by Maria Luis
Shaking his head, he rolled back to the table again after switching out the ink color. “We’re both in S.O.D. He’s with K-9, I’m in tactical.” He flicked a little mechanism on the tool he held, and then leaned in. “I see him at least once a week, and have for the last year.”
Lizzie’s heart jolted with the words, as well as with the sound of the tool starting up again. But her brain, for the first time since sprawling out on the table, wasn’t focused on the tattoo—nope, it was one-hundred percent centered on the fact that Gage Harvey worked with her brother in the city’s version of S.W.A.T.
Well, that explained his sex appeal.
He was badass to the bone.
“I don’t . . .” Swallowing, she squeezed her eyes shut and continued, “So what you’re saying is, because you know my brother, you’re not interested?”
“I don’t mess around with my coworkers’ wives, sisters, daughters, and especially not their mothers. No offense, princess, but no woman is worth losing the best part of me.”
Nails scraping the bed as the needle scraped her ass, Lizzie bit out, “That’s awfully presumptuous of you, wouldn’t you say?”
“It’s a fact.”
It was just like a player to claim his dick was superior to his heart.
Damn it, Gage Harvey was perfect.
“What if I said I’d be willing to take the hit if Danny had something to say about us going on a date?”
The sound of his soft chuckle settled around her like a heated blanket. “That’s awfully presumptuous of you to assume that I even want to go on a date with you, wouldn’t you say?”
That stiffened her spine, and he pressed a hand to her lower back, a silent encouragement for her to relax.
Lizzie gulped down another breath. “You offered me your leather belt.”
“I’m a good Samaritan—it’s part of my job description.”
“I was under the impression that your job description focused more on taking down drug lords, not helping little old ladies across the street.”
“I’m a man of many talents, Miz Danvers.”
And I want to see those many talents.
Oh, God. She was a hot mess.
Still, she wasn’t a quitter. It was time to pull in the big guns—be open and honest about what she wanted from him. “I was dumped a few weeks ago.”
Not a good opener, especially not when he sharply replied, “I’m nobody’s rebound.”
“I wasn’t—I-I mean . . . that’s backstory. Scott was a dick, anyway, so trust me when I say no one is a rebound to him. Oh!”
Her teeth snagged her lower lip as she bit back a whimper.
A hand landed gently on her shoulder. “Breathe, Lizzie. You’re good, and you’re done.”
“I am?”
“Wanna see?”
She absolutely did.
Gage grasped her elbow, helping her off the table so she could—admittedly—hobble to the mirror. With the back of her shorts still cupping the bottom of her butt, Lizzie glanced over her shoulder.
It was . . . beautiful.
Exactly as she’d imagined. The wings had the appearance of mid-flight, and the shading was done to perfection. If she’d been braver, she would have asked for the reflection of the city skyline within the shape of the wing, but she didn’t have that sort of courage under the needle. But the fleur-de-lis was perfect, as was the way Gage had taken small liberty to add wisps of movement, air being disturbed, just alongside the wing.
She wanted to hug him.
“Exactly what you envisioned?”
Lizzie nodded. “It’s gorgeous, thank you.”
“We’ll go over how to take care of it before you leave. Let me grab some ointment and a patch. You really don’t want it rubbing against fabric for at least the next few hours.”
He was already pushing her out the door and she hadn’t even asked him about . . . everything. Obviously, he knew her brother, but Lizzie didn’t think Danny would care. Her older brother was so even-keeled; he rarely lost his temper, and he’d never once cared who she’d dated in the past.
Though he has hated all of your exes.
With good reason, of course.
But Gage Harvey would be different.
“I need a boyfriend for thirty days.”
The words—oh God, did she have no self-control?
She watched in abject horror as he faced her, his dark brows raised in surprise. Jaw clenching, he said, “Like I mentioned, I’m not anyone’s rebound. Find someone else.”
It was now or never.
