“Good morning.” Gabe was slightly embarrassed by the singsong quality in his voice when he joined his brother for breakfast the following morning. Chase, who had been staring broodingly into his coffee, looked up and smiled when he saw Gabe’s grin.
“You’re in a good mood,” he observed.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Gabe said after sitting down opposite him. “It’s a gorgeous summer morning. The sky’s blue, the birds are out, everything smells fresh and awesome.”
“You didn’t join me for our jog this morning,” Chase said.
“Slept in,” Gabe informed before crunching into a slice of whole-wheat toast.
“Good evening last night?” Chase asked.
“The best.”
“When will you see her again?”
“Lunch.” He couldn’t wait. He had enjoyed her company so much the night before that he had disclosed more about himself than he ever had to anybody else. It had been revelatory—he felt like he could tell her anything because she already knew him so well and wouldn’t judge him.
Their conversation had been interesting, easygoing, and had flowed as readily as the wine, and it hadn’t been filled with only the fluff and banter that had characterized their previous discussions. It had felt more significant, like he was really getting to know her for the first time, and the more he learned the more he liked and respected her.
“Jeez, look at you,” Chase groused good-naturedly. “You’re beaming so damned brightly, you’re practically blinding me.”
Gabe’s grin merely widened and he winked at his brother before diving into his breakfast.
“Hey, boss, your boyfriend’s here for his car.” Sean’s embarrassingly loud voice rang out across the shop floor where Bobbi was consulting with one of her few new female clients about fixing the brake line on the woman’s Mini Cooper.
Bobbi winced and smiled apologetically at the woman, who returned the smile politely. Her client was one of those young twenty-somethings who had the sleek and pampered appearance of a woman who had money and enjoyed spending it on herself. The kind of woman Bobbi should probably have been when one took her background into consideration.
She ignored Sean, knowing that Gabe wouldn’t interrupt her while she was in consultation with a client, but a quick peek over the woman’s shoulder told her that he had a clear view of them both. He waved at her and she waved back self-consciously. The woman glanced over her shoulder to see who Bobbi was looking at, and her entire body went on alert—shoulders up, chest out, chin up, and a sexy hair flick. She stopped listening to Bobbi and spent her energy projecting “I’m available” vibes toward the other end of the large workroom. Didn’t she hear Sean call Gabe Bobbi’s boyfriend for God’s sake? Or did she think Sean had meant someone else?
Bobbi grimaced as she gathered that that was probably exactly what the woman thought. She wouldn’t for a second think Gabe was the “boyfriend” in question.
Bobbi kept talking and explaining what would be done to her car, but the woman was a lost cause, and in the end, Bobbi just told her how much the service would cost and offered her a replacement car while they fixed her Mini.
“All good.” The woman dismissed her as her eyes hungrily followed Gabe, who was inspecting his Lamborghini and chatting amiably with Sean.
“I’ll get the keys,” Bobbi mumbled.
“Thank you. I’ll just . . . have a look around while you do that.” Bobbi watched as the woman made a beeline for Gabe.
“This is some car,” she said when she joined the two men. Sean looked immediately lovestruck, but she ignored him and focused her laser-like attention on Gabe. Bobbi had to admit that he looked even more gorgeous today. In that charcoal pinstriped suit, with a pale blue shirt and dark-blue-and-gray-striped tie, he oozed that conservative elegance Bobbi found so irresistible.
“I noticed it from across the room,” the woman was saying, and Bobbi rolled her eyes. Yeah, right. She hadn’t noticed the car until Gabe had been standing right beside it. Some more hair flicking followed combined with a ridiculous amount of eyelash fluttering. Bobbi snorted and tried not to feel insecure. Smelling of engines and looking grubby, when Bobbi stood beside a woman like that, it would be hard not to find her lacking.
Bobbi made quick work of getting the keys to the woman’s replacement car and joined them a moment later. The woman was asking Gabe all these breathless and interested questions about his car, ignoring poor Sean, who looked crestfallen.
