Their chests heaved against each other as they fought to calm their heart rates and breathing. She clung to his body like a limpet as he peppered light kisses along her collarbone and neck then gradually down her arm. His tongue swirled erotically around Slade’s bruise before softly kissing it.
She ran her hands up his back and into his hair, pulling on his ears until he lifted his head to face her.
“You need to be careful,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Don’t go digging around Slade anymore. If he finds out, things could get ugly. Just put your head down and do your work.”
The contented just-been-fucked-thoroughlylook slid from her face. “Like a good little pregnant copper, you mean?”
He ground his molars and went on the hunt for his boxers. “Yes. You don’t need to go poking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
She found her shirt and pulled it over her head, not bothering with her bra. He loved it when she went braless. Hell, the woman would look unbelievable in a burlap sac.
“It ismyjob. And as long as I get all my own tasks done, if I do this on my free time, it shouldn’t matter. I don’t want him hurting another rookie, anotherwomanif I can help it.”
“Neither do I. Doesn’t meanyouneed to be the one to stop him.” He tugged his jeans on and watched as she slipped her underwear over her slim legs and up beneath her T-shirt. It didn’t hit him until then that she was wearing one ofhisT-shirts. When had she swiped that?
She grabbed her own jeans off the floor but didn’t pull them on. She usually changed into pajama pants or stretchy yoga pants when she got home. “If I can, I will.” Then she stalked out of the kitchen in a huff, her wild, curly red ponytail the last thing he saw flying around the corner.
Chapter 8
Stupid Brock Hart and his bossy-fucker ways. Why couldn’t he let them both ride the waves of post-orgasmic bliss just a touch longer before he went ordering her around? She’d divulged her pregnancy, gone on light duty—what more did he want from her? She was still a bloody cop and determined to be a good one, too! Part of being a good cop was following a lead, an instinct, and like a dog with a bone, seeing if that lead went anywhere. And after the way Myles had behaved in the breakroom, tearing open her uniform and fondling her and threatening her, there was no way in hell that was his first offense.
No.
The man probably had a thick file in HR full of complaints. She just needed to find it.
After changing into pajama pants, Krista tossed on her pissed-off cop face and joined Brock for dinner in the living room. He politely changed the channel from the news to the Home and Garden channel when she walked in. A bowl of steaming veggies and chicken over rice sat on the leather ottoman waiting for her. She didn’t say anything to him but simply picked up the bowl and dove in. Between skipping lunch so she could investigate Myles more and that bit of aerobics in the kitchen, she was starving.
Penelope jumped up into Brock’s lap where he sat in his La-Z-Boy, and he began mindlessly petting her until an appreciative purr joined the cacophonyof evening sounds. Krista watched him quietly—this bigger-than-life man, the father of her child, her roommate who shared her bed (on occasion), a man she still knew absolutely nothing about. And yet, as the weeks ticked by and she saw glimpses, microscopic fragments of the person who was buried deep down and hidden behind those impenetrable walls and even more impenetrable chest, she began to feel a stirring of something deep in her belly. And she didn’t think it was just gas or the possible flutterings of their little one-night-stand miracle.
Only whenever she addressed it, asked him anything about himself, brought up the big differences in his personality, he would shut down. Just like he had in the kitchen. He’d shown her such tenderness on the stairs, shown her a glimpse into the heart of Brock Hart, but when she brought it up, he shut down, shut her up and fucked her until she could barely walk. Then, when the ecstasy dissipated, he had the mask back up, the bossy-fucker mask, and he was telling her what to do. She just didn’t get it. Was she really no more than a pregnant fuck buddy?
“What?” he said gruffly, not bothering to look at her but knowing she was looking at him. The mask was on, the walls were up, and any thoughts she may have had about trying to get to know him more quickly dissolved.
She hid her disappointment and flashed him a big, sexy grin. Well, at least she could have on-demand orgasms. “You wanna have a shower?”
Taking great care not to piss off Penelope, he gently placed her on a pillow and then set his empty bowl on the coffee table, standing up and heading toward the bathroom, removing his shirt as he went. “Lucky for you, woman, I can get it up more than once a day. Come on!”
She giggled as she skipped after him, peeling off her clothes and leaving them like a trail of breadcrumbs down the hallway.
She’d find out more about him tomorrow.
Chapter 9
It’d been a blessing in disguise, truth be told. As much as she didn’t want to go on light duty and forfeit learning as much as she could in the field as a rookie cop, Krista was thankful for the reprieve. Her hips were grateful, along with her feet, and she wasn’t nearly as tired come nightfall as she had been after twelve hours of being in the field handcuffing bad guys and keeping the streets safe from evildoers. She quickly fell into an easy routine at her desk, getting her workload done in record time, and then spending the rest of her day digging into Myles’s past. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much there. Either the guy was clean and just now starting to act like a predatory douche, or he’d managed to slip into the RCMP database and erase his files. Krista’s money was on the latter. She just had to keep digging.
As Krista slung her bag over her shoulder and turned off her computer, she yawned and then yawned again. Was there going to be a stir-fry waiting for her at home? She hoped so. Brock had been up at the crack of dawn and out the door that morning, not even bothering to poke his head into her bedroom before he left, as he’d started doing, to ask how she was feeling and if she had felt “the little monkey” kick. She missed seeing him. Missed the routine. As stoic a man as he was, he seemed to be genuinely giddy about the idea of getting to feel the baby move.
They’d spent the night before decorating the Christmas tree they’d picked upover the weekend. Apparently, in all his years of living in the house by himself, Brock had never put up a tree. He said he always just went to his mother’s, so he had no decorations, not even a wreath for the door. So, at Krista’s insistence, seeing as this was her first Christmas not spent in Tanner Ridge with her family, they filled the house with all the little hints of holiday cheer and festive delight that Krista had brought along with her from home.
But even after emptying her lone box marked “Christmas Crap,” the house and tree still seemed sparse. So, munching on a gingerbread man and humming “Jingle Bells,” she ducked out to Walmart for more random baubles and doodads. They spent a lovely evening building Santa’s Christmas Village and making the little elves and town people in her Christmas village do dirty and naughty things to each other.
It almost felt like they were a normal couple, preparing for their last Christmas before baby.
But she knew better.
He made it very clear whenever he shut down that they were just two people who fucked like bunnies and just happened to be having a child together.
But that didn’t stop her from making a second batch of big bulky gingerbread men, with muscly arms and pensive scowls on their faces, as she puttered away in the kitchen later that night after work. She gooped the word “BROCK” into the center of one big gingerbread man’s chest, gave him gumdrop buttons and M&M eyes. And right before heading to bed, and making damn sure Brock was nowhere to be found, she picked up the confection with a frown and kissed it square on the lips.
