Cuffed to the Bad Boy Cop: A Stepbrother Romance

Title Page

Copyright © 2016 by Lola Rivera / Night Works Books, LLC

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About Lola

Lola’s Backlist

Cuffed

to the

Bad Boy

Cop

a stepbrother romance

By

Lola Rivera

Night Works Books

College Station, Texas

Copyright © 2016 by Lola Rivera / Night Works Books, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Night Works Books

3515-B Longmire Drive #103

College Station, Texas 77845

www.roxierivera.com/lola-rivera

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Previously Published as In Eddie’s Cuffs. Revised and Expanded.

Cover Photo © 2016 goglik83/Depositphotos.com

Cuffed to the Bad Boy Cop (A Stepbrother Romance)/ Lola Rivera – 1
st
Edition

ISBN:
978-1-63042-059-8

Chapter One

My neck ached so I rolled my shoulders and did a squirmy little stretch. Glancing at the living room clock, I decided I'd had just about enough of the biochemistry textbook in my lap. Seriously, there were only so many nucleic acids and proteins I could memorize before my head threatened to explode. I closed the book and tossed it toward the other end of the couch. My spiral notebook and pen followed, but I kept the sour apple sucker I'd been licking away at for the last twenty minutes.

I figured I'd earned some relaxation time after all that hard work of reading and note-taking. My stomach trembled with anticipation as I considered all the deliciously naughty things I could get up to while my roommate was out on his date. Gage had been gone less than two hours. That was barely enough time to drive across town to pick up Lisa, head to the restaurant and have dinner. Since this was their third date, I assumed he would be getting lucky tonight so that gave me even more time to enjoy myself.

I ignored that little pang of jealousy that made my chest ache. I didn’t want to admit to anyone—not even myself—that
I
wanted to be the one who helped Gage blow off some steam on a Friday night. That would bring up all sorts of complicated issues I wasn’t prepared to face.

But he
really
needed to get laid. The man was becoming unbearable to live with and we only been sharing a house for three months. I really didn't know how much more of his overbearing, gruff bullshit I could take.

Just the thought of his frowning face and constant grumbling pissed me right off. I crunched the last bit of the yummy apple sucker and purposely dropped the gummy white stick right on that tacky glass coffee table of his. He was always harping on me to use coasters and pick up after myself. I grinned evilly just imagining his reaction to finding that sucker stick glued to the glass when he got home.

Feeling rather mischievous, I hopped off the couch and headed upstairs. I had only been here a short while, but it was beginning to feel more like home to me. Moving to Houston from Dallas had never been high on my list of wants, but I had to be honest. Gage inviting me to stay here with him had been a godsend.

Last fall, I had been the wrong girl in the wrong place at the wrong time and had witnessed a late-night shooting in the parking lot of my favorite coffee shop. One minute I had been scrolling through Snapchat and Instagram—and totally
not
paying attention to my surroundings—and the next I had been face to face with a gangland drive-by. A beef between a motorcycle club and a local street gang that was connected to a Mexican cartel had erupted in violence just after midnight on a Thursday.

And dumb, ditzy, never paying attention to her surroundings me had stumbled right into the middle of it. I had been filming myself with a silly puppy face filter on Snapchat as I walked to my car when I heard the first gunshot. I had dropped to the pavement, scrambling for cover under a nearby Suburban.

I still couldn’t explain why I had done it, but I had switched to video and recorded everything that had happened next. It was stupid. It was brave. It was crazy. I think maybe I had been so convinced that I was going to die that I wanted my poor mom to know what had happened to me.

The whole thing had lasted only a few minutes, but it had felt like hours to me. Scrunched under that SUV, breathing in the oil and gas fumes, I had sobbed quietly until I heard squealing tires and silence. Somehow I had mustered up the courage to call 9-1-1. The rest was a blur. Cop cars. Police officers. An ambulance. Paramedics taking me to the ER for the gash on my head from hitting the concrete so hard and the bullet graze to my upper arm that I hadn’t even noticed because of all that adrenaline.

And my mother! Oh, hell. My poor mom had been a wreck when she’d arrived at the emergency room to pick me up. She had lost my father in a violent on-the-job shooting when I was thirteen. He had been a homicide detective working a dangerous case. I still remembered the late-night knock at the door and the sound of my mother’s heartbroken wailing when the news had been broken to her by Dad’s partner Jack Cruz.

The same Jack Cruz that would become my stepfather three years later….

Mom had been against me testifying or getting involved in the case, but Jack had been supportive of my decision to help. Testifying in that case had been the scariest thing I had ever done, especially knowing the man I had helped put behind bars was a dangerous drug dealer with ties to a murderous cartel. My mom had been terrified for me, convinced that a gang member or a cartel hitman would take me out for helping convict that man.

