Sergeant Sexypants Read online

  I look back at the paper. What the hell is happening here?

  * * *

  Bree,

  You dumb bitch.

  Your cop buddy says you’ve spent thirteen years blaming yourself for what happened back in school, which is just fucking stupid. I screwed up. Not you. You’re guilty of being too fucking nice, and that’s about it. Get on with your life.

  Sincerely,

  Bridget Mueller

  P.S. Seriously, you’re an idiot.

  * * *

  Tears well in my eyes, and the words blur together. It’s the first time in my life I’ve felt grateful for being name-called. I don’t know what to say.

  “Is this real?”

  He gives me an odd look. “Of course, it’s real.”

  “How did you get this?”

  “I paid her a visit in prison,” he says. “And before you start kicking yourself for playing some imaginary role in landing her there, she also gave me permission to share her rap sheet with you.”

  I bite my lip, not sure what to make of this. “Will it make me feel better or worse?”

  “You think I’d offer if it’d make you feel worse?”

  “No. But I don’t want you to sugarcoat anything. Just the truth, okay?”

  He gives me a look, and I recognize the irony of what I just said.

  “I’m sorry, Austin,” I tell him. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t up-front about what I did. About who I was.”

  “I know damn well who you are, Bree,” he says. “You’re a smart, compassionate, driven woman who made some bad choices as a kid, but those don’t define you.”

  “I also made bad choices as an adult.” I crease the letter in my lap and trace the edge of the paper with the pad of my thumb. “That’s what I mean, though. How can you ever trust me after this?”

  “Do you have more skeletons in your closet?” he asks. “A secret career as a high-dollar escort or a history of beating puppies?”

  “No.”

  “Okay then,” he says, merging onto the highway. “You’re starting from a clean slate.”

  I fiddle with the seatbelt. “Okay,” I say softly. “Tell me about Bridget’s rap sheet.”

  So he does.

  And somewhere between stories of her pre-teen shoplifting and her first DUI and her adult career in forgery, I find an odd sort of peace. It’s dumb, since I shouldn’t take comfort in someone else’s suffering. It must make me a shitty person, to feel better about myself because someone else screwed up.

  But what it means is that I’m not the only one. Mistakes were made, but they weren’t all mine. As Austin speaks, the tiniest weight lifts from my shoulders. I roll them in their sockets, listening to the smoothness of Officer Velvet Voice, admiring the dedication it required for him to bring me these nuggets of information. Of redemption.

  “Thank you,” I murmur when he’s done speaking. My eyelids feel heavy, like I’ve gone weeks without sleeping. Years.

  “You’re welcome.” He reaches over and rests a hand on my knee. “You’re a good person, Bree. One of the best I know.”

  Tears sting the edges of my lashes, and I give in to the urge to close my eyes. As the highway hums beneath us and Austin’s fingers twine through mine, I almost believe him.

  “Bree. Wake up, Bree.”

  I blink my eyes open to find Austin touching my shoulder. He’s standing in the open passenger door, and it takes me a second to remember I’m in a cop car and not naked in a tent.

  Sunlight funnels through a blob of rainclouds over his shoulder, giving him a golden halo effect. He looks like a freakin’ hottie cop poster.

  I rub my eyes with the backs of my hands. “I fell asleep?”

  Duh, Bree.

  Austin just smiles and holds out his hand. “Come on,” he says. “The guest speaker doesn’t do her thing until tomorrow, but you’ve got a private meeting with her in ten minutes.”

  My sleep-fogged brain tries to figure out why I’d get a special meeting with the guest speaker at a statewide cop conference and comes up empty. But I trust Austin enough to let him unbuckle my seatbelt and help me out of the car. My legs are shaky as I clamber to my feet, and he holds me by the elbows while I get my bearings.

  I tip my head back, only meaning to look at him. Only meaning to smile, to plant one single, chaste kiss along his jawline.

  That’s not how it happens.