“Here you are, Ms. Simms,” Bobbi announced, holding up the keys. “She’s just a Fiat but she’s quite reliable.”
The woman looked irritated by the interruption, and when she took the keys, she wrinkled her nose when her fingers brushed against Bobbi’s hand.
“I don’t know about you but I always find the whole garage experience to be such a chore,” she told Gabe in a confiding voice. “Everything and everybody’s just so . . . dirty. No offense of course.” The last was directed to Bobbi and absolutely devastated Sean. Gabe’s eyes narrowed as he took in Sean’s face before they shifted to Bobbi, who maintained a carefully and politely blank expression on her face.
“Well,” he said, reaching out and grabbing Bobbi’s hand before yanking her over until she was plastered against his side. She had had a bit of an oil spill that morning and her overalls were somewhat the worse for wear, but he didn’t hesitate and kept her firmly tucked beneath his arm. “Sometimes a bit of dirt isn’t so bad, is it sweetheart?” he asked Bobbi before dropping a long and very hot kiss on her surprised mouth.
“Hey there,” he whispered when he lifted his lips and she blinked, completely flustered.
“Uh, hey yourself,” she replied.
“You ready for lunch? I’m starving. My good friend here, the mechanical genius Sean, tells me that my car is all fixed and ready to go.” He completely ignored the flabbergasted Ms. Simms, whose jaw was gaping unbecomingly.
“Nearly ready, I just need to finish up with my client,” she said, and he grinned before releasing her reluctantly.
“I apologize for the lack of professionalism, Ms. Simms,” Bobbi told the woman smoothly. “I assure you, we at Richmond’s Auto Repair Shop usually maintain the highest standards of professionalism. My . . .”
“Boyfriend,” Gabe supplied helpfully, and Bobbi blushed, trying not to smile.
“He doesn’t work here.” Jeez, like that wasn’t obvious. “So please allow me to show you to your replacement vehicle.”
After Bobbi had waved the woman off, she turned to Gabe and put her hands on her hips.
“That was completely . . . ,” she began sternly but sighed when he kept smiling sweetly at her. “Just forget it. But don’t do it again.”
“Don’t do what again? Kiss you? I’m afraid I can’t make that promise, sweetheart,” he teased, and the other guys chuckled.
“What are you three laughing at? Get back to work.”
“Yes, boss.” Sean, the smart arse, snapped to attention and actually saluted. Pieter and Craig just grinned and went back to their respective tasks.
Gabe followed Bobbi into her office, where she peeled off her overalls and cleaned her face, arms, and hands. When she looked back at Gabe, it was to find him staring at her with some pretty intense heat in his eyes.
“I love watching you strip off those overalls,” he groaned. “It’s always so damned sexy seeing you reveal more and more skin—it’s like witnessing a butterfly emerge from a cocoon.” It was such an absurdly flattering thing for him to say that Bobbi was completely taken aback for a moment.
“One day,” he continued huskily. “You’re gonna do a private striptease just for me. You’re going to peel away that outer layer to ever-so-slowly reveal your soft, naked skin beneath it.”
“Naked skin?” she repeated, her voice embarrassingly husky as she fought to control her arousal.
“Naked, or maybe in some hot lingerie—God even those plain cotton boy shorts you fancy will do. I’m not picky. It’s the ex
ecution and what I plan to do to you afterward that count.” His breath was coming just a bit faster and he shifted his stance in a way that told her he was as physically affected by his words as she was. His eyes dropped to her chest and she resisted the urge to cross her arms over her hard nipples. A smug smile flirted with his lips.
“Told you to start wearing bras,” he murmured, and she scowled at him before shaking her head and tossing his car keys at him.
“Let’s go,” she said bossily, and led the way out. She could feel his eyes on her butt all the way to his car and put a deliberate wiggle in her walk. She grinned when she heard him groan. Two could play this game.