If only her ass wasn’t completely exposed as she pled her case.
“Long story short, I was dumped on Instagram, of all places. I don’t know what my brother has told you, but I run a YouTube channel about makeup. Which means that I have loads of followers, millions of followers. And after getting dumped, I got drunk.”
“As one generally does.” He gestured for her to lean up against the table, and she did, hands gripping the edge as he swapped out gloves for another pair and then slicked ointment over her abused skin. A large bandage was fitted over her next, and then he stepped back, stripping off his latex gloves. “You can pull up your shorts now.”
Two weeks.
In her entire life, she’d never experienced such embarrassment as she had in the last two weeks.
With sharp motions, she slipped the shorts up to her waist. “I got drunk and I did something stupid—I uploaded a video which promised the world that I would prove that no one should ever trust a bad boy. It’s trending. There are hashtags.”
Gage’s dark eyes flicked down to her high heels and then back up again. “So, what? You want me to step up to the plate? Get involved in some crazy scheme all so you can make a fool out of me?”
“What?” She stepped forward. “Absolutely not. I want to prove that the bad boy never sticks around, not even when they promise you forever. I wouldn’t be doing this at all, but now people are joining the cause, so to speak, and I’ll . . . I feel as though if I don’t do this then I’ll be laughed out of the world I’ve belonged to for a decade.”
His nostrils flared as he met her stance and stepped into her bubble. Gage Harvey was six-two, at least, and Lizzie had to tip her head back to look him in the eye. In a low voice, he growled, “What’s in it for me?”
Her palms turned sweaty at his nearness, and her heart gave an extra thump as though encouraging her to question her sanity. Already done. “Being a good Samaritan,” she whispered. “Think of me as that little old lady you’re helping across the street.”
The slow, methodical perusal he gave her made her feel needy. For him. “Don’t know if I can do that, princess.”
Time to go in for the kill. “You don’t strike me as a coward, Officer Harvey.”
Dark eyes glittered as he leaned in. “You might be able to play that game with someone else, Miz Danvers, but that shit doesn’t work with me.”
“What does work, then?”
His chin jerked back. “Excuse me?”
“I need a boyfriend for thirty days. I need to hold my head up high and pretend to the world I’m redeeming the bad boy, even though we all know it’s an impossible feat. It can be all for show.” Lizzie held herself very still, refusing to look away from the tight lines of his rugged face. “Was that your brother who I met when I came in? Your twin? Aside from the beard, y’all look exactly the same. If he doesn’t know Danny then I’m sure he’d be more inclined to help a girl out when her entire business might just come crumbling down . . .”
Lizzie released a squeak when he pressed her up against the mirror. The glass cooled her arms, and she felt the sting in her right butt cheek at the abrupt contact. His inked arms came up on either side of her, gripping the mirror’s frame so there was no escape.
She was sandwiched between a mirror and a hot, tattooed male.
You probably should have picked a more malleable target.
“Looks like you’re in luck, princess, as I’m fee
ling awfully kind today,” Gage ground out, his face a dark mask of frustration. “And you’ll leave Owen out of this.”
“Wait, you’ll do it?” Don’t jump up and down, don’t jump up and down. Relief loosened her fingers from their balled fists. “Oh, my God, thank you. I really . . . it’s just that you’re rather perfect for it all. I don’t expect anything, honestly. At this point, it’s more about saving face and not looking like a complete fool. I can pay you, if you want. Name your price and—”
A masculine hand gently cupped her face, his thumb brushing over her bottom lip. “Thing is, princess, when you bargain with a bad boy, you should always know he’ll up the terms.”
She couldn’t breathe, not with him so close, not with her breasts tingling and her butt stinging. “More money?”
“One night. You get me as the show-pony you want so badly, and I’ll get you in my bed.”
4
Gage’s shoulders bumped against his brothers’ as the bearcat rumbled down the street in New Orleans’s Central City. The air was stiff and eerily quiet in the armored vehicle—sometimes he and the other guys in his unit prepped with music; more frequently, they sat in silence.