  The second my lips touch his, something melts inside me. All my resistance, all my reasons for holding back, they dissolve the instant his tongue grazes mine. I clutch the back of his head and kiss him hard, needing him to know I’m through resisting. Whatever this is between us, I’m done fighting it. He’s shown me he’s willing to hang on no matter what, no matter how shitty I am.

  I can damn well do the same.

  We’re both breathless when I pull back. His eyes blaze with blue heat, with satisfaction. He smiles and drops his hands from my waist. “To be continued.” He grabs my hand. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”

  Twining our fingers together, he leads me across the pavement and through the doors of a convention center I visited last year for a hotelier’s conference. The air smells like rain, but pinpricks of sun spear through fine slits in the clouds. There’s blue sky peeking over the horizon beyond the hotel parking lot, and bright orange maples fringe the freeway beyond that.

  He pulls open the door and leads me down a corridor, past signs that point to conference rooms and the hotel coffee shop. “We’ve got a room upstairs, but you’re meeting her first,” he says.

  Her?

  “Austin, who are we—”

  And that’s when I see it. Next to a reader board advertising the locations of workshops on cybercrime and terrorism response. A life-sized poster of a woman with straight brown hair and eyes so dark they’re almost navy. It’s the eyes I remember, and I freeze in my tracks and stare at the face I knew so long ago.

  Marcella Burkhardt.

  The girl who lost her legs, who nearly died in that crash that happened while I was locked up at juvey. I stare at the image, absorbing the defiant smile, the muscular arms, the crisp, blue police uniform.

  And the prosthetic limbs visible beneath the hiked-up hem of her cop slacks. I blink hard, trying to make sense of it.

  Austin squeezes my hand and I turn to look at him. “She became a cop,” he says. “Kind of a famous one.”

  My mouth is dry. I have so many questions, and I don’t know which one to ask first. “How did you—”

  “I recognized the name when you said it,” he says. “I mean, I know there’s more than one Marcella in the world, but it’s not the most common name, and it was plastered all over the workshop materials for this year’s conference. So I did some checking.”

  I look back at the poster as the puzzle pieces arrange themselves in my mind. America’s first double-amputee, active-duty police officer read the words printed above her head. There’s a spark in her eye that I know wasn’t put there by Photoshop.

  “She’s okay,” I breathe. “She’s actually okay.”

  “Better than okay,” he says. “She’s kind of a legend for her motivational speeches. When she’s not busting bad guys, she travels the country sharing her life story.”

  “I can’t believe this.” I look back at the photo, recognizing the faint scar on her left wrist. The night of the party, she told me she got it falling off her horse at a dressage competition. There’s a gleam in her eyes that I remember, too, a spark that made me desperate to have her as my friend.

  “Is she—does she know I’m—” My throat clogs, but Austin fills in the blanks.

  “Yes,” he says. “I reached out to her yesterday. She was happy you’re doing well. She wanted to talk with you about what happened.”

  “She wants to talk to me.” I can’t believe this.

  He squeezes my hand again. “It was her idea. She thought it could do you both some good.”

  “I never Googled her,” I whisper. “I looked up B
ridget once, and I felt so shitty when I saw she was in prison that I couldn’t bear to take it any further.”

  “She’s not angry,” Austin says. “Marcella isn’t. Not at you, not at anyone. I’ll let her tell you the rest of it herself, but it’s important you know that going in.”

  My eyes prickle with tears, and I take some deep breaths to keep from crying. I’ve spent thirteen years running from my past. Confronting it now should be scary, but it’s not. Not like I thought it would be.

  I look at Austin, and I know he’s the reason.

  He stares back at me, blue eyes steady and reassuring and so full of kindness I nearly collapse. But I don’t. I hold myself up and take a deep breath.

  “You ready?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yes.”

  “It’s time for some closure.”

  It’s past time. Long past time.

  With that, we turn and walk toward the coffee shop.

  Chapter 17

  AUSTIN

  Hours later, I hear the click of a key card in the hotel room door. I sit up fast, surprised to realize I dozed off while reviewing my presentation on statewide regulatory updates.

