“At the factory, attached to the corporate office. They clear a space for parties, it’s actually really nice, and it gives the guests an inside view of the company’s operations. But it’s such bullshit. I always hate these things.”
The thumping went into triple-time. It couldn’t be more perfect. There would be all kinds of people wandering around and I could blend right into the crowd. Lots of strangers. Lots of people who didn’t work there, wandering off and getting ‘lost’ looking for the bathroom or a place to have a smoke. Even if someone caught me going where I wasn’t supposed to, it wouldn’t be that suspicious.
And I could scope out the company’s executives, maybe get a feel for them in person. Look for tall, dark-haired men who worked for Middleton and might match the photos in my file.
I mentally crossed my fingers. “Maybe it’d be better with some company? I mean, would they let you bring a date?”
“Oh my God,” Gabe said breathlessly, stopping and staring at me. “Really? Seriously?”
Okay, so I didn’t need to worry about coming off too eager after all. Compared to him, I sounded reluctant, even though I was already mentally composing an email to Jenna letting her know I had an in at last.
“Yeah, seriously. You don’t sound like you’re looking forward to it, and I can be moral support. Besides, free food and booze, right?”
“Really good free food and booze,” he confirmed, breaking into a wide, dizzyingly charming grin. “Only the best for investors they’re trying to hook. And of course I have a plus one. After all, I’m a Middleton scion, even if they kind of wish I wasn’t.”
Oh thank fucking God, he’d gone for it. “Then count me in,” I said with a smile I hoped didn’t come off too triumphant. “What time? And what’s the dress code?”
“Oh. Um, black tie? Do you need me to, okay, I want to be tactful, but I can’t think of a way to ask you if you need help finding clothes without just asking.”
What would he say if he knew I had a custom-tailored tux in my closet back home? Nothing good, considering what other revelations would have to go along with that one. And damn, but I wished he could see me in it. Maybe I wasn’t James Bond, but every guy looked ten times better in a custom tux.
Oh, fuck…Gabe would probably be wearing a custom tux. My mouth went dry.
“I can figure it out,” I managed. Rentals. I fucking hated rentals. But needs must. “Not a problem, Gabe. I won’t embarrass you.”
“You couldn’t if you tried,” he said simply. And I could tell he meant it.
As we turned to head up the hill to his place, he slipped his hand in mine.
Even as I started considering how to play this, who to talk to, where to snoop around if I could slip away, I wished it could be as simple as just walking home with a beautiful man.
But it wasn’t, and I’d have to leave him at his door and pretend I needed to be somewhere, because going inside with him would tempt me in ways I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough to resist.
I squeezed his hand and savored the way his skin felt against mine. I could at least enjoy the moment.
9
Gabe
Alec picked up some kind of one-day temp job on Thursday and didn’t have time to get together, so we agreed that he’d pick me up for the party at six-thirty the next day. I could have driven us, but…I kind of loved thinking about how my brother would react if he knew I’d arrived in a cheap old car with scratches in the paint and a dented bumper.
Tying a bow tie usually took about one percent of my attention, since I’d been putting them on for one event or another since I was a toddler. Muscle memory took over.
But this time, I kept fumbling it, my hands shaking too much to make that final wrap and tug without pulling the whole thing crooked.
None of my stressors would’ve gotten to me that badly on their own, but in combination they’d kind of knocked me for a loop. Seeing my family in the context of the company always sucked so hard. I felt like more of a black sheep than usual, and that was saying something. Dad always made me go, with a combination of guilt trips and nagging and sending Dave after me until he wore me down. And then when I went, he never had anything nice to say to me, smiling for the cameras and the VIPs and then ignoring me as much as possible when they weren’t looking.
