Hard Hart: The Harty Boys, Book 1

by Cox, Whitley

  Brock’s stomach grumbled at the same time his cock jumped to life in his jeans. “You are a horny little thing, aren’t you?” He grunted, removing his black T-shirt and following her into the kitchen. Suddenly his hunger could wait. He hadn’t gotten laid on the regular like this in ages and couldn’t remember the last time the sex was this good, either.

  She nibbled on her lip again. “When you look like that I am.” Her eyes drank him down, lingering long on his abs and pecs before fixating on his biceps. She seemed to love his arms, digging her nails into his muscles whenever she came. Unlike the marks on her wrist, he loved the marks Krista left on his skin. Bite marks and nail trenches, scratches up his back. She really was a little lioness, and he loved it.

  He took a few steps toward her, reaching for the button on her pants. He had her naked in seconds. Now all he had to do was get her beneath him. Her chest heaved with each breath, and he allowed his eyes to drift down her body. Her hands cradled her lower abdomen, and that’s when he noticed a faint, but noticeable—because he’d put it there—bump. It was barely discernible, and to anyone else they would have just chalked it up to maybe a second cinnamon bun at lunch or something. But they both knew better. He allowed his big hand to cover hers, and for just a moment, they stood there quietly in the kitchen, her completely naked and him nearly the same, bonding over the little miracle in her belly.

  She smiled up at him, linking her fingers with his. “It’s official. I’m starting to show.”

  He grinned back, his heart rate picking up at the intimacy of her actions. It was one thing to be balls deep inside her, but the gentleness of her touch, of their linked fingers was freaking him out. He swallowed down the nerves and made sure his smile was extra big. “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  Her eyes were glassy and full of emotions as she gazed up at him. “Who are you, Brock Hart? I can’t figure you out. Bossy and demanding one minute and then sweet and saying all the right things the next.” Her smile was small. “Some days I feel like I’m living with two different men.”

  He swallowed and tried to remain in control. Since she moved in, he’d felt like he was two different men, and it was freaking him the fuck out. He dropped his hand from her belly, unlinking their fingers in the process. His smile faded as well. He needed to get back to the task at hand. And that task was fucking. Fucking he could do.

  She seemed to be waiting for him to answer. She cocked her head sexily to the side and nibbled on that goddamn bottom lip again. But he had no answer for her. He didn’t recognize himself either. So instead he did what he could, what he wanted to do, what they both needed him to do. He took her. Hard.

  Their bodies mashed together as he grabbed her ponytail and pulled her toward him, devouring her mouth and forcing her lips apart. Lips roamed, teeth nipped and hands frantically peeled away the last shreds of clothing that remained on his body. She leaped up onto his hips without warning and locked her ankles around his back. His hands had a firm grip on her luscious ass, and with driving force, he bulldozed them over to the nearest wall, plastered her up against it and slammed home.

  He pumped up into her with rhythmic vigor, his arms flexing with the weight of her petite frame. He dug his fingers into the plump flesh of her ass, relishing the way the globes contracted as she met him thrust for thrust as best she could.

  She snagged his bottom lip between her teeth and chuckled when he gasped from the sudden snap of pain. It felt like she’d drawn blood, but he didn’t care. He loved his little lion and how ferocious she could be. Her nails raked down his back, clawing at him, grappling and pulling him harder and deeper into her. He growled as he nipped her shoulder, allowing his mouth to slowly travel farther down her arm, alternating between naughty bites and sensual kisses. But then his mouth landed on the bruise. On Slade’s hand print, wrapped purple and blue around her tiny, pale wrist, and he fucking lost it.

  Like a rabid beast, he let out a growl that made her eyes flash open and her whole body tremble against his. He picked up speed, hammering into her even harder, claiming her, all of her. Demolishing any trace or mark that Slade may have made on her body. She would never belong to anybody but Brock ever again. Nobody else could have her.

  He was seconds away from coming. Everything felt so damn good—the way her hot little pussy squeezed him like a fist, her nails digging into his biceps, and her teeth on his neck. The woman was vicious, and he loved it. He’d never felt more alive than when inside Krista. She tightened herself even more around him, tossed her head back against the wall and let go.

  “Oh … G … od!”

  He lifted his head up to watch her. Her eyes fluttered shut so she could ride out the waves of euphoria in the dark. He let his mouth fall to the crook of her neck, nipped her just below the ear, inhaled her sweet scent and joined her in her bliss.

  He poured himself inside her, finding his release and letting his walls, the walls he’d so carefully built around himself, crumble down for just a second.

