by Maria Luis
Her lips were parted, ragged breaths sucking in and pushing out, her blue eyes half-lidded with absolute desire.
That one look spurred him on. He hooked her right leg over his shoulder. Drove his tongue against her in tight little circles that had her hands leaving the balustrade to grip his hair.
“Please,” she whispered, thrusting her mound against his lips, “oh my God.”
This moment . . . it was wild and dirty and so damn raw.
Tell her everything, he thought, tell her everything and be happy for once.
As his mouth moved against her, his finger finding her entrance and dipping inside her heat, he watched her. The unwrinkled brow. The heart she wore on her sleeve. The creaseless features that were unburdened with worry, defeat, sadness.
If he told her everything, if he poured out his soul, that happiness of hers would dissipate. He’d heard the commentary in Hackberry when he’d returned for his mother’s funeral. He’d heard it while he finished the police academy, and countless times during those early years on the job.
Did you hear about his dad? His mom? So damn sad . . .
Must run in the family, huh. First what happened to his grandfather on the job, and then that awful accident with his father? Poor, poor Bethany.
Can you blame Michelle for leaving him? If I saw the luck of that family, I’d leave too. Wouldn’t matter if he’d just put a ring on my finger, no sir.
Lizzie’s fingers tightened in his hair, sharply pulling on the short strands. She was close, so damn close.
With a last flick of his tongue on her clit, he rose to his full height. She stepped back, giving him space, her breasts and neck and face red with pleasure.
“Not out here,” he ground out, “I want to see your face when I take you. I want you to know it’s me that drives you over the edge.”
Her tongue flicked out to touch her lower lip. “Like I could ever forget.”
Tell her, tell her, tell her.
He fused his mouth to hers, backing her up into the guestroom, kissing her until her thighs hit the bed and she landed on her ass. On that damn butterfly tattoo he’d given her weeks ago, and she’d been right about that too.
Even with roots in New Orleans, she longed to fly free, to stretch her wings and to bask in the excitement of life.
His tattoos matched his life, too.
Every NOPD officer who had died on the job since Gage had joined the force in 2003, was marked into his skin. His grandfather and father sat at the top of his list, just over his heart. A constant reminder of the danger that he faced every day. A constant reminder that not every death came as a result of a traffic stop gone wrong like his grandpa, or a drunk idiot slamming into a police officer handling a roadside accident, like his father.
And then some deaths didn’t come at the cause of others, but because of self-harm.
Like the moment his mother had learned of her husband’s death, no matter that they’d been separated for years, and had seen fit to take her own life that very night.
And there was Gage’s fiancée, Michelle, who had looked at all the death, all the ruination, and pressed the ring he’d given her into his palm. Her parting words, a very quietly delivered, “I can’t do this. No woman can do this.”
“Gage?”
Lizzie’s husky voice yanked him into the present, to her naked body on the bed, to the temptation he’d faced every day since he’d met her.
I can’t do this. No woman can do this.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He needed to get out of his head. Put the memories away. The pain, the—
A feminine hand linked with his, and the contact sent a shiver down his spine.
“Come back to me, Gage,” she said, tugging him down over her body. He went willingly, his still-hard cock nestled against her. “Get out of your head and just feel.”
That was the problem. He felt too much, and every word that spilled from her mouth cracked the gates wider, destroying the locks, throwing away the keys. Under all that, though, was the softness of her against him, encouraging him to let go, to be in the moment.
“I need a condom.” He tried to pull back, only for her legs to cross over his hips, holding him in place.
“I’m on the pill.” Her breath escaped on an embarrassed laugh. “We don’t have to, obviously. I trust you, and it’s not like—well, I’ve never done it without one. Ever.”
A gift she gave him alone.
Every word, every touch, she ruined him.
