Daddy's Little Wild One

Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Why did he have to smell like this? Like limes and manliness. The combination was disturbingly invigorating.

My best friend back in town had a theory—if you didn’t like the way someone smelled, it was an absolute sign you should never reproduce with them.

If the opposite were true, Lost Dude and I would make beautiful babies together.

Son of a b***h. One interaction with the opposite s*x after a couple years of solitude and suddenly I was fantasizing about dreamy dude’s d**k? Not gonna happen. No way. No how.

Who knew what this guy was up to in the woods on his own? I could think of a million inappropriate reasons. Okay, admittedly, Oscar-worthy suspicion was the by-product of being a cop. Enough exposure to the underbelly of humans, and even the most naïve and optimistic person grew jaded.

I was naive once.

My list of potential motives for Sir Lime-a-lot included:

He was out scouting grows and not lost at all. He planned to steal someone’s illegal c******s supply and make a tidy profit.

He was poaching on private land. Granted, he didn’t have a weapon with him now, but he could have stashed it in the brush.

He found out I lived here and was some sort of sexually deviant predator.

Three strikes and you’re out.

Three lives were out that night. I couldn’t keep these random-a*s thoughts from ping-ponging across my mind.

Anyone would be haunted by what I went through—or so my mandatory trauma therapist told me after the event.

Ever since the accident, my thoughts were like a spiderweb. The closest thing to peace I could find was usually at the bottom of a glass of scotch.

This asshole, criminal… whatever he was, would sleep on the couch. He already intruded on my date with my buddy the bottle, and I wasn’t about to let him sleep in one of my beds, smearing his mouthwatering aroma all over the place.

Even now, as he walked ahead of me into my house, beautiful buns on display and arms locked in front of him, his powerful scent wafted in the air, making me a little lightheaded.

If I offered him a mattress to sleep on, he’d leave his scent all over the sheets, and I didn’t need to be reminded of what any part of the mating ritual could offer. Such a life wasn’t for me, no matter how my biological clock might protest. I took three lives two years ago and didn’t deserve to pursue anything resembling a happy ever after—or even a happy ending.

That life was over and out.