For fuck’s sake, I had experience, and an education, and I had a closetful of black and gray suits that showed the world I was a bona-fide grown-up. And here I stood, in the middle of a nondescript room in a Burlington chain hotel, agonizing over a guy with purple and blue hair, just because his lips had, for a second, made me forget Portugal and my suits and even my job.
Pathetic. I took a deep breath. All the way in, and a slow exhale. It almost helped. Maybe I needed to hit up one of those suspicious yoga studios for more than just surveillance.
But no. That’d be a cold day in hell.
I sat down at the desk again, lining up my laptop precisely with the edge of it, and went back to Gabriel John Middleton’s background.
I had a date to plan—and whatever Gabe’s connection or lack thereof to my case, I still had a criminal organization to thwart. Best-case scenario, Gabe had nothing to do with any kind of smuggling. But his father’s company very well might. Kyle really liked Middleton Marine for the transport operation, and having looked at the evidence so far, I agreed with him. Gabe might know something, something he didn’t even realize he knew. Or I could use him and his connections to investigate.
Bottom line, I needed to play this out, and I needed to have my head in the game.
And I’d be fucked if I was going to let Gabe’s beautiful lips distract me from the goal again.
4
Gabe
Every time my phone chimed all morning, I jumped for it like I’d been electrocuted.
After the sixth time, I kept it in my hand instead of pretending I’d been casually doing something else and just happened to notice my phone sitting, oh, right there! What a surprise!
Because I hadn’t been fooling myself, anyway, and there wasn’t anyone else there to bother lying to.
But Alec didn’t text, and he didn’t call, and morning turned into early afternoon without anything more interesting than a couple of my so-called friends checking in to see if I wanted to meet up, with not-so-subtle hints about how they expected me to buy dinner and drinks.
Would Alec want me to pay? Yeah, almost certainly. He’d said he was unemployed, after all.
Then again, I didn’t have a job either. That didn’t mean anything.
His bad-boy persona had me kind of worried, though. Maybe I had the crazy hair, and the piercings, and the drunk club friends, but I also had all the street-smarts of your average rich kid who’d gone straight from a fancy prep school to a nice university, with a few stops in Martha’s Vineyard in between.
And while I tried to avoid introspection, I had the self-awareness to recognize the truth: Alec almost certainly had me way out of my depth.
I clutched my phone tight in one sweaty palm and looked around my condo, really focusing on the details. Yeah, I kept it kind of messy—at least in between my cleaning service’s weekly visits, the next of which would be in three days—with shoes scattered around near the front door, and clothes draped over chairs, and takeout containers on more of the kitchen surfaces than a grown-up really should’ve allowed.
But underneath all of that gleamed blond hardwood and polished chrome, with pristine billowing sheers over the floor-to-ceiling windows and a bottle of Scotch worth a month’s mortgage, at least if I’d had a mortgage, sitting on the sideboard.
This guy didn’t have a job, and he didn’t have any money, probably, and he might be a criminal.
He’d stalked me in a park. I’d really believed he might assault me.
And the thought of that one moment before he’d pulled away from me, that one moment when he’d kissed me back with his hard, muscled body pressing me into the wall…yeah, it had my cock standing up and saluting and my heart giving an unsteady lurch.
Seriously. I had something incredibly wrong with me.
Maybe jerking off in the shower would help, even though I’d already taken a shower.
My phone dinged.
With a sigh, I unclenched my fingers and took a look…and there was Alec’s name on the screen.
With fingers now shaking a little, I poked the message to bring it up.
Hey. Want to meet up this evening? I’m open.
My heart did another of those embarrassing flip-flop things and then settled into the steady beat of disappointment.
What had I expected, a figurative bouquet of roses and bottle of champagne? He’d messaged me. That meant his interest hadn’t disappeared overnight…but a guy who waited until two in the afternoon to check in and then didn’t even bother trying to flirt read more like someone with nothing better to do than someone who hadn’t been able to stop thinking about me.
