Man Cuffed: A Man Hands Novel

by Sarina Bowen

  I drain the rest of my drink, but it isn’t cold enough to put out my fire. Then he sits next to me on the glider, smelling amazing. I don’t know what products he uses in the shower, but I just want to bury my nose in his lap.

  Focus, Meg!

  “So...how was...work?” I finally ask, hoping I don’t squeak like a middle-school girl with backstage passes to Shawn Mendes.

  He takes a pull on his beer. Runs his hand through his still damp hair, which looks darker because it’s still wet. “It was a rough day.”

  He doesn’t elaborate. Typical Maguire. Usually I don’t mind, but if he doesn’t speak right this minute, I’m going to hop on him and start humping. I need a little conversation here. “That’s it? That’s all I get? How about some details?”

  He thinks it over.

  “Come on, Copper, you can talk to me you know. I don’t bite.” I pause. “Unless I’m aroused.”

  He snorts.

  He thinks I’m kidding.

  He takes another long drink, sets the bottle down, and then adjusts himself! Oh, what a man! What a delicious hunk of man. “I’m trying to get promoted.” Five words. But he sits back like that should do it.

  “And?” I coax. “Maguire, seriously, you are a shit storyteller.”

  He snorts again. “I know. Let’s just say I’m a man of action, not words.”

  “Oh, I can imagine. But you’re the one who said we can’t date. We can’t fool around. And yet here you sit half naked on my new deck furniture. And there’s alcohol. So you’d better start talking before I think up some other things for us to do.”

  He snickers. Then he takes a deep drink from his beer. “Fine, Trouble. You can hear all about my issues, if you’re so keen.”

  “Spill.”

  He sighs. “I’m trying to get a promotion at work, where I’d be the head of a task force. I’d be helping victims of crime after the perp is arrested, when everyone’s waiting for the trial date. There’s a real opportunity to follow through. Because arresting the criminal isn’t the end, you know? Victims need the tools to get past what happened and lead healthy lives.”

  He falls silent again. But that was already more words than I’ve ever heard him speak at once. “You are endlessly fascinating, Copper. Are you going to get this promotion? Why was it a bad day?”

  He sighs. “It’s down to me and this assface. Tommy. I’ve got more cred than Tommy. More street time. More arrests. More respect. But you know what Tommy has that I don’t?”

  “I can’t imagine,” I say. “A third nipple?”

  This wins me a wry smile. “Tommy has the ability to kiss our captain’s ass. I don’t have time for that. I don’t want to talk about the captain’s golf game or his daughter’s 18th birthday in the Bahamas that he’s planning. But that’s Tommy’s game. Chat up the boss, and win the promotion. It’s so insincere, but it seems to be working. I don’t think he gives a rat’s ass about the victims he’d be helping. He just wants a bigger paycheck and a little more respect. I think he’d actually do more harm than good.”

  Another lengthy speech from Mac. That’s two in one night! I let his words sink in while he sips his beer.

  “So you need some help with ass-kissing.”

  “Naw,” he scoffs. “I need some help in convincing the captain that I’m the best man for the job.”

  “Exactly. That’s what I said. Ass-kissing.”

  “Never. There’s only one kind of ass-kissing I do…” I can hear the smirk in his voice.

  Suddenly my lady bits are on high alert. Better change the subject. “Okay. Look. I think I can help you with this.”

  “How? You gonna kiss the captain’s ass on my behalf?”

  I shake my head. I need to think on it before I offer him my services. “Never mind for now. Can you give me a hand with something?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I need you to read this scene with me.”

  He full out laughs. “No way. I’m no actor.”

  “You don’t have to act it out. Just read it like a cop. This scene is for that TV audition I told you about. I’ve got a callback to play a character who has a torrid affair with a cop and…”

  “Oh! Am I helping you with a sex scene? Because I could totally do that.” There’s a little bit of a pause here and then he seems to catch himself. “You know. If we weren’t neighbors.”

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. Hell yes, Copper! Help me with a sex scene. Let’s rehearse it right now. “Sadly, there aren’t any lines to rehearse in that scene. Just a lot of grunting. I need help with these lines.”

