“O’Connor, dude, your dog weighs a shit-ton.”

The Great Dane cranked back on the couch at Luke’s house, landing in Gage’s lap with the most pitiful doe eyes he’d ever seen. Puppy eyes, more like. Utterly, completely pitiful puppy eyes. Sassy’s palm-sized ears flopped onto Gage’s thighs, his massive mouth parting like the Red Sea as his sandpaper-like tongue scraped across Gage’s arm.

“No, man,” he muttered, trying to catapult the dog onto the floor with a nudge and a shove, “you can’t have my beer. You’re not twenty-one.”

“Like that’s ever stopped anyone before,” said Julian O’Connor, Luke’s teenage stepson. The kid’s hair was as white-blond as his mother’s and he had eyes just as blue. Julian’s mother was a stunner, something every single man in S.O.D. knew firsthand. All it’d taken was one dropped-off lunch to her husband, Luke, and tongues started hitting the floor.

Gage’s included.

He stared down at the family dog, then back to Jules. “Sneaking some booze, kid?”

At seventeen, Julian only cocked a brow and played the I’m-too-cool-for-you card. “What do you think?”

“I’m gonna go for ‘hell yes’.”

Julian faked hitting a buzzer with the palm of his hand. “Bzzzt! Guess again, Officer Harvey, guess again.”

Gage dropped a forearm on the dinosaur-sized dog in his lap. “You really going to try and pretend you don’t escape out of your second-floor bedroom and hit up some of the high school parties I see raging on the weekends?”

“Nah, he doesn’t.” Luke entered the den with two beer bottles clasped in one hand, as well as a glass of milk in the other. “We’ve got a firm no-sneaking down the fire escape policy around here.”

Accepting the milk, Julian offered a slow grin that reminded Gage way too much of O’Connor. “That we do. My old man right here made me sign a contract on my sixteenth birthday.”

“A contract?”

“Yup.” Downing half the milk, Julian dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. “I solemnly swore on the day of the signing to never lie about my whereabouts, and in return . . .”

Luke snapped his fingers and Sassy leapt to attention: he hopped off the couch (while digging a paw into Gage’s stomach), and slapped his butt on the ground in wait for a treat. A bone-shaped cookie arced through the air, and landed smack in the Dane’s waiting mouth.

Impressive.

Unfortunately, the only thing Gage had to offer the dog were single dollar bills, thanks to the tips he’d received today at Inked.

Taking the seat Sassy had just vacated, beside Gage, Luke handed over a beer and then took a long pull of his. “In return, I promised Jules a trip to every NFL stadium along the east coast by the time he went off to college.”

Gage brought the beer bottle to his lips, tipped it back, and welcomed the hoppy flavor. “How many do you have left?”

“Just one—the Patriots at Gillette.” Julian gave a huffed chortle. “Luke here wanted to save it for last since he views celebrating Tom Brady as a true betrayal to his beloved Saints.”

Thanks to growing up in Hackberry for most of his impressionable years, Gage’s first football love wasn’t the New Orleans Saints but rather the Louisiana State University Tigers. It came with the territory; in west Louisiana, college ball took higher priority to the pros.

With a downward tug on his purple LSU ball cap, Gage said, “O’Connor’s going to be in the stands screaming ‘Who Dat?’ like a true N’Orleanian, while he gets pummeled with snow by Pats fans everywhere.”

Julian curled his hands around the milk glass and shifted forward on the sofa, elbows dropping to his knees as his eyes brightened with anticipation. “I’m hoping for massive snowballs. Never seen snow before, though if I get my way, I’ll be heading up to the Northeast for college.”

Luke tipped his Abita bottle in the kid’s direction. “If your mother gets her way, you’ll be going to school at Tulane and living at home. She’s going to say room and board costs too much, but really—”

“She just doesn’t want me to leave home,” Jules finished with a laugh. “It’s bad when I know exactly what you’re gonna say.”

“No, son, it’s bad when your mother asks me to drop the word ‘Tulane’ into every conversation I have with you.”

One blond brow hiked up. “You know you’re failing, right?”

“I don’t fail at anything, kid. We both know I’m pulling for you to go wherever your innocent heart desires.”

Stepfather and son broke out into laughter, clinking their drinks together, as Gage took in the scene before him. Over the last year, he’d spent a lot of evenings at the O’Connor house, more time than he’d even spent with Owen. It’d started out with an invitation to watch the Saints or the Tigers play, then had morphed into playing pool at their local pub when Anna was out with her friends.

Watching Luke and Julian was a bit like staring into a magic crystal ball and hoping to see a reality that didn’t exist. If Gage tried hard enough, he could imagine conversations just like theirs taking place between him and his dad, conversations that had never crossed their lips or emptied into the space around them.

Questions about his separation from Gage’s mom.

Questions about his mother’s death.

Questions, really, that had plagued Gage for years but which had no answers—no answers that the living could answer, at any rate.

Feminine laughter disrupted his morbid thoughts, and Gage’s head jerked toward the kitchen.

Anna’s laughter, he recognized, and the other female’s . . .

He sucked down his beer, feeling the thread of anticipation hum in his veins.

Husky, sexy laughter.

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.