And oh, fuck, but I didn’t want to go there again. Joey had screwed up my whole life. Well, okay, I’d screwed up my whole life. But Joey had catalyzed the screw-up, and had also been a large part of the screw-up, and I knew another guy who didn’t care about me and wouldn’t look out for my best interests could only make everything worse.
Well, said the devil on my other shoulder, you’ve already fucked up your doctorate. You’re single. You don’t have any real friends, because all the people you could trust have actual lives and don’t have time to drink and sit around with you. Why not?
Self-respect, possibly? But nah. Not much of that left, honestly.
So what if Alec didn’t care enough to try to entice or seduce me? He’d still be up for fucking me, and as long as he wasn’t actively unkind to me, I’d be into it. Who was I trying to kid? I’d probably be begging for it, based on my pathetic performance the evening before.
I texted back:
Sure, I’m open too. What did you have in mind?
My phone didn’t ping again for ten minutes. Playing it cool, or just really, really not that interested?
Can you meet me at 8? Vino and Veritas? Wine bar side.
I bit my lip, mulling that over. V and V had a super chill vibe, but even so Alec might stand out a little. Eight o’clock. Yeah, probably purposely a little late for dinner, which meant booze and bed. Well, at least that showed me exactly what category Alec had put me in.
I texted him back and got in the shower again, needing to jerk off more than ever.
It wasn’t until after I’d finished up and stepped out that I realized how weird it was that Alec had been texting me in correctly spelled sentences with full punctuation. Everyone thought I was weird for texting that way, but Alec…didn’t seem like the type.
Maybe he’d surprise me. I dressed with my usual careful lack of care, but I hesitated for a minute over my underwear drawer, my face heating. I’d made an impulse purchase a while back, but never had the courage to wear them. I fingered the soft silk and lace of the made-for-men panties I’d bought online after a porn session and a few drinks.
God, the thought of Alec seeing me in them…and then the thought of how he’d probably be totally turned off intervened in my fantasy.
Fine. I’d wear my favorite black briefs, a good compromise. And maybe I’d wear the others for him another time. Maybe he’d surprise me in a good way. My life hadn’t had a lot of those lately. Surely, I was due.
Alec
At a quarter after eight, still waiting for Gabe to show, I ordered a second drink. Getting plastered might not help me solve my case, but it’d definitely help me ignore the feeling sitting heavily in my chest, the feeling that bordered unacceptably on hurt.
The young guy behind the bar set down another beer, nodded, and worked his way back down the bar, greeting the couple of customers who’d just walked up. It wasn’t the same guy who’d given me the books, thank God. I didn’t need this to be any more awkward.
Ugh, I didn’t feel hurt. Fuck that. Disappointed. I was disappointed not to be making any progress on my sort-of lead, and annoyed. And pissed off. That felt more familiar.
I ought to be feeling lucky. Gabe might be the best lead I’d gotten so far.
On the other hand, classifying my encounters with Gabe as good luck might be stretching the point a little. I’
d gotten nothing but blue balls and a massive headache so far. Lots of people had connections to companies that did something-or-other with boats.
I looked up as the front door opened, just in time to see Gabe scurry through, his face pink and his hair tousled, like the breezy evening had been having its way with him. He shot a totally insincere smile at me as he spotted me, weaving his way over to the bar as quickly as the knots of people standing around with wineglasses in hand would let him. He turned his head to speak to a guy as he passed. I couldn’t hear what he said over the faint clink of glassware and muted buzz of voices, and the strains of something smoky and saxophony coming from the speakers, but it looked like it might be an apology for jostling the man’s drink.
His profile took my breath away for a second. The curve of his ass, the long, lean lines of his back and shoulders, and the surprisingly stubborn-looking jut of his jaw…yeah, Gabriel John Middleton was worth staring at.