“Me either, princess.” Not even with Michelle, the girl he’d dated throughout high school and until he’d been twenty. Six years, and not a single time. Less than six weeks with Lizzie, and he wanted nothing more than to sink into her body without barriers. He shouldn’t accept her offer, not while knowing that she wouldn’t be with him in the long-haul.
But Gage had made a living out of serving others, and for the first time that he could remember, he was being offered something precious. And he couldn’t say no.
He drew in a deep breath. “You sure?”
Her lips quirked in one of her flashy grins. “Get to it, Officer. I’m waiting.”
So he did. He wrapped a hand around his cock, placing the tip at her entrance. Waited for her to meet his gaze, and when she did, he thrust in deep, hard. Her neck arched, head hitting the pillow with a hissed sigh, her nails scraping down his forearms.
“Yes,” she moaned, eyes shut, mouth parted, “yes.”
The sensation of being bareback in her was almost too much to bear. It was heaven. It was hell. Gage leaned back, gripping her hips. Glanced down to see his cock slip out of her tight body, and drive back in again. Over and over again. In and out.
Heaven.
And hell.
Without intending to, the words fell from his lips, tangling in the room already echoing with her whimpers and his groans: “Everything, sweetheart. You mean everything.” Her thighs quivered around his hips. “I can’t let you go. I should, I should, but I can’t. You’re mine.”
Those brilliant blue eyes of hers snapped open, and he saw the moment her orgasm swept over her. Pupils dilating, hips pressing down on his, as though she couldn’t bear to let him do all the work—always so independent—breath seesawing as she gasped for air.
He gave her his mouth instead, kissing her, thrusting into her hot, little body, until she came under him, and kicked off his own orgasm.
“Fuck,” he ground out, eyes nearly rolling into the back of his head. For the first time in his life, he came inside a woman.
It seemed momentous.
Terrifying.
Her lips crashed against his forehead as he lay draped over her, his cock still nestled in her body, his elbows flattening the pillows on either side of her head.
“I love you, Gage. You don’t have to say it back, but I just want you to know that I . . . well, I kind of adore you.”
Adore.
Love.
His eyes slammed shut.
What the hell had he done?
26
It was miserable outside.
Drizzling rain. Humid air. Unforgiveable heat.
It fit Gage’s mood to perfection.
“Yo, Harvey, how’re our photos looking?” Cardeaux asked as their unit sat in the bearcat, prepared to deliver another warrant. “Your girl have any news?”
His girl.
It was the first week of October, three days since they’d spent the night in Hackberry, around a month since she’d first waltzed into Inked on Bourbon for a butterfly tattoo. It seemed too short of a time for someone to fall in love, wasn’t it?
But for seventy-two hours now, her words stayed locked in his brain: I love you, Gage and I kind of adore you.
Seventy-two hours since he hadn’t returned the words because the last two, and the only, women he’d ever said those three little words to had left. Hell, he wasn’t sure if he even knew how to say them anymore.
He and Owen hadn’t traded “I love you’s” since t
hey’d been kids, and Gage sure as hell didn’t go around saying the words to his boys at work. Not unless he wanted a good ribbing, and a crap ton of snark for the rest of his life.
“Gage, man?” Cardeaux prompted. “The calendar?”
His hands clenched down on the government-issued body shield. “She’s good. Working on them.” He was pretty sure she was, anyway. She’d spent the day they returned to New Orleans fussing around with the photos of Mayberry House. Gage couldn’t pretend to understand what she did to them, but by the time she’d finished, the stars in the night sky above Mayberry shone like diamonds, and the cast of the moon on the cream-colored building offered a dream-like glow.
When she’d left the room for a glass of water, he’d snuck a quick picture on his phone and had later set it to wallpaper mode.
Fucking hopeless.
The bearcat hit a pothole, and the lot of them swayed, shoulders brushing, shields clashing.
“Are the proceeds still going to that group of yours?” Cardeaux pushed, shoving Timms to the side when they bounced against each other. “What’s it called again?”