On top of all that, Dr. Wilson would be there. I’d never met him, and I hadn’t even consciously given appealing my expulsion to the board serious thought until Dave had mentioned his name. But now that I knew I might have a chance to make an impression on someone who could help me get back into school…yeah, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
And Alec. Last but not least, Alec. I hadn’t taken anyone to meet the family since the ill-fated Thanksgiving six years before, when my senior-year boyfriend had gotten wasted on my mom’s best Chardonnay—that he’d found himself by snooping in the wine cellar and opened without permission—and hit on Dave.
The vivid, Technicolor mental image of a leering Bryan grabbing my brother’s khaki-clad, one-hundred-percent heterosexual ass, and the look on Dave’s face when he turned around, held a place in my mental reel somewhere between greatest hits and kill me now. Depended on how drunk I was when I thought about it, usually.
I could count on Alec not to hit on Dave, at least. And he didn’t seem like a Chardonnay kind of guy, which meant he wouldn’t steal my mom’s wine but also wouldn’t have much in common with her, either.
Knowing what I had on under my tux didn’t help. I shifted my weight, feeling the lace and silk caressing my skin. My face heated at the sensation. Alec probably wouldn’t even know they were there, those little manties I’d seen in the drawer earlier and hadn’t been able to resist. I’d know, though, and spend the whole evening wondering how he’d react if he saw them.
Disgust, probably. Most guys I knew looked down on stuff like that.
But I held out hope.
And he probably wouldn’t see them. Still.
I glanced at my watch. Six twenty-seven. Shit, I had to get the bow tie right this time. I had lace underwear but I couldn’t even tie my own tie. What a mess I was.
I leaned in toward the bathroom mirror, really concentrating.
The doorbell chimed and made me jump right as I did that final tug, and the whole thing went askew again.
“Fuck,” I grumbled as I headed for the door. “Of all the guys in the world, I have to invite the one who’s on ti—”
The words died away into something like a squeak when I opened the door and found Alec waiting for me in a tux of his own.
He’d shaved. Not that I didn’t love the stubbled look he usually had going on, but cleaned up and with his wavy hair tamed and his broad shoulders and long legs encased in elegant black, he took my breath away. I stood staring with my mouth open, probably looking like an idiot.
And then he frowned at me, his brows furrowing, and my cock decided it didn’t need oxygen, thanks. It’d just take my entire blood supply instead. Alec’s frowns did something to me, and I’d already known I was kind of messed up. I could accept that I wanted him to fuck me senseless while glaring me into submission.
“Do I have something on my face?”
“Nothing that shouldn’t be there,” I managed. “You look—amazing. You found a tux.”
I bit my lip. Yes, thank you, Sherlock. God, I sounded so dumb. All breathy and eager and not cool and nonchalant at all.
“So did you,” he replied, his voice dipping into an even lower register than usual, one that sent a little shiver up and down my spine. His dark eyes darkened even more, fixed on me in a way I usually reserved for strange flavors of ice cream. “But don’t tell me you can’t tie a bow tie.”
He stepped forward, right into my space, his chest almost brushing mine. His body ran so hot. I could feel the warmth of it between us, and I wanted to feel it skin to skin. When his hands brushed my chin as he picked up the ends of the tie, I tipped my head back and let out a whimper. Just that touch had every
nerve on high alert.
God, there was something to be said for this taking it slow thing, but if we took it any slower I might actually explode.
“I know how,” I whispered.
He chuckled, and I felt his exhale on my forehead as he bent even closer. At this distance, I had a perfect view of his neck, and the tiniest patch of stubble under his jaw where he’d missed a spot.
I couldn’t help myself. I leaned in, nuzzling into his neck, and flicked my tongue out, letting it rasp over that bit of skin.
Alec went rigid. “What are you doing?” I felt the words through my tongue against his throat as much as heard them. “Gabe. Don’t.”
His hands had gone still, but I felt the tension in them. And there was something even more wrong with me, because having his big hands on a tie wrapped around my neck, with that warning tone in his voice, only made me want it more.
Want him more. Want him to spin me around and hold me by my loose bow tie, and maybe tighten it a little bit, and press me into the wall. Fuck me right there with the door open, mess up my tux. Make us both late for the party, or miss it altogether.
