Either way, I didn’t think he’d call the cops for real, but I did want to get the hell out of there before the situation escalated any further. Gabe had told me he needed to see and be seen by his family a couple of times before we left, but surely having his brother nearly call the authorities to accuse me of trespassing and theft counted as seeing and being seen.
I slipped back into the party via the same gap between potted plants Gabe and I had gone through in the first place, taking a quick peek around to make sure no one was paying too much attention.
They weren’t. The party had gone into full swing while Gabe and I had been absent, and at least two hundred beautifully dressed people sipped, laughed, chattered, and wandered around arm in arm looking at displays of photos of yachts past and present. I snagged a glass of too-sweet Prosecco off a waiter as I merged my way back into the crowd. I didn’t plan to drink it. We’d be leaving as soon as I could grab Gabe, and I didn’t want to drive with a fresh drink in me. But I needed camouflage.
And to call the field office and get them working on financials for Dave and Whipley, as soon as possible.
I’d gone halfway around the edge of the room before I spotted Gabe, apparently deep in conversation with a distinguished-looking older man, about Gabe’s height but with a presence that transcended physical size. They both laughed as I approached, though I couldn’t tell who’d made the joke. Either way, the other guy smiled at Gabe as if utterly charmed. Of course, who wouldn’t be?
Did it work in reverse, though? Did Gabe have a thing for older men? I didn’t have any reason to think so, and he’d just been with me, and I really needed to get my knee-jerk responses under control before I turned into, well, a jerk. I didn’t own him. I wasn’t even really dating him.
No, fuck that. I was dating him. He might not know precisely whom he’d been dating, but I was me no matter what name I used, and all the important stuff transferred over. My personality, which he bizarrely seemed to be able to tolerate. My body, which he definitely liked. My sense of humor, such as it was.
And my feelings for him, which weren’t affected in the slightest by where I worked or the last name on my badge.
Gabe wanted and deserved someone to treat him well. He deserved it far more than he knew, given the self-deprecating way he talked about himself.
I could be that man.
And I could tell him the truth once I’d shown him how I felt. Once I’d proven to him that I cared about him for himself, and not for his relationship to Middleton Marine. That meant I needed to solve my case, tomorrow if possible. First thing in the morning.
And after that—after that, there would be an after. I could stick around. Wait until I couldn’t possibly have any ulterior motive, and then tell him, and beg him to forgive me. Hopefully he’d forgive me because he wanted to, and not because his insecurities drove him to feel like he didn’t have the right not to, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. We’d cross it together, I hoped.
First step: acting like a supportive boyfriend, not a jerk.
I stepped up beside Gabe, giving his interlocutor a nod, and slipped my arm casually around his waist. Not possessive, just friendly and affectionate.
“Oh,” Gabe said breathlessly, his eyes almost feverishly bright as he looked up and smiled at me. “Alec, there you are! Dr. Wilson, this is Alec Borodin, my date. Alec, Dr. Steven Wilson. He’s thinking of investing in Middleton. He’s also on the board of governors at Burlington U. We were just—talking about that.”
No wonder he sounded like he hadn’t gotten enough oxygen. Gabe spat all that out without taking a single breath.
The board of governors at Burlington U. Would this Dr. Wilson have some influence on Gabe’s academic career? Was that why Gabe seemed so worked up?
Dr. Wilson turned to me and held out a hand. “Very pleased to meet you, Alec. Steven, please.”
Gabe took my champagne glass out of my hand so I could shake, the maneuver so smooth it felt like we’d been practicing for years.
I summoned all the charm I really didn’t have. If Dr. Wilson—Steven—was someone Gabe wanted to impress, then I’d make the effort. Operation Not a Shitty Boyfriend Even Though I Lied Through My Teeth started now, damn it.
“The pleasure’s mine, Steven. What’s your academic field? Something to do with the water? Or is boating more of a leisure interest?”
