Lizzie knew she was exhausted when staring at images of hot guys just didn’t cut it for her anymore.

Leaning back in her desk chair, she stared at the photos she’d planned to edit earlier in the week for New Orleans’s new version of the Chippendales. Ripped abs. Muscled thighs. Shaved chests.

Yawn.

The photoshoot had been equally as boring. Nothing against the guys, of course. They’d all been pleasant and respectful, but none of them were him, Gage Harvey.

“Stop thinking about him, Liz,” she whispered to herself, even as her traitorous fingers clicked the mouse over her photo catalog and brought up the set from the NOPD cop calendar.

She flicked through photos of Timms, Luke O’Connor, Cardeaux. Felt her heart flutter when she finally reached the batch with Gage.

Dark eyes.

Dark hair.

Sexy, inked body.

Yum.

It wasn’t healthy to constantly think about him, but Lizzie never claimed to be a health nut who refused coffee, donuts, and cheese. Nope, she was the girl who enjoyed every last dessert, and Gage was the most satisfying—when he wasn’t being an idiot.

With a little sigh, she clicked out of the catalog and pulled up her calendar. In the last few weeks, her schedule had skyrocketed. Between setting aside time for new photoshoots, and also uploading videos regularly to YouTube, her energy level was at an all-time low—and yet she wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Her read-aloud letter had taken YouTube by storm, and within days Lizzie had found her face plastered on the local newspapers as well as on national ones online. Everyone wanted to voice their own take on the encouraging words she’d given young girls and boys everywhere.

And every single one of them wanted to know the status update on her relationship with Gage.

Currently: nonexistent.

Lizzie pulled up YouTube, intending to check yesterday’s video on a Halloween makeup tutorial she’d posted.

A notification bubble in the right-hand screen of her dashboard popped up.

Hold on . . . her upload was processing?

She pushed down the initial panic. Sometimes social media sites behaved wonky. It was part of the business, and not much could be done about it. But she definitely hadn’t uploaded anything new since yesterday.

Her computer dinged and a bubble popped up: Congratulations, your upload is complete!

What. The. Hell.

She clicked the icon to view the video, and . . .

“O-oh my God.”

There was Gage, sitting in what looked to be the living room at Jade’s house. She’d recognize that photo of St. Louis Cathedral behind his head anywhere. What was he doing?

“Are we rollin’?” he said in that west Louisiana accent of his. A piece of paper crinkled in his hands as he looked to someone standing behind the camera. “Danvers, dude, are we—oh shit, does that red light mean we’re on?”

“Does it look like I know what I’m doing?”

A foot hit the stand, and the camera wobbled.

But Lizzie couldn’t look away from Gage’s handsome face. Her heart thudded rapidly, a loud ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum that proved selective hearing was real, because her dratted heart drowned out every sound but his voice.

The chords of Halestorm ripping through a guitar solo faded and left only him.

Him, him, him.

“S-shut up, heart.”

Black eyes blinked back at the camera and a sweep of red covered his cheeks. “Hi, uh, dolls, I apologize for the way we signed on. I’d like to pretend that we’ll know how to edit this video but that’s unfortunately above our pay grade.”

“I’m not even getting paid for this.”

There was a thud and a grunt, and then she heard Owen say, “Pro bono, man, pro bono.”

“Anyway,” Gage growled, “I’m sure many of you watched Lizzie read her letter out loud. I have my own letter to read”—the paper rose in view—“and I’d like to think of it as the other half of her speech.” He coughed into a closed fist. “Okay, here we go. Dear Dolls—”

“I think it’s just one,” muttered Danny off camera, “dear doll.”

“Dude, let him talk.”

Gage turned crimson. “Dear, um, Doll, I’d like to start by introducing myself. You might recognize my face as the guy who got roped into the bad boy irredemption challenge. I should probably start by sayin’ that rope wasn’t needed. Lizzie came into my brother’s tattoo parlor like a burst of color. Gorgeous, was my first thought, and then there was something about wanting to get her into bed.”

The camera wavered again. “Fuck, now I know how Lizzie feels when me and Jade talk about sex.”

Another male grunt from the peanut gallery, and Lizzie couldn’t stop the grin forming on her face. She shouldn’t smile; she really shouldn’t even watch this video.

But Lizzie didn’t always do what she should, and so she raised the volume, kicked up her feet on the desk, and watched her man grovel.

Just like in every romance novel and rom-com there ever was.

“I’ll be honest with y’all—I mean, doll.” Grimacing, Gage scrubbed a hand over his mouth, a curse escaping under his breath that the camera still picked up. “I wasn’t ready for Lizzie. She waltzed in with her stilettos and her sunny smile and her wry sense of humor, and I fell hard. So hard. It wasn’t in the plans—no relationship was. I was good with casual, good with temporary, and then Lizzie blew that out of the water. Suddenly, I wanted to be the one to make her smile, laugh, make those blue eyes of hers fucking shine.”

This time it was Owen who cut in: “Gage, man, I think cursing is off limits. Aren’t there kids watching this?”

“Shit.” His eyes went wide. “Dammit.”

“He’s fucked,” muttered her brother.

And Lizzie laughed. She laughed so hard that her feet lifted off the desk, and her hands dug into her belly because this was so them. Not a single one of them, especially Gage, was particularly fit to be on stage for millions around the world.

Gage was rough around the edges, with a dirty (and morbid) sense of humor, and a smile that could drop panties in an instant. He was comfortable hiding in the shadows and was determined to keep his city safe, above all else.

The fact that he was doing this for her? Sitting in Jade’s living room in a black button-down shirt, his tattoos all covered up, and his face clean shaven for once . . . Lizzie understood that sometimes you had to play hard to get. Sometimes it was necessary to make someone grovel for days on end just to push your point.

Not everyone had lived her life, or Gage’s, however. Not everyone understood that life could be gone in a second and everything could disappear.

She could choose to cry into her wine every day or she could choose happiness, love, Gage Harvey, because she didn’t have to watch the entirety of the video to know where he was going with this.

Lizzie reached for her phone, pulled up his contact information, and briefly stared at the very last text he’d sent her on the night of the EOCC meeting: I’m sorry, princess. I wish . . . sometimes I wish I were different.

She didn’t.

She loved him as he was, and considering that he was sweating on YouTube, she had a feeling he felt the same way.

Her fingers flew across the phone’s small keyboard, and she hit SEND before she could convince herself otherwise.

I see you’ve hacked my channel. Someone deserves punishment, Officer.

His response came in less than five seconds later, as though he’d been waiting for her: It’s just Mr. Harvey for the next six days, but I’ve brought the leather belt in case you’re up for it.

And then a follow-up: I’m outside.

Lizzie cast one last glance to the Gage on her computer screen. “There are a few things I want to say,” he read from his written speech, “the first being that I love you, Lizzie Danvers. I love that you’re my adventure girl. I love that you dance like no one’s watching. I love that you’re the first up for a good time, but you’re just as content to watch the stars and wander through the cane fields. I love that you’re you, brown hair and all, makeup and all, stutter and all. I would never ask you to change, but I will ask you this: is there any way I can tempt you into forever?”

Yes, her heart sang, as she launched from her chair and hurried for the front door. Yes.