Gage bit the inside of his cheek. “Care for Blue and Red.” It was a stupid name, but he’d never claimed to be creative anywhere outside of the bedroom. He’d started CBR in his twenties as an attempt to provide aid to first responders, and their families, who struggled with the stress of their jobs. CBR was both a call center and an anonymous hotline, a local place for cops and firefighters and EMTs to go when the darkness swarmed in and all hope seemed lost.
Owen told him he was nuts for taking it on, for bleeding red every time a new officer came in, a wild look in his or her eyes and a desperation in their voice.
That’s how he’d gotten to know Kevin and Carli Simpson before Simpson had joined S.O.D. He’d been one of the program’s first attendees, his depression turning to a heavier abuse of alcohol. Now the guy volunteered at the center over in Mid-City twice a week, sometimes with Carli, sometimes alone.
There hadn’t been a program in the city like it when Gage’s parents had died and his fiancée had left. Owen had gone on his bender, and Gage had clammed up—for fourteen years, it seemed.
“I bet I’m going to look delicious as Mr. December,” Timms announced, his eyes bouncing around the other guys as the bearcat swung a right. “I’m going to have women dropping at my feet.”
“Yeah,” Cardeaux muttered, “but only because I’ve walked in right behind you, and they’re in awe.”
“Y’all are a bunch of idiots.” This came from Luke O’Connor, and Gage swallowed a grin. “I swear I lose brain cells every time I get in this damn van.”
The bearcat rumbled to a stop, and Gage thumped his buddy on the back. “Guess it’s a good thing that we’ve arrived. Time to rock and roll.”
Another warrant. Another day at the office.
This time their guy was a white male in his twenties. Heroin. Crack. Weed. Guns. You name it, and this guy probably dabbled in it. Task force had been called in to help again today, and Gage issued the men a single nod as he and his boys climbed out of the bearcat and took their positions.
It was a routine call, something Gage had been doing for years now.
He tried not to let his mind wander as he took to the front of the group. Since Hackberry, he’d been more jittery than usual. Probably due to Lizzie’s “I love you,” if he had to guess. Though the nightmares waking him at night had nothing to do with a blue-eyed woman, and everything to do with his mother, Bethany. His dad, too.
He tossed and turned at night, seeing their faces, seeing bruises and the blood and the scars marring the body of his mother. Disturbing, that’s what it was, and distracting.
There was a reason why Gage was frequently named officer of the month—because he put the job first, always. He needed to do that now. Just shove everything else aside to be dealt with at a later date.
Birds chirped, followed closely by a siren some blocks away.
Gage’s boots crunched across the gravel walkway. His right leg pinched as he took the first step up the porch. A light flickered on inside the house, and he made a small prayer, no matter that he wasn’t religious in the slightest.
“Gonna do the honors tonight?” Luke said from beside him.
“Hooah,” he grunted.
“Hooah.”
The guys behind him shuffled into position, poised to strike if the scene took a turn for the worse.
“Police with a warrant!” Gage bellowed, just as he’d done hundreds of times, his boot hitting the door, cracking it open, letting it swing on the hinges. A thousand times. He’d operated scenes like this for a decade. Knew it inside and out. Could run an operation with his eyes closed.
He just hadn’t expected the sight before him.
Their target with his arm wrapped around a woman—a woman that looked eerily like Michelle—a gun positioned just under her chin.
The guy held a Glock, and the momentary silence that filled the room was fraught with tension. Glock’s didn’t have an external safety switch. The “safety” was your finger, which meant . . . Gage swayed, his gaze latched onto the woman’s face.
Blonde hair.
Pockmarked skin.
Full body.
It wasn’t Michelle, but it sure as hell looked like her.
He heard Cardeaux radio in to task force.
Heard the heavy, ragged breathing of the woman as she stood frozen in the man’s arms.
Heard his own heavy, ragged heartbeat.
Disable the guy or start up negotiations.
