Cop's Best Friend: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 68) Read online

  There will be no guys left, only soy boys.

  But not him. Not my Connor.

  I giggle and a burp escapes me. “Whoops!” I announce to the night. “Somebody’s tipsy!”

  I stumble down the sidewalk laughing at myself. My Connor? Yeah right.

  Yeah we’ve snuggled on the couch more times than I can count, but whenever I turn around to check him out hoping that maybe tonight will fiiinaly be the night, he’s passed out.

  But I can’t blame him. He works those twenty-four hour shifts down at the station, or more accurately on patrol. It must be tiring. There isn’t enough coffee in the world that could keep me going like he does for that long.

  And oh how I’ve imagined him going long and strong when it comes to my fantasies.

  His big, thick muscles over the top of me as I’m lying down on my back on my bed. Or maybe even having a little fun with those big, thick, handcuffs he’s got. Then again they look painful. I think some pink fuzzy ones would be a lot more appropriate.

  But what would be most appropriate is if one of us just finally came out and said something.

  Somebody needs to confess what they’re really feeling to the other person before it’s too late. At this rate we’ll still be playing this mating dance when we’re eighty at some seniors bingo or bridge night.

  I can’t wait that long. I’m already twenty-seven and I’m not getting any younger. I see the crows feet starting to appear out of the corner of my eye and I notice when I eat a cupcake it seems to stay with me a little longer than it used to.

  And it’s not that I’m trying to get Connor before things get even worse, I mean he’s the one who introduced me to that cupcake spot anyways. And what’s up with the pastry person pulling out two heart shaped cupcakes from the tray for us? Of all the cupcakes he picks those two?

  Coincidence? I think not.

  And I can’t think about anything but him. I just wish he was here now so I could tell him. This liquid courage has finally made me brave enough but there’s no way his patrol car would be in this part of town. L.A. is too big to start with and…wait, is that a cop car?

  I hear the unmistakable sound of boots on the ground behind me and prepare to get a ticket for being drunk in public…or worse.

  Great, now they’re going to take me down to the station and Connor is going to get to see how big of a mess I really am.

  But wait? That’s not…it can’t be.

  Oh my god it is!

  “Screw it!” I slur to myself. No more messing around. I’m coming out with it right here and right now.

  I’m his and he’s mine and we both know it.

  All we need now is one of us to say it, and dammit it’s gonna be me!

  CHAPTER 3

  Connor

  The next morning

  “Do you find this amusing, Sergeant?” the Chief asks me.

  “No sir.”

  “Then why don’t you wipe that grin off your face right now, dammit!”

  “Yes sir,” I say trying my best to follow orders, but I know I’m still failing.

  The Chief goes on for about a solid ten more minutes about how many rules and codes of conduct I broke. He’s reciting the numbers of the codes that I’m in violation of, and the amount of numbers gets so long I feel like he’s turned into a math teacher, but school’s not in session.

  Because since that first time we met way back in school has one of us ever said what Autumn said to me last tonight, and that’s all I can think about.

  All I can hear are the words playing back in my head.

  “It is you,” she said. Yeah she called me a big idiot too, but I deserved that. Deserved it for all the years I wasted not just scooping her up in my arms and making her mine.

  But I didn’t want to be the douchebag that crossed the line, that violated her trust. She trusts me like no one else and if she ever thought I was only in it for an ulterior motive I’d feel so disgusted and I know she would too.

  Trust is everything. They preach it day and night down here at the station and I lost the trust of my partner Banks during the patrol.

  And as much as that’s terrible, and it’s going to be a problem that I’ll have to fight like hell to solve, I gained another kind of trust in the process.

  And was it ever worth it.

  She trusted me with her deepest secret, more personal than any other that came before it.

  And it’s my deepest secret too.

  But not anymore.

  But there is one thing that’s still on my mind. One thing that’s lingering.

  She was drunk.

  And people say all kinds of things when they’re drunk…sometimes they’re things they don’t mean and sometimes they’re things they do mean but never had the courage to say before.

  And there’s only one way to find out.

  And as soon as the chief is satisfied that he’s reamed me out completely and I’m dismissed from my twenty-four hour shift I’m going to go find out for myself.

  CHAPTER 4

  Autumn

  There’s a pounding on my door to match the one that’s inside my head.

