Eli thumbed off the flashlight as he broke out from under the canopy of the forest and the light of the full moon shone down on him again, illuminating the carpet of grass and ankle-high weeds between him and the lake’s bank. Twenty yards to his left, there were picnic tables and a gravel driveway where he could’ve parked his car if he drove, but he never risked waking his grandmas when he snuck out at midnight for a skinny-dip.

A flashlight and the path through the woods he’d been walking since he was a child kept his late-night excursions a secret, which was just how he liked them.

Not that the girls, as they called themselves, would disapprove. Hell, Gee would probably be pissed she wasn’t invited. But sometimes Eli just needed the quiet. Needed the lake without a ripple on it under a full moon, the night echoing with the howling cries of the loons. The squish of mud between his toes and the sweet thrill of stripping down and slipping into cool waters.

Between another stressful monthly meeting with the library board and the general anxiety that had been riding his nerves ever since that encounter with the sheriff the week before, Eli needed to unwind more than ever. Baxter had stopped by their house in the evening twice since that first visit, oozing polite helpfulness each time. The snake. Eli had seen the way Baxter’s gaze searched the yard and the house, hunting for reasons to make more ridiculous accusations about Aunt Millie, no doubt.

A small voice in the back of his brain whispered at him. He’s only saying out loud the things you’ve been afraid to. Eli squashed it.

No outsider is going to come in and mess things up for us. His grandmas had been his bedrock, his saviors, when everything in his world had gone black and empty. There was nothing—nothing—he wouldn’t do for them. And if that meant managing a little absent-mindedness and other occasional challenges, Eli was happy to do it. He could handle it. He could handle everything.

He just needed a little time to himself, though, tonight.

His flip-flops and clothes made a neat pile at the edge of the lake, just far enough from shore for the ground not to be damp. Picking his way through the weeds, he slid his feet over twigs and rocks until he found clear spots to place them, heading for the water bare-assed naked and loving the coolness of sweat evaporating from his skin.

As soon as the water reached his waist, he dove under and came up clean and wet, paddling around some but mostly just floating under the stars. Tension melted from his bones with every slap of a wavelet against his skin, the rich smell of lake water and dry summer heat soothing him.

The crunch of car tires on the gravel road to the picnic area would have warned him that someone was coming, if his ears had been above water.

As it was, the blinding flash of high beams across the lake’s shimmering surface was the first clue he had that his solitary escape had been compromised.

He sank under the water with a gurgle and held his breath, letting himself float just high enough to get his eyes clear. There were a half dozen people he’d have invited in without hesitating—his BFF Kalea, any of his grandmas, a couple of old friends from high school—but a whole lot more he’d rather avoid until he had his pants back on.

The incredibly bright lights, brighter than any regular car’s headlights, were shining from the top of the sedan parked at the crest of the gentle slope to the water’s edge.

A tall, bulky figure was silhouetted against the light.

“C’mon out now.”

Oh, great. He’d only heard it a few times, but he recognized that deep growl—practically vibrating in his bones, damn it—as if he’d heard it every day of his life.

“C’mon. I’m sure as shit not coming in there after you.”

“Easy there, Sheriff. It’s just me.” He treaded water hard enough to push his bare shoulders above the surface of the lake and lifted an arm to wave. The cool night air licked against his wet skin. This is awkward. He’d been curt to the point of rudeness both times Baxter had dropped by their ramshackle home. The man probably got irritated at the sight of him by now.

The figure blocking the light raised a hand and the additional glare of a large flashlight pinpointed him in the center of a widening circle of ripples.

“Mr. Devine? What are you doing out there?” Baxter’s voice was mellow, friendly almost.

Eli huffed a breath pretty loudly. What did Baxter think he was doing? Laundry? But he kept her voice calm as he answered. Maybe the sheriff would head on out of here once he realized Eli wasn’t troublemaking hoodlum, or whatever he’d come through the woods to investigate. “Just washing the day off me.”

Baxter sat on the end of the picnic table and propped his giant flashlight up behind him, not pointing at Eli anymore but shining up at the moon.

“That’s sounds like a fucking fantastic idea.” He braced the heel of his right boot against the edge of the bench and bent over, tugging at the laces. Kicked the boot off and pulled up his left leg to do the same.