  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-thoroughly look 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 is my job. 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, another woman if I can help it.”

  “Neither do I. Doesn’t mean you need 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 of his T-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 Eight

  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 cacophony of 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 Nine

  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 up over 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.

  * * *

  The following morning, with a headless gingerbread man in her hand and a full mouth, Krista parked her car behind the station. Winter sucked. Even now, working banker’s hours, it was still dark when she started and finished work, wasting the day away inside concrete walls like some common prisoner.

  Today, Mallory had her working in booking and processing and then possibly organizing the evidence locker. Slamming her car door and shivering from her lack of gloves, Krista paused. Eyes were on her. She felt them like a mosquito perched on her arm. A slight prickly sensation wended its way up her spine. Myles? No. He had no reason to watch her. He could see her any time he wanted, and so far, since she’d moved upstairs to the offices, she’d barely seen him at all. No, these eyes were different. They didn’t feel altogether sinister, just … curious.

  Spinning around and checking for anything nefarious or out of the ordinary, she surveyed the area. But there was nothing out of place. A pair of crows nattered on a power line, and a black cat sprinted across a nearby driveway. Yet despite all that, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.

  Giving the area one final sweep but seeing nothing shady, she shook it off, crossed her fingers that it wasn’t Myles, and headed inside.

  * * *

  Krista was dead on her feet and absolutely starving by the time she clocked out from the station. She had completely missed lunch, being caught up in the evidence locker with Mallory. The two had decided to reorganize and refile everything. Thankfully, they both appeared to have a touch of OCD and a penchant for alphabetization, so the system they devised together worked well.

  She drove to the grocery store and trudged inside, dodging other weary patrons who were probably going to buy far more than they needed because they were shopping hungry. And once again, like earlier that day, the feeling of being watched was back, tickling the hair on her neck and putting her whole body on high alert.

  She was being followed.

  Someone in the grocery store was only there because Krista was. They were watching her, following her, tracking her, which couldn’t have been easy given how busy the place was.

  But that didn’t matter. She was being spied on, stalked, and come hell or high water, she was going to find out who it was and what they wanted.

  Making sure her belly was hidden beneath her heavy winter coat, Krista put her best cop face on, pulled her badge from her purse and began canvasing the place.

  Up and down the aisles she roamed, no longer aware of her growling stomach but on an impromptu manhunt. She was hunting her hunter, determined to confront him and find out why she currently felt like a bug under a scope.

  And then she saw him, sticking out like a sore thumb, standing by the checkout reading a fish and wildlife magazine, with his ball cap drawn down over his brow and a dark gray hoodie. He was big, like Brock big. His shoes and clothes were clean, and the Tissot watch on his wrist said that he had taste and style but wasn’t pretentious. This was not some junkie or homeless man out to exact revenge because she’d made him move sleeping spots. This was a guy with a job and money, and yet he was making it his sole mission to keep tabs on her. Why?


  But unlike Mr. Ball Cap, Krista was going to play it cool. It would do no good to march up to him and demand to know what he was up to. He could simply feign ignorance and claim that she was some crazy lady who thought she was being followed but wasn’t.

  Instead, she continued to wander up and down the aisles, perusing and shopping, stopping to check the ingredients on a box of cereal or compare prices of salsa. Every time she turned the corner onto a new aisle, there he was, his basket loaded with miscellaneous items to make it look real, but it was the way he stopped and the way he walked that said he wasn’t there to shop.

  Krista had been shopping with her dad, her brother and now Brock enough times to know that men didn’t wander when they shopped. They shopped like they were on a mission. And that mission was to get in and get out in as little time as possible, and then carry all twenty-seven bags into the house in one trip.

  She made sure to establish a pattern of how she was roaming the aisles, a pattern that he could anticipate and follow, and once she knew he had it, she deviated and doubled back, coming up behind him, until she was close enough to smell him. He smelled good.

  “Why are you following me?” she asked, just a hint of accusation in her tone, but not enough to make him think she was off her meds or something.

  He spun around and gaped at her, a look of utter shock on his face. His eyes went wide. That’s when she noticed that they were the same color as Brock’s, and the longer she looked at him, the more she saw the similarity. This one was younger for sure, but their build was the same; big bulldozer bodies, Christmas ham hands, and dark caterpillars that bobbed and furrowed along the forehead. Only where Brock’s hair was close-cut, this brother apparently preferred to shave it all off and was sporting a bald head beneath the ball cap. She remembered asking Brock his brothers’ names before but couldn’t for the life of her remember them at the moment. Which one was this?