Eventually, her anxiety had been so bad about it that Jack had taken me out for coffee and laid it on the line: It was time for me run away.

Well. Not run away exactly, but to get out of town. I had just finished my junior year at SMU so it wasn’t exactly an ideal time to switch universities. Thankfully, my professors and department chair had been more than willing to help me. A few phone calls, a letter of explanation, and I had been accepted into Rice University.

I had expected to move into an apartment close to campus, but Gage had shocked m by insisting I come stay with him. My first instinct had been to decline. Living with my stepbrother? No, thanks. Living with a SWAT cop? Um, double nope.

But when Gage had taken my hands in his, those big, strong fingers clasping mine, and asked me to let him protect me, I had melted. I had damn near fainted actually. My forbidden crush on my hot as hell stepbrother had suddenly consumed me.

. I had let my admittedly naïve and silly imagination run wild with what-ifs. I was so sure this was my ticket to finally getting what I wanted from Gage. Oh, how wrong I'd been.

Mr. Uptight-and-By-the-Book was a nightmare roommate. I had imagined living with a sexy as fuck SWAT officer would be my dirtiest dreams come true. Instead, I got nothing but lectures on safety and the third degree.

Where are you going?

When will you be home?

Do you have a designated driver?

Are you going to remember to call me every hour?

Are you going to send me texts when you get there and when you leave?

Have you been drinking?

Did you put that rape whistle and pepper spray in your purse?

I mean, really! The way he acted you'd think I was going to college in the murder and rape capital of Texas. Sure, Houston had a seedy underbelly, but I stayed clear of all that. I went to class. I went to the library or the new coffee shop I had claimed as my favorite space. Sometimes I went to parties or out to dance, but I was careful. I had gotten myself into a sticky situation once, and I had no intention of ever getting stuck in one again.

Shaking my head, I mounted the last few steps to the second floor and hooked a right to my bedroom. I peeled out of my yoga pants and t-shirt and left them on the floor just inside my door. That was another thing Gage hated. The man had some serious issues with cleanliness and organizing. Right after moving in, I had taken advantage of my first night alone in the house to poke through his dresser drawers. I found everything sorted and folded and stacked so neatly. It was horrifying.

I shimmied out of my panties and bra and let them drop to the carpet. My gaze flitted to the floral print bed skirt skimming the floor. I knelt down, lifted the fabric and slapped around under the bed until I felt the plastic container I had hidden there. I pulled out the box and unsnapped the bright green lid. My belly did a little flip-flop as I uncovered the small selection of sex toys and erotica I had amassed. Like some criminal smuggling contraband, I had brought them into Gage's house under the cover of darkness by squeezing the box into my backpack.

My fingers moved across the vibrators. These were smaller, quieter and just what I liked. I didn’t have much—okay,
any
—experience in the real-life sex department. My virgin pussy had barely been penetrated by my own fingers, and only these vibrators and my flicking digits had brought me to orgasm, but I knew what I liked when it came to my pleasure.

Oh, I had read my fair share of erotica and watched plenty of downloaded porn clips. My sexual appetite was healthy and I was ridiculously curious—but I just hadn't found the right man to take me to the next level.

Or, rather, I had found the right man but he just didn't want anything to do with me.

My face flamed with embarrassment as I thought about how silly I had been to think someone like Gage would ever be interested in me. He was a hotshot cop, one of those real hometown hero types. To him, I would always be that annoying sixteen-year-old kid his dad got saddled with when he married my mom.

Gage and I never had a close relationship. By the time our parents met and started dating, he had been overseas doing whatever it is that Delta snipers do. I didn’t know much about the spec-ops work he had done, only that it had been insanely dangerous and intense. He had left the Army two years after our parents were married and had gotten a job as a SWAT sniper here in Houston.

When he had offered me a room in his house, I had been shocked. We had never been close, but after that mess with the shooting in Dallas, he had taken a serious interest in my safety. Gage had worked his contacts in Dallas to make sure I would be under surveillance twenty-four-seven before, during and after the trial. He had been kind and supportive through that whole ugly experience, even making himself available to me late at night. We had texted and called a few times so he could talk me off the ledge, so to speak. I had thought we were becoming friends—maybe even something
more
than friends—and I had expected our relationship to change and grow when I had moved in here with him.

But he seemed to always go out of his way to avoid me now that we were under the same room. He worked a lot of overtime so there were many days where I was heading out the door to class when he was heading in the door from a long shift. Things between us had grown tense and somewhat awkward. More and more, I suspected he had only opened his door to me because my mom and stepdad had put serious pressure on him or guilt-tripped him into saying yes.