A small thrill raced up Eli’s spine. He isn’t . . . is he? “What are you doing, Sheriff Baxter?”

“Call me Joe, Mr. Devine.” Baxter peeled off his socks and stuffed them in his boots. Then stood up and unbuckled his gun belt, folding it neatly in thirds and putting it under the bench.

“No thanks.” As long as Eli kept thinking of him as Sheriff Baxter in his head, he might not accidentally put his tongue in Baxter’s mouth. That was the theory, at any rate. Not that he could explain why the sight of a man who made him so angry also made him want to climb Baxter like a tree. He repeated himself, ignoring the sudden surge of heat in his belly. “What are you doing, Sheriff?”

“I have been chasing kids with toilet paper and more eggs than sense all over town for four hours now. I believe that entitles me to a reward.”

Excuse you? Eli sputtered and dog paddled toward shore, wanting to keep his voice down. As if anyone other than the sheriff could hear him hiss, “Skinny dipping with the town librarian isn’t a perk of the job, Sheriff.”

Aaaaand that came out way too flirtatiously.

“Didn’t think it was.” How was it possible Eli could already hear it in Baxter’s voice when he smiled? “But it ain’t breaking any laws either.”

“Are you sure you’re supposed to do this while you’re working?” Seriously? That’s the best you can come up with. The man is taking. His. Clothes. Off. And you hate him.

He definitely hated the obnoxiously kind and helpful and nosy Sheriff Joe Baxter. Definitely.

“I put in my sixteen hours today. Just spotted your mysterious light in the woods on my way home.”

But Eli must have made him think at least, because Baxter walked up to the cruiser, leaned in through the open driver’s side window and shut the klieg lights off.

“Lucky me.” Eli muttered the words under his breath, but they still carried loudly in the sudden dark that surrounded him as his eyes adjusted to the loss of light. There was only one way out of the lake that let swimmers avoid ankle-deep muck and slime, and that way meant taking a naked stroll past the yummy sheriff.

Just what he needed: to freak out the new sheriff with a PornTube gander at Eli’s inevitable hardon as Eli tried to escape this way-too-cozy skinny-dipping party they were about to kick off. He knew himself better than to think he could keep his dick under control in that scenario.

Eli might not have much of a sex life in Clear Lake, but he’d managed enough encounters to know he liked being watched.

Just the thought of Baxter’s eyes on him was already making him hard, even as Baxter kept running his mouth.

“You go on and head home if you like. I’ll even turn my back, if you’re shy. But I’m getting in that lake whether or not you’re in it.”

Shy. Ha.

Eli couldn’t see Baxter’s hands, but he must have been unbuttoning his short sleeve uniform shirt as he walked back down, because he shrugged it off and added it to the pile on the table.

“Of course, if you want to take advantage of the chance to check out my ass, Mr. Devine, you just go right ahead.”

Eli almost inhaled a lungful of lake water.

Holy shit.

In addition to not holding a grudge about Eli’s rudeness, the sheriff was either the most liberal of queer-friendly allies…

Or Joe Baxter was totally gay.

Gay, gay, gay, gay, GAY. Or bi, which is totally close enough.

Eli’d never wished for a waterproof phone so badly in his life. The biggest piece of gossip he’d ever stumbled across and he couldn’t even text Kalea.

“What makes you think I haven’t already done that?” The laughter bubbling in his voice leaked out even as he tried to keep his curving lips stern and pursed. How was he supposed to stay pissed at the man, when Baxter kept delivering knockout punches like that?

Remember what he implied about Aunt Millie.

Eli swirled his arms and kicked his legs in the cool water, trying to decide whether or not he should get out. No doubt the honorable Joe Baxter would indeed keep his back turned.

Not that Eli really wanted him to. Gah. Being this conflicted was not a comfortable mental place to live in, where he forgot about being pissed long enough to flirt with the sheriff about having checked out his ass.

“Yeah, but I had pants on.” Baxter’s voice was muffled for a moment as he pulled his T-shirt over his head. “This time you can see my naked butt in all its glory.”

Holy shit. Sheriff Joe Baxter was stripping down to the buff.

