at least be called Vlad.”

  She gave him an unimpressed smile. “Very funny. Was there some reason you barged into my room?”

  “I was just going to say I’m going in to work at six in the morning, I’ll try not to wake you.”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to make your breakfast.”

  Ethan grinned. JJ’s pink cheeks were cute as hell as she obviously struggled to have a normal conversation with Dennis hot in her hand. “Absolutely not.” He waited for her to respond but when she didn’t he said, “Goodnight. Have fun.”

  Her gaze flicked to him with immediate suspicion. “The batteries are flat,” she said briskly.

  “Whatever,” he said, turning and walking away with as much nonchalance as he could muster for a man with a semi hard-on in a pair of loose boxers.

  And a vision in his head that might require a little artificial relief of his own if this cohabitation thing dragged on too long.