Bad Cop

by Liz Kelly

  “But then, I got scared. Because it had taken me a lotta years to banish hope. Hoping my mother would come back. Hopin’ I'd see you again. I couldn't risk going back to hope—hoping the girl in my arms wouldn't run out on me like my mother had—so, I ran out on her.”

  When Vance found the courage to look at her directly, he saw the tears shining up her pretty blue eyes and his gut clenched. “Piper, all that is just bullshit under the bridge. It’s a part of our past and it’s gonna make a great story someday. Trust me when I say I am not that guy anymore. I’m not leaving you in a bar or standing by the side of the road ever again. I swear it. Besides…” he said, leaning in to kiss her just as sweetly as he was able, “we have now come to the part in our story…where the small-town cop…with zero jurisdiction…has kidnapped the beautiful Lawyer Beaumont and handcuffed her to his bed for two…whole…weeks.”

  Piper sighed against his lips. “I swear, for all your talk, Officer Evans, you had better make this good.”

  Vance pulled back and laughed. “I swear to God, it’s like dating three different women.” He picked Piper up, turned her around, and situated her in front of him, before starting the engine. “And I’m not sure how I feel about Naughty Piper challenging my skills in the bedroom.”

  “Wait!” Piper stuck her hand out, stopping him. Vance throttled down so he could hear her. “Back to this house. Have you planned a budget?”

  “About 3.5 million. And relax, Price Waterhouse. I have it in cash.”

  “Cash?” she said, swiveling around. “You have 3.5 million in cash?”

  “Give or take.”

  “So? So…you’re a millionaire?” She blinked in astonishment.

  “Piper, have you not been listening? Yes, I’m a millionaire—many times over. A full-fledged millionaire who drives a beat-up pickup truck. Deal with it.”

  Piper squealed, turned herself around, and flung her arms around Vance’s neck, laying kisses all over his face. Vance laughed, fighting to keep his hands on the handlebars. “I’m sensing millionaire trumps cop,” he said.

  “Oh, I was crushin’ on the cop pretty hard,” she said, “but the potential for hand-painted lava stone in your kitchen just hit one hundred percent.”

  “Is that right?” he said, trying to pull her off of him. “Well, if that’s all it takes to get you to throw yourself at me, you’re going to go crazy when you see what I’ve got to show you next.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The main house was conspicuously dark when Vance and Piper walked up the path to the pool house together. When Vance opened the door to usher Piper inside, the tiny chandelier hanging over the small dining table greeted them with quiet ambiance. Inside his bedroom, lamps on the bedside tables glowed softly. Everything looked in its place. Vance wanted Piper to be comfortable. In fact, he’d thought of little else since her first visit. He pointed out her suitcase just inside the bedroom door and then took her by the hand, walking her to the bathroom.

  “Okay,” he said, opening the cabinet under the sink. “Everything in here is new. New hair dryer, new curling thing, new combs, new brushes. New girlie shampoo, conditioner, soap, et cetera. New towels,” he pointed out. “New spongy thing and new soapy net thing. I don’t know what the hell most of it is. I had some saleswoman help me. But the point is it’s all new. New for you.”

  He closed the cabinet and liked the way Piper was smiling at him.

  “There’s more,” he said, leading her back into the bedroom and pointing at the bed. “Brand new sheets that have never been slept on by anyone, including me. I had help with those too. New pillows. New mattress pad. The mattress is not new. I find it very comfortable, but if you don’t like it, we can take care of that tomorrow.”

  Piper squealed and did a swan dive onto the bed, rolling onto her back and reveling in delight. Vance crawled onto the bed and over her. “We can get a new comforter too. I’d like you to pick it out.”

  Piper reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her. “Thank you,” she said as she kissed him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “There’s one more thing,” he said, rolling to the other side of the bed. He sat up and opened the drawer of the bedside table. He pulled out a piece of paper, looked at it, and turned to hand it to Piper.

  “Oh, thank God,” she said, laughing. “I was worried you were about to pull out a brand new vibrator.”