Eli kept his voice level even as his eyes widened, and he prayed no clouds slid in front of the damn moon.

Definitely not going to be able to get out of the lake now.

So much for remembering to stay pissed.

He decided right then and there to loosen his grip on the anger and fear that simmered under his skin every time he saw Baxter, if only for this moment. For this brief escape into midnight, moonlit magic, before the real world returned with the dawn.

“What are you doing working so late anyways? Doesn’t the sheriff get the cushy nine-to-five shift?” He probably ought to turn his back. Baxter had offered to turn his. It would only be polite. Right? And there was probably something in the Clear Lake bylaws about local government employees not seeing each other naked.

He was still arguing the ethics of the situation with himself when Baxter hooked his thumbs in the waist of what turned out to be his pants and his underwear and pushed everything to the ground.

Holy sweet baby cheeses. Eli’s eyes had adjusted plenty damn quick. Praise God for the full moon in all its helpful glory.

The silvery glow shone down bright enough to highlight the smoothly indented curves of the sheriff’s perfectly sculpted ass. To outline the narrowing vee of his back, from broad shoulders down to narrower hips. To glimmer on the bunching muscles of his calves as Baxter squatted down for a moment to reach under the picnic bench again. When he stood, the play of strength under his skin was like watching an anatomy book in action.

“The sheriff gets whatever shift he wants.”

With that, the man turned toward the lake, and Eli sank under the water so fast he forgot to take a breath.

But not fast enough to keep from getting a good look. The hair that covered half of Baxter’s chest swirled between hard nipples and then down the middle of a belly that wasn’t six-pack ripply but still had enough definition to show that fantastic curve of muscle from hip to groin. Eli should look it up in Grey’s Anatomy, what that dent was that drew the eye, like reflective lane markers on a highway at night, to the heavy length of Baxter’s cock lying soft against his thigh.

Oh. My.

He popped back up above the water far enough to say something, afraid his silence after Baxter’s about-face would draw attention to the fact that Eli had clearly been rocking a deliberate stare at his naked body.

Just thinking the words his naked body kicked up a flutter in his belly and a heat in his face that made him grateful for the dark, even if the moon felt like daylight by now.

“And you like the night life.” Eli wasn’t sure what the hell he was talking about any more. Mostly he was just thinking about Baxter’s cock and wondering what it would feel like under his hands. How it would thicken and harden as he held it. The softness of the delicate skin and the idea that he might shiver if Eli dragged his thumb across the tip.

Which didn’t say much about Eli’s moral fiber, that was for sure. Not being mad for one skinny-dip didn’t mean he had to turn into mindless puddle of need around the man. But it was hard to stay aloof in the face of that much hotness. And kindness.

He’d gotten turned around underwater and now faced the opposite shore, listening to Baxter splash through the shallows where the mud would be sucking at his toes and the occasional slimy weed wrapping around his ankles.

“The night lift? Nah. Lucas and his wife are trying to have a baby.”

Eli had known that actually, but he was impressed Baxter had already gotten to know his second deputy well enough to get the inside scoop. Then again, Deputy Hutchings wasn’t exactly known for his discretion. The man talked a mile a minute and was twice as loud as a country mule.

The splash of a body hitting the water was followed by seconds of silence, and then Baxter slid up from beneath the water off Eli’s left shoulder. Baxter’s grin flashed white teeth that caught the light reflected off the lake. “I try to give him a couple of nights a week where they can do the baby-making at a reasonable hour. He takes over at midnight.”

Talking about baby-making—sex, the hot man is talking about sex—did not fall under the heading of safe conversational topics for skinny-dipping. Eli was suddenly hyperaware of the slick coolness of the lake water against his balls, between his butt cheeks. On the tip of his dick. He turned his back on the naked and very distracting Baxter and stroked away from shore for a minute, needing to burn off the restless energy that surged in his limbs.

When he glided to a halt, fifty yards off shore, he paused with his mouth at the water line, the cool liquid spilling past his lips before he spit it out, the taste mossy and green. The quiet splashes of a skilled swimmer followed him and he ducked under for a moment, popping up with his head back so his bangs streamed away from his face.

Vision clear, Eli watched Baxter slow to an easy breaststroke as he neared, keeping a respectful distance.

