11. Last Christmas

ELEVEN

LAST CHRISTMAS

DOVE

ONE YEAR LATER

D erek wasn’t kidding when he said he wouldn’t let me escape him that easily.

I tried. On three separate occasions, I bolted.

Can you blame me? He had six months to get to know me through such dubious methods, I can’t believe I didn’t call his superior officer that first Christmas. I had one night with him before he expected me to simply give in and promise him forever and I… I couldn’t do it.

So I ran.

The first time, I meant it. It was New Year’s Eve. For the week following Christmas, I couldn’t get rid of him. The only time I had any peace from Officer Derek Coleman was when I was at work or he was. Other than that, he was always there , and I knew better than to tell anyone else when he wasn’t.

Keeping him out of my apartment was impossible. He smirked as I tore my place apart the day after Christmas, searching for the cameras. I found four of them, and was pretty proud of myself that I did… until Derek helpfully pointed out that there are at least twenty more spy cams—of all different sizes—hidden around the room. I tried to find them, but quickly gave up when it proved to be just as impossible as locking him out.

The crazy cop stole a copy of my key so he could let himself in. He talked to my landlord about being put on my lease, too, and when I got that call, he just ruffled his fingers through his sandy brown hair, giving me a deceptively innocent look as he asked if I’d rather move in with him instead.

It took a week for me to realize that, if I couldn’t get him to go, I had to be the one to leave. So I packed up my shit, grabbed my wallet, called out of work, and hopped in my car.

That’s how I found out he put a tracker on the undercarriage. He showed up in a Springfield cruiser, sirens blaring, speeding after my car even though I’d already crossed state lines by the time he figured out I missed my shift. Biting back an amused smile, the unhinged bastard finally made good on his threat to arrest me. He made a big deal of putting me in handcuffs, tucking me in the back seat of the cruiser, and ‘extraditing’ me back to Springfield while leaving my car behind to be towed.

Only he didn’t book me or bring me down to that SPD station. Instead, he brought me back to my apartment, then winked at me before heading back on duty.

I was too stunned to make another break for it, and though I expected him to be furious, he made it his personal mission to convince me to stay in Springfield with him—and he did so by using the very same handcuffs on me in bed later that night.

The second time, I was kind of testing him. It was February, and after a month ‘together’, I kept expecting him to realize that I wasn’t worth all the effort. I was bitchy and annoyed with him, annoyed with myself for being trapped by a man who claimed to love me, and I stopped sleeping with him for a week before I left.

Well, no. I should say I stopped fucking him. When I told him I wasn’t in the mood and to keep his precious dick to himself, he respected that, and I had to admit that it wasn’t just about sex with him. Because sleeping apart from him now that I let him into my bed once? Something I learned about Officer Coleman early on is how much he reminds me of an actual bedbug: impossible to get rid of and determined to stay in my bed.

So we didn’t fuck, though we slept in the same bed all the way up to the night I slipped one of my sleeping pills into his evening drink and snuck out while he was unconscious.

I asked Nadine to buy me a plane ticket to Colorado on her card, then gave her cash for it. She was a little pissy since Derek insisted I stop fucking around with the Dragonflies and their supply, leaving Nadine and her boyfriend short one plug. But after I added an extra hundred for her trouble, she conceded and I was flying across the country by the time the sleeping pill wore off.

Derek arrived two days after that, showing up at my parents’ front door with a cock and bull story about being sorry that he couldn’t get off of work early enough to fly out with me, but he’d been dying to meet the future in-laws and came as soon as he could.

My mother loved him at first sight. My dad was impressed he was a cop—and willing to marry me, even though I tried to point out that he hadn’t asked me yet, just seemed to think I would. My brothers got along with him far better than they had any of my real boyfriends which made me think I was living in some sort of bizarro world.

And when Derek had the nerve to slip a ring on my finger that night while I was reluctantly sharing a bed with him, I wasn’t sure if he passed the test—or I did when I didn’t immediately tug it off and flush it down the toilet in my childhood bathroom.

Oh, no. I did that after we flew back to Springfield, and he got a thoughtful look on his handsome face when I told him that I wanted to be asked next time.

The third time, I didn’t get very far at all, but that’s because I was checking to see if he would continue to chase me. Derek did. Of course he did. And when he caught my waiting for him in the alley where he first caught me dealing, my cop pushed me up against the brick wall and fucked me with such intensity, I couldn’t say anything but ‘yes’ after he asked, then told me I was marrying him with his cock still inside of me.

