Dating A Cop (The Dating Series Book 1)

by Love, B. T.

  “Oh my god, Mary . . .” I groaned.

  James smiled at me. “You should listen to your friend.”

  “Yeah I knew you would say something along those lines.”

  He leaned in, placing a swift kiss on my lips. “I gotta get back to work. Call me tonight?”

  “Sure,” I smiled back. “Be safe out there officer.”

  “I will. Bye Mary.”

  “Bye James.”

  I rolled up my window as James went back to his car. “God my boyfriend is so hot.”

  “Your man in blue with balls to match.”

  “Mary!”

  “What?” she laughed, fully amused with herself. “I’m on his side.”

  “Yeah I know you are.” I waved to James as he pulled around us and drove away. “What is your deal with this anyway? You’re really starting to irritate me.”

  “I’m sorry. I just, I don’t know, feel like I’m living vicariously through you or something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Rick and I have been together for a long time and even though our sex is great I just miss the newness of a relationship. I like watching your relationship with James grow. It reminds me of old times with Rick.”

  “But what does that have to do with me having sex with James?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I’m just excited for you guys, that’s all. I don’t mean to be weird.”

  I pulled back onto the street and made my way toward Sharlton’s. “I just find it funny that my best friend is pressuring me to have sex more than my actual boyfriend is.”

  Mary laughed. “I’m sorry. From here on out I promise I won’t say another word about you sleeping with him.”

  I shot her a skeptical look. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes. Cross my heart.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She popped another bubble with her gum. “I know one thing though, I’m gonna have to buy Rick a cop costume or something. A man in a uniform is no joke.”

  “Yeah, it’s sexy alright.”

  * * *

  “I’m nervous.”

  James stood behind me and ran his hands down my bare shoulders. “Why? You look great. And I love your hair pulled back like this; it’s sexy.”

  “Thank you. I think I’m nervous because I’m going to meet all of your work friends. I want to make a good impression.”

  “Don’t worry, you will.”

  The Lexington Police Department was putting on its annual black tie dinner and I was a nervous wreck. I would be meeting all of his friends, his fellow work mates, his boss . . . everyone.

  “Are you ready?” he asked as he grabbed my coat off of his couch and held it open.

  I slid my arms inside. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Well you look beautiful. And I love that dress.”

  “Yeah I got it at Sharlton’s. Do you think it’s too short?”

  “Any dress you wear could never be too short.”

  I smiled at his compliment and took in the sight of him. Man, he looked so sexy in his tux. There was never a time when he didn’t look sexy.

  “Well you look pretty hot yourself, you stud.”

  “Thank you, my lady.” He pulled me tightly against him. “So, did you end up getting anything else at Sharlton’s?”

  “You mean like lingerie?” I asked, reaching up and planting a soft kiss on his lips.

  “Maybe,” he smirked. “I can’t help but wonder if you took your friends advice and bought some.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know . . .”

  “Um yeah, I would.”

  I smiled, amused by his flirtation, and backed away from his embrace. While looking him square in the eyes my fingers found the hem of my dress and I slowly began lifting the black fabric up along my thighs.

  His gaze dropped immediately. “Uh, what are you doing?”

  “You said you were wondering if I bought any lingerie. I thought I’d show you instead of tell you.”

  He crossed his arms and brought a hand up to his mouth, stroking his stubble while quietly taking in the sight of me lifting my dress. His eyes shifted back and forth between mine and my thighs. It was liberating; I felt so playful and as silly as it sounds, I felt naughty. As much as I didn’t want to tease him, I wanted to give him something nice to look at. I pulled the fabric higher and revealed a tiny bit of the lace of my panties.

  His eyes scarcely widened. “Wow, red. I like that.”

  “Yeah I was going to go with black but I thought it would be nice to have a dirty little secret under this dress.”

  “Oh, it’s dirty alright.”

  I dropped the fabric back down. “So you like the red then?”

  “What?” he pouted huskily, ignoring my question. “That’s all I get?”

  “You want more?” I flirted.

  “I want it all.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Then show me more.”

  “But I don’t want to tease you too much . . .”

  “Oh, tease me. Please.” He came forward and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me against him. “You have no idea what you do to me.” In a flash his eyes grew carnal. He kissed into me, his tongue delving into my mouth, intertwining with my own. His powerful hands gravitated down my backside and gripped onto me, taking ownership as he moved me back against the wall. It all happened so fast. He lifted my dress and reached down, grabbing my leg and wrapping it around him. I followed his lead and wrapped my other leg around him so he was holding me up, pushing me against the wall.

  “James,” I moaned between our passionate kiss.

  “What baby?”

  “Mm.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He kissed me deeper, driving me more wild with every passing millisecond.

  Someone knocked at the door, stopping us in our tracks.

