by Maria Luis
“Are we doing this shirtless?” asked Cardeaux, fingering the hem of his T-shirt. He drew it up to his pecs, then whipped it off completely. “My vote is for yes.”
“No one wants to see your hairy chest,” Timms muttered.
Cardeaux narrowed his dark eyes on the new recruit. “Boy, if you don’t want to be stuck doing paperwork for the rest of your short-lived career, I highly advise you to take off your shirt, pose, and don’t speak another word.”
Timms sent Lizzie a wry grin. “No wonder the poor bastard’s single. Who’d want to listen to him bark all day?” He dropped his voice to a growl. “No, woman, don’t sit there. I told you, you’re only allowed to stand against the wall and wait for me to command you to breathe.”
Laughing, Lizzie turned around only to run smack into a hard chest.
Gage’s bare chest.
Oh. Oh.
His hands circled her biceps. “Mr. September at your service.”
Her heart leapt into a frenzy at the sight of all his tattoos. Intricate lines decorated his chest. Elegant cursive script spanned across his collarbone. Although she’d sat next to him in his kitchen two weekends ago, they’d never stood so close before.
She couldn’t help drawing in a deep breath, her eyes never leaving his masculine perfection.
“Did you just sniff me?”
Yes. “I plead the fifth.”
“Not exactly the words to say around a bunch of cops, princess. We’ll sniff you right out—figuratively, I mean.”
“Good point.” She tipped back her head to meet his gaze. “Why September?”
Fingers tightening around her arms, he stepped back and then released her. “A few reasons.” Turning his head to scope out his coworkers, he added, “We ready to get this show on the road?”
She wanted to push for answers.
Once again, not the right time.
“Yes,” she said, “time to get the show on the road.”
The next two hours flew by in a whir of overt testosterone, ridiculous innuendos, and more than a few dramatic arm curls. Thankfully, the guys were good sports. When Lizzie told Cardeaux to stop giving her the duck lips, he was quick to part his mouth, roll his shoulders, and leave the duck pout for some other sucker. “Sorry,” he muttered, relaxing into his slouched position against a white wall, “my little cousin told me it was the It thing to do.”
As the lens snapped photo after photo of New Orleans’s finest, Lizzie felt herself easing up and owning her role as the founder of Naked You.
“Yep,” she told Timms as she sat him down by the front window and instructed him to rest his elbows on his bent knees. Inexperienced or not, he was ripped like the rest of the guys—although not nearly as toned as Gage—and the ridges of his abdomen were prominently displayed with each exhalation. “I’ve seen more breasts than all of you combined.”
The young cop gave a hard laugh. “More than Harvey? Miz Danvers, I just don’t think that’s possible.”
Lizzie’s fingers squeezed her camera a little too tightly, and she shot off a photo before she’d meant to. “Maybe not more than Officer Harvey,” she said evenly, readjusting her hold on the expensive Canon. “He might be the exception to the rule.”
Gage Harvey seemed to be the exception to every rule.
“You talkin’ about me, Timms?” called out the man of the hour, and Lizzie couldn’t stop herself from glancing over.
Like his coworkers, he was bare-chested. Unlike his coworkers, his shirt was slung over his right shoulder. His black cargo pants hung low around lean hips. Between the combat boots and his backward NOPD hat, Gage was a walking, talking billboard for Hot Male. He sat at her counter, his ass half-lifted onto a stool.
She wanted to know what that powerful body would feel like rocking into her, using her for his pleasure and letting her do the same to him.
Bottomless black eyes landed on her face.
Lizzie swallowed her lust. “It appears the two of us are in a contest for who’s been privy to more breasts-sightings.”
Brows arching under the band of his ball cap, Gage gave her his full attention, twisting on the stool so that his long legs stretched out in front of him. He leaned back against the counter, forearms bent and resting on the marble behind him.
Do not look at his abs, do not look at his abs.
She was powerless against it.