  He takes the script that I thrust at him.

  “So the scene is pretty basic. You’ve come over for dinner and you’re telling me all about a collar you just did.” I stand up and offer him my hand. “Come on, then.”

  He gets up. But then he leaves the deck, heading into my apartment. I hear my front door open a moment later.

  Wait, what? Did he just walk out? At least he left the beer…

  A moment later, though, I hear the door open again. He reappears wearing a pair of reading glasses, solid black frames, and I spontaneously combust. Maguire with glasses? Hot and sweet at the same time? It’s too much.

  The alcohol I’ve consumed does another lap around my bloodstream. If he’s actually going to run lines with me, I wonder if I will even be able to remember my part.

  He holds up the script, and using the light that bleeds onto the deck from my kitchen, reads to himself for a minute. “Okay. This is garbage. Nobody makes a collar this way.”

  “He’s not making a collar,” I point out. “He’s bragging about making one.”

  “So he’s a tool. He’s mansplaining a collar to a female cop?” He peers at me through those glasses, and I have the urge to pull them off his face and kiss him.

  “That’s the sum of it,” I admit. “He’s also the son of the police commissioner.”

  Maguire rolls his eyes. “Of course he is. Maybe this isn’t so inaccurate after all.”

  “Are you going to read it?” I ask. “Or just stand there making me sexually frustrated.”

  He barks out a laugh. “Fine. I’ll pretend to be this douchecanoe. But remember that you asked for it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His eyes darken. He holds my gaze for a moment. Then his eyes drop to the script, and he begins to read in a gravelly voice. “You shoulda been there, Elsa. I had this guy’s nuts in a vice. I put him in the van, and then it’s just me and the girl.”

  “Let me guess,” I say, giving him the next line. “You let her go out of the kindness of your heart?”

  “Not possible.” Maguire suddenly moves his hand down to cover his fly. “I’m all dick and no heart.”

  “So I’ve heard.” It comes out breathy. When I was practicing this with Cassidy, we were giggling too much for me to take any of this seriously. But with Mac, it’s a different story. Everything with Mac is different. That strong hand cupping himself over his jeans? I can’t find the will to look away.

  He throws the script onto the deck and stalks toward me, where I’m standing by the fence. He takes both my hands in one of his larger ones and raises them over my head, pinning me. “Stay right there, Miss, I said to her. I need to frisk you.”

  Oh my. I never imagined he’d do the blocking as well as read the lines. And now I’m sandwiched between the fence boards and his washboard abs. The scent of his shampoo wafts over me as he glares down at me with a fierce expression.

  And I forget my next line.

  Silence ticks by while I try to remember what my character is supposed to say. Oh! I got it. “How’d she take it?” I finally ask, trying to maintain my bravado. That’s in the script, too.

  “She took it like a girl who didn’t want to spend the night in a holding cell. She took it on her knees, while I frisked her mouth with my cock.” He even snarls the line, like an asshole. Like a good actor, too.

  “You’re going to get caught,” I say quie
tly. I lift my chin and let myself stare into his eyes. “One of these days it’s all going to catch up with you.”

  “Not today, though,” he rasps, nailing the line, then trapping my hips against his, pinning me in place. It’s like the erotic version of the Star Wars trash compactor scene.

  Don’t judge my metaphors. It’s a classic.

  Meanwhile, my hormones are firing like crazy. And I’ll be damned if this scene doesn’t make more sense to me than it did an hour ago. This scene is about risky choices. About taking what you want but don’t deserve.

  “Meg?” he rasps.

  “Yeah?” I whisper.

  “I don’t remember what happens next, and I tossed your script on the floor.”

  Oh, please. “Like we don’t both know what happens next. You need a teleprompter?”

  He makes a quiet growling sound and drops my wrists to capture the back of my head instead. We both pause for a moment, just a breath, as if suspended between this moment and the next. What’s going to happen? Do we go forward or do we go back?

  Then I’m kissed like I’ve never been kissed before.