“Are you gonna chase me around this lake?” Eli demanded, wishing his voice would stop going all throaty and invitational.

Baxter’s cheeks bunched up although he kept his lips straight, which must have been hard with the outrageous nonsense that came out of his mouth. “I figure it’s my duty as a public servant to make sure you’re safe.”

Eli laughed out loud and a bird took flight from the far side of the lake, wet wings flapping.

“Skinny-dipping with you doesn’t feel that safe.” The night was still and quiet and his murmur traveled easily over the water. The entire scene was one hundred percent surreal and Eli didn’t think the water was the only thing making him feel all floaty.

The sheriff rolled over to float on his back, face up to the stars, and Eli felt the loss of his gaze immediately, tension dropping back to normal, not-naked, levels. “I’m not gonna try anything, Eli. Just swimming. Cooling off.”

He told himself not to be disappointed.

Baxter’s skin shone wetly like he’d been licked all over. Only his chest and shoulders, and the flickering circles of his hands, were visible above the water line.

You’ve got no business being upset that the man isn’t trying to make a play for you while you’re swirling around naked in the same lake.

Still, it took him a long time to relax. Twenty minutes of Baxter floating nearby and making occasional comments to the sky—with the assumption that Eli would hear them, he guessed—just about managed to do it. Eventually, the quiet and the darkness and Baxter’s calm presence worked some kind of magic, and Eli’s pulse slowed. Instead of tensing every muscle, he let himself relax and just . . . floated.

Eventually, Baxter rolled over onto his belly and glanced at Eli over his shoulder, tilting his head back so the water didn’t drip in his eyes.

“Well, guess I better head home.” The sheriff took a half stroke toward the shore but then let himself drift. They were close enough that Eli didn’t have to raise his voice to be heard.

“It’s pretty late.” He’d already yawned hard enough to crack marble once, but was reluctant to break the spell of the moment.

“Yup.” Baxter treaded water for a moment while screwing up his face.

Eli could see him wrestle not to say the words and then lose.

“I’m sure you swim here all the time. But it would help me rest easy tonight if I knew I wasn’t leaving you in the dark with no one around.”

Argh. That annoyingly polite concern. Again.

He tried to work up some of his earlier irritation, but it wouldn’t come. Kicking harder, Eli crossed his arms and rubbed his hands against his goose-pimpled skin. His fingers were wrinkled and rough. “Guess it’s time for me to get out anyway. I’ve gotta be up in about six hours.”

He kept his eyes to himself as they got out of the water, because staring at the man who kept being so polite felt rude now that they were all quiet and sleepy instead of flirty. But when Baxter called out to him after Eli had tugged his clothes on over his wet limbs, his skin still prickled with a deep physical awareness of Baxter’s body.

“C’mere.”

Baxter sat on the end of the picnic table, thighs spread wide, the white of his undershirt glowing in the moonlight. His uniform shirt and weapons belt sat in a neat pile at his hip.

Eli eyed him, not really wary anymore after Baxter had been so damn mannerly about everything during their skinny-dipping session. Even his high school adventures had involved more attempted glimpses of naked body parts than this midnight swim had.

Baxter beckoned to him. “Closer. You’ve got something in your . . .” He pointed in the general vicinity of Eli’s hair.

Eli’s stomach dipped pleasantly as he approached. With Baxter sitting, they were almost matched in height. The warmth of Baxter’s breath washed against Eli as he stepped between his open thighs. Eli kept his gaze high, pretty sure his nipples, still tight from the cool night air on his wet skin, were pebbling visibly against the thin cotton of his old football T-shirt.

Baxter was so much darker than he was. The hair on his arms and curling over his ears was black against olive skin. Eli’s arms looked ghostly pale as he crossed them, feeling awkward and unsure of himself as Baxter reached out and plucked something from his hair.

“There.”

The stringy length of dead grass he showed Eli made him jerk to the side reflexively. Gross. That was the downside of skinny-dipping in the lake.

Nature. Yuck.

A hand on his hip kept Eli from bumping into Baxter’s leg. Those fingers tightened, and Eli inhaled sharply. The whole thing was pure reflex, Eli was almost entirely sure, because Baxter dropped his hand immediately after the brief squeeze.