Those were their only two options, and yet all Gage heard was the ringing in his ears, saw not this woman’s tears but saw his mother’s. The blood on her chest from the gunshot wound. A gun which had once belonged to Ben Harvey.
The blood-soaked area rug in the living room.
The tears staining her cheeks.
He’d been home in Hackberry for the weekend—proposing to Michelle—and he’d been the one to find her. The one to call 911. The one to hold her limp body, fruitlessly trying to staunch the blood loss.
Around him, Gage heard the commotion even though it felt like a fog had closed in, hammering at his vision, roiling his stomach.
Luke talking to the guy, ordering him to put the weapon down.
The woman’s sobs as she begged her boyfriend to let her go.
The boyfriend’s demands that he’d be released, allowed to leave city lines, the state completely.
Cardeaux’s consent.
The woman stumbling forward; Timms’ attempt to calm her down.
A shot fired.
Another shot fired.
And then nothing but silence.
27
“You fucked up, Harvey.”
Sitting in his lieutenant’s office at S.O.D generally meant one of two things: either someone was getting a promotion or someone was about to get their ass chewed out.
Considering the events of the evening, Gage had no doubt in his mind that his ass was about to get reamed—and that Lieutenant Brauchard was going to enjoy every minute of it.
“I know,” Gage muttered.
“No,” Brauchard snapped. “You. Fucked. Up.” Icy blue eyes narrowed into slits. “The only reason you aren’t getting launched to a different department right now is because this shit isn’t you. Timms? I can see him freezing under a hostage situation. Not you, Harvey. It’s not like you.”
Gage forced himself to sit tall in the seat, despite the fact that he desperately wanted to sink down and avoid the disappointment in his lieutenant’s eyes. He’d known Brauchard for years. Hell, Gage had been in S.O.D. before the guy had even come onto the NOPD. Eight years. He’d worked with the guy for eight years, and this was the first time his ass had ever come under fire.
One thing he knew about L-T, though, was that he didn’t deal with excuses.
Whether or not Gage had suffered a panic attack—the first one he’d ever experienced on the job—was not his problem. Fol
lowing protocol, ensuring the safety of his officers and also the general public—that was his problem.
“How many days?” If Gage wasn’t getting launched, that meant a guaranteed suspension.
“Twenty-one.”
Gage blanched. Curled his hands around the seat’s armrests.
Stay seated, stay calm.
“P.I.B. voted for four weeks,” Brauchard added stiffly. “I was able to narrow it down.”
Normally, Gage was of the opinion that the Public Integrity Bureau only deserved a fat middle finger. Not today. He deserved every single day without pay that he was hand-delivered. He’d screwed up. He’d put his boys and the victim at risk.
His only saving grace was the fact that no one had been critically injured.
Johnson, their target, had mistakenly pulled the trigger—a problem for those untrained with shooting a Glock—and had shot up at the ceiling. Cardeaux had been the one to return fire at the sound of the gun kicking off, but he’d aimed at Johnson’s leg, clipping him in the thigh.
Gage knew firsthand that it must have hurt the guy like a bitch, but better a leg than a blow to the stomach or the heart, as they were all trained to do during police academy.
It could have been worse.
The woman could be dead or even one of Gage’s coworkers.
“I’ll take the month if that’s what they want.”
“You’ll take the twenty-one and shut your trap, Harvey. Pull a stunt like this again, and I’ll personally ensure that you’re transferred out of S.O.D.; I don’t even care if you babysit my dogs every summer.”
It probably wasn’t the time to let Brauchard know that he hated those two Weiner dogs with a passion. Instead, he only dipped his head, accepted his fate, and climbed to his feet.
“Get your shit out of the lockers. See you in twenty-one days, Harvey. Don’t forget to turn in your badge on the way out.”
Twenty-one days.
It’d almost feel like a vacation if he weren’t so damn ticked off with himself.
This is what you get for opening up the gates.