And completely off-limits, despite the fact that I’d been the one to invite him on a date. If it turned out I needed to investigate him, fucking him first couldn’t happen. And if, as seemed more likely, he turned out to be uninvolved in my case, then fucking him in order to find that out would make me the scum of the earth.
Gabe fetched up next to me with a little bounce against the bar. “Sorry,” he said breathlessly. “I—you know, I always run late, and I really should’ve told you that earlier so you wouldn’t be waiting. I know twenty minutes is really kind of unaccept—” He broke off, biting his lip, as I stood from my bar stool. “You’re not leaving, right?”
“Getting up to greet you,” I said. A wealthy, well-educated guy like Gabe would be a lot more likely to respond well to this than to the way I’d behaved the day before. And also, I wanted to. “That’s the polite thing to do.”
“Oh. Well, yeah.” His smile curled up higher this time, lighting his eyes and dimpling one cheek.
Jesus, I was so fucked. Even more so when he looked me up and down, his eyebrows slowly rising. I hadn’t shaved, because I couldn’t do a full personality transplant and expect him not to be suspicious. But I’d definitely dressed up a little, comparatively. A darker, sleeker pair of jeans and a deep-red button-down with the sleeves pushed up to my elbows, and the leather jacket draped over the back of my bar stool. Less seedy unemployed park stalker, more normal guy. Hopefully I could pull it off without making him wonder too much.
“You clean up really nice,” he said softly, and accompanied that with a glance at me from under his long eyelashes.
He did too. He’d put a dark turquoise blazer over a t-shirt and tight jeans tonight, and he looked fucking edible. Somewhere between a college student who didn’t know how to dress up and a hipster with a sense of vintage style. The color of the blazer made his eyes gleam like aquamarines under those long blond lashes.
I was so. Fucked.
“It’s a nice place,” I said gruffly. “Wanted to blend in.”
And then Gabe’s face fell, his lips curling down from the smile and that flirtatious light dying out of his pretty eyes. “Yeah.” He swallowed. “Yeah, let’s, um, get a table? I’ll get a drink first.”
He turned to the bar, waving down the bartender, leaving me staring at him in bafflement.
It wasn’t until he’d already ordered his glass of wine, all without interacting with me more than a tight-lipped smile he shot over his shoulder, that the penny dropped. I’d basically just told him I didn’t give a shit what he thought and hadn’t dressed up for him; I’d dressed up for the venue.
And that feeling, crawling in the pit of my stomach? It took me a second to identify that, too. Guilt. Wasn’t I supposed to be working this guy for information? I hadn’t come here to romance him, and as long as I kept him interested enough to fill me in about Middleton Marine, who cared if I hurt his feelings? And if he’d been playing me, did he have feelings—in my direction, anyway—to hurt in the first place?
When Gabe turned back to me, after taking a healthy slug of his wine, I forced a smile, my lips protesting the motion. Shit, I really had resting pissed-off face bad, if smiling at a cute guy in a bar took this much effort. “You look really good,” I said. “I’m glad I’m not—I was afraid I’d be that guy on the date who looks like he’s way out of his league, you know?”
I did anyway, of course. Anyone would look at him ten times for once at me.
Even more so when his eyes got a little of their sparkle back. This would’ve been so much easier if my maybe-criminal had been unattractive. Or female, that would’ve worked too.
“Thanks.” He sipped his wine, peering at me over the rim of the glass. The music changed as a song ended, something a lot more upbeat starting to filter out of the speakers. Gabe smiled at me, a wider smile that knew exactly how charming it was. “I am definitely not out of your league.”
That should’ve made me happy, or at least the stupid part of me that hadn’t gotten the memo that this wasn’t a real date, but…something about it sounded like he’d said it by rote. Like he knew his lines, and he’d already planned out how the evening was meant to go.
And that rubbed me the wrong way.
“Yeah, you are,” I said, a lot more grouchily than I’d meant to. And this was why I hated going undercover. Fuck. “Let’s sit down, yeah? A booth just opened up over there.” I nodded at the other side of the room, where a smiling group of four had just gathered up their sweaters and slid out.
