Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  Lizzie Danvers’ laughter.

  Whether he wanted to admit it or not, his spine snapped straight and before he knew it, his empty bottle was on the coffee table and Gage was on his feet. He flattened down his work T-shirt, which he’d worn under the Kevlar vest and black uniform top at work earlier today. Both had been stripped off and tossed in the back of his unmarked Crown Vic, which sat in front of Luke’s house.

  Gage re-angled his LSU hat, then twisted it around to sit backward on his head. Took two deep breaths because the last time he’d seen her, she’d stripped naked in front of him and offered a drunken striptease before yanking on his clothes and passing out on his bed.

  There’d been no stopping him that night from climbing into his shower and turning the temperature to balls-shriveling freezing. It was either that or stroke one off in the shower, and considering that she’d also thrown up in his shower . . . Well, he hadn’t wanted to spend any amount of time in there, despite hosing the place down and spraying all sorts of bleach onto the tiled walls.

  “You heading out?”

  “No, I, uh . . .” Gage swallowed, meeting his buddy’s gaze before glancing swiftly away again. Jesus, when was the last time he’d gotten tongue-tied over a woman before? Then again, getting tongue-tied wasn’t Gage’s M.O.

  Taking charge. Acting alpha.

  He did all that, and he did it well.

  Which didn’t at all explain why he was shifting his weight from foot to foot, ready to spring toward the kitchen—and Lizzie—at the first opportunity.

  An opportunity he’d clearly have to create, because not once in twelve months had Gage proactively tried to hang out with Luke’s wife or her friends. It wasn’t his thing. Felt way too much like shacking up for his comfort, and even now his brain shouted, What are you doing? Stop your nervous twitching! Make your dick stand down. No, we said DOWN not UP, you idiot.

  A fact that Gage proved tenfold when he opened his mouth and muttered, “You have water?”

  Julian, the snarkmaster of the O’Connor family, held up a finger and announced, “No-can-do, Officer. We’re taking a stand against water. All water. Don’t even have it in the toilet bowl for when you want to flush. In fact, we’re petitioning for the entire city of N’Orleans to free the water and to cease using it frivolously in their homes.”

  Gage’s brows arched up to his hairline, under his hat. “O’Connor, man, where’d you find this one?”

  “His mother.” Luke clapped a hand on the kid’s shoulders and chuckled. “Though, depending on the day of the week, sometimes that answer changes.”

  Julian cracked a wry grin. “Back when I was a little shit, I told him that he’d found me in Uranus. He wasn’t pleased.”

  “Overplayed, kid, overplayed. You don’t think I haven’t heard that one before?”

  “Then how come you spit out your Coke when I said it? Don’t play up your game in front of one of your buddies, Luke.” The kid shoved back his white-blond hair and gave a pitying pat-pat to his stepfather’s shoulder. “We all know that—”

  “Gage?”

  Every muscle in his body strung tight, acutely aware of the mingled curiosity and confusion in her voice. Slowly, because he needed time to wipe the ridiculous smile off his face, he turned around and took the time to prepare himself for the sight of her.

  Both his heart and his cock gave a kick of approval when his gaze settled on her, though it took him a moment to readjust the image of her he had from Sunday morning pancakes to this exact moment.

  Gone were the caramel highlights from her hair; instead, the strands had been dyed a velvety chocolate brown. There wasn’t a single trace of makeup on her face, that he could see, and she was dressed in a light blue sweater, nondescript jeans, and a pair of tennis shoes.

  No plum-painted lips. No shadow on her eyelids. No flashy jewelry or clothing.

  He had a gut feeling that she’d stripped ThatMakeupGirl from her appearance, and had gone straight for Lizabeth Vittoria—and, yes, he was fully aware of how ridiculous it sounded to be talking about her like she were two different people.

  “Hey,” he said, hands going to his ball cap to drag down the bill further. Over the years, he’d noticed the habit picking up whenever he felt off-balance or nervous.

  Lizzie Danvers, for what it was worth, made him feel both.

  Her brows arched high as she rocked back on her heels, hands going behind her back. “Hey.”