  I roll over in bed and look at the clock. Fifteen minutes after eight.

  Connor got off at eight so that gives him fifteen minutes to have made his way over here.

  But why am I even calculating?

  It’s him. It’s always him.

  Who else would it be?

  It’s not like I have dates or other guys coming by. And I was an only child so that rules out brothers and sisters.

  I fling my body sideways and put my feet on the floor and my entire body falls sideways right back onto the bed.

  So much for balance.

  I hear my phone ring on the nightstand and I reach for it, missing it the first time. Did my phone just move? Or maybe it was the fact that everything is still spinning. I don’t know why people drink alcohol. This is terrible.

  Three grabs later and I manage to get a hold of my phone.

  “Connor,” I say picking it up.

  “Are you still drunk?”

  “Drunk? Me. Never did you know that when me?”

  “Oh my god, you’re not even forming complete sentences. You sound like Yoda or something.”

  “Who’s Yoda? I’ll kick her ass!”

  “The little old green guy from Star Wars. Hey, I'm putting my key in the lock and coming in now.”

  “No! You can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there was an earthquake last night and everything’s a mess,” I say looking around at my perfectly organized room thanks to my OCDness.

  “An earthquake, huh? Funny, I didn’t see that on the news.”

  “Wait, just come back later. Okay?”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive,” I say.

  “Okay.”

  I click the red button on the phone and immediately drift off back to sleep. I can only imagine how loud I’m snoring right now.

  CHAPTER 5

  Connor

  I pull the shoebox from my closet and sit on the old wooden chair next to my bed.

  I flip off the lid and pull out the pictures.

  I still remember when I had them developed. Yeah, I’m old school. I wanted the anticipation of not knowing what I was going to get from our little disposable holiday camera…or should I say cameras.

  We’ve taken so many vacations together over the years.

  I pull out that picture of us riding donkeys down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. She’s leaning back in the saddle with her hat in her hand held high laughing her gorgeous ass off.

  And look at me. I’m way too big for that poor donkey. What was I thinking?

  I was thinking how much fun it would be to have another adventure with her, that’s what I was thinking.

  And here we are at Niagara Falls. It’s the most popular honeymoon destination in the entire United States and we went there as friends? What was wrong with us?

&
nbsp; I still remember the guy looking at us like we were hiding something when we rented the room. Every other couple in that place was on honeymoon. He must have thought we were some cheating couple trying to blend in.

  But there’s on thing about Autumn…she never blends in. She stands out to me always. She’s a one of a kind in every sense of the word.

  But cheating, we were because we were cheating ourselves.

  Yeah, we had a great time at Niagara Falls, and the Grand Canyon, and Miami, and Chicago, and snowboarding Whistler, and riding the London Eye, but think how much more fun we could of had if we had done it as a proper couple.

  And not just between the sheets although the thought of being inside her has crossed my mind more than about a million times by this point.

  All those times when we laughed and enjoyed a moment that could have been followed up with the sweet taste of her lips on mine.

  I may be a big guy, and a bruiser when I’ve got the uniform on, but when it comes to her I’m a helpless romantic.

  That’s why I always invested my paychecks into holidays for us. I mean I never even went on a single trip with the guy on the force. Okay, there was that one trip to Cabo to go fishing, but I took an early flight home after a couple of days. All they wanted to do was drink beer and look at girls’ asses from their sun chairs on the beach.

  No thanks. The only woman I ever had eyes for is her.

  And it will be that way forever.

  I carefully put the pictures back inside the box and go to that place in my closet for the other box.

  It’s time.

  CHAPTER 6

  Autumn

  Three days later

  So it takes longer to recover from your first hangover than I expected. I lost the entire weekend in bed and I had to insist to Connor that he couldn’t come over. The last thing I needed was for the guy I just made a confession about my true feelings to see me puking my brains out all weekend.

  Uh, not cute. Not at all.

  And then when I was ready he had a shift he had to work, so now three days have passed.

  Three days for me to consider what happened. To re-evaluate everything. To play back that moment in my mind, as best as I can remember it.

  But even with the alcohol inside my stomach, and pretty much the rest of me, I can still form a clear picture of the moment I told him, “It is you.”

  Because I’ve been waiting to tell him that since the day we met.