“Thanks, Sheriff.” The title was a desperate attempt, at this point, to keep some kind of metaphorical distance between them, even as a rising tension set the night air between them on fire.

Eli shivered as Baxter brushed his fingertips against the drying waves at Eli’s temple, then dropped that hand and oh-so-slowly hooked one finger through the belt loop next to Eli’s zipper. His tug was so faint Eli could have pretended he hadn’t felt it, even as the weight of Baxter’s finger dragged the waist of his cutoffs down an inch.

Eli stepped into him.

“Joe.” The sheriff’s voice was a low growl, still rumbling in Eli’s bones, his mouth a breath away from Eli’s own.

“Joe,” he repeated and gave in. He leaned into the kiss, sliding his fingers up the back of the Baxter’s neck and deep into wet hair as their mouths found each other in the dark. Stubble scratched his face and the taste of lake water on warm skin filled his mouth. God, he missed kissing. And Sheriff Baxter was so very good at it.

Eli shivered, and Joe pulled him closer, wrapping big, warm arms around him as he dove into Eli’s mouth and tightened his fingers on Eli’s ass until Eli knew there would be bruises later. The idea just made him hard, and he groaned as his dick ached. He chased Joe’s tongue with his own and scraped his fingernails down Joe’s back until he was breathing hard too.

He tastes good, like chicory coffee and chocolate and something wild.

He wanted to eat Joe Baxter alive.

When he realized he was about three seconds from starting to hump Joe’s leg on a picnic bench, Eli wrenched himself away and took two steps backward. God, this sucked. It was amazing—so amazing, holy shit—but it sucked nonetheless.

His dick was so hard it hurt, and his lips frigging tingled with sensation. He dug his fingers into his thighs and tried to focus.

“Eli,” Joe started, dark eyes intense and full of heat.

He cut the words off before Joe could even say them. He wasn’t strong enough to hear whatever it was Joe had been about to say. “Listen, you are, uh, disturbingly attractive.”

Joe snorted, and Eli’s mouth kept running. “I mean, I can barely think straight around you because I keep picturing you naked. Which I can do without having to use my imagination now, thank you very much.”

Baxter’s low chuckle vibrated between them, making the bones in Eli’s chest hum. “You’re welcome.”

He hung on to his remaining shreds of sanity. “But this”—he flopped his hand back and forth between them—“can’t happen. Definitely not right now.”

Shit. He hadn’t meant to offer a qualifier. His brain was such an asshole.

“It can’t?” Joe’s eyebrow quirked up.

“No.” He tried to keep his voice firm. “I’m in a difficult place with the library board at the moment, which means I’m in a difficult place with the town council and Clear Lake in general, and I can’t have a . . . thing going on with the county sheriff. I’m already being accused of pushing my ‘agenda,’ and running around town with a hot guy is only going to cause me more trouble.”

Also, you noticed what no one is supposed to notice about Millie, and so you can’t be around us. Ever. But he didn’t say that part out loud, because those words were dangerous, and Eli already had more spine-stiffening danger on his plate at the moment than he could possibly manage.

He wasn’t sure his words were making any kind of a dent in his target, however.

“First, I rarely ‘run around town,’” Joe drawled. “I’m more of an easy stroll kind of guy.”

“Ha ha.”

Joe ignored his mockery. “Second, I think you’re pretty hot too. Just wanted to make sure that was clear.”

Eli ignored the thrill that lit him up like a rocket. “Is there a third?”

Shooting him a look that said he wasn’t pleased to drop the hotness conversation, Joe continued, “Third, one of the reasons I agreed to take over the rest of Buddy’s term before the election was because he told me how things had changed out here. He even made sure to let me know Clear Lake had a lesbian police officer on the force, not that I spend a lot of time interacting with the locals.”

The county sheriff and his deputies mostly patrolled the unincorporated areas and managed jail transfers and such, Eli knew, but he was pretty sure Joe was underplaying how much time he spent with Clear Lake’s PD.

Eli cocked his head. “Buddy Baxter said the words ‘lesbian police officer?’”

Joe’s look said what do you think? He didn’t need to elaborate. Buddy, God bless him, was not exactly the poster boy for LGBTQ allies.