  Gage swallowed. Tucked his hands into the front pockets of his work pants. “Your hair looks different.”

  Jesus, Harvey, that’s all you have to say? Just different?

  He cleared his throat, stared up to the ceiling. “Nice, I mean. It looks nice.”

  “Thank you.” Her lips pursed, drawing his eyes down to their natural shade. He’d had his answer on the morning he’d served her pancakes—peach, that was the color of her lips. Now, he couldn’t look away, especially not when her teeth sank down into her bottom lip in a way he doubted she meant to be sexy, but undeniably was. “I felt like I needed a change.”

  “She did more than just change her hair color,” said Luke’s wife, Anna, as she waltzed into the living room. Throwing an arm around Lizzie’s shoulders, Anna added, “She also . . . what’s the equivalent of putting in your notice for a social media page?”

  “Ma,” Julian said from the couch, “you’re so old.”

  “Hey, what’d we say about making fun of your mom’s age?” Luke tipped his head back against the couch, accepting a kiss from his wife when she stopped behind him. “She’s always what age?”

  Chuckling darkly, the kid finished off his milk. “Thirty-two, Sir He-Who-Knows-All, which is the age that she met you.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re too good to me.” Anna playfully swatted O’Connor on the shoulder, and then hiked her hip up onto the couch to lean against it. “Anyway, Lizzie came over to celebrate her break from YouTube.”

  Everyone clapped and whistled, and Lizzie gave a curtsy, lifting up her invisible skirts. It was . . . adorable. Gage scrubbed a hand over his jawline, wishing he had another beer.

  “Thank you, thank you,” she murmured, turning a quick circle and eating up the attention. “Anna promised me a dinner when I finally worked up the courage to do it, so I’m planning on feasting tonight.” She grinned, then tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. The position thrust her small breasts up and out, and Gage forced himself to keep his eyes above her shoulders. “Pizza, of course, because I know it’s her favorite and I’m a giver like that. Does anyone want to join?”

  In the giving?

  Gage lost the battle, and he trailed his eyes down the length of her body. Perky breasts, narrow waist, curvy backside. Not for the first time did he wonder if anyone else had had the chance to scope out her tattoo.

  “Does the invitation include underagers?” Julian asked, already setting his glass on the coffee table. “Or just senior citizens?”

  Lizzie laughed, her chocolate-brown hair falling over her shoulders in full curls. “Other than you, Jules, I’m the youngest here. How about we pull an ‘age before beauty’ game?” Blue eyes landed on Gage. “Can we allow Julian to come with us, Officer Harvey?”

  Gage cast a quick glance about the room. “Why do you assume I’m the oldest?”

  “It’s the gray hair.”

  Mouth falling open, Gage stared at Anna’s kid. “I don’t have any.”

  “Oh, right, I’m sorry.” Julian slapped a palm to his forehead in a classic duh gesture. “I was talking about my mom. Hey, Ma, can I come with?”

  Anna’s brows furrowed, even as her mouth quirked with a clear fight against a laugh. “Sometimes, I wonder where I went wrong with you, honey.”

  Julian blew her an exaggerated kiss. “Birth, Ma, you went wrong at birth.” Clapping his hands together, he tossed an arm around Lizzie’s shoulder. “On to your celebration! I’m voting for pineapple on the pizza.”

  Luke and Anna
both groaned.

  Lizzie chuckled.

  And Gage wondered how the hell he could arrange her to drive with him to the pizza joint—alone.

  Don’t get attached.

  But as he watched her jean-clad hips sway side to side, he wondered if that was already a moot case. Gage never let himself get attached to anyone, but if his response to her entrance into the living room was any indicator, his “never” was about to turn into a “just this once.”

  And if a “just this once” was on the horizon, then he needed to get proactive about setting up some boundaries with Miz Lizzie Danvers.

  Casual.

  He desperately needed to keep his lust in check and remember that their relationship, if you could even call it that, was nothing more than a random friendship that would hopefully include sex sometime in their near future.

  He was good with that, totally good.

  Just as he lifted a hand to his ball cap, Lizzie glanced over her shoulder at him, looking happier than she had in the weeks that he’d known her, and winked at him.

