Page 4 of Dirty Sweet Cop

He works me with that single finger, curling it just right, his thumb on my clit, and when the orgasm hits it’s so sudden and so violent I scream into his shoulder, my body locking around his hand, trembling, shaking apart.

He doesn’t stop. He adds a second finger, stretching me, and whispers against my skin while I come again—“Gonna fill you up someday, baby girl. Gonna breed this tight little cunt until you’re round with my kid. Never be alone again. Promise you that.”

The words should horrify me. Instead they send another pulse of heat through my already oversensitized body, and I come a third time with his mouth on my breast through my shirt, his fingers deep inside me, his low, filthy promises in my ear.

After, when I’m boneless and trembling, he tucks me against his chest and strokes my hair and tells me he’s got me. That he’s not letting go.

We leave before dawn. My duffel bag in his trunk. Me in his passenger seat, his hand on my thigh the whole drive. His house is twenty minutes away—a fortress of a place with extra locks and a security system he arms the second we step inside.

He puts me in his bed. His bed. Slides in beside me, pulls me against his chest, and holds me while the sky lightens outside the window.

“You’re safe now,” he murmurs into my hair. “No one’s getting to you. Not ever again.”

I believe him. That’s the terrifying part.

I believe every word.

three

. . .

Clayton

I call in a personal day. First one in three years.

My captain doesn’t question it. Probably assumes I’m finally cracking after fifteen years of night shifts and bad coffee and watching people break in ways that can’t be fixed. He’s half right. I’m cracking. Just not the way he thinks.

I’m cracking open around an eighteen-year-old girl asleep in my bed, her dark hair spread across my pillow, one hand curled under her cheek like a child’s.

While she sleeps, I work.

I pull the case files on her parents’ accident. Read through the reports. Two-vehicle collision, other driver at fault, both dead on impact. No foul play. Just shitty luck on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Winny was at school. Came home to an empty house and a patrol car in the driveway.

Three weeks ago. She’s been alone in that house for three weeks.

The thought makes something vicious twist in my gut. I close the file and move on.

I install extra deadbolts on my front and back doors. Check the security system twice. Call a buddy who does private security and order motion-sensor lights for the perimeter. By noon, my house is a fortress. By two, I’ve cleared out half my dresser drawers and made space in the bathroom.

She’s not going back to that empty house. Not tonight. Not any night.

She wakes up around three, disoriented, those honey eyes blinking in the unfamiliar light of my bedroom. I’m sitting in the armchair by the window, case file closed on my lap, watching her.

“Hey,” I say, and my voice comes out softer than I mean it to.

“Hey.” She pushes herself up, the sheet pooling around her waist, and my eyes catch on the thin strap of her sleep shirt sliding off one shoulder. “This is really happening, isn’t it? I’m really in your house.”

“You’re really in my house.” I set the file aside and cross to the bed, sitting on the edge. Close enough to touch. Not touching. Not yet. “How are you feeling?”

She considers this. Her eyes are clearer today. Less of the hollow, shell-shocked look from last night. More of…something else. Something that makes my chest tight.

“Safe,” she says finally. “Which is weird, because I barely know you. And you’re...you know. A lot.”

I bark out a laugh. Can’t help it. “Yeah. I’m a lot.”

“You’re also the only person who’s touched me in three weeks.” She says it quietly, looking down at her hands. “Besides the coroner. Who had to identify my parents.”

Fuck. Fuck.