The Former Cop

The Renovation Project, Book Four
by Isla Wilde

Pairing: MF
Heat: 5/5 Inferno
Tropes: Age Gap, BDSM, Power Exchange, Bondage, Blue Collar, Forced Proximity, Reverse Harem, Protector Romance

She thought she knew what surrender meant. He’s about to redefine it completely.

Callie Monroe has learned a lot about herself—and about the men who’ve taught her to want, to play, to trust her instincts. Ford taught her permission. Jax taught her joy. Silas taught her freedom. But nothing prepared her for Dane Mercer.

Dane is different. Controlled. Commanding. A former state police detective who left the force after a tragedy he can’t forget—a woman he failed to save. When he arrives to install a security system, he brings more than cameras and sensors. He brings rules. Protocols. The kind of structured surrender that requires absolute trust—and offers absolute freedom in return.

But Dane has walls higher than anyone she’s met. The guilt he carries. The woman named Maria who haunts his nightmares. The jealousy that burns when he thinks about sharing her with the others.

And when the house reveals its biggest secret yet—one that changes everything Callie thought she knew about her family—she’ll need all four men to help her face what comes next.

As they work side by side—installing cameras, establishing boundaries, discovering that the strongest walls are the ones we build inside ourselves—Callie learns that surrender isn’t weakness. It’s the bravest thing she’s ever done.

And when Dane finally lets go of the guilt that’s been destroying him, he discovers that love doesn’t divide. It multiplies.

The Former Cop is Book Four of The Renovation Project, a high-heat reverse harem romance series featuring significant age gap, BDSM/power exchange, bondage (handcuffs, silk restraints), praise kink, sensory play, blue-collar heroes, and a found family of men who will stop at nothing to give her everything she never knew she needed. Contains explicit content intended for readers 18+. All activities are consensual between adults.

Content Notes

This book contains: explicit sexual content, significant age gap (17 years), BDSM/power exchange dynamics, bondage (handcuffs, silk restraints), sensory deprivation (blindfold), edging/denial, uniform roleplay, praise kink, references to past trauma (domestic violence, death), and the fourth book in a reverse harem series where the heroine is intimate with multiple partners (sequentially building toward group).

Exclusive Bonus Scene

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Chapter One: Perimeter Breach

The black SUV pulled into my driveway at exactly 7:00 AM.

Not 6:58. Not 7:02. Exactly seven, like the driver had been waiting around the corner, watching the clock.

I watched from the kitchen window, coffee mug warming my hands, as the door opened and a man stepped out.

My first thought: Military.

It was in the way he moved—economical, purposeful, every motion serving a function. The way his eyes swept the property before his feet touched the ground, cataloging threats and exits in a single glance. The rigid set of his shoulders, the controlled precision of his steps.

He was tall—over six feet—with a lean, athletic build that suggested discipline rather than bulk. Silver buzzed close to his skull. Sharp jaw. And eyes that even from this distance looked like chips of pale blue ice.

Ford had warned me about Dane Mercer.

“He’s intense,” Ford had said, which from Ford meant something. “Former state police detective. Retired after… well. He doesn’t talk about it. But he’s the best security specialist I know, and your grandmother’s house needs more than locks and good intentions.”

The man on my driveway didn’t look like he dealt in good intentions. He looked like he dealt in absolutes.

I set down my coffee and headed for the door.

“Mr. Mercer?”

He turned. Those ice-blue eyes locked onto mine, and I felt it like a physical weight—the full force of his attention. It wasn’t threatening, exactly. But it was… thorough. Like being scanned by something that missed nothing.

“Ms. Monroe.” His voice was low, controlled. “You should know—your front door was unlocked when I pulled up. Anyone could have walked in.”

No greeting. No small talk. Just straight to the assessment of my security failures.

“I was expecting you,” I said.

“And if I hadn’t been me?”

I didn’t have an answer for that.

Something that might have been satisfaction flickered across his face. “We have a lot of work to do.”

Two weeks, I thought. I have two weeks of this.

I was beginning to suspect they would change everything.