  Here’s hoping attendees don’t do the same.

  “Bree.” I run a hand through my hair and watch her face as she walks through the door and across the dimly-lit hotel room. “How did it go?”

  There are tear tracks on her cheeks, but her smile is like the sun coming out. “Oh, Austin.”

  The wobble in her voice isn’t sadness or regret. It’s relief. I’d know it anywhere, because that’s what I’m feeling now.

  I start to stand, to embrace her as she reaches the bed. But she drops down beside me and wraps her arms around my torso, burying her face against my chest. “Thank you,” she murmurs into my shirt. “Thank you so much for everything.”

  Thank God.

  I stroke her back, basking in my own relief. There were so many ways this could have gone wrong. Marcella could have been angry or judgmental, could have set Bree back to square one. But she wanted closure, too.

  “It was good then.” I slide my fingers through her curls as she burrows against me like an animal seeking warmth. She’s such a force of nature that I forget how small she is. Having her curled against my chest like this is a reminder of how tiny she is.

  “How did you know?” she asks.

  I don’t answer right away, not sure I understand the question. She draws back to look me in the eye, one hand flat on my chest. “How did you know that was exactly what I needed?”

  “Talking with Marcella?”

  She nods, circling her palm over my heart. “That, but also this. Touching you. Being held. Knowing you’re there for me, even when I didn’t know that’s what I needed. That you’re my rock.”

  “Always,” I say, even though that’s a bold thing to stay. I’m not even sure we’re back together, so it’s crazy to start promising forever.

  But that’s what I want, and her eyes tell me I’m not alone.

  I stroke her hair again, loving the feel of those wild curls rippling through my fingers. “She said on the phone she always felt guilty,” I tell her. “When I called to set up your meeting with her, Marcella told me she always hated that you went to juvey for something you didn’t do.”

  “It wasn’t her fault.”

  “She knows.” Bree’s palm on my chest is making the blood drain from my head to places it shouldn’t be right now, and I’m determined not to be a creep. Not to take advantage of Bree’s vulnerability. “She wanted you to hear that firsthand from her. To apologize for letting you take the fall.”

  “She didn’t need to apologize,” Bree says. “She told me I shouldn’t apologize either, but we both needed to. I’m glad we did.”

  “Closure.”

  “Yes. The start of it, anyway.” Her laugh shifts her body closer so her breast presses against my arm. “We talked about doing therapy together. It’s not a bad idea.”

  “It could be helpful.” I hold my breath, wondering if she knows what she’s doing. That her palm is circling lower and lower, moving closer to my belt buckle. She shifts so her breasts sandwich my elbow, and I’m having trouble staying focused on the conversation.

  She smiles like she’s just read my thoughts. Her green eyes are clear and bright, with the last remnants of tears evaporating like the end of a rainstorm. That’s not sadness I’m seeing in her expression. It’s something else. Something I recognize deep in my gut.

  And other parts.

  “Bree.” My breath catches as her fingers skim my belt buckle. “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to,” she says. “I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want this right now.”

  Jesus.

  She licks her lips, and it’s all I can do to keep from lunging for her. “Do you want me?” she whispers.

  “Yes.” My voice is husky, barely my own. “So much.”

  And then we’re kissing.

  It happens so fast that I’m not sure who moves first. We collide like gravity’s pulling us together, like we’ve been moving toward this moment for a thousand lifetimes.

  I fall back onto the bed, not sure if I’m pulling her with me or if she pushed us into motion. She lands on my chest, the delicious, warm weight of her pressing me back against the mattress. God, she’s sweet. Her mouth, her skin, everything about her tastes like raspberries and sunshine. I’ve never wanted anyone more than I want Bree right now.

  I slide a hand up the back of her thigh to steady her and connect with bare skin. Her skirt rides up as she straddles me, groaning as she grinds against my fly. We’re dry humping like a couple high school kids on prom night, and I ache with the urge to be inside her.

