Page 13 of Breaking All The Rules
“Hey,” he said.
It was so friendly and casual, and he looked so freaking hot in his uniform, ruffling his hair as he removed his hat, that Bea was suddenly very aware of her Thursday panties. She was sure as hell pleased she was doing something else with her mouth, lest it decide that licking a police officer was a better use of its time.
So much for a fleeting distraction.
“Officer Cooper,” she acknowledged as she swallowed her mouthful of pancake.
“You can call me Austin.”
Yeah…but Officer Cooper sounded older. She sighed. “How old are you?”
He grinned. “Twenty-five.”
Oh God…he was barely out of the academy. So that dream she’d had about him last night with the handcuffs? She was going to hell. Probably also giving her grandmother apoplexy.
Annie shuffled up to the table. “Coffee, hon?” she asked Austin, tipping her chin at the cup upside down on the saucer.
“Yes please, Annie.” He turned the cup over. “And can I get a serving of those pancakes, too?”
“Sure can,” she said as she filled up the cup from her ancient pot. “I’ll send them right over.” And she shuffled off.
“No bunny slippers today, I see?”
Bea ignored his observation. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“I am working.”
Bea snorted. This was some life he had. She’d never stopped for pancakes anywhere when she’d been toiling away at the agency unless she was at a breakfast meeting with a client. But even then, she’d have eaten an egg-white omelet or granola. “So, the whole doughnut-eating cop thing is true, then? Not just some giant cliché?”
He patted his stomach, and Bea’s eyes were drawn to the flatness of it, to the snug fit of fabric, the fascinating line of buttons. Was his skin smooth underneath all that or was there one of those endlessly fascinating trails that led all the way down to his boxers? And beyond…
“A man’s gotta eat.”
Determinedly pulling her mind out of Austin’s boxers, she said, “You wanna watch it. You won’t be so young one day, and those pounds will creep on before you know it.” It was a kinda mean thing to say, but the fact she was now daydreaming about him in full view of an entire café and the man himself was flustering. And that made her cranky.
Also, it was true—pounds were sneaky little suckers.
Clearly completely unperturbed by her dire predictions, he shrugged. “I’m not so worried about that. I have a pretty good metabolism.”
Yeah, that was the problem with Austin Cooper. He had a pretty good everything.
“So, Beatrice, huh? As in Potter?”
She sighed. “That’s Beatrix. Bea-trix Potter, the English author of cute animal stories. I’m Bea-triss. As in Beatrice of York, the English princess.”
“Ahhh,” he said, but he was smiling, and Bea wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t known that already and was just being deliberately obtuse. “So, you’re Beatrice, formerly of LA, now of Credence?”
“For now, yes. At least until I’ve decided what to do with the rest of my life.”
“Do you have a time frame for that?”
“Nope.” Screw deadlines. Bea was over deadlines.
“Are you feeling better today?” he asked.
“I was feeling fine yesterday,” she said with a glare, a chunk of pancake speared on the end of her fork. “I just needed some sugar.”
“And to break some rules.”