His smile widened. “I was on Moo U.’s sailing team as an undergraduate, actually. You know, before you two were born.” I laughed politely, since I knew I probably ought to, but damn, I hoped I looked that good at his age. “And then I taught geography there for thirty years after I did my doctorate at Yale. I’m a Burlington man, born and bred. Are you local too, Alec?”
I quickly ran through everything I’d told Gabe about myself. No, I’d avoided anything about my origins, so I ought to be safe enough telling the truth without risking contradicting myself and landing in the soup.
“Upstate New York. I’m new to Burlington.”
Steven nodded. “Welcome to Vermont. I hope you’re very happy here.” He smiled at Gabe. “Looks like you’ve found a good reason to stay.”
Gabe looked up at me, something in his face that made me want to kiss him then and there, kiss him until he forgot everything but me. “Yeah,” I said, more to Gabe than to Steven. “The best.”
Gabe’s sweet, soft smile made me forget everything but him. Jesus. I didn’t stand a chance.
Steven’s low laugh startled me back to reality. “I’ll let you two lovebirds enjoy each other’s company. I need to make the rounds. Gabe, it was wonderful to meet you. Call me on Monday, and we’ll set an appointment, all right?”
“Yes, thank you, and I really appreciate your time, Dr.—Steven. Thank you.” Gabe sounded about a breath away from hyperventilating.
I murmured something polite, and Steven vanished into the crowd.
“Oh my God,” Gabe said, very fast and low, turning to me. He didn’t dislodge my arm, though. “He said he’d talk to the board!”
“That’s amazing, Gabe. He thinks they’ll reinst—” Fuck, fuck fuck. I cut myself off with a fake cough, bringing a hand up to my mouth and clearing my throat. Gabe peered up at me, his brow starting to furrow. Had he caught my mistake? Of course he must have. He’d never told me he got kicked out. All he’d said was that he’d dropped out. “Sorry, my throat’s dry. Why would he need to talk to the board? Can’t you just go back? If you took a, what’s it called. Sabbatical, or something?”
“It wasn’t a sabbatical,” he said slowly. “How did you—did you ask someone about me?”
And there it was, dawning suspicion. Exactly what I’d been praying I could avoid.
Inspiration struck. Dave. I could throw him under the bus without even giving it a second thought. Of course, that meant another lie. Digging myself deeper. Fuck, but what choice did I have, other than having it all out right here and now? Ruining things with Gabe, fucking up my case, a total lose-lose, and a huge public scene on top of it.
If that happened, I’d be lucky if AD Kyle sent me to Omaha to chase illegal cows. I’d end up in Anchorage investigating glacier-related crime for the rest of my natural fucking life.
And every second I hesitated, Gabe would be getting more suspicious.
No choice. “I ran into Dave on my way back to the party. He told me you’d gotten expelled. He was kind of an asshole, to be honest.”
At least that last part had the virtue of being true.
“Oh, God,” Gabe moaned. “Really? He had to go and tell you? I meant to tell you!” he added quickly. “I’m so sorry I lied about it. I was just so embarrassed. I didn’t want to admit I’d gotten kicked out of the program to someone I, you know.” His cheeks flushed even redder than they’d already been, and he looked away and down, biting his lip. Not the place or the time to lean down and soothe it with my tongue. “Someone I wanted to impress.” He said that so softly I nearly couldn’t hear him over the music and the buz
z of the crowd.
That cracking, splitting feeling in my chest couldn’t be my heart actually breaking, right? But the heavy, awful lump in my stomach was definitely the deepest, most awful shame I’d ever felt. Standing here and listening to Gabe, sweet and open and kind Gabe, apologizing to me for lying about something that didn’t affect me at all, something he had every right to hide, made me feel about two inches tall. The ideal height to step on. I’d deserve it if he did.
“Hey,” I said, my voice cracking. “Hey. You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I mean, I don’t know what you did to get kicked out, but it can’t be that bad, and if it is, I’m still on your side. You didn’t owe me any explanation. It’s your business. And I’m not exactly perfect. Far from it.”
Gabe gazed at me for a long moment, his head cocked to the side. Like he needed a minute to take me in, to judge me.