  “Dammit,” he huffed. “Who the hell is here?”

  “Officer Brown?” a woman called out from behind the door. “Officer Brown are you home?”

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes and sighed, carefully letting go of my legs so I could bring them to the floor. “It’s an elderly lady who lives in here. She gets afraid at night and comes over every now and then to see if I can check out her apartment.”

  “Oh.”

  “I better answer it.”

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  He stood back and opened the door, poking just his head out. “Hi Delores. Is something wrong?”

  “Oh hello, James. I’m sorry to bother you, but I heard some noise coming from my closet and I was hoping you could come take a look for me.”

  “Yes, of course. Just give me a minute and we’ll be over.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah, my girlfriend Kate is with me. We’re on our way out, actually.”

  “Oh okay. Well I hope I’m not too much of a bother.”

  “Not at all. Just give me a minute and I’ll walk you back over to your house.” He closed the door and faced me. “I need to run over there real quick. You want to get your things and come with me?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I smoothed my fingers over the front of my dress. “I’m not too disheveled now, am I?”

  He brought his hand to my chin and smiled. “Never.”

  * * *

  James held the door for me as we entered the large room filled with off-duty police officers. There were tons of people there, more than I thought there would be, and they were all dressed similarly to us.

  He grabbed onto my hand and squeezed it. “You still nervous?”

  “Yep.”

  “Ah, don’t worry. We’ll have fun tonight.”

  “I know,” I smiled as I took in the room. “I didn’t realize you worked with so many officers.”

  “A lot of these people are retired. There’s a lot I don’t know personally.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well look who it is,” a man called o
ut. “My absolute favorite, Officer Brown.”

  James smiled warmly at him. “Hello Chief.”

  “Glad you could make it tonight, James.” The man turned his attention to me. “And I’m going to go ahead and assume that this breathtaking beauty standing next to you is Kate, am I right?”

  I blushed and stuck my hand out. “Hi, yes, I’m Kate. How did you know?”

  He took my hand and shook it, placing his other hand on top in a kind gesture. “Because this guy over here can’t shut up about you, that’s why.”

  “Oh really?” I smiled. “Is that so?”

  “You better believe it. And he has pictures of you all over his desk.”

  “Really?” I asked, giving James a pleasant smile. “Well I had no idea.”

  “Come on Chief, give me a break,” James laughed with a hint of embarrassment in his tone.

  The Chief let go of my hand and ran his fingers through his salt-and-pepper colored hair. “Okay okay. Well Kate, I’m Brad Thomas and it was very nice to meet you. And I have got to say, you’ve got yourself a great man here. He’s going places that’s for sure.”

  “I believe it.”

  “You should. I have plans for him to be a Sergeant and after that he’ll most likely have my job as Chief.”

  “Well I should tell you that James speaks very highly of you. He talks of you often.”

  “Don’t believe him; it’s all lies,” he joked. He turned to James. “You better be twirling this beauty around the dance floor tonight.”

  “I will, for sure,” James answered.

  “Okay then. You two have a good evening.” He bowed out and left, shaking hands with more people as he made his way over to the open bar.

  “It’s nice to finally put a face to a name,” I said. “You’re always talking about him.”

  “Yeah, he’s a really good guy. I want to be like him someday when it comes to my job.”

  “Well it sounds like you will be, judging by how highly he speaks of you.”

  “James!” another man called out, this one short and bald, the opposite of the Chief. “Nice to see you!”

  “Hey John. This is my girlfriend Kate, Kate this is John.”

  “Nice to meet you,” John said cheerfully as he shook my hand. “You keeping this guy in line?”

  “I’m trying,” I joked.

  “That’s good to hear. Hey, you two come over later and have a drink with me and my wife, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll make sure to do that.”

  Everyone was so nice, and they all seemed to love James so much. That was an excellent sign. But I wasn’t surprised; I loved James so much, so why wouldn’t everyone else? He was an amazing man.

  As the night wore on I met countless amounts of people, and forgot most of their names, but I was having a blast. After eating the exquisite meal and having a few drinks we were ready to dance.

  James led me out on the floor when a slow song came on. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me against him, smiling down at me with tenderness. “I like having you this close to me.”

  I laced my arms around his neck and nuzzled against him. “I like being this close to you.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about what you’re wearing under this dress.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Mm hmm.”

  I pulled my head back to see him. “Well I can’t stop thinking about you holding me up against the wall earlier.”

  He breathed out a quiet laugh. “I can’t stop thinking about that either.”

  “And how you pushed yourself between my legs . . .”

  “What are you trying to do to me, woman?” he joked. “You want to get me started right here in this room?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He smiled and held onto me tighter, pulling me against him even more. I laid my head against his broad shoulder and relaxed against his warmth, his strength. He really made me feel safe and loved. It had been so long since I’d felt those feelings.

