I put my hand on her back and try and comfort her, but it’s no use. Feeling her back rise and fall underneath my palm as she gasps for air only makes me feel equally as sad.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, as she looks up from her hands.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” I say. “This is my fault…my responsibility. But it’s over now and now it’s in the open. We’ll get through this together. I mean you already got through this together. You made yesterday work despite of me. You’re a quick thinker and you saved the day.”
She nods her head, but I’m not sure if she believes me. She should. I’m being completely honest and I’m embarrassed at myself.
A moment passes where we just sit there looking at each other. She looks so fragile, so feminine, so caring. And she still looks like the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
So caring. So thoughtful. So perfect.
I lean in and she quickly leans forward to meet me.
I pull her little body in close in my big arms and hold her tight. I feel her head in my chest and then her hands try their best to wrap around me.
She’s safe here with me. That I’ll always make sure of.
Suddenly she pulls away.
“Wait. You adopted her?” she asks.
“I did,” I say. Her father was one of my good friends, and her mother was an incredible woman as well. “Here,” I say, leaning back to the end table beside the couch. “Let me show you some pictures.”
I pull the album from the drawer and lay it out across our laps.
I can’t help but smile as I turn the pages. There are pictures of us as cadets, and then working together in the field. On a few occasions I worked out of the Miami office, mostly just for training purposes though. It was a great way to learn top notch cutting edge techniques that we could implement in our small town here.
As I turn the pages so many memories come back.
“That one!” Annabelle says, grabbing my hand stopping me from turning the page.
“That’s her mother, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“She’s so…beautiful,” she says.
She still hasn’t removed her hand from mine and I certainly notice. From this angle I can see through the sides of Annabelle’s eyes, causing her baby blues to pop even more. It’s like her profile is a work of art. Her head slowly turns toward mine and I realize I’m not the only one who notices our hands are still together.
My gaze shifts from her eyes to her lips…her soft, tender, juicy lips. I look back up at her eyes and see her gaze has turned to my mouth as well.
I look back at her lips and feel my head moving towards hers.
Her head moves forward as well.
I can feel the warmth of her breath and the heat radiating from her skin. She smells so womanly and so perfect.
We both pause just short of the other’s mouth knowing this is the point of no return. There’s no going back from here.
I move to go in that final inch and hear a loud creak at the top of the stairs.
It’s Vivian.
Our heads pull back and we quickly straighten out our clothes as we give some space between our bodies. I lean back and slide the photo album back in the drawer. I look over my shoulder and see the back of Vivian’s palms rubbing the sleep from her eyes and hope that she didn’t see anything…
Anything that didn’t quite happen that is.
CHAPTER 10
Annabelle
Two evenings later
I pull the lasagna from the oven and look up at the clock on the wall. Braden should be home any minute.
And just like clockwork I hear the door open.
“Hey girls!” he says.
I hear the pitter patter of Vivian’s feet across the floor as she runs to greet him.
“Whoa! Look who it is,” he says.
I can hear her laughter and by the sound of it he’s scooped her up and is swinging her around the room.
“Guess what I did today?” she says.
“What did you do?” he asks.
“We went swimming.”
“Swimming? Are you a polar bear? It’s too cold to go swimming.”
“I’m not a polar bear. We swam inside, silly,” she says.
As I stand in the kitchen with my cooking apron on I can’t help but notice just how perfect this is. The policeman protector coming home from a day of work and me about to fill his belly with a home cooked meal while his daughter fills the house with laughter, joy, and love.
I may have had a crush on him for a long time now, and I did have this feeling that I’d eventually get him to seem me as more than just a little girl, but somehow this just doesn’t seem believable. It’s like I’m in a dream. I literally pinch myself to make sure this is real.
I couldn’t imagine being married and having a daughter at twenty-two years old…until now that is.
How could it not enter my mind? This is everything most women dream of, including myself.
Sure I’d like to have a career someday soon, but how could I pass up this perfect situation? I can get a career anytime. The perfect man, my perfect man, only comes along once in a lifetime.
“How was swimming?” he says as he enters the kitchen holding Vivian in his arms. “Wow! That smells delicious,” he says before I even have a chance to reply.
“Thank you,” I say. “I hope you’re going to like it. And swimming was great.”