It was a routine call—task force was already at the house on Galvez Street, setting up the perimeter and clearing out the block. By the time Gage and his brothers showed up, they’d have only one job: clean out the house and get their guy—a thirty-eight-year-old male who was wanted for homicide.
Unfortunately, nothing about Gage’s job was routine.
The unknown lurked around every corner, and there was always the chance that everything they’d planned for would go straight to hell. “Routine” was a word that went only so far in his life, but if he wanted to make sure he wasn’t the one to make everything FUBAR tonight, then he needed to get his head on straight.
Stop thinking about Lizzie Danvers.
What the hell had come over him today? Seriously, the way that he’d pressed against her at Inked? That sort of aggressive behavior wasn’t him. When it came to women, Gage always held the opinion that there were more fish in the sea.
Why slap cocks with another dude, trying to prove ownership, when the next woman would do just as well?
But then Lizzie had brought up going to Owen with her ridiculous proposition, and he’d seen red.
That sure as hell wasn’t happening.
For one, Owen was hung up on a chick he’d had a one night stand with the month before. No amount of persuasion was going to get him off the bandwagon that was Savannah Rose.
Second, even if Owen wasn’t suffering from a case of unrequited love, he wouldn’t go for a girl like Lizzie Danvers—Gage wouldn’t have let him.
“You okay, man?”
Gage jerked at the sound of Luke O’Connor’s voice. A former army sergeant, the man was the closest thing Gage had to a best friend outside of Owen. Which was, aside from the fact that he saw Nathan Danvers frequently in the field, how Lizzie’s name had rung a bell.
Luke’s wife, Anna, was besties with Danvers’ wife, who was, in turn, besties with Lizzie. That whole group was practically incestuous, and Gage made an effort to avoid joining the festivities when the women were included into the mix.
Nothing against them, but the last time he’d gone out with a few of them, the outing had turned into one whole smorgasbord of marriages, kids, and mortgages.
Gage preferred conversation that didn’t include any of the above—save the mortgages bit. His was a bitch-and-a-half, and he’d be paying off his damn house until the day he retired, no doubt about it.
“I’m good,” he finally said.
He wasn’t good. He’d just signed up to date a friend of a friend’s sister because he’d let his cock do the talking.
“You sure?” Luke elbowed him. “Exorcise whatever thoughts you have, Harvey. We’ve got a job to do.”
One job.
They had one job.
And, fortunately, it was a job Gage did very well.
Hell, it was a job he’d wanted since he’d accompanied his father to work when he’d been seven, and he’d seen S.O.D. dressed in their riot gear, looking like modern-day avengers for those who couldn’t protect themselves.
The bearcat slowed, then ground to a halt, and there was a collective inhale in the van. Gage’s fingers clenched down on the handle of his body shield.
Training had beat a mentality of unison among them, as though they were a decked-out, armored school of fish.
Routine conditioning of doing the same thing day in and day out for years had conditioned their brains to think as one.
Gage wasn’t the oldest guy in the unit, but he’d been in S.O.D. the longest, and it fell to him to corral them all and set up their next move. At Gage’s signal, the guy closest to the door, Timms, unlatched the double doors and they filed out.
Out of his periphery, he spotted task force positioned in place, their navy blue BDU’s blending into the night. A cruiser marked with “K-9” sat one house over, and Gage would bet his left nut that Nathan Danvers sat inside with his Belgian Malinois, waiting for the moment to strike.
Like S.O.D., K-9 wasn’t relegated to a single district; the city of New Orleans was their oyster.
Time to get this shit done.
In pairs, sandwiched shoulder to shoulder, they moved up to the rotted house. Vines crawled up the wood panels, and the roof sagged like it might cave in at any moment. A lone light hung by the front door like a beacon.