Just before they walked into Manny’s, Gabe deliberately took Bobbi’s hand in his.
“I want them to know that you’re with me,” he said in response to her questioning look. He couldn’t quite decipher her expression, but she squeezed his hand, took a deep breath, and walked into the pub with him close behind.
Because it was a weekday, most of the usual crowd wasn’t there—which disappointed Gabe slightly. Still, there were enough recognizable faces around to ensure that word about him and Bobbi would get out. At first nobody seemed to pay any attention to the hand-holding, and figuring that a more drastic course of action was required, he looped an arm around her shoulders as they made their way to an empty table and dropped a kiss onto the curve of her neck. That caused a few speculative glances to be cast their way, but nobody seemed to think too much about it.
“Unless you plan to throw me down on the floor and ravish me in full view of everybody here, nobody’s really going to figure it out for a while yet,” Bobbi said dryly, her tone alive with amusement. Gabe heaved a frustrated sigh and acknowledged the truth in her words with a nod.
They sat down and he unconsciously started rearranging the condiments. He caught himself in the middle of moving the pepper to the spot he preferred and stopped, after their conversation the night before he was suddenly self-conscious about the habit.
Bobbi’s smile was gentle and filled with understanding. She reached over and pushed the pepper grinder toward its spot next to the salt grinder with her finger.
“That’s where it goes, right?” she asked softly after she had inched it into place, and he nodded jerkily in reply. He slowly lined up the sugar and toothpicks as well before sitting back and watching her. She had her elbows on the table and her chin resting in her palms and was staring down at the menu like it was the first time she’d ever seen it.
When their server came over, she ordered a beer and pork chops with mashed potatoes.
“I’ll have the fish and chips,” Gabe said, and Bobbi’s head snapped up.
“What did you just order?” she asked after the server had left.
“Fish and chips,” he muttered, feeling embarrassed again. Even the server had given him a shocked look before leaving their table.
“But . . . why?”
“I can change, you know?” he said defensively. “I do like trying new things that are out of my comfort zone.”
“Oh, Gabe,” she breathed. “I know that. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
“Really?” he asked with just an edge of sarcasm in his voice. “Because sometimes I feel as if I do. Do you think I don’t know you were expecting me to find you somehow lacking in comparison to that woman in the shop earlier?”
“She was really pretty.” Her words made Gabe feel like taking her by the shoulders and shaking some sense into her.
“She was also a total bitch. Why the hell would I find her more attractive than you just because she happened to be wearing makeup and a dress?”
“Because she was wearing makeup and a dress,” Bobbi seethed furiously. “Maybe if you hadn’t made a such big deal about my crappy dress sense before, I wouldn’t think you were comparing me unfavorably to every pretty girl in a dress.”
“Yeah, well sometimes I’m an idiot who doesn’t always know what the hell he’s talking about,” he snapped, and her mouth slammed shut as she absorbed his words. He could tell the moment they sank in because her eyes went suspiciously bright with suppressed laughter.
“Yes, you are,” she agreed. “I’m so not going to let you forget you said that.”
He grinned sheepishly before lifting her hand from the table to toy with her fingers.
“Yeah, sometimes I need to be reminded of the zero point seven percent of the time that I’m wrong. It keeps me grounded.” The words startled a laugh out of her and he looked pleased with himself for eliciting the response from her.
“I don’t believe it,” Gabe said, laughing, and Bobbi shook her head, enjoying his astonishment.
“I love knitting. It’s my secret hobby.” Nobody else knew about that but they had been discussing embarrassing hidden talents. Gabe had confessed to being able to wriggle his big toe independently from his other toes, only the left big toe mind you—which Bobbi actually thought was kind of awesome.
“That’s not exactly an embarrassing talent, you know,” he pointed out.
“It is when you can’t really knit more than scarves—and ugly ones at that. Worse, the wool keeps snagging on my hands.” She held them up for Gabe to inspect. “Because of the hideous calluses.”