  Firm lips catch me and then claim me.

  And I’m so ready.

  I slide into the kiss like I was born to it. He tastes like beer and heat.

  “Fuck,” he says, tilting his head, changing the angle. As if he can’t quite believe we’re doing this. His lips slide against mine, and then deepen their pressure. His fingers tighten in my hair, and I open for him.

  And, wow. His bossy tongue is right there against mine. I spar with him, tasting him. My hands—flailing from sensory overload—find his bare chest. And the contact with his skin is a shock. I feel myself tighten inside, the pressure mounting. My palms skim down his ribcage, my thumbs bumping over each muscular ripple.

  Our mouths are locked together now, and the moment one kiss stops, another one begins. We struggle a little, both trying to figure out how to move even closer. He bats my hand off his tight tummy and then scoops a hand under my bottom, lifting me up, pinning me against the fence a little higher than I was before.

  I wrap my legs around him on impulse. He groans, and our kiss becomes a dirty grind.

  Holy hell. We’re going to wind up on my bed, if we even make it to my bed. There is a spectacular erection trying its best to burst through Mac’s shorts. And I’m in the mood to help it along. Except I don’t ever want this kiss to end. I wrap my arms around him and press my breasts against all that skin and muscle.

  This should have been a silk underwear night for me, too. Who knew?

  “You did,” he growls into my mouth.

  Whoops. I guess I said that out loud.

  “You and your sexy script and your wicked mouth. Do you know what entrapment is?”

  “No,” I purr against the corner of his mouth.

  “Me neither. Not anymore. I can’t think when you look at me like I’m a stolen dessert.”

  “I’m very devious.” I lean in and bite his lower lip gently. “Maybe you should punish me.”

  “Oh you know it,” he growls, lifting me higher up on his body. Then I’m truly airborne, and Mac is carrying me toward the door to the kitchen. He flips it open with impatience bordering on violence.

  Two seconds later I’m set down on the kitchen counter. Good thing I cleaned up earlier today, because I’m seated right on the prep surface while Mac tugs down my tank top and bra all in one go, exposing my breast. Before I’m ready, he dips his head and applies his tongue to my nipple.

  “Oh, damn,” I gasp. “More.” I pull his head closer. His hair slides between my fingers. And I feel like I can’t get enough of him. Like I want him to fill me up and possess me from the inside out. I feel like I want to crawl inside him...like...“Yes!” I cry.

  And then...

  No.

  Mac jumps off me, yanking my top up to cover my breast again. And I can’t even figure out why for a moment. How can we go from me with my nipple in his mouth to me fully clothed in two seconds flat. And why? Whhhhhyyyyyyy?

  Then Cassidy tumbles through the front door. “Meg! You won’t believe this bullshit!” She stops to let out a sob. “By the time my Lyft pulled up at Greg’s, he was already deep into someone else’s hand-washables!”

  Mac and I are both still gasping for breath. He’s stepped back a goodly distance, and is playing it cool, leaning against my sofa. But our eyes are locked on each other, with identical expressions of shock and longing.

  “Wait, am I interrupting?” Cassidy bleats.

  “Not at all,” Mac grumbles. “I really shoulda been out of here a while ago.”

  Well, ouch.

  “Night, Meg,” he says cooly.

  “N-night,” I stammer, trying to interpret his Mac-speak. Did he really not notice that Earth moved a little just now? Or is he just being Maguire?

  A moment later my front door opens and shuts again. That door is seeing a lot more action than I am tonight.

  My heart rate hasn’t even slowed down yet. But now he’s gone.

  “Can you believe that?” Cassidy is saying, and I realize I missed the first part. “He said I’m boring! Me! I have two masters’ degrees! I speak three languages! I can tell the difference between Californian wine and French in one sniff! That last thing isn’t useful. Fine. But I am NOT the boring one in this relationship.”

  “Of course not, sweetie,” I say, hopping off the countertop. “How dare he.”

  She bursts into tears.

  13 Use Your Glue Stick

  Maguire

  “So that’s it? You kissed her and then left?” Lance asks me this while eating a meatball sub in the passenger’s seat. I wish he’d asked me after he’d finished that sub, but no. He’s mid-chew.