  This whole keep-it-casual thing would be a lot easier if he got her in his bed and out of his system.

  Maybe then he could stop thinking about all the ways he’d like to be the reason for her happy glow.

  17

  The pizza place down in New Orleans’s Bywater neighborhood was packed.

  Like sardines stuck in a can, Lizzie and the others shuffled through the front door. Over Anna’s blonde head, she saw Julian tap Luke on the shoulder and point to a section of the restaurant near the back. Luke, in turn, motioned for the rest of them to follow with a flick of his wrist, army-style.

  And, just like the good soldiers they all weren’t, they followed single-file until they’d reached home base and dropped onto the wooden benches, claiming the territory as theirs.

  Lizzie sucked in a breath when Gage took the seat beside her, his legs straddling the bench and his left palm on her lower back. It felt natural, too natural, for him to be so close.

  Did that stop her from leaning into his touch, twisting just so, so that her butt was nearly cradled against the V of his thighs? Nope, totally didn’t.

  Maybe their conversation from the other day at his house had opened him up? Made him reconsider his unvoiced ban on relationships?

  Or maybe he just wants to get in your pants.

  Well, there was that, too.

  But as of today, as of this moment, Gage Harvey had absolutely no ties to her. She’d announced her break from ThatMakeupGirl and, in doing so, had officially ended #badboyirredemption, for better or for worse. Which meant that if he showed any interest at all in her . . . it had to be real, right?

  She felt his warm breath on her ear just before she heard the deep rumble of his voice. “Congratulations, princess. You did what you said you’d do.”

  Lizzie fought the urge to lean back against him, to soak up all his masculinity and curl against his chest. Turning her head slightly, her lips brushed the prickly stubble of his cheek. “In other words,” she murmured, “I owned my shit.”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners as he gave a short laugh. “That you did. How’s it feel?”

  “Good.” She set her elbow on the table, inches from where his forearm rested. “Freeing. I mean, it will be freeing once the DM’s all stop.”

  “The DM’s?”

  “Yeah, the direct messages? I always upload condensed versions of my videos on YouTube onto Instagram, which maybe I should reconsider for the future. Instagram folks are a bit more out of hand when they slide into your inbox.”

  There was a small pause, in which Gage told Luke he’d be down for whatever type of pizza, and Lizzie did the same, before he said, “Let me see them.”

  “The messages?”

  “Yeah.”

  He was a brave man to even suggest it. She unzipped her purse on the table and pulled out her phone. “Are you sure about this?” she asked, unlocking the screen and tapping open the pink Instagram app. “If your sensibilities got all riled up because of Naked You, you’re likely to want to confess after this.”

  “I think my sensibilities will be just fine, Miz Danvers.”

  Giggling at his defensive tone, Lizzie only shook her head and tap-tapped her inbox. Half the time, she never even looked through her messages. Sure, there were a select few people who were diehard fans and who loved her, but the majority of those who DM’ed her were straight internet trolls. They wanted to make her cringe, cry, or shift uncomfortably. Sometimes, they managed to succeed in doing all three. Sometimes, Lizzie managed to find humor in the situation. Mostly, she just wished that they’d leave her alone.

  She flicked open the first one. “All right, you wanted to read them. Here they are.” Lizzie slid the phone to her right. “Prepare to wonder what’s wrong with humanity.”

  His dark brows drew together. “You think I don’t wonder that every day with my job?” He gave a mock-shiver, his left hand still pressed to her back, but then he moved.

  Inward.

  Against her.

  And, oh jeez, but it brought back the sensations of him dancing behind her at the nightclub.

  In a way, this was almost more seductive. More intriguing.

  Here they sat in a public restaurant, the overhead lights glaring and yellow; Anna, Luke, and Julian sat just to her left, laughing at some story Julian told, his hands emphasizing his words with physical punctuation in the air.

  “Let’s see what we have here . . .”

  A turned-on Lizzie Danvers, that’s what they had here.

  She almost whipped around and told Gage just that, but she bit her tongue and relaxed her shoulders and reminded herself that she was changing her ways. New hair. New career. New lifestyle.