He took her hands in his and placed a sweet kiss in each palm.
“I love your hands,” he admitted. “The combination of rough and smooth on my skin sends me out of my mind.”
Wow. Okay . . . blush. Bobbi was outrageously flattered and quite turned on.
They lingered over lunch for much too long, but in the end they reluctantly got the bill.
“Are you coming to the game tonight?” he asked after paying for lunch. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ll come if you promise not to get into any fights or freak out when I get scraped or bumped or bruised. It’s embarrassing.”
“Well, then don’t get scraped or bumped or bruised,” he retorted.
“Gabe . . . ,” she said.
“Bobbi, I can’t make that promise. I don’t like seeing you in pain and I will probably overreact if you get hurt. That’s just the way it is when you have a . . .” He paused before shrugging. “A boyfriend who would like to see you remain unscathed.”
A boyfriend. The word was so damned juvenile, and yet Bobbi felt like she was floating on air for the rest of the afternoon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
So you guys are an item now?” Bronwyn asked after the game that night. The women sat on the bleachers, watching the men, who stood around the grill, staring intently down at the smoldering coals as if they held the answer to all of life’s problems.
“I suppose we are,” Bobbi admitted shyly.
“That’s wonderful, Bobbi,” Theresa said warmly and hugged her. “You two are such a perfect couple.”
“You’re such a polite liar, Theresa,” Bobbi laughed, and Theresa frowned.
“Why do you say that?”
“We’re not exactly the perfect couple. We’re totally mismatched. I mean it’s all good now, but the very first time he has to take me out to some business thing, I’ll be an embarrassment to him. And I refuse to change who I am just for the sake of a few superficial business events.”
“That was quite the outburst,” Lisa observed, scooting closer. “Why do you think you’ll be an embarrassment?”
“Dresses and those things don’t matter to me, but they do to him.”
“If they don’t matter to you, then what’s wrong with wearing the occasional dress to the occasional party?” Theresa asked, and the other women nodded. “I mean, it’s not like you hate them or are morally opposed to them, is it? You just can’t be bothered with them.”
Bobbi thought about that for a second, feeling a bit confused.
“Bobbi, you’re in love with a man whose career sometimes requires him to attend formal events. It’s not something he can change; it’s a fact of his life. Would it really be such a sacrifice to wear a dress for a few hours every so often
?”
“I’m just worried that he’ll expect me to be this woman I can never be, someone elegant and always perfectly dressed and made up,” she whispered. “I love him so much that it would be easy for me to lose sight of who I really am in an effort to keep him happy.”
“What were you wearing to your dinner last night?” Alice asked.
“My navy-blue dress, you know the one?” They all nodded. Of course they knew it, it was all she ever wore when there was any kind of formal or semiformal event.
“And?” Lisa asked. Bobbi stared at her blankly, confused by the question.
“And what?”
“Did he chuck his jacket over your shoulders in an attempt to hide what you were wearing from everybody else?” Lisa elaborated, and Bobbi laughed.
“Of course not.”
“Did he look at all embarrassed to be seen with you?” Bobbi thought about Bronwyn’s question for a while before shaking her head slowly.
“So what more do you want from him? He’s clearly not ashamed of you,” Theresa said. “He wants to be seen with you.” Bobbi thought back to that afternoon when he had taken her hand before entering the pub, she’d been wearing frayed shorts and a tank top combined with a baseball cap and ankle-high biker boots. They had been the quintessential odd couple, but he hadn’t seemed to care.
“He has to present a certain image to the world,” Theresa continued. “And when it’s just the two of you, or you’re going out to the pub or hanging out with us, nobody cares about the way you’re dressed. That’s just packaging. But there will be times when your usual getup of jeans and T-shirts, or even that navy-blue dress, just won’t cut it. You’d humiliate both yourself and Gabe. Who would take him seriously in the business world if you appeared on his arm dressed like that?”
His Unlikely Lover (Unwanted #3) Page 23