Hungrily, she followed the path of his tattoos down to his eight-pack. Hell, he even had those ridged side-abs—obliques? Lizzie didn’t work out, not voluntarily, but even she knew that Gage’s body was a work of art.
“Funny,” Gage said now, his thumb brushing his bottom lip in a move that clenched Lizzie’s thighs together, “I’m more than willing to let you take the win on this one.”
“You sayin’ you haven’t seen as many tits as Miz Danvers?”
“All I’m sayin’ is I haven’t seen the ones that matter most.”
He was a charmer, all right. A charmer who thought he could get out of admitting his playboy past by appealing to a woman’s desire to feel wanted. Lizzie rose from the floor, one sneakered foot planting on the tile with a palm to her knee for leverage. Dark eyes lazily followed her, that thumb of his still sexily stroking back and forth across his lip.
“Timms,” Lizzie said, a touch too loudly, “I think we’re all good for December.”
“You sure?” He clambered to his feet, swiping at his legs, running a hand down his flat stomach. “I mean, I can totally do another few rounds, if you want? I’m down. Hey, do you think sitting like that gave me a bulge?”
Cardeaux’s voice rang out loud and clear. “Your cock’s too small for a bulge, recruit.”
Expression darkening, the young cop jerked up his pants at the waistband. “I was talkin’ about my abs, you dick. My cock’s big enough, thanks.”
“Ah.” Slowly, methodically, Cardeaux drawled, “Then I’d have to say yes, you might have had a few stomach rolls. Might want to lay off the free Popeye’s chicken.”
Who said police officers had to be adults? Clearly Gage hadn’t exaggerated when he’d called them a “motley crew.” Sure, they all had the ripped, dark, and badass look down, but otherwise? Idiots, all of them.
Save for Luke O’Connor. The former soldier sat on a chair by the front windows, an ankle resting on his opposite knee, his cell phone in his hand as he looked at god-knows-what. Minding his own business, ignoring the idiocy around him.
And then there was Gage . . .
“You’re up,” she said, resting her camera against her shoulder. She watched him push away from the stool and amble toward her with his loose-legged gait. He stopped a foot away, chin dipped so he could meet her gaze.
“Where do you want me?”
Beneath me.
Lizzie slammed her eyes shut. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t say something so ridiculous as that out loud. Especially not in front of every member of the city’s Special Operations Division.
Be professional, be professional, be professional.
“On the bench,” she heard herself say, wishing the words didn’t sound just like a sexual invitation. She stared at his chest, at the multiple names inscribed into his skin. “Straddle it for me, please.”
Oh God, because that was any better.
With a low, satisfied chuckle, Gage stepped past her, but not before he murmured, “Only for you.”
What had she said about him being a nice guy? All lies. He knew how much she wanted him, and he was playing it to his advantage.
While the other cops talked shop, Gage straddled the bench, hitched his cargo pants at the thighs, and sat down.
Bulges everywhere.
His biceps hardened as he dropped his elbows to his knees. His corded stomach tightened. And then he shifted, drawing up a foot onto the bench, loosely balancing his wrist on his bent knee. That silky smile of his grew when he asked, “How’s this?”
“Good!”
Had that squeak come from her? She seriously ho
ped not. Totally unprofessional. Completely inappropriate. She was a businesswoman. Her images were shared and loved around the world.
She’d photographed people without a single stitch on, and hadn’t blushed at all.
Hell, she’d just taken photos for a full calendar spread of some of the city’s hottest first responders. Sure, most of them were small-minded horn-dogs. Sure, not a single one of them had made her tingle in all the right places.
She could do this.
“Princess?”
At his low rasp, Lizzie sucked in air. “Yeah?”
“You’re not wearing a bra, are you.”
This was the moment the ground opened up and did her a solid; she just knew it. She waited. Waited some more. When nothing happened, Lizzie glanced down at the space between her tennis shoes and tap-tapped the floor with her right foot, just to reaffirm that the universe had indeed turned its back on her.
Nada. Zilch. Nothing.
Dammit.