  “As if. I barely touched you the other night and you detonated.”

  Piper pushed him flat on the bed and straddled his hips in her sundress, paper in hand. “That’s because you are hot. How lucky was I to fall in love with a ten-year-old who grew up to look like you?”

  “You think I’m hot, huh?” he said, licking his lips, moving his hands down to the hem of her dress. He tried to pull it up over her head, but Piper batted his hands away.

  “Wait! Wait. I haven’t read this.” She brushed blond curls out of her face and straightened the now-wrinkled paper before starting to read.

  “Notice the date,” he said. “The day after you were here for dinner.”

  Piper’s eyes scanned the page. “Why did you need a blood test?” She whipped the page away and stared down at him, wide-eyed. “Are you sick?”

  “Piper.” Vance sat up and tossed her onto her back, straddling her and pinning her wrists to the bed. “I needed a blood test for you. So you’d know I was healthy. Free of STDs.”

  “Oh. Is that what all those numbers meant?”

  “Yes. I wanted you to have proof, so…you know…you don’t have to worry.”

  The blue eyed smile she gave Vance had him melting from the inside out, especially when she reached up and caressed his cheek. “I’m glad you’re healthy,” she said quietly. “Thank you for that.”

  And there she was: Perfect Piper.

  Vance’s stomach seized. He moved himself up into a sitting position, blinking his eyes and trying to tamp back the fear. “Piper,” he said through a long slow breath. “I really don’t want to screw this up.”

  She pushed herself up, leaning back on her hands. She tilted her head and gave him a little smile. “You can’t possibly screw this up.”

  “I really want us to work,” he said.

  “I do too.”

  “I’m talking long term.”

  Piper fell back tossing her arms over her head—giggling—squirming in delight beneath him. “Then you’d better put some of your legendary moves where your mouth is, because I’m not committing to anything until I see how well this notorious reputation of yours is gonna work out for me.”

  And…back to Naughty Piper.

  Vance grinned. Naughty Piper was a handful, but the kind of handful he specialized in. The Bad Cop in him was ready, willing, and able to show Naughty Piper every last one of his moves. He leaned over and whispered, “You’re on.”

  “Where are you going?” she said when he started backing away.

  “I need a shower.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of basketball shorts. “I’ll run next door and leave this bathroom for you.” Then he threw out some Bad Cop orders. “Don’t be drying your hair when I get back. No putting on makeup. No nothing. Just…you. I want to finally…see….” He looked her body up and down. “Christ Almighty. Ten minutes,” he yelled as he strode for the door, slamming it shut behind him.

  ***

  When Piper came out of the bathroom, the bed was turned down, the lights were off, and Vance stood with his back to her, lighting a candle over on his highboy. The sight of his naked back in the candlelight created the same effect as a lot of good champagne bubbling through her system.

  She stood still, peering across the room in great appreciation of the well-defined muscles of his back and sides. Her heart rate increased as her eyes traveled lower to the exercise shorts which barely clung to his hips. Giddy and nervous, she was licking her lips when Vance turned around. He folded his arms across his chest.

  Her gaze shot to his face, finding
his expression full of disbelief and mock outrage.

  “Are you…ogling me?” he asked in his police-officer-interrogation voice.

  “Who wouldn’t ogle you? You’re magnificent. I’m used to lawyers who do not—at all—look like this.”

  “Please do not bring your other lovers into this bedroom. I’m working on this Perfect Piper fantasy. One where she is still as innocent as she was in fourth grade.”

  “You can just keep that going, because when it comes to all this nonsense here,” she said, twirling her finger at his chest, “I am innocent. And I’m feeling just a little woozy because of it.”

  “You are?” he asked, inching slowly in her direction. “Woozy is good. Woozy I can work with.” He sidled up close, taking both her hands in his and interlocking their fingers. “I like this lacy, little tank top and tiny whatever-is-happening under there,” he whispered, as he leaned down for a kiss. “We aren’t going to rush this,” he said, tickling her mouth with his. “We are going to take our time. We’re going to—” He pulled back and looked at her sharply. “You seem a little jumpy.”