  She draws back, and the heat in her eyes matches what’s simmering in my chest right now. “Make love to me,” she says. “Please don’t make me wait, Austin.”

  God, the way she says my name.

  And the way she’s looking at me, with an urgent craving in her eyes and in her voice. It ignites the same thing in me, and my last shred of restraint falls to the floor like a blouse torn off.

  I tug at the zipper on her skirt while Bree yanks at my belt. Shoes go flying, and shirts and socks. Never in the history of human clothing have two people gotten naked as quickly as we do. If this were a stripping contest, we’d get a gold medal.

  Her breasts fall free from the lace bra, and I cup them in my hands, dizzy with the weight of them. She leans into my palms and kisses me, thighs splaying open as her slick heat connects with the dull throb between my legs.

  “Condom,” I groan, wondering where my pants went.

  “On it.” She reaches behind her like a sex magician and produces the prophylactic. She’s got it on me before I can draw a full breath, and then she’s on me.

  And I’m in her and oh, God.

  My hands grip her hips as she slides slick and tight around me. “Jesus, Bree.”

  She responds with a sound that’s somewhere between a groan and a growl, hips moving with urgent need. She closes her eyes and tips her head back, curls falling around her shoulders. I watch her in wonder as her fingers slide down her chest and over her breasts, thumbs grazing her nipples.

  Fuck, she’s beautiful.

  Beautiful and mine.

  She’s moving with a rhythm I swear I can hear, like a song I’ve known for years and still love. Her core clenches around me and I feel her body tense.

  “That’s it,” I murmur. “Take what you need.”

  She opens her eyes and smiles, and my heart melts in a hot puddle. Her thumbs stroke her nipples, palms cupping the warm weight of her breasts. My hands rise to join them, fingers twining together as she slides down harder onto me.

  “Austin,” she groans. “I’ve never felt so—”

  Her voice breaks in a moan, but I know the rest of that sentence. Not the exact words, but this, this thing between us that’s like two souls spinning into one.

  “You’re so deep,” she g
asps. “So fucking good.”

  I’m gonna lose it. The sight of her touching herself, of our hands joined together on her breasts, the feeling of her slick heat around me, it’s too much.

  She tosses her curls, and I plunge right over the edge.

  “Austin.” Her eyes go wide and I know she’s there with me. “Oh, God.”

  We explode together, a clenching, clutching frenzy of sensation. She’s pulsing around me, gripping me tight as she rides each wave of shared pleasure. She throws her head back and screams, and I thank God I had the good sense to get a room on a different floor from my deputies. Not that I care. I’m so lost in pleasure, so lost in Bree, that I wouldn’t mind if the whole fucking squad sat on the foot of the bed and watched.

  She comes down slowly, her body heavy with concrete-filled limbs. I catch her as she falls, palms circling her ribcage as I pull us down onto the bed and roll so we’re facing each other.

  Bree opens her eyes and smiles. “I love you.”

  Holy shit.

  There’s a two-second delay while my brain processes the words and comes up with something smarter to say than Are you fucking serious?

  “I love you, too.” I push a damp curl off her forehead. “So much.”

  I’ve known for days, weeks even. But saying it out loud feels so good that I say it again. “I love you, Bree.”

  Her smile widens as I kiss her softly and slip my fingers into her hair. We kiss like that for a long time, bodies pressed so close we’re touching at a thousand heated points.

  She’s still smiling when she breaks the kiss. “Can we start again?” she asks. “You and me, a clean slate.”

  “Always,” I tell her, no hesitation at all. “We can always start again.”

  We pull into my driveway as the sky is turning pink and orange the next evening. Virginia bursts through the pet door doing her full-body wag, eager to inform me that Kim failed to offer unlimited kibble and a ribeye steak.

  “It’s good to see you, girl.” I stoop down to scratch my pup behind the ears, but the traitor sets her sights on Bree. She scurries over and collapses at Bree’s feet with her tongue lolling, thumping her tail on the gravel to punctuate her adoration.