On his left, Luke muttered, “Hooah,” like the good soldier he once was.
Gage had never served in the military, but after a year of working side by side with the guy, he echoed the call, “Hooah.”
Their combat boots thudded up the rickety porch steps.
Deep breath, man. Deep breath.
He shifted his shield, unfurling his fist as he knocked heavily on the door. “Police with a warrant!” he bellowed, and then his boot connected with the door. The wood creaked, swinging wide open to reveal a dark room as the hinges gave way.
Luke’s arm shot out.
Pop!
Light burst in the dark room, the flashbang brightening the hellhole up like Fourth of July.
Gage scouted the space from behind the eye-shield of his helmet. Ratty furniture sat scattered around, and a rug carpeted the floor. “Let’s go, boys.”
They moved in, tracking the space for their target. They checked each room thoroughly, and the high of the moment seeped like a drug into Gage’s veins. This was what he lived for, the high he craved: the push and pull of putting the bad guys in jail and doing everything in his power to protect his city, just the way the men in his family had done for generations.
Except for Owen.
Owen had opted out, quitting the police academy the day after their father was hit by a drunk driver up on the I-10 while handling a breakdown. Ben Harvey hadn’t stood a chance. By the time the ambulance arrived seven minutes and forty-six seconds later, his pulse had already dwindled to a crawl.
So Owen had chosen ink, artwork, a life as an entrepreneur.
And Gage had chosen this—
Their target swung open the kitchen door, a clear attempt to escape into the house’s backyard . . . where more of their guys waited. S.O.D. and task force had the house on lockdown.
“Stop!” His voice cracked through the room like a whip. “Get down on the ground, now.”
The man didn’t stop—no surprise there.
He fled out the door and Gage didn’t hesitate.
He’d chosen this life, a life that wasn’t clear-cut.
Black. White.
Good. Evil.
There were always shadows of gray.
This was him, continuing the family legacy, doing more than just sitting on a stool and inking people’s skin.
He’d never once stopped to wonder what if he didn’t come home. What if this was the end for him.
Those hesitations spelled out certain death.
But for the
first time in his life, as he swept into the night with his brothers by choice, he wondered what if.
And it all had to do with Lizzie Danvers.
5
“Caramel mocha iced coffee!”
Lizzie glanced up at the front of the coffee shop—her favorite in the city—and immediately scoped out the front door. Again. Gage Harvey was late, although maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised.
Maybe he’d come to his senses and had decided to blow her off.
Maybe he’d caught on to her desperation, and realized that not even a night spent with her in bed could make up for it.
She still couldn’t believe that’d been his bargaining chip, like something out of a rom-com or a steamy romance novel.
Especially as she was trying to prove that real-life bad boys were nothing like their fictional counterparts.
But she’d be lying if she said that the offer wasn’t intriguing. After months of bad sex with Scott (and the sex had been infrequent, at that, thanks to him living in Oregon), Gage’s proposition enticed her in more ways than one.
And since Lizzie was fully aware that their dating was nothing but a front, it left her with the opportunity to sex the guy up and walk away unscathed. It was exactly what she needed. She was over giving her heart to men who had no intention of returning the favor.
At least Gage’s request for a night in her bed lacked the awful stench of bullshit. He didn’t bother with a B.S. promise of forever. Instead the heated look in his black eyes had issued an altogether different sort of promise: he’d make her feel good, perhaps better than she’d ever felt in her life, and Lizzie was down for that.
One-hundred percent.
“Sorry I’m late.”
The deep baritone startled her as the man of the hour slid into the seat opposite hers. He wore another white T-shirt, and the soft fabric stretched across his broad chest. On his head was a purple Louisiana State University baseball cap. The brim was curled, the edges frayed from age and use.
Yeah, Lizzie pretty much had no qualms about jumping into bed with Gage Harvey. She wasn’t one for casual sex, always preferring the relationship route, but maybe that’s where she’d gone wrong in life.