  I may have gone a little harsh on the follow-up. It’s the first time I called him a name, ever, but I was just so frustrated. Years of pent up emotions will do that to you.

  And something tells me tonight is going to be an emotional one too.

  The UPS guy showed up this morning with a big box at my place of work I wasn’t sure if I should open it in front of all my other co-workers, but they insisted. I think the girls in my office were almost as excited to see what was inside as I was.

  I never told them about my feelings for Connor. I feel like that’s our personal thing and something I want to keep private.

  But they know we spend a lot of time together and they must know that there were some feelings there. And by some, they probably know there are a lot.

  I just wonder what feeling he’s going to make me feel now as I carefully slide the scissors along the folds in the lid of the box, cutting through the brown tape.

  But I find another box inside. And this isn’t a brown UPS box. This is a fancy black box and it’s almost as big as the one inside.

  I hear a chorus of “Ooohs!” and “Aaaahs!” behind me as I stare at that box. It’s beautiful and extravagant.

  And I know there’s going to something worthy of the box inside.

  And when I lift off the lid I feel my hands shake.

  “Oh my,” my boss behind me says.

  “It’s beautiful,” the young woman who just got married and sits at the desk next to me adds.

  And they’re both right.

  It’s the perfect black dress with a note on top that says…

  Pick you up at seven

  Tonight everything changes

  Forever

  CHAPTER 7

  Connor

  I can literally feel my pulse in my neck as I pull up to her place…my heart is beating that fast and that hard.

  I’m expecting to go up to her door to greet her there, but there’s no need. She’s already standing out front in the black dress I picked out for her.

  I knew that she’d make that dress look great when I visualized her wearing it in my mind before I got it, but…wow, she’s taken it to a whole other level.

  Her hands are clasped across her midsection and she’s smiling at me shyly. Her dress may be black, but she looks so innocent and pure in the moonlight.

  “You look incredible,” I say.

  “So do you,” she says looking me up and down in my new suit which I also got for the occasion.

  Tonight is all about her and her beauty, and one of the reasons I bought that dress. Then it hit me that if I was going to love looking at her in that dress so much it stands to reason she’d enjoy looking at me “wrapped up” as well, so I bought a “wrapper” for myself…in the form of this dark, light wool suit.

  “May I?” I ask offering her my arm.

  “You may. Thank you.”

  We’ve made contact thousands of times over the years and I always get a tingling sensation whenever my skin touches hers. Tonight is no different in that regard, except tonight that tingling sensation is magnified exponentially.

  It’s because I know tonight’s the night, and she knows it too.

  I help her into my Jeep and off we go.

  “Can I ask where we’re going?” she says with baited breath.

  “You can,” I say. I can’t help but smile seeing how excited she is and it’s got my pants stretching as my desire for her elongates and thickens.

  “Okay,” she says before laughing a little. “Where are we going?”

  “Sorry. Can’t tell you.”

  “But you said I could ask,” she pleads.

  “Yes I did, and you did.”

  “Well then?”

  “I never said I’d give you a straight answer.”

  “So it’s a surprise, huh?”

  “Kind of,” I say motioning with my eyes towards the exit for Los Angeles International Airport or LAX as it’s known.

  “The airport?”

  “Maaaaaybe.”

  “Conner, I have to be at work in the morning.”

  “Did your boss act surprised when your package arrived?”

  “Huh?”

  “Sandy. Did she look surprised?”

  “Um. Yeah, we all did. Wait? What did you…did she know?”

  “Let’s just say she already cleared your absence for tomorrow.”

  “You spoke with her? You told her?”

  “All I told her was that a package was arriving and to be expecting it. And that you’d need a day off tomorrow.”

  “So she doesn’t know what you have planned?”

  “Not a chance. This is our secret.”

  “Another secret between us?” she says giving me a teasing look.

  “But this secret goes with the other secret…the one that’s not so secret anymore.”

  “So that’s what this is about?”

  “This is about me loving you forever and always, and more than just friends. And tonight is about starting the next chapter in our book together.”

  “Can I tell you something?” she asks as I offer her my hand.

  Her small hand fits nicely right in mine but this time she isn’t holding my hand like she did all those times when we watched scary movies, or when she needed me to lift her up when we went hiking or any of those friendly ways. This is different. This is a deeper...more complete...more of a togetherness that’s a lot more than friendship.