Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  He rolled his dark eyes, stalking toward her with intent. “We both know it’s a good thing you quit that challenge of yours. Sooner or later the world would have found out that the guy you picked was—”

  “The right guy,” she said boldly, skipping away from his reaching hands to sashay to the bed. “Bad boy or not, I clearly felt inclined to pick you for a reason.”

  “Because you were desperate and there I was, tall, dark, and tatted up, and you thought, him.”

  Settling her back against the hard pillows, Lizzie watched him toe off his tennis shoes and follow her onto the bed. The mattress creaked beneath his heavy bulk, one particular coil squealing like a pig when his knee landed on it.

  “No,” she told him as he straddled her hips and placed his hands on the headboard behind her, “it was because you stared at me like I wasn’t real, like I’d struck you over the head with a two-by-four and you didn’t know whether to kiss me or shove me away.”

  His mouth met her neck with a gentle nip of his teeth, and she gasped even as she twisted her head just so, giving him more space to play. “I should have kissed you right then and there,” he growled.

  “You can kiss me now.”

  And so he did.

  Moved his lips to hers and drank from her mouth like she was the finest blend of whiskey he’d ever tasted. The storm in his touch from the plantation had quieted, leaving behind only languid strokes of his tongue, his body moving against hers.

  Lizzie soaked up every drop of affection.

  Her fingers dug into his shoulders when he tangled his tongue with hers. Her body squirmed beneath his when he intertwined their hands and pinned them to the pillows on either side of her head.

  “How do you always get under my skin?” he rasped, his stubble grazing her cheek as he nipped at her earlobe. “How do I always tell myself that we need to cool it down, take it back a notch, and then you fucking look at me, and I’m gone in an instant?”

  A gasp escaped her at the friction of the big bulge in his shorts rubbing against her seam. Nothing could have stopped her from meeting his hips. She backed her heels into the mattress, lifting her hips again and again to meet each sensual stroke, despite the fact that they hadn’t even removed their clothes.

  Because that’s what Gage Harvey did to her.

  He made her feel like a teenager again, touching a guy’s erection for the first time. He made her feel as though she could orgasm with nothing but his hot breath on her neck and a dry-humping session that was a hell of a lot more appropriate for someone half her age.

  “Those sounds you make when I hit the right spot,” he said, voice tight with lust, “the way you bite down on your lip just before you come all over me.” With her hands still pinned under his, he moved his body down, down, down so he could kiss the top of each breast through her T-shirt. “You drive me to distraction, princess.”

  “I-I tempt you.” The words left her on a whimper when he released one of her hands so he could push up her shirt and close his mouth over her pebbled nipple. Her eyes fluttered shut, no matter how much she wished to keep them open and on the darkly beautiful man hovering over her body. “Gage, I—”

  His tongue rolled over her, circling and sucking until her legs twisted beneath his, her very soul desperate for the release only he could give her. “You tempt me with more than just your body.” His weight lowered, heavy and hot on hers, tongue swirling over her nipple and making her crazy. “You tempt me into thinking that forever is a possibility when I know it’s a lie we tell ourselves to feel better. You tempt me to throw caution to the wind and make you mine, Lizzie. Mine to kiss, mine to hold at night, mine to have ridiculous adventures with that only we find fun.”

  Her heart squeezed. Why did it sound so final? Why did his voice waver like this was the end, and there was nothing else to them?

  Her thoughts scattered at the touch of his hand between her legs, over her leggings. Oh, yes, please. His thumb circled over her clit, faster and faster, until her palms were pushing down on his shoulders. Push him away. Pull him closer. She was a hot mess, completely dialed into the pleasure he doled out in spades.

  That hand disappeared from where she needed him most, going to her waistband and drawing off her sweatpants. Her shoes, her socks. Her old Saints football T-shirt that had seen better days. He left her naked on the bed, stripped of every accessory—subject to only his hungry eyes.