  I can’t believe I even brought it up. But it was either that or listen to him spout off more of his “research.” He’s currently binging an erotic motorcycle series. So I spent the morning hearing about the biker jacket with a patch on it that he just bought. Now he wants to find his old lady. The dude can’t even ride a motorcycle. He has a Schwinn 10-speed.

  Where was I?

  “Come on! You kissed her and then what? Just walked out?” Lance has no patience, but I’m grateful for the reminder of the question.

  “No I didn’t just walk out. I kissed her and then we did some scrapbooking. What do you think? Yeah! I just left. She’s my neighbor. You know my rules about that. I shouldn’t have even touched her to begin with, but...I mean, you’ve seen her, right?”

  Lance wiggles his eyebrows and I have the sudden urge to thrust that meatball sub down his throat. I don’t like the idea of Lance anywhere near Meg.

  I take a sophisticated slurp of my lemonade to calm myself. We need to get back on the road in a minute anyway.

  “Oh, I’ve seen her all right,” he pants. “Gorgeous. Amazing. She’s smart too, which, don’t tell anyone, I think is probably of higher value than the looks. I mean you want a girl you can grab ahold of and all, but you also want one who can solve Wheel of Fortune words better than you. Competition is good for the libido.” He chews, swallows, and then crinkles up the spaghetti-stained paper. Thank God that’s over. Maybe I’ll get my appetite back. “Also, I was waiting for you to tell me scrapbooking was one of them whadayacallits? Eugenics or something.”

  “Euphemism?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Euphemism. Like I could go home and do some scrapbooking right now.”

  “Are you going to use your glue stick?”

  “Awwwww yeah!”

  This is my life right now. How did I get here?

  I should interrupt Lance right now because I can see he’s thinking hard. And that is a scary thing on Lance. The wheels are turning in that pointy head. “So...”

  I brace myself.

  “What if you changed your rules? Be the author of your own story, Mac. Write your own next chapter. I think I saw that on Instagram. What I would’ve done in your situation is I would’ve banged her. Pushed her up against the
wall and told her I want you more than I want to breathe right now. And then I’d kiss her some more, just to warm up. And then the good stuff happens. I read this string thing once in a book...”

  I’m really trying to focus. Is Lance going to tell me something about String Theory?

  “...It involves a complicated system of like ropes and pulleys and stuff so you tie her up, or she ties you up, whatever, and according to how you maneuver the pulley system, you can expose any part of her body...with her consent, mind you, I’m not a monster...and that’s what I would’ve done next.”

  I know I shouldn’t ask him any questions, but sometimes I just can’t stop myself. “Where would you get the pulley system?”

  “Oh, anywhere. Home Depot? And if I didn’t have a pulley system handy, I’d make one out of a soup can and some duct tape.”

  “What?” I sputter.

  “Yeah. Duct tape is fucking amazing. And I’ve got rope in my car. All the time. I’m prepared. So I’d create this intricate pulley system and I’d…”

  I’ve had enough. “Let’s go,” I say.

  Also, I’m ashamed to admit, I’m a little turned on by the idea of Meg in front of me, wrapped in rope. Or silk. Or just plain naked.

  Wait. No. I will not think of Meg and how it felt to pin her up against the wall and finally kiss her, for real. I will not think of how instantly hard I was pressed up against her or how I felt actual thirst for her. I will not think of how much I wanted to take her to bed.

  No. Nope. Nada.

  Our radio squawks to life with a nearby call. Dispatch is looking for a unit to respond. So I grab that radio like it’s a life raft and report that we’re back on duty.

  And just like that I’m back in cop mode. One thing this job has taught me is to be focused and disciplined. I need all the energy and focus I have to get the promotion I deserve.

  So I’m not thinking about Meg at all this afternoon. Nope. For at least a solid hour, I’m Teflon. Or titanium. Whichever of those is stronger. It’s working great until my cell phone lights up with a text that says I GOT THE FUCKING PART!