I held my breath.
Finally, he smiled, and my lungs let go with a whoosh. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
I’d never heard a better idea.
12
Gabe
Walking out of the party turned out to be strangely easy. Every time I’d wanted to leave one of my family’s events before, it’d turned into a festival of dirty looks, passive-aggressive remarks, guilt, and resentment.
This time I skipped all that, by the simple expedient of not talking to anyone at all. I just left, Alec at my side.
We collected his car from the valet and took off without any trouble at all. My parents probably wouldn’t even notice we’d gone.
Dave might, of course, the asshole. I couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve to tell Alec I’d been kicked out of school.
But it didn’t matter. Alec didn’t have much to say on the way home, but he held my hand most of the way and kept sneaking little glances at me, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. Like he felt as happy as I did, like he also had that champagne-bubble feeling in his stomach and his chest and couldn’t quite contain it.
We hadn’t even been at the party that long. The very last purple of twilight had only faded out of the sky as we drove off of the peninsula and back into Burlington proper. We’d only stayed an hour and half, maybe, but I felt like a completely different person. Someone sexy enough to make Alec lose his self-control. Someone worthy enough to go back to school and finish my doctorate—even if it’d made my conversation with Dr. Wilson more than a little uncomfortable, knowing I had a sodden lump of hastily rinsed manties in my trouser pocket the whole time. I had to make a mental note not to go commando when I met him for that appointment he’d promised me.
And all I’d had to do was go for it. The high of an orgasm with a man who’d cared more about my pleasure than his, who’d treated me and my hesitant, vulnerable attempt at kinkiness with respect and desire, had given me the courage.
I’d gone downstairs and sought Dr. Wilson out, introducing myself and asking him for his help. Honestly, straight-up, with a bellyful of nerves but without that sinking sensation of inevitable failure that’d haunted me ever since I lost my place in my grad program.
The squeak of brakes startled me out of my reverie, and I blinked back to reality to find Alec had parked in front of my condo.
“Earth to Gabe,” Alec said, his voice soft. Kind. Affectionate, even. I smiled back at him without any fear, for once, that I’d be rejected if I didn’t behave some perfect way everyone seemed to expect. “You’re home.”
It felt like the end of a date, but the kind of date you had in high school, when it was all nerves and incipient kisses and the thrill of something brand new.
Only we weren’t in high school.
I batted my eyelashes at him exaggeratedly. “Come upstairs for a cup of coffee? And then fuck me all night?”
Alec let out a low, unfairly sexy chuckle. “I’ll skip the coffee.”
Our eyes met and held. In the glow of the streetlight down the block, his face seemed made out of angles, shadows and planes intersecting to form something dark and mesmerizing. The air between us felt thick and heavy, crackling with energy.
Alec lunged first, but I met him halfway, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and trying to climb over the console. His lips found mine, hungry and hot, and his hands went everywhere, sliding under my jacket and over my hips and down, seeking out the curve of my ass. I shoved at his jacket, yanked at the ends of his tie, desperate to get him out of his clothes.
Alec reached down and popped my seatbelt button. I shoved it off and climbed half into his lap, knocking my knee on the steering wheel and bumping my head on the roof.
I fell back, cursing and laughing and hitting my same knee on the glove box.
“Upstairs, now,” Alec growled, and shoved his door open and jumped out, slamming it shut to run around the front of the car. I’d barely managed to open my own door before he yanked me out, grabbed me by the hand, and started pulling me into my building.
We tumbled up the stairs, with a quick stop for Alec to maul me against the wall of the stairwell, leaving us both gasping. I’d barely gotten my door open before he was on me again.
And this time we were in my condo with a door between us and the world, with no reason to stop.
Which of course meant that Alec stopped, holding me off as I tried to strip off every item of his clothing at once.
“Wait,” he panted. “Wait. Just a minute. Slow down. Bedroom. Where’s the bedroom? Through there?”