  Shoulders heaving with heavy breaths, he touched his hands to her thighs. “You tempt me to do wild things, Lizzie Danvers, to take chances I know we’ll both regret.”

  He was speaking in riddles, clouding her judgment in a haze of lust, desperation, and yes, love. She shouldn’t have fallen for him, not like this, not when something so very obviously held him back from that final leap.

  She’d fallen in love with the bad boy, the way she said she would never do again, and she had a sneaking suspicion that she’d been right all along. She’d changed, let down her walls, give him everything, and would not be the one left standing. As his hands skimmed her body, fear lurked in the back of her head that this moment was the end for them.

  But Lizzie had spent her entire life taking chances, on building a life out of making makeup tutorials; capturing photos; being more than the little girl who spent her first twelve years hiding from her own shadow, scared to make her presence known.

  Happiness was never handed over like a gift; it was created, molded, formed out of the shadows and the despair into something beautiful and inspiring.

  “Then I’ll just keep tempting you,” she vowed softly, pushing off her back so that her fingers could go to the button of his shorts. It slipped through the hole, freed. Down went his zipper. When her hand wrapped around his thick erection, a hoarse groan left him like it’d been ripped from his heart, his chest, his soul. Lizzie slipped her gaze up to his face and whispered, “Until you see that the only wild chance you’re willing to take is with me.”

  She killed him.

  With her words, her hands, the damn goodness in her heart.

  Gage’s head dropped back as her small hand stroked up his length, twisting at the head just as he liked. Fuck. He was mindless to the pleasure, the feel of her smooth palm, the touch of her equally soft lips capturing the pearl of come off the tip of his dick.

  Being back here in Hackberry was like calling the dead from their graves. Messing with his head. Destroying his sense of calm, the handle he’d held over his life over the years. Both softening his heart to the woman on her knees before him and steeling it, just the same, against the memories that ravaged him.

  He needed air, space like he regularly sought out in the Preserve, but he wasn’t willing to let her go to get it.

  “Lizzie,” he rasped, tugging on her hair so that she’d stop, “do a wild thing with me.”

  Blue eyes blinked up at him as his hard-on slipped from her mouth with an audible pop. “Always, Gage, always.”

  That blind trust in him, it was nearly crippling.

  He wrapped his hand around hers, pulling her off the bed, leading her to the balcony doors. He shucked his shorts as soon as the doors opened wide. Pulled off his T-shirt a moment later.

  With a squeak, Lizzie jumped behind him, curled hands on either side of his spine.

  “Gage! There are—”

  “Cane fields,” he said slowly, “there are endless cane fields. The plantation is the closest thing to us, and it’s a mile away.”

  “Mrs. Whitehouse,” Lizzie started, her small breasts flush against his back.

  Gage popped his head out, glancing to the left and right. The balcony itself was deep but not so wide, an obvious addition dating to around the 1980s, if he had to guess. It didn’t wrap around the second floor like the plantation’s—but it also seemed sturdier and less likely to buckle under their combined weight.

  “Can you stay quiet?” He peered back to look down at her. “Can I make you come and you not make a sound?”

  The challenge in
his tone brought the fire to her blue eyes. “Of course I can. You’re not that irresistible, Gage Harvey.”

  “Lies.” He stepped to the side, his hands going to her waist so he could drag her forward, in front of him. She held her head up high, proud and sexy and so damn confident. Gage touched his mouth to her ear and whispered, “But I’m willing to let you prove it. Put your hands on the railing and face the cane fields, princess, and then spread your legs for me.”

  She gasped at his dirty talk.

  Grumbled about all his “demands” when she moved into position, hands on the balustrade, her curvy legs moving shoulder-width apart.

  Moaned when Gage dropped to his knees in front of her, gripped her thighs to keep her steady, and slicked his tongue over her clit. His gaze climbed her body, the soft flatness of her belly, her small, perky breasts, up to her face.

  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 her 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 they’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.