Pull my pants down and find that little scrap of black lace around my hips.
I shuddered and pressed my mouth to his throat in an open-mouthed kiss.
Alec jumped back, letting go of my tie. “Maybe you should tie it,” he said, sounding as strangled as if I’d yanked on the ends of his. His cheeks had a hectic red flush, and he tugged on the bottom of his jacket as if he needed to cover something up with it.
I followed him, stepping right back into his space. We were both outside my condo now, standing in the little vestibule at the top of the stairs. No one else had any reason to come up here, since I only had one neighbor downstairs. It still made my pulse race.
“I’m clumsy today. Help me?” I put my hands behind my back and tipped my chin up.
Alec shook his head, but he moved closer, slowly reaching up to take the dangling ends of the tie into his hands again. His deft, practiced motions suggested he’d done it quite a few times. That didn’t seem to quite fit what I knew about him…but his fingers caressed my throat as he tied the tie, and his face was so close, and…the thought slipped away as my mouth went dry and my whole body flushed with heat.
“There,” he said huskily, pulling back at last. “All done. Ready to go?”
I looked up at him, caught in that dark gaze. “Sure you don’t want to stay in?”
Alec grimaced. “Not sure at all. But we’ll be late.”
I sighed and went to get my keys and wallet, hoping my erection might subside by the time we made it to the party.
Alec
Driving to the party should’ve given me a few minutes to get it together, but sitting in a small enclosed space with Gabe, smelling the hint of his aftershave and the warm sweetness of his body, didn’t exactly give me a chance to cool down.
The spot on my throat where he’d licked me felt different from the rest of my skin, hotter and almost throbbing. I wanted his mouth right back there, and then lower, and—really anywhere he wanted to put it.
I wanted my mouth on him even more. Lower. Everywhere.
It took twenty minutes from Gabe’s place to pulling up to the valet stand in front of the Middleton Marine corporate office, way out on Shelburne Point. The glitzy lights they’d strung up looked a little incongruous in the peaceful rural surroundings. The sun had just started to set over Lake Champlain, though, and the view was going to be spectacular. I didn’t want to be impressed, but I couldn’t help a flash of insecurity.
Fuck it. I wasn’t even here as myself. Just Alec, Gabe’s seedy sort-of boyfriend, here to be moral support, from his perspective—and from mine, to snoop around the offices and see if I could sniff out anything suspicious.
If they judged me as not up to the Middleton standard, I couldn’t take it personally.
Gabe wasn’t actually my boyfriend.
Remembering that didn’t seem so easy when I gave the valet my keys and Gabe slipped his hand through my arm and smiled up at me, as natural as breathing.
“Ready?” he asked once we were out of earshot of the attendants and heading up the walkway to the main building. “Because I’m not.”
I pressed my arm against my side, trapping his hand in between. “Ready. How much interference do you want me to run, anyway?” Because I might be here under false pretenses, but that wouldn’t prevent me from helping Gabe fend off his family if they acted like assholes. The two were in no way mutually exclusive, and I wasn’t so sure I could stay silent if he needed defending.
“You won’t have the chance,” he said with a grimace. “They’ll be just as passive-aggressive to you as they will be to me. You’ll be busy staring awkwardly at Dave while he says something you can’t possibly respond to without causing a scene. You wait and see. He’s really, really good at it.” Gabe paused, and then added, “I’m really sorry. I probably shouldn’t have brought you.”
No, no, fuck no. None of that. A fresh wave of guilt smacked me over the head. Jesus, he was doing me a huge favor by bringing me here tonight, even though he didn’t know it…and the fact that he didn’t know it made it even worse.