“If it tastes half as good as it smells I’m going to eat the whole thing myself.”
“Save some for me!” Vivian says.
“For this little tummy,” he says as he reaches in and tickles her stomach. She tries to block him, but his hands are just too big and too fast. She’s laughing uncontrollably and I’m beyond being able to control my hormones for him.
A big strong man holding a little girl. Are you kidding me? If I had a camera I could take a picture of this and by morning I’d have a million posters sold to women all over the world. The sight of this is that perfect.
“You better wash your hands for dinner,” he says, sitting Vivian down.
“Can Julia come to dinner too?” she asks.
“She’s always invited,” he says. “I’ll set a plate.”
“Yay!” Vivian takes off for the stairs and I raise my hands in the air looking at Braden as if to ask “who”?
“Julia is her favorite doll.”
“Ohhh,” I say. “I remember those days.”
I turn around to turn off the oven, and when I turn back around he’s right on top of me.
His lips come crashing down on mine as he grabs me by the hips and moves me away from the oven and presses me against the refrigerator causing the magnets to fall to the floor.
His kiss is hungry, his grip strong, and there is nothing gentle about him.
He grabs both my hands with one of his and pulls them up over my head pinning them to the freezer drawer.
His other hand comes up along the side of my body as he grabs my breast.
I lift my leg and wrap it around him too turned on to wonder how this happened so quickly and not about to complain that it did.
His hand comes off my breast and moves underneath my jaw squeezing my cheeks and pulling my face even deeper into his.
I want him so bad right now I can feel a whole other kind of swimming pool quickly filling up my panties.
I hear the loud thump of Vivian on the top step and he pulls back, staring at me and what he’s just done.
Then his lips come forward crashing on mine once again before pulling away and staring at me like a hungry animal who only got a taste and with a look of the promise to come back for seconds…soon.
“Julia’s ready!” Vivian says as she comes skipping into the kitchen.
Braden backs away, but never takes his eyes from mine.
“I’ll set her a place,” he says. “Is she hungry?”
“She’s starving,” Vivian says.
“I bet she’s not as hun
gry as I am,” he says, still looking at me. “I’m so hungry I almost ate my entire dessert first.”
My eyes narrow knowing I almost did the same…and wish we both had.
CHAPTER 11
Braden
“Braden, I’m talking to you.”
I look up from my desk.
“Hey Chief.”
“Everything okay, Detective?”
“Yeah. Never better. Why?”
“I was standing here in your doorway calling your name about five times before you finally looked up.”
“Just really focused right now,” I say.
“Tracking down some missing firewood or something?”
I laugh. “Nothing that major this week.”
“Well, no news is good news, but I do come looking for some from you.”
“I thought I was the detective.”
“You are. Just checking in to see how Vivian’s doing.”
“She’s getting better every day.”
“Just taking time, huh?”
“Yeah,” I say leaving out the part about Annabelle. If it wasn’t for her this process of getting her back to being a kid again would still be squarely stuck in the mud with no progress made whatsoever. She’s been a godsend since the two of them first met and continues to be each and every day.
And she’s saved me a bunch of times already. I’ve been called to investigate some ridiculous stuff recently, and more often than not just about when my shift is about to end. I’ve had to call her and ask her to stay longer and she has every single time.
“Well, that’s great to hear.” The Chief pats on the doorjamb. “Keep your eyes and ears peeled. You never know when some little old lady’s clothes are going to blow off the clothesline and you know she’ll call your right away to come and investigate a possible serial killer.”
I smile. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Or the second,” the Chief says. He puts two fingers to his brown and gives me an “air salute” and turns to leave.
I feel my personal phone vibrate on the desk and pick it up.
Slumber party next Friday at Melissa’s. Can I go?
Wow. This is great! She’s making friends and even got invited to someone’s house for the night.
Let’s talk about it tonight. Just want to know more about her parents. Should be okay.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
“No, thank you,” I say quietly at my desk. I scroll up my contact list to the top and there’s Annabelle’s picture.
Got plans next Friday?
Need me to watch Vivian? I can. Comes right back.
Not this time.
?
I need to watch you.
She sends back a devil emoji. She knows exactly what’s on my mind.
