Page 28 of Cop Daddy Next Door

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. We live next door to each other. We’re going to be family. This is my home, and I’m right fucking here.” I jabbed the center of my steering wheel. “If it happens to you, it happens to me, and I don’t want you to take a pill even though it’s completely your right.” I scrubbed my hand over my face, shocked that I couldn’t breathe through the tension banding around my ribcage. “I just…don’t.”

“Why?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know. I just don’t. It probably won’t happen, just because we assume it will. Lore or not, it doesn’t happen every time. You know how wives’ tales are. A lot of embellishment.”

She snorted and reached for her phone. “Would you like a photo reminder of my sister and your brother’s latest sonogram? They are living proof of that lore.”

I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. This proved that my lack of sleep was warping my brain. “Maybe if it’s meant…”

She sat back, her hands fisting in her lap. “You can’t mean that.”

“Why not? You were worried about me.”

“So that means we are meant to raise a kid when you actually tried to bet me to move away? That’s crazy talk. You don’t have to what, show up Brady or something here.” She flapped her hands like a manic bird. “Not everything is some great romance. We can just fuck and let it go.”

“First, I’m a dick who’ll leave. Now youwantme to leave. Which is it?”

“I don’t want to deal with this at all. I know how this scenario goes, no matter what kind of pretty words you slap on it.”

The band around my lungs rose to squeeze my heart. I didn’t move for fear she’d clam up, and then I’d never know what she’d gone through. “How do you know?”

“Because I got pregnant in high school, okay?” The words burst out of her as if they’d been trapped inside for far too long.

I reached over and grabbed her hand, holding on even though it felt weird to touch her that way. Not weird bad, weird different.

I didn’t know how being inside her could seem so right, so perfect, but holding her hand seemed impossibly intimate. She didn’t pull away, just shot me a look that indicated she might at any time.

“Look, I’m not going for sympathy here.”

My heart slammed in my chest.Just take it slow, McNeill.“Good. Offering an ear, not pity.”

“Who says I need one?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “It was a brief relationship. We weren’t in love. I had no clue what that even was. I just wanted to rip the virginity albatross from around my neck.”

I couldn’t stem my horror. “You got knocked up the first time you had sex?”

“Oh, God, no. It was awful, but it wasn’t that heinous.” She looked out the window. “More like the third time. Which was on like our third date. We didn’t have more dates after that.”

I laced my fingers with hers. Still, she didn’t pull away. “If I call him an asshole, is that too close to sympathy for you?”

“No, it’s the truth.”

I bit my tongue on the rest of what I wanted to say. How could I take potshots at a high school student when I’d brought her here for a quickie without even the pretense of a date? I was years out of high school and I’d treated her no better.

My week of little sleep and extended sexless streak had turned me into a damn heathen.

But I could fix this. Iwouldfix this. Somehow.

Starting by listening more than I talked.

“What happened next?” I asked quietly.

“Listen, you don’t have to do this. We had sex, it was great, now you can drop me off. I won’t get needy, promise. I pretty much just wanted you for your body.”

It made me laugh. “Same goes. But I’d like to get to know you too.”

“Why?” Her obvious confusion made my gut twist. “We both got what we wanted, right?”

I was beginning to think I hadn’t even scratched the surface of what I wanted with her. And that would’ve scared the hell out of me if I wasn’t more concerned about her than anything else right now.

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