“I’m not answering that question.”
“It wasn’t a question.”
Cheeks warming, Lizzie resisted the urge to cover her braless chest. It was on the tip of her tongue to snap that she hadn’t prepared herself for clients today. Her schedule had been empty, blessedly empty before he’d waltzed up to her front door like he owned the place.
If her nipples were hard, it was all his fault.
All of it.
Lizzie snapped the strap of her tank top with just enough sass that he got the message loud and clear: kiss my butt, Harvey.
His black eyes glittered, full lips parting to mouth, “Anytime.”
Lizzie’s shoulders drew up to her ears.
He was . . . he was just so frustrating.
Chapter Nineteen
This was a bad idea.
Or rather, a bad idea that would be good in so many ways.
Gage stared at Naked You’s front door, still dressed in his black BDU’s from the impromptu photoshoot earlier in the day. Behind him, the city buzzed with energy—sirens, laughter, jazz, honking vehicles.
The chaos of New Orleans’s nightlife just about summed up the tempo of his heart rate.
He wasn’t the guy whose palms slicked with nerves, and he sure as hell wasn’t the guy who stood on a woman’s doorstep, debating the chances on whether he’d be turned away.
Timms had the right of it earlier. Although the last few months had been a dry spell for him, Gage had spent what felt like a lifetime before that in close contact with breasts. Large ones, small ones, fake ones, real ones. To say nothing of that sweet spot between a woman’s legs.
Gage had never lived like a monk, and he didn’t have a lick of shame in admitting that.
But the way he felt right now? Taut and stretched too thin, desperate for a reprieve only one woman could give him?
Foreign.
That sort of need was completely foreign.
And it was that need that had propelled him here tonight. He had to know if the built-up lust was all in his head, if he’d popped Lizzie Danvers up on a pedestal of his own making.
He lifted his hand, fingers curling into his calloused palm, and then pressed the buzzer. Shifted his weight from foot to foot as he waited. Tried to remind himself that it was just sex, and that Lizzie was no different than any other woman he’d ever slept with.
A temporary infatuation that would dampen the minute he rolled away from her, sated, spent.
Gage didn’t have any room in his life for permanency when it came to relationships. He didn’t believe in it.
The door creaked open, light from inside the studio illuminating her head with a glowing halo. Her face remained cast in shadow, across the hollows of her cheeks and the full, luscious bow of her mouth.
Like in a dream, she swept her brown hair over one shoulder, and murmured, “I had a feeling you’d be back.”
Anticipation pooled in his stomach, hot and heavy. “I’ve clearly lost my touch for spontaneity.”
“Or maybe I just hoped that if I thought about it hard enough, I’d wish it into reality.”
Jesus, but those words shouldn’t excite him the way that they did. She shouldn’t excite him the way that she did, even standing there in loose-fitting jeans and a light sweater that looked like it had seen better days.
She looked comfortable, relaxed.
Thoroughly kissable.
“Did you make any other wishes?” He pressed his hands to the door frame, a silent request for her to let him enter the studio. “Maybe rub a wishing lamp?”
Her laugh was as sweet as it was sexy. “You mean a genie lamp, right? Like from Aladdin?”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
More sexy laughter, this time accompanied by her fingers blazing a slow trail up his chest. She tapped him twice, right atop his heart. “The kids, Officer, have been calling it a genie lamp for at least thirty years.”
Yeah, he’d totally just aged himself. In his defense, it’d just been him and Owen growing up. No female cousins or sisters to break up the full saturation of Legos and video games. Gage was pretty sure he’d believed in the whole cooties rule until at least the eighth grade, in which he’d hit a homerun on his first go with the opposite sex.
He might have been slow on the uptake, but he always came through in the end.
“All right,” he murmured, dropping his hands from the frame and settling them over her shoulders, “a genie lamp, then. Have you made your wishes today?”
She stepped back, hands clutched to his forearms so he had no choice but to follow.