CHAPTER 12
Annabelle
Next Friday
Braden and I have been sneaking kisses, slaps on the behind, winks, and all kinds of other little courting behaviors since that moment in the kitchen.
But as fun as it is to feel like we’re having a secret high school romance we both know it’s time to take it up a notch…to an adult level.
And that’s exactly what tonight is all about. But there’s still some sneaking around that has to be done.
Vivian may be off to a slumber party but I knew my dad would be parked on the couch at home watching the game.
That’s why I packed my dress and told him not to wait up for me. I just let him know I had plans to go out after Braden’s. I just didn’t tell him with whom.
I get changed while Braden pounds on the door, pulls on the knob, and begs and pleads for me to let him in…just for a glimpse of heaven he keeps saying.
I know he’s messing around because he’s doing it in a playful way, but then again if I hadn’t locked the door I’m not really sure what would have happened. But I do know there’s a good chance we would have missed our reservation and had dinner in the shower…or on the sink…or somewhere else in the house, which although exciting isn’t what we want to do for our first time. That’s according to Braden at least.
He’s been such a romantic. I never expected it. He’s constantly telling me how beautiful I am, how fun I am to be with, and how great it’s been having me here and how I’ve helped Vivian start to turn the corner.
When he says those things it just melts my heart. No guy ever really shared his feeling with me like that, especially not openly. The irony is you wouldn’t expect it from a big burly police detective, but I guess since he’s older he’s more confident in who he is and just happier and content with everything in general…although neither of us are content to continue with our relationship without taking it to the next level.
All the build-up has been tormenting me. I’ve even considered fantasizing about him with the showerhead, but quickly decided against it. I didn’t want a false “victory.” I want to wait, until the real thing. I’ve waited this long, what’s another few days I told myself.
But those few days seemed like an eternity, but here we are and now it’s time.
But first he has a surprise dinner planned.
We sneak out the side of the house and get in his car. It’s an old Ford Mustang from the 60s. It’s not the kind of Mustang where you feel like you’re on a high school date with a boy whose testosterone is through the roof. It’s a classic model…sleek and masculine.
We take off and I watch as heads turn everywhere. So much for sneaking out.
But at some point we’re going to have to come out about our relationship anyways. I just want it to be on our terms, and not forced into it on someone else’s.
The drive seems like fifteen minutes, but apparently it’s a full hour. At least that’s what the watch on his arm says. Sometimes I just get caught staring at his big wrists and Popeye forearms. I don’t know if it’s some sort of infatuation or not, but there’s just something about that part of his body that turns me on like no other. Maybe it’s because it’s not so obvious, like his chest, back, shoulders, thighs, calves, thick fingers…okay, every part of him is obvious I guess. Everything about him screams “real man.”
And that watch looks perfect there on his wrist next to the rolled up sleeves of his white button down.
He pulls the car straight up to the restaurant and hands the keys over to the valet.
“Alessandro’s?” I ask.
He winks at me.
“The new place that was booked months in advance before it even opened? We’re at that Alessandro’s?”
I didn’t even pay too much attention to all the hype around it because I knew I’d never get a table. We drove for an hour so of course we’re in Miami now. My eyes weren’t even on the road at all…they were absolutely glued to him. He could have drove north, south, east, or west and I wouldn’t have even noticed. All I noticed was him, and he’s certainly got my attention again. I have no idea how he got us a table here and I’m not about to ask.
“I’m as excited to try it out as you are.”
“Thank you,” I say, squeezing in closer to him as I wrap my hands around his arm.
He looks down at me before planting a kiss right on the top of my head. We agreed we’d be discreet for a few more days, but that idea may be out the window at this point. I know we’ll try, but it sure is going to be hard.
The last thing we need is this getting back to my dad, or someone Braden works with, and then blowing up in our faces.
But first things first…I’m ready to stuff my face with this food that’s been getting the most mouth watering reviews in the entire state from the top food critics. I don’t know much more about it beyond that, but on second thought I do know I’ll need to temper my consumption.
I want to have plenty of fuel for the exercise we’ll be getting later, but I know I could do that famished, tired, and dehydrated. I don’t need anything to make me ready for the moment we’re going to share later…I’ve been ready for it all along.
CHAPTER 13
Braden
I slide the card key in the lock and the door opens.
Nanny for the Cop Next Door: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 44) Page 4