I’m still wearing the ring he gave me that night. It’s an exact replica of the first one, only because Derek is one hell of a determined bastard. He swears he picked out what ring he wanted me to wear the moment we met at Waverly’s, and after I flushed the first one, he just went out and got two more just in case.

The spare is kept in my dresser drawer. Next to the engagement ring on my all-important finger is the simple gold wedding band my husband added to it following our courthouse wedding last summer. A year to the day that I got my clocked in the face by a jilted girlfriend, I became Mrs. Derek Coleman.

I didn’t just give in. Someone on the outside might think that’s what I did, that he wore me down, using his badge and his body against me, and that I stopped fighting long before I said ‘I do’. The truth is, I think I started to fall for the idea of him with the very first secret Santa present he left for me.

I’d never had a man who loved me so intensely as Derek does. I was attracted to him right from the beginning; that was never in doubt. His sanity might’ve been, but once I accepted that he would never hurt me, never cheat on me, never leave me, and all I had to do was promise him forever?

I did, and I only proved I made the right decision when he showed me how devoted he was by giving me a birthday gift to remember this past October.

All I wanted was a photography studio of my own. To be my own boss, make my own schedule, and not have to answer to my managers at Waverly’s. I’m still not sure how Derek pulled it off without me having any clue, but for my twenty-ninth birthday, he gave me Portraits by Dove, my very own studio in downtown Springfield.

Now it’s Christmas again and I’m determined to give him a special gift of his own.

I went a little overboard. I always do when it’s the holidays, buying presents for my family to show how much I care about them even if we live so far away from each other. With Derek, I couldn’t stop myself from buying everything that reminded me of my new husband. There’s a small mountain of presents going under the tree for him later tonight, but the most important one?

I have secreted away in my bottommost dresser drawer.

All night, I’ve been waiting to give it to him. A couple of guys he’s friendly with on the force invited us to a Christmas Eve luncheon earlier today. I spent most of it talking to Angela Burns, the adorable wife of Derek’s patrol partner, Mace. I like her. She’s sweet. She works at the flower shop down the block from my new studio, and we go out for coffee every few days to commiserate over being cop wives.

Our husbands approve of our friendship, too, which is a plus considering Derek’s confided in me that his former mentor is as much of a possessive control freak as he is. That’s how we ended up having a drink at Thirsty’s before both couples went our separate ways about a half an hour ago.

Derek hopped in the shower after we got home, and though I wanted nothing more than to take him up on the offer to join him, I smiled wickedly at him and refused. I needed to get ready for Christmas Eve, and whether he had any idea what was coming or not—and since I’m absolutely positive there are still cameras everywhere in our private space, he might—he didn’t push me on it.

Now I’m naked, I have my very own white box waiting on the bed for my husband, and a small bottle tucked inside my palm…

Derek comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He has another that he’s using to rub his hair dry, though he drops it the moment he notices that I didn’t change from my red dress earlier into the red negligee he bought me as an early Christmas present.

I’ll slip into that later. For now, though, with what I have in mind… I’d rather not have anything in the way.

My husband obviously agrees. Deep green eyes twinkling in a mixture of lust and amusement, he lets the towel around his waist fall to the floor next. It’s been a year since we had sex for the first time, but the way he rubs his thumb over his bottom lip as his dick starts to harden before my very eyes… the desperation in his gaze as he goes from content and looking forward to a cozy Christmas Eve with his wife to absolutely needing to ravish her… he’s as down to fuck now as he was then.

Only that’s not quite what I have in mind.

So when he grabs himself as he begins to stalk toward me, I hurriedly hold up my free hand, warding him off.

He slows to a prowl. “Dove. Don’t tease me, precious. Not on Christmas .”

“I’m not,” I tell him. “But I know you.” Now I do. “You’ll get me flat on my back under you before I can blink, and since I want to give you a special Christmas gift first, that has to wait.”

Derek leans forward on the balls of his feet. “A gift? A special one? For me? What is it?”

Huh. Maybe I managed to keep a secret from him after all.

I gesture at the white box on the bed. I didn’t bother wrapping this one, but the box itself shouldn’t give away what’s inside. It’s larger than the one he used last year, courtesy of my modifications, and I swallow my smile when he gives it a shake and all we hear are muffled Christmas bells.

Derek raises his eyebrows.

I wait expectantly for him to open it.