“Hey.” I stopped, pulling him to the side of the pathway so we wouldn’t block other arriving guests. Two couples, all dressed to the nines, were coming up behind us, chattering away. I could swear one of the women had called the other Muffy. “Look at me.” I tipped his chin up with a finger, savoring the momentary contact with his soft skin. His huge gray-blue eyes regarded me seriously, like he meant to hang on every word. I’d never wanted to kiss someone more than I did in that moment.
Fuck it. I leaned in and pressed my lips to his, the softest brush. It felt like his mouth clung to mine. I definitely didn’t want to pull back.
“Look. I can take care of myself. I’ll be polite, I won’t embarrass you, but I’m not going to stand there silently fuming either. Okay? You give me a signal, and I’ll get us out of there. And anything they say will slide right off my back. I promise.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He stretched up, his rosy mouth coming closer, and I stiffened—Christ, if he got me going now I’d be hard again, and I did not need to walk into his family’s schmancy party at half-mast, no matter how metaphorically appropriate it might be to an event at a yacht manufacturer.
But he didn’t really try anything. Just pressed his mouth to mine in a fleeting kiss like the one I’d given him, only all the sweeter for knowing he was the one kissing me, just because he wanted to.
The quartet of guests passed us as he pulled back, and maybe-Muffy smiled and made an aww sound.
My eyes met Gabe’s, his lips twitched, and then we were both trying to suppress our laughter.
It broke the moment, thank God, because about three seconds and another kiss and I’d have dragged him into the bushes to have my wicked way with him. Unfortunately, we headed for the wide-open double doors instead.
Tasteful jazzy music that made me feel like I’d walked into a giant elevator spilled out, along with voices and the usual bustle of a party.
“Here goes nothing,” Gabe muttered, and led me in.
I’d scoped out the facility using Google Earth and the photos on the company website, and I’d tried to get a feel for the exterior layout on the way in. But I hadn’t been prepared for the size of the interior. The building had three stories, but two stories of it were combined into one cavernous space, part showroom and tonight, part ballroom. It might’ve been used for actual manufacturing at other times, but with the fancy rental dance-type flooring and profusion of flower arrangements and elegant cocktail tables all over the place, I couldn’t tell for sure.
A waiter appeared out of nowhere with a tray of champagne glasses, and I snagged one. Gabe took two, held up a finger, and downed one in three long swallows before putting the empty back on the tray and nodding the waiter on his way.
“What?” he said
when he caught me looking at him, eyebrows raised. “My brother is here.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Fair enough. How will I recognize him? Are his horns long enough to show through his hair?”
“Ha fucking ha,” Gabe said, “but seriously. He’s awful. And I can’t avoid him. He and my dad need to see me at least twice each or they won’t believe I showed up and stayed long enough to be polite.”
I swallowed half my own glass of sparkling wine. Not bad, a little sweeter than I liked, but I could deal. And a glass or two wouldn’t impair me.
“Then let’s mingle.”
We set off around the edge of the room, Gabe leading us roughly toward a display of photos and memorabilia set up on the other side, near where an older couple were holding court.
Gabe’s parents, I could tell immediately, both by their proprietary air and by the way the man looked so much like Gabe. He didn’t have Gabe’s appeal, and he was a few inches taller, but the light eyes and light hair, long straight nose, and slim build were unmistakable. Gabe’s mother had darker hair and eyes, and yes—the younger man approaching her from the other side had to be Dave, Gabe’s older brother. He’d gotten his father’s height but his mother’s coloring.
Gabe’s family. Shit, how would I be feeling if I were here for the reasons Gabe thought? If I were here for what I’d started to realize I wished were my reasons.
This was why I’d never done any real undercover work. I didn’t mind lying to perps, if I had to, but lying as a lifestyle didn’t fucking work for me.
And I hadn’t been lying when I’d told Gabe, after our disastrous first date, that he deserved better.
It didn’t help that Dave superficially fit the physical profile I’d meant to look out for tonight. If I compounded my deception by arresting Gabe’s brother for drug smuggling, Gabe would never forgive me.
Undercover (Vino and Veritas) Page 9
