Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  But he wasn’t that sort of man; she knew that from a single glance.

  He was all hard muscle, dressed in worn jeans, heavy boots, and a white T-shirt that molded perfectly to his ripped torso as he typed at the computer. Ink coated his arms, stopping at his wrists. Thick wrists. Long, tapered fingers. Big hands.

  She wondered how those hands would feel on her body.

  He twisted around at the sound of her heels hitting tile, and she might as well have felt the cool blast radiating from him like a physical force field. Where his eyes had been hot just minutes ago, they were chilly now. And his mouth was a straight line of ambivalence, as though he hadn’t just offered her the use of his leather belt.

  “All set?” he asked, voice gruff and deep. She’d caught the slightest hint of a twang before, as though maybe he hadn’t always grown up in New Orleans. “I’ve already traced out the image you emailed us, down to your size specifications, along with the color scheme you picked out.”

  Pink.

  Purple.

  Turquoise.

  “I like bright colors,” she said, refusing to feel embarrassed. It was her tattoo and her derriere—and even if she didn’t see the damn thing all the time, she wanted to know that the butterfly was an accurate representation of what she wanted.

  “Never would have guessed.”

  Lizzie’s shoulders inched up at his dry tone. “Is it going to take a long time?”

  In other words, how long do I have to get you to agree to date me for thirty days?

  Gesturing for her to follow him, he led the way to the back of the parlor, where three low-seated tables were positioned. Tattoo equipment sat beside each table, and Lizzie couldn’t even begin to describe what they were.

  He patted the far table. “Depends on how many breaks you need. Could be as short as twenty minutes, could be over an hour.”

  An hour of being punctured over and over again.

  Why had she thought this a great idea?

  “Have you . . .” She swallowed her nerves and stepped up to the table, pressing her knuckles into the cushioned leather after she set her purse on a spare chair. “Have you done the butterfly thing before?”

  He chuckled darkly. “You have no idea. All right, let’s do this.” Dark eyes zeroed in on her face. “Or are you gonna back out?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Except now she sort of wanted to. She hadn’t been lying about her fear of needles.

  “Great. Get on the table, Miz Danvers. Stomach-down, please.”

  She shivered at the sound of her name off his tongue, then lifted one knee and then the other onto the table. On all fours, she glanced over at him; her gaze was level with his flat stomach, and she tipped her chin back to meet his gaze. “You might want to get that leather belt ready. I’m a girl who likes to go all-in, but . . . needles, you know.”

  For a moment, he neither moved nor seemed to breathe. Body as still as finely cut marble, he clenched his jaw and averted his eyes. Had she pushed him too far? Crap, crap, crap.

  There was a fine line between flirty and bold; the first was like nectar to bees, the second like a light-zapper to mosquitoes. If she didn’t watch herself, she’d zap this opportunity into nothingness.

  Lizzie turned away and lowered herself to the table. Her shirt shifted upward, creasing across her lower spine, exposing her skin to the cool air from the ceiling fan whirring above them. With her cheek pressed to the table, she inhaled the smell of leather and edged her hand over the waistband of her shorts to tug them down. “Right side, please.”

  He made a strangled sound in his throat before she heard the stool creak with his weight. The soft fabric of terrycloth covered her left butt cheek. “Why here?”

  “Because then it’s only for me and my significant other.”

  Not that she had one of those. She’d have to get over her bad track record of dating losers for that to happen, but still, she had hope. She’d have even more hope once this dating challenge ended and the whole world wasn’t watching her every move, demanding updates on #badboyirredemption.

  There was the snap of latex gloves and then the smell of anti-bacterial wipes as he swiped the wet paper over her skin. Goose bumps pebbled on her arms. Whether from the wipe or the promise of his big hands, she didn’t know.

  “Where are you thinking you want this? Higher, toward your hip bone?”

  Propping herself up on her left elbow, she twisted just so to point out the placement. Dead center on her right cheek. That way, even if she wore a bikini, no one would ever know but her (and Mr. Hottie) that her tattoo existed. It was her little secret, away from her subscribers and social media.

  Just hers.

  “Got it.” Tracing paper smoothed out over her bottom as Lizzie resumed her position, trying her best not to appear antsy.

  C’mon, girl, now’s your time.

  She sucked in a shallow breath. “Not that I have a significant other.”

  His hands stilled. “Thanks for the info.”

  Had she read him that wrong earlier?

  “Do you?” she asked, throwing hell to high water.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, the stool rolled backward and his big body slipped away, taking the terrycloth with him. “Take a look and let me know whether that works for you. Placement, color, size—if you’re cool with it, we’ll get to the actual ink.”

  She wasn’t sure if she was ready for the actual ink.

  Lizzie slipped off the table, struggling to maintain her composure as she posed in front of the mirror, her butt to the glass. The butterfly was just as she’d imagined it—roughly half the size of her palm, and shaded like a vibrant sunset over Lake Pontchartrain. Within each wing, he’d incorporated her request of a delicate, black fleur-de-lis, New Orleans’s infamous emblem of French royalty.

  The butterfly mirrored her need to spread her wings and see the world.

  The fleur-de-lis was a constant reminder that, no matter how far she flew, her heart always belonged to New Orleans.

  She dug her fingers into the elastic waistband. “It’s perfect.” She lifted her gaze, and was surprised to meet his in the mirror. “You didn’t tell me your name. If you’re going to have your hands all over my butt, the least you could do is introduce yourself.”

  “Gage Harvey.”

  He looked part-rebel, part-savior, as though he had one foot in two different worlds. But his name . . . his name matched him perfectly. Brash. Sexy.

  She turned to face him and offered a smile. “Nice to meet you, Gage. All right, let’s do this before I lose my courage altogether.”

  Within ten minutes, she had her butt exposed to anyone who walked past, a needle injecting ink into her skin, and the hottest guy she’d ever seen bent over said behind.

  It was heaven.

  It was hell.

  It was . . . painful.

  “You’ve got to stop squirming,” he grunted for the sixth time. “Unless you want this looking like something out of a kindergarten class, tough it out.”

  Tough it out? Lizzie ground her teeth at the pressure of the needle holding steady in one spot. “You sound like my brother. Take the pain, Lizzie. Ignore the hurt, Lizzie.” Another deep breath in through her nose. “I don’t do pain.”

  He swiped a rag over her ass. “You’ve come to the wrong place, then.”

  “Your bedside manners are atrocious.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Gage drew back, the leather stool creaking again beneath his weight. “You keep moving around like that and this butterfly is going to end up a whole lot bigger when I can’t stay in the lines. Keep still.”

  You can do it, you can do it, you can do it.

  Think about something else—anything else.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  Smooth, Lizzie, real smooth.

  “Asking for a friend?” he replied in a voice as husky as whiskey.

  Well, it was now or never. She could either make it happen and get s
tarted on her thirty days or accept a very public defeat after an already very public breakup. “Asking for myself.”

  That stopped him. The tattoo machine quieted, and the reprieve from the incessant thrust of sharpness faded into a dull ache that she welcomed with open arms. “Answer me this,” he said, dragging the towel over her backside again, “you have any relation to Nathan Danvers?”

  Her left ear dug into the table as she twisted her head to look back at him. “You know my brother?”

  His mouth flat-lined. “We work together.”

  Lizzie let out a pained laugh—he may have paused in the tattooing, but her skin still smarted and her eyes still watered from the hurt. Her hand curled into a fist by her face. “I wouldn’t trust Danny with a tattoo if my life depended on it.”

  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 feeling 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.