  “I am,” she panted. “I’m definitely feeling jumpy. I’m feeling…you know, anxious.”

  “Then maybe you oughta lie down,” he suggested with a mischievous grin. When she didn’t do his bidding right away, he ordered, “Now.”

  “Oops. Sorry.” Piper scuttled to the center of the bed, running her mouth as she went. “You’re just a little bit mesmerizing. I’m starting to see how this whole man-whore thing got itself started. You can hardly be blamed for your promiscuity when you are this…spectacular. I mean, you just have to take off your shirt and women must come flocking.”

  “Piper.” He shot her a serious warning. “I don’t want your past in here, and I certainly don’t want what will now only be referred to as my misspent youth in here either. Just us. Have I made myself clear? Now lie back. And if you must talk, the only thing I want to hear coming out of your mouth is a very detailed description of your favorite, unfulfilled fantasy.”

  Piper laid her head back, feeling the bed move as Vance knelt at her feet. “Sorry. I’m just…” she said, shaking out her hands, “revved up.”

  He sat back on his haunches, picking up her right foot. He leaned down and kissed the top of it and then stroked his hand over the kiss. “All right,” he said in a soothing voice, starting to massage her foot. “Maybe this will relax you.”

  Piper stared up at the ceiling, her hands fidgeting. “Wouldn’t it be better just to, you know, go ahead and get our first time over with?”

  Vance looked up at her stunned. “Get it over with?”

  Uh-oh.

  Vance dropped her foot, crawled up her body, leaned his handsome face into hers and growled, “You want to get our first time over with?”

  “I’m nervous.”

  “Tough shit. I did not spend the last five years practicing on women I didn’t like just so you and I could get this over with.”

  Piper tried to stifle a grin. “Is that what we are calling it now? Practicing?”

  “Damn right. Now take a deep breath, lie back, and start telling me about Naughty Piper’s wildest fantasy.”

  “Mmm, that feels good,” she said as he slid his hands down her legs and picked up her right foot again. He started tugging on the length of each of her toes. “Okay. All right. My fantasy.” She took a deep cleansing breath and let it out slowly.

  Vance went to work on her other toes and her jumpiness subsided by small degrees when he began using his thumbs to massage the underside of her feet.

  “I’m wearing a yellow dress,” she said.

  “Of course you are,” Vance whispered over her toes.

  “A yellow dress and really high heels,” she continued.

  “No.”

  She lifted her head up. “What do you mean, no?”

  “No shoes. You’re in bare feet,” he said, not even bothering to glance up at her.

  Hmm. Bare feet.

  “Okay, I’m in bare feet,” she said, lying back and looking at his ceiling. She hadn’t noticed that it pitched at an angle. “But the dress is short. Like a little too short, with a full skirt so when the wind blows it moves against my thighs. Ooooh, that feels really good.”

  His thumbs and fingers were massaging around her ankle bones. “You are clear that I was asking for a sexual fantasy, right? Not a Project Runway fantasy,” he said to her ankles.

  “Mmm. They have to start somewhere. This one starts on the steps of the courthouse as I leave work one afternoon. In my short, yellow dress and bare feet.”

  He kissed her ankles.

  “So, I’m coming out of work and down at the bottom of the steps there is this gorgeous, dark, sharp-looking…Maserati.”

  “Humph.” Vance moved her right leg into a bent position, her foot flat on the bed and began kneading her calf.

  “Ah!”

  “Your calf muscles are tight. Probably from wearing all those high heels. You need to stick with the bare feet.”

  “That feels really good and really hurts all at the same time,” she squeaked out while holding her breath. “Oooh.”

  “I’ll go a little easier.” He bent his head and kissed her knee. “Go on,” he said, his hands busy loosening muscles.

  “Ah, okay…so, next to the Maserati is this guy. And he looks a whole lot like my first love, only he’s taller now.”

  Vance used only the tips of his fingers to run butterfly sensations up and down the backs of her legs.