  Casual.

  She’d ended her last YouTube video with a new life motto: live everyday like it was her last. Enjoy life, and worry less about what people thought of her.

  It started here, right now.

  Lizzie dropped her hand to Gage’s thigh, delighting in the way the muscle beneath her palm twitched. She moved her hand up an inch, closer to the goods, and squeezed. Just once.

  Once was all she needed—his hand latched around her wrist and skimmed it down to his knee, a safe place. Then, in a voice pitched from gravel, “If you keep doing that, I’ll take you right here on the table, princess.”

  Her toes curled in her tennis shoes. “Before or after the pizza arrives?”

  Rumbling laughter reverberated in his chest, and she felt the scrape of his stubble against her cheek. “I’m not even going to answer that.”

  “Scared?” she taunted softly, her eyes locked on their intertwined fingers on his knee.

  “Never.” He squeezed her fingers, just once, like she’d done to his thigh, and then released her. “All right, I’m ready to read some of these DM’s you speak of so highly.”

  Lizzie snorted. “Prepare yourself.”

  “Oh, I’m prepared, don’t you worry.”

  His arrogance was endearing, mainly because he wiggled his dark brows before tapping her phone back to life. “Okay, let’s do this. Our first message up is from a . . . a . . . BigTeetz9090—”

  Smirking over the way he stumbled over the username, Lizzie murmured, “I believe you meant to say big tits?”

  He cocked his head. “It’s spelled with two E’s and a Z. Big teetz is right.”

  “What’s the profile icon photo?”

  Leaning in, his broad chest met her back and Lizzie stifled a whimper. “Looks like I’m staring at some big titties. Yellow bra. Definite nipplege.”

  Nipplege? Lizzie drummed her fingers on the table, feigning nonchalance when all she wanted to do was laugh. “Okay, continue.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He didn’t shift away this time, and her back sank into his chest. It was the perfect fit. Utterly perfect. Not that it meant anything. She was living in the moment, enjoying this back-and-forth with a hot cop who just so happened to have
stormed into her life and showed no signs of leaving anytime soon.

  “This is interesting.” He cleared his throat like he was about to put on a performance. “So, BigTeetz9090 has said, and I quote, Lizzie Danvers, you are one shallow bitch—bitch is spelled with a Y, by the way—who has absolutely no tits. Watching you for the last ten years has been like stabbing myself in the eye with an icepick on repeat for half my life. It feels good, and I’ve certainly jerked one off to you a few times, but not gonna lie . . . I’m ready for you and your fake hair and your fake smile and your fake tits to get off the air. Deuces.”

  Gage seemed to sit stunned next to her, his lips parted, his black eyes on her phone. Yeah, she’d felt that way, too, way back in the beginning.

  Now, she only said, “In case you’re wondering, they’re real. Small, maybe, but real nonetheless.”

  His chest moved against hers with a deep inhale. “They’re perfect.”

  Lizzie’s thighs squeezed together. “You’ve never seen them.”

  “I’m makin’ a hypothetical guess that they’re fucking gorgeous based on the rest of you.”

  Forcing a self-deprecating tone to her voice, she chucked him under the chin with her knuckle. “Romantic as always, Officer. Oh, look, the pizza’s here.”

  Lizzie was all too aware of the fact that her breasts, unlike her butt, were smaller than average—hence, the padded bras she once wore religiously. But with age came acceptance, and if a man had a problem that she didn’t have the best rack on the block, that was on him and not on her.

  Slices were stolen from the tin tray, though only Lizzie and Julian partook in any of the pineapple ones.

  “What are y’all reading over there?” Julian asked, just before Anna playfully swatted her son on the shoulder.

  “What did we say about asking people personal questions, Jules?”

  “What?” His hands came up, one of which held the pizza in a triangular fold, the cheese dripping to his plate. “They’re canoodling, Ma. You noticed, I noticed, Luke noticed. I’m just wondering what’s so funny.”

  Canoodling?

  To her right, Gage echoed her after taking a drink of his soda. Louder, he said, “We’re reading some of the mean messages Lizzie’s received from people subscribed to her channel.”