Chapter 30 Officer Daddy Cara #2
“Hear that, officers? Seems we got ourselves a giggler.” Jaxon rounds her car slowly, peeling off his sunglasses, placing the tip in his mouth as he crouches into a squat at her door. “I’m gonna ask you this once and only once, little lady. Where’d you get the car?”
“Oh my fucking God,” Lennon mutters into her hand.
Yeah. Oh my fucking God. The worst part, though? The matching outfits.
But what’s wrong with matching outfits, you ask?
It could be that they’re at least two sizes too small for each of these big men. Or it could be the fact that they look exactly like strippers, seeing as how—
“You couldn’t get full-sized cop costumes, at the very least?”
Every head whips in our direction at Olivia’s voice as we start the hike up the long driveway.
The kids scream with excitement, exiting their cars with a grace these men could never possess, flying toward us.
I try not to notice the way Abel stops himself, instead taking a seat on the porch steps, head in his hands, like he doesn’t want to see me.
Carter’s eyes brighten. “Ollie girl! You’re home!” His eyes narrow suddenly, like he’s just registered her comment, and he scoffs. “We were gonna, I swear! All they had left was sexy cop!”
“Please. You expect me to buy that? You’re always looking for an opportunity to show off your thighs!”
“Oh, here we go.” He tosses his arms over his head in true Beckett theatrics. “Sorry I was cursed with sexy, luscious thighs, Ollie!”
Adam clears his throat. “It pains me to say this, but it’s, uh, true.”
Carter sniffs, sticking his nose in the air. He turns slightly, just enough to flex the muscles in his bare thighs, not an inch of them covered by his booty shorts. “Thank you.”
Adam rolls his eyes. “About the sexy cop costumes being the only ones left. Not Carter’s luscious thighs.”
Garrett snickers, elbowing Jaxon in the side. “Adam called Carter’s thighs luscious.”
“The girl at the store said they always stock up on sexy cops due to the popularity,” Emmett explains, touching a finger to my chin, dropping his lips to mine as my fingers tangle in the collar of his too-tight shirt. “Her next shipment of regular cop wasn’t coming until August, but—”
“We came up with the idea yesterday,” Jaxon interjects. “And we, as a whole, have been—in the past—accused of being a bit—”
“Ollie says I’m impulsive,” Carter says, hands up in defense. “And, look, I know this looks impulsive, but when you have a brilliant idea, you just have to run with it, you know?”
“Mhmm.” I look at the driveway full of ride-on cars. “And the cars? Did you really need nine of them?”
Carter’s eyes widen, looking back at the cars, then to me. His face twists with outrage. “Did we really—”
Garrett pinches the bridge of his nose. “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“Oh, and let me guess.” Jaxon spreads his arms wide. “The kids should get the cars, but we shouldn’t?”
Adam scuffs at the ground with his shoe. “I wanna have fun too.”
Emmett frowns at me. “We’re tending to our inner children.”
“Okay, I’m done.” I wave them off, striding toward Abel, who still isn’t looking at me. “Keep your cars, you bunch of babies.” I stop in front of my little guy, sifting my fingers through his hair. “Hey, stranger.”
He sighs. “Hi.”
“Everything okay?”
Another sigh. “Yeah.” Another, this one extra dramatic, long and loud, shoulders heaving. “I guess.”
I crouch in front of him as the girls move around us, babies in their arms, kids on their heels as they head through the front door. “Do you wanna go inside and talk about it?”
“No,” he says, but goes inside anyway, kicking off his shoes.
His eyes come to mine, finally, loaded with sadness, but it’s the trust, the safety swimming in them, that has me smiling despite all of this.
“I’m sad, and I think I will like some space right now,” he murmurs, then hangs his head, starting a trek up the staircase.
He stops halfway, taking a seat on the step, dropping his chin to his hands, huffing another award-winning sigh.
He sits there for all of thirty seconds before he lifts his head and shouts, “Cara? Wanna come have space with me?”
Swallowing my snicker, I climb the stairs, taking a seat beside him. “Of course, my darling. Do you want quiet space, or would you like to talk about what’s bothering you?”
“I just missed you,” he says softly, palms raised in a shrug. “I was too sad to sleep in my own bed last night.”
“What? You were?”
He nods, bashful. “I cried a lot, and I said, I miss my Cara. Why did she leave me?”