  “Thank you for coming tonight,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “You’ve really made a good impression on everyone.”

  “I’m glad. And so have you; everyone talks so highly of you.”

  “I try to be someone to talk highly of.”

  “I know.”

  “I wish you could have met some of the other guys I work with but they had to work tonight.”

  “There will be other events, right?”

  “Yeah but this one is just once a year. I’ll have to have a barbecue this summer and invite some of them over for you to meet.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  The song ended and a fast one came on. James gave me a questionable look. “I hope you’re not wanting to dance to this.”

  “Nope,” I laughed, shaking my head. “Let’s get off this dance floor.”

  “I’m glad you said that.”

  We went back to our table and joined John and his wife. His wife, Sammy, looked just like him but with hair. We had been talking most of the night and I really liked her.

  “You two looked so cute out there on the dance floor,” Sammy pointed out. “You remind me of me and John when we were your age.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said. “I like to slow dance. I’m not much of a fast dancer, though.”

  “Me either,” James added.

  “Well it’s good you both are on the same page. John hates to dance to upbeat music but I love it. It’s something we’ve argued about for years.”

  “Oh stop that,” John chimed in. “I still do it for you, even though I look like an idiot when I do.”

  “You don’t look like an idiot.”

  “Yes I do!”

  James and I glanced at each other and exchanged quiet laughs. John and Sammy were so cute. Even though they bickered a lot you could see the love they shared. It was in the way they looked at each other between sentences, the same way James and I looked at each other.

  “Enough of this dancing nonsense,” John said. “Hey James, have you heard anything else on how Seth is doing? I meant to call him today but I got so busy I forgot.”

  “Uh, yeah,” he said as he picked up his glass of wine and took a sip.

  “Well, how is he?”

  James shifted in his seat and sat his glass back on the table. “I talked to him this morning and he’s doing fine.”

  “I can’t believe what happened to the poor guy,” Sammy said. “But sometimes those things happen, unfortunately.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked, feeling a little left out of the conversation.

  Sammy leaned across the table. “You mean you didn’t hear? He was stabbed.”

  “Stabbed?”

  “Yeah, while he was on duty some guy ran from him and Seth chased him down. When he tackled him the guy pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the arm. It was a pretty deep wound. You didn’t tell her James?”

  James tensed next to me. “Uh, no. I didn’t get a chance to tell her yet.”

  I looked down at my lap and wrung my hands together. How could he keep something like that from me?

  John cleared his throat as if he could sense some tension. “Well, I think I’m about ready to go home. How about you, Sammy?”

  “Yes I think I’ve had enough fun for one night.”

  James stroked my shoulder. “You ready to go?”

  “Yeah, I’m ready.” The four of us stood up from the table and I gravitated to Sammy’s side. “It was nice meeting you,” I told her as I gave her a hug.

  “Oh, you too. We’ll have to get together again sometime.”

  “Yes, let’s do that.”

  James and I made our way out of the building and said our goodbyes to more people, including the Chief who patted James on the back and gave me a warm hug. He really did seem like a sweet man.

  Back in the truck James was unusually quiet. After a few minutes of driving he finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry.”

 
“Okay.” I was so confused and irritated that I didn’t even really want to talk about it.

  He looked over at me. “Are you mad?”

  “Honestly, I, I really don’t know what I am.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just don’t know why you didn’t tell me about Seth getting stabbed while he was on duty. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “I already worry, James. All the time.”

  “Which is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

  “But you kept something from me. I feel like you lied or something.”

  He clicked his blinker on and turned into the carport of his apartment complex, parking in his usual spot and turning off the engine. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like I was lying to you. I was just worried that you would freak out.”

  I took off my seatbelt and turned to face him. “Of course I would freak out. Your friend was stabbed.”

  “Yeah, while doing his job, the same job that I do.”

  I sighed out a breath of frustration. “But don’t you see that keeping something like that from me could hurt our relationship?”

  “What? How?”

  “Because you’re not being honest.”

  “I didn’t lie to you,” he said as he took his seatbelt off. “I just refrained from telling you something that would make you worry unnecessarily.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe you.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t see the fault in what you did?”

  “Come on Katie, I don’t want to argue about this.”

  “Fine. Then from now on if there’s something that I think will bother you I won’t tell you about it. I’ll keep it from you so you won’t ‘worry unnecessarily’.”

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “Oh, you don’t like the tables being turned, huh?”

  “No, to be honest, I don’t. You know, you act like I’m this horrible person because I chose not to tell you something that would scare you. You seem to forget that I’ve been an excellent boyfriend to you in all other aspects. And a lot of men wouldn’t stick around like I would.”

  I pulled my head back with surprise. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You know what it means.”

  “Oh really? We’re going to bring my morals into this now?”