He kicked the door shut behind him with the heel of his boot. Paused only to slip the deadbolt into place. Turned back around and resumed his position, his hands on her shoulders, his hips temptingly close to hers.
“Lizzie? Your wishes?”
Voice as soft as the breeze on a hot, summer day, she dipped her chin. “I wished I could see you without anyone else around.”
His girl didn’t pull any punches.
Not that she was his girl or anything like that. This was just one night—an agreement they’d come to early on for a challenge that no longer existed. But maybe that was the point—it was easier, less intimidating, to chalk up their connection to lust, need, all based upon a stipulation that mutually benefited them both.
Uncomplicated sex.
“Turns out your wish came true,” he said, slipping his thumbs beneath the neck of her sweater so he could touch her skin. Warm. Soft. God, he couldn’t wait to get his mouth there. Was she one of those silent-in-bed types? Or the kind of bed partner who woke up all the neighbors with her moaning? “Tell me your next wish.”
Blue eyes blinked up at him. No liner. No mascara. All Lizzie Danvers.
She was utterly gorgeous.
“I want to see that ink of yours,” she said. “Maybe run my hands all over it.” Her breathing hitched, her shoulders pulling up beneath his palms. “Maybe do the same with my tongue.”
His cock went from half-mast to full-blown how-ya-doin? in a matter of seconds.
“Your wish is my command, princess.” Hands grasping the back of his T, he drew off the fabric and tossed it to the floor beside them. Then met her gaze, trying to get a read on whether or not she approved of his mass.
Most women did.
Most women weren’t Lizzie Danvers, though—flirty, sweet, ambitious as all get out. Not for the first time did he realize how similar they were. Non-college graduates. Paving their own way in the world. Unwilling to stop and catch their breath with worry that it’d all come crashing down around their shoulders. Physically, his tattoos were the equivalent to her powders and whatever other pretty shit she swiped onto her face.
But in this moment, she’d stripped her armor. The highlighted hair, the expensive makeup, the fancy clothes were all gone.
Gage still had his armor. The scars on his body from years on the job; the tattoos he’d ordered Owen to inscribe into his skin, so that he’d never forget t
he past; the plate in his right leg from when he’d been the unlucky recipient of a gunshot three years ago.
Cool fingers landed on his sternum, and all thoughts fled.
His gaze cut down to her upturned face, at her rapt expression as she traced his ink. “I want to know what they all mean,” she murmured, her breath whispering against his skin. “Knowing you, they’ve all got secret coding.”
A rise of panic cut off his laughter. “You’re thinkin’ too highly of me, princess. Sometimes a tattoo is just a tattoo.”
“Or,” she countered with furrowed brows, “a tattoo is never just a tattoo. My butterfly has meaning.”
He couldn’t resist teasing her. “Metaphorical meaning. Tell me, are you itching to fly away from N’Orleans?”
“When I was younger, yes.” Nail scraping across his nipple, she bit her lip when he released a groan. “Other cities always seemed more enticing. Prettier . . . cleaner.”
She was driving him crazy with that swirling finger of hers, making it hard to think coherently when all the blood was rushing south. He caught her arm, gently rotating her inner forearm until it faced the ceiling. Faced his lips. One kiss to the pulse at her wrist succeeded in pulling a whimper from her lips.
Fuck, it sounded erotic.
Keep it slow, don’t rush.
He was stepping out of his element here, allowing foreplay outside of the bedroom, taking just as much satisfaction when her eyes narrowed with the search for the perfect verbal comeback as he did when her lips parted and her pupils dilated with desire.
“But now you’re here,” he continued, striving his damn best for affability, “and you’ve got that tattoo on your butt that no longer correlates to a need to leave the city. So maybe what I said is true—a tattoo is just artwork, nothing more.”
“Hmmm . . .” Her free hand skated up his hard stomach. “If that’s the case, then are these just random names you’ve chosen out of a hat? From a baby name book?” Blue eyes flashed with mirth. “Are you listing your future sons and daughters here, Gage? Keeping track of all the possibilities?”