“Close enough. Are you telling me the town has enough of a problem with your being gay that you can’t be out? That you would lose your job if you were publicly dating someone?”

Whoa. Dating someone? How did we get there already?

“Not exactly. I mean, there aren’t a ton of out gay people in Clear Lake.” He paused, reconsidering. “Hardly any, really. There’s the guy who runs the Christmas shop, but he’s a hermit. We only see him between Thanksgiving and Christmas, ever since his boyfriend decided to stay in the city instead of coming back to Clear Lake. And I heard a rumor some kids want to start a gay-straight alliance at the high school. But . . . yeah. Christine is pretty much it right now.”

He liked the take-no-nonsense cop and her wife Jane, who was a nurse at the local hospital in the next town over, but he didn’t do much more than exchange friendly chats with them. He could tell he pinged their gaydar, so there was always an undercurrent of you’re one of us in their conversations with him, but it wasn’t anything Eli had ever talked about with them.

Hell, with anyone other than Kalea and Grandma Gee really. At least, not since he’d left college and returned to Clear Lake to start training under the old librarian six years ago. His hookups were few and far between, and only ever just that: hookups. Conversation about the challenges of being young and gay in a fairly conservative small town was never part of the deal.

“It isn’t about that though,” Eli said, struggling to find the words to sum up a lifetime of navigating the subtle currents and strong pressures of a small community where everybody knew everyone else’s business, and residents whose families had lived in Clear Lake for a hundred years didn’t hesitate to throw their weight around when things started changing. “All things being equal, someone else—you, for example—could probably be gay and out and dating someone without it causing too much trouble. There’d be gossip and some negative stuff, sure, but most people would be fine. Or at least quiet.”

Joe waited for him to continue, settling into his seat on the end of the picnic table like he could wait there all night to hear what Eli had to say.

“But they’re used to thinking of me being a certain way. Maybe they all knew I was gay, sort of.” He thought people probably had known, some of them at least. “But it was never something anyone in Clear Lake had to deal with. After my parents died, I kind of shut down. That’s an understatement, actually.”

Those had been hard years. Or rather, numb ones. He’d kept his grief at a distance for so long, because it was the only way he could live without drowning in it. And shutting down his emotions had shut down so many other things, like his body and what it wanted. He’d lived like a monk through high school, and even though he’d had relationships in college, he’d fallen back into those habits as soon as he’d returned to Clear Lake after graduation. He’d been “quiet Eli, that nice librarian boy” for so long, he’d forgotten that wasn’t who he actually was.

“But recently . . .” Eli smiled. “Recently I’ve started to wake up. Ever since this last election, I’ve been angry. Like, a lot. And I needed something to do with all that anger. Something productive, that would help me feel like I was making the world a better place, even when it seemed like everything was going to shit.”

“I heard about some of your library programs,” Joe said, interrupting him with a grin. “I think they sound pretty great.”

“They are,” Eli said confidently. When it came to his job, he was never uncertain, unlike when it came to his personal life. “And they’re exactly what this town needs to keep growing and changing with the times. But I’m also getting under people’s skin. A lot. And there’s been talk, I know, at the monthly board meetings about whether I’m the right person for the job. So . . .”

“So, you’re not looking to rock the boat with your personal life, when you’re already doing it in your professional life,” Joe finished for him.

Warmth bloomed in his chest. Exactly. “Yes.”

Joe got off the picnic table, stretching his legs and shaking out his hands like he’d been tensing them for too long. He shook his head, and Eli tried to read the expression on his face. Tried and failed.

“I’m sorry. I mean, really, really sorry,” was all he could think of to say.

“I get it. And I’ll try to stop thinking about kissing you, though I can’t promise I’ll succeed. But I gotta wonder . . .” Joe paused next to Eli on his way to his cruiser, and the night radiated heat that threatened to spark between them as they listened to each other breathe. The outside edge of Joe’s hand brushed against Eli’s. “Are you really the type to take that kind of thing quietly? I can’t picture Miss Gee’s grandson letting some narrow-minded people’s opinions stop him.”

Eli felt that brush of Joe’s hand like it had been burned into his skin the whole walk home.