“Oh, baby.” I take his hands in mine, squeezing gently. “I’m not surprised Emmett failed to mention that. I would have jumped in the car and driven straight back. I’m sorry you went through that last night. I missed you too, so much that I stayed up way, way too late thinking about you.”
“You missed me too? Maybe you could hear me talking to you.”
I tilt my head. “Talking to me?”
“Emmett let me snuggle with him in bed. We looked at pictures of you, because he missed you too. He said sometimes when he’s at hockey and he misses us too much, he looks at pictures of us and says what he wants to say to us.”
I brush his auburn waves from his forehead. “What did you say to me?”
“I said… I said three things.” He holds up four fingers, then second-guesses, counting them out and laying one back down. “I said I miss you, I love you, and can we have ice cream when you get home.” The look he hits me with is so hopeful, I feel it bloom in my own chest. “Did you hear me?”
I wrap an arm around him, pulling him into my side.
It’s overwhelming, the way my heartbeat slows the second I have him in my arms, the sense of peace that spreads through me, settling every thought in my head, like my body was searching for its calm every minute we were apart. “I think I always hear you, Abel.”
“Yeah,” he says on another sigh, but this one is quiet, content. “I think you do.”
I run my fingers through his hair, drifting the pad of my thumb over his cheekbone, guiding his gaze back to mine. He beams up at me, and I know this moment was always meant to exist.
“I love you too, Abel.”
THE BATHING SUIT TRICK IS working, in case you were wondering.
I slipped out of my cover-up slow as molasses while looking Emmett dead in the eye from across the yard, basking in the way he missed his mouth with his drink when his gaze rolled down my body, beer dribbling down his chin.
The way he tripped so hard over his words when I asked him to sunscreen my backside that he simply gave up, choosing instead to nod, over and over.
The way his hands found my back, quivering at first before settling into a drag so possessive and slow until they found my hips, wrapping around them hard enough to leave fingerprints as he pulled me down to the spot between his thighs, hauling me back against him so I could feel the way his cock hardened against my ass as he drizzled sunscreen over my shoulders, down my spine, all while he whispered a single word in my ear, a promise I still feel a half hour later.
Mine.
So, yeah, the bikini is working. I knew it would. And yet it’s not working nearly as well as Emmett’s tactic.
“I don’t think it’s a tactic, Care,” Jennie tells me from the floatie she’s lounging on.
“Oh, he knows exactly what he’s doing,” I mutter, glaring at him from beneath my sunglasses. He smirks at me as he peels his shirt off, tossing it over his shoulder before he goes back to what he was doing. “Cunning fucker.”
Rosie snorts a laugh. “The daddy kink really is strong in this group.”
“Oh, so you admit it.” I whip my head in her direction, shifting my sunglasses down to give her a pointed look, brows raised. “You have a daddy kink.”
“I—you—ugh.” She splashes water at my face from her spot on the steps, halfway submerged, and when I stick my tongue out at her, she sticks hers out right back.
“Guys,” Olivia whispers, looking down at the three sleeping babies tucked beneath the cabana. “It’s really happening. They’re all sleeping at the same time.” Her eyes light, and she grabs the pitcher of strawberry daiquiri off the table, filling a glass to the brim. “Ohhh, yes. Come to mama, baby.”
“Hey, Ollie girl,” Carter calls from across the yard, hair wet and slapping against his forehead as he tosses his head and hikes one leg up in a lunge. “You like what you see? Does it make you think about having a fourth b—”
“No.” She brings the glass to her lips, and I watch as her throat works as she promptly—and impressively—drains the entire drink in under five seconds. Wiping the slushy red residue off her mouth, she shakes her head. “Not a chance in hell, Carter.”
“Imagine you had no backbone,” I murmur when I’m done cackling at Carter’s dejected expression. I wrap my arms around Olivia’s shoulders as she wades into the pool and over to me, letting me float on her back. “You’d be popping out babies for the next ten years, at least.”
“You shut your filthy mouth,” she mutters, but I feel the way she softens as she turns toward the boys, my chin resting on her shoulder. “Why do they have to make it so hard, though?”
My gaze drifts back to Emmett, and the flutter in my chest returns, just like the one between my legs, as I watch him.
Watch the way he fills cups with the lemonade he made with Lily and Abel ten minutes ago.
The way he tops each one with one of those loopy straws and a little umbrella, places them carefully on a platter before sweeping across the yard with them held effortlessly above his head.
He stops at the mini lounge chair where Ireland is spread out beneath the sun, oversized sunglasses on, and says, “Lemonade, madam?”