“I don’t need a bedroom. There’s a couple of condoms in the coffee table drawer. Fuck me right here.” I lunged at him, sliding my hands under his jacket, savoring the heat of him and the play of muscle through his shirt. My mouth latched onto his neck just under his jaw, and I sucked hard enough to leave a mark.
“Jesus, Gabe, I—just wanted to—do it right…oh, fuck,” he groaned, and I knew I had him. I didn’t want slow. I didn’t want careful and gentle and all the first-time stuff you were maybe supposed to want.
I needed him, and I needed him to need me the same way. All his inhibitions gone.
I pressed up against him, rubbing myself off against his straining cock and the hard muscles of his thighs, and that was it.
Alec lost it. He dragged me practically off my feet, cursing under his breath. He shoved my jacket off and let it fall, shrugged out of his own, toed off his shoes and somehow managed to kiss the breath out of me even hopping from foot to foot. I’d barely gotten back to work on his tie before I stumbled through the door of my bedroom. I flung out an arm to whack the light switch—no way was I going to miss seeing Alec completely naked—and then we toppled onto my bed together hard enough to give the memory foam something to really remember.
And then I finally, finally had Alec on top of me, his weight crushing me into the mattress, his cock pressing insistently against my inner thigh, so close to where I wanted it to go.
He pushed himself up, and I whined, tugging him back down.
He retaliated by grabbing my arms and pinning my wrists to the bed over my head.
My cock went from rock-hard to painfully hard in a millisecond, and I whined again, pushing up with my hips, desperate for friction. Alec squeezed my wrists, leaning down over me, his lips a breath away from mine. “I don’t want you to think I only want the one thing,” he said. “I do want to fuck you. I really, really do. But that’s not all I want. You know that, right?”
At that moment, I didn’t really care. I’d have let him fuck me even if he’d been telling me straight-up that he’d be out the door and blocking my number the second he’d finished.
Maybe that was why he was holding me down and looking me in the eye and demanding that I pay attention.
And I melted, in a way that had nothing to do with sex. Alec was looking out for me, better than I’d bothered to look out for myself in way too long.
“Yeah. I know,” I whispered, almost too shy to try to tell him what I felt in the intimacy of his face inches from mine and his hard body pinning me down. “I know.”
>
I stretched up, searching for a kiss, and he tilted his head and gave it to me, his tongue flickering over my lips and then sweeping inside. He let go of my wrists, and I missed the pressure of his big hands until I realized that meant I could touch him. Everywhere. Oh God, finally.
The rest of our clothes came off in a blur of tugging and pulling and awkward fumbling, but it didn’t feel as awkward as it probably looked. It felt like shedding everything that had kept us apart, figuratively as well as literally, until we could be together without anything in the way. Alec shoved his shirt off, his cufflinks flying and pinging on the hardwood floor.
And oh, God, his chest. Dark hair, flat nipples, and as broad as it looked in a leather jacket. And a tattoo, partially hidden under his chest hair and all the more tantalizing. I wanted to explore it, but I was spoiled for choice on exploration at the moment. I reached up and stroked down his sides, letting my fingernails scratch him lightly. He dived down to retaliate, kissing down my throat as he pulled the tie away and parted my collar. He left another trail of kisses along the path of skin he’d revealed—and then stopped, frozen.
“What? What’s the matter?” I pushed up on my elbows, trying to see what had gone wrong, and found him staring, fixated, at the little gold ring in my right nipple.
His gaze flicked back up. “I have never, in my life, seen anyone as hot as you,” he said, totally seriously. Not flattering me. Just a statement of fact.
And then he swooped down and pulled my nipple into his mouth, piercing and all, flicking with his tongue, and I fell back on the bed, my vision graying out. One of his hands slid under my ass, his fingers pressing into the crease, and I didn’t know how to move when I wanted more of everything: his hot mouth on me, his cock rutting against mine, his fingers inside me.
Everything at once, almost too much…except that I couldn’t possibly get enough.
Cool air hit my nipple as he sat up, and then he yanked my trousers down.
Undercover (Vino and Veritas) Page 12