Oddly, Gabe still had that smile on his face as I grabbed my jacket and beer and led the way to the booth. I’d been acting like a clueless dick, and it’d barely thrown him off his game.
As if it didn’t matter what I did, or who I was. As if he meant to go through with whatever he had planned no matter what.
What the hell was the deal with Gabe? I couldn’t figure him out. If he’d been less appealing, I’d have thought he might be the most insecure person I’d ever gone out with, ready to sleep with anyone just for the validation. But that couldn’t be right. He was incredibly hot, probably very intelligent, and perfectly pleasant. No way he could be that unsure of himself.
Anyway, if he wanted me off-balance, he had me there.
We sat down on opposite sides of the booth. His bright hair and bright eyes took on an almost unearthly cast in the flicker of the candle on the table.
Gabe fiddled with the stem of his wine glass, making the ruby-red liquid swirl and gleam.
“So you had a job in Burlington?” he said casually. Too casually? “What do you do?”
“I’m a tax accountant,” I said, totally deadpan.
Gabe let out a startled crack of laughter and stared at me. “No way you’re—oh, are you serious? I’m sorry? Were you serious, I shouldn’t have laughed—”
“No, I wasn’t serious,” I said, putting him out of his misery. At least I’d broken the ice a little. “Not an accountant. I do—this and that. You know. Freelance jobs.”
Which would be very enticing if he really did run a smuggling operation, but off-puttingly vague and shady if he didn’t.
“Oh.” He wrinkled his nose a little, and his voice sounded extremely dubious. Either he was an excellent actor, or I could put another checkmark in the already predominant not a criminal column. “Um. Anything…in particular?”
I shrugged and took a swig of my beer to buy a little time. I’d given this some thought before coming to meet him, but pretending to have a whole career I couldn’t back up with much felt like digging myself too deep. But I didn’t need to think of something to tell him. Giving myself three dimensions in his eyes could only help me in gaining his confidence. I forced down the fresh wave of shame that thought produced.
“Whatever I can find. I signed up with a temp agency today. They place people for construction, landscaping, stuff like that.”
“Yeah?” He sipped his wine and smiled. “I bet you look pretty good in a t-shirt, all sweaty and hot and lifting heavy things.”
He batted his eyelashes at me,
and that sensation of wrongness crept up on me again. His flirtation had a fake, practiced feel to it. Just like at the bar.
I’d have to go along with it. I needed to, even though it made me feel like a fucking creep. What I really wanted to do was shake him out of it. Surprise him. Make him show me something real, damn it.
Instead, I needed to get him to take me home, and then hopefully leave me alone long enough to search a little. I could get him into the shower if I fucked him first…and not going there. I shifted uneasily on the booth’s bench, wincing at the squeak of faux-leather.
“Sweaty and hot, huh?” I tried a friendly leer. “I could give you a demonstration. Somewhere a little more private, where I won’t get arrested for taking my shirt off.”
Gabe just stared at me for a long moment. And then he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing distractingly, and knocked back the rest of his wine like a shot of tequila. “Maybe this was a bad idea,” he said faintly, setting the glass back down on the table with a soft thump. “I don’t—I think this was a bad idea.”
He didn’t sound pissed or worried. He sounded resigned. Like that was that, and our date had ended.
And fuck no. No, no, no, because I needed a lead, and I needed an informant, and I needed…not to let Gabe get up and walk out of here, like he looked about to do. He’d started edging his way to the side of the booth, making the subtle motions of someone both literally and figuratively on the way out the door.
Screw it. I’d struck out on a lot of dates. My sister had always told me to Just be yourself, Alec. You’re likeable sometimes when you relax a little. Which…not so complimentary, maybe, but it was also shitty advice, because I had trouble being anything but myself, and I wasn’t, it turned out, all that likeable. Shitty advice all around.
Undercover (Vino and Veritas) Page 4