  “So my bare feet and I wander down the steps and stop right in front of him. And he is tall and smoking hot in a bad-boy sort of way with his T-shirt and jeans, dark shades, and wind-blown hair. As soon as I get close enough, he grabs my wrist and pulls me in tight against his chest, trapping me up against him.”

  “The guy has moves,” he said as he bent her second knee and started working her other calf.

  “He says he’s been looking for me for a long, long time. And then he kisses me with such commanding finesse that I’m rendered limp and willing.”

  “Commanding finesse?” he asked as he used the heel of his hand to ride up her calf.

  “Mmm, yes, and the next thing I know, he swings me up into his arms and then drops me into the Maserati.”

  Vance’s hands stilled. “The driver’s side?”

  “No. That fantasy already happened. In this fantasy, he’s a complete control freak with only one thing on his mind. The type that would handcuff a girl at work in broad daylight and kidnap her in front of her boss.”

  Vance’s open mouth slid over her bent knee, sucking gently—his hands exploring the back side of her legs. He scraped his teeth over her other knee cap.

  “Before I know it, I’m naked in his pool. It’s dark, but there’s a full moon so we can see each other pretty well.”

  Piper felt the bed move and her legs being shifted. She lifted her head to find Vance sitting cross legged, each of her knees draped over one of his. She dropped her head back to the pillow when he started massaging her thighs and paid very close attention to the long, titillating strokes he was running from her knee to her hip. His thumbs would slide lazily along her inner leg… right…until—they veered up and over her thigh. His touch came so close to her panty line that it provoked a strong blossom of desire.

  She bit her lip, feeling the internal tightening as Vance kept his strokes long and slow on the way up, lighter and ticklish on the way back. It was heaven. Sheer heaven.

  “What happens next?” he whispered.

  His words drew her focus from the longing between her legs and she had to backtrack to remember what he was talking about. “Oh. I’m definitely not jumpy anymore. Where was I?”

  “In the control freak’s pool. Naked.”

  She smiled with her eyes closed. “Hmm. So, the water feels really…really good on my bare body. Decadent. Sexy. Bad-Boy takes my hand and floats me out with him where the water is over my head. He pulls my naked chest to his an
d, for the first time, I feel his bare skin slide against mine. I like it. I wrap my arms around his neck and he pulls me farther out into the pool. My legs are drifting behind me.” Piper sucked in a breath. “Oh, God, Vance. That feels really, really good.”

  His hands were twisting from her inner thigh out to her hip. Then he dragged them under her derriere, kneading her glutes as he pulled his palms back down the backs of her legs. He did this over and over, just the shadow of his thumbs grazing the lace edge of her lingerie and titillating the tender flesh beneath.

  She felt herself go damp. Felt her nipples tighten and her chest heave. Her hands longed to stroke him—anywhere. She started to worry about how he was going to get her underwear off when she felt the bed move and a shadow blocked the candlelight. She opened her eyes to find Vance’s face directly over hers, flaunting another mischievous grin.

  “You keep losing your train of thought just when things start to get interesting.” He ducked his head and kissed her. His tongue delved just to the inside of her lips. His voice was husky when he said, “Roll over for me.”

  Piper liked the idea of his hands on her back. A lot. She just had to rein in her longing in order for his request to sink in.

  “Is there a problem, Miss Beaumont?”

  She shook her head no, bit her lip, and rolled underneath the cage he’d formed with his arms. She pulled her arms forward and laid her cheek on her hands.

  “Good girl,” he said, shifting around so he straddled the backs of her thighs. His hands slid under her tank top, bunching it up around her shoulders. “You’re such a tiny thing,” he said as his hands smoothed their way from her lace-covered bottom to her neck. “I think leaving Henderson stunted your growth.”

  “I stopped growing in seventh grade.” She sucked in a breath, her head and shoulders springing up as Vance dragged his tickling fingers down both her sides.

  “A little ticklish?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be careful,” he said as his hands worked over her back and her shoulder blades. “Now, back to the pool.”