Page 40 of Undercover
With the bathroom door safely shut, I let myself lean against the sink for a minute, closing my eyes and letting my guard down.
I’d grabbed my phone on my way. I felt like a heel, surreptitiously emailing in Gabe’s bathroom. More of one. Fucking him already put me firmly in asshole territory, but sneaking off to email the field office from his bathroom, while he waited for me spread out on his bed, made it infinitely worse somehow.
But I didn’t have a choice. I’d already made a plan. The only way I could get through this deception and come out the other side with the slightest chance of convincing him I hadn’t been with him only to use him would be getting the case wrapped up as quickly as possible.
And that had to happen, for his sake as well as mine. Yes, my selfish benefit would be served by getting him to forgive me once this was over. But how would I feel if I found out someone I’d been sleeping with, dating, learning to trust, had wanted me just for an ulterior purpose? I’d be furious, and hurt, and it’d take me a long time to recover from it.
But it’d be worse for Gabe than it hypothetically would be for me. He’d be shattered. He already thought so little of himself, personally and professionally. He’d started taking steps to get back into his doctoral program, to do something that gave him joy and pride in himself.
It felt too presumptuous to think that Gabe’s feeling of being used and betrayed would set him back in that endeavor, like I was assigning myself way more importance in his life than I had or deserved.
But I couldn’t shake the sinking suspicion it might work like that anyway.
I had to get this right.
Refocusing on work took more effort than usual. Not surprising. Little flashes of how it’d felt to thrust inside Gabe’s heat, the lines of his back arching in pleasure, the sounds he made…I could hardly focus on disposing of the condom.
But I managed, firing off a few lines marked urgent to the people on the team responsible for looking into background and financial info, requesting as much as they could get me on Dave Middleton and Adam Whipley.
Cleaning up only took a minute, and finding a hand towel to dampen to take back to clean him up another minute.
Stepping back into Gabe’s bedroom, I froze on the threshold, hardly able to believe how fucking lucky I’d gotten. He hadn’t moved, still lying sprawled across the rumpled sheets, his long legs spread. Closed eyes, a contented little smile. Totally relaxed. As if he trusted me so much he didn’t even need to think about how he looked or what I might be doing elsewhere in his apartment.
I set my phone down on top of my trousers, where they’d landed at the foot of the bed, and sat down next to him. His eyes cracked open lazily, showing me a glimpse of gray-blue.
He stretched like a sleepy cat, his shoulder muscles bunching and his ass wiggling back and forth. The lamplight gilded his pale skin and made the fine hair on his legs and arms gleam, like he’d been transformed into a living Italian painting.
Christ, I’d gotten luckier than I deserved. I ran a hand down the length of his spine, drawing out a little moan of pleasure.
“Clean up?” I asked, holding up the cloth.
“It can wait,” Gabe said, his voice as slow and lazy as his movements. “Fuck me again first. Then shower. And new sheets. And something to eat.”
I tossed the cloth on the nightstand. I could get on board with that order of events. “Demanding,” I said, shoving at his shoulder to roll him over and then crawling on top, while he flailed and pushed at me and laughed.
I ended up on top of him, one thigh pressed between his and my elbows braced on either side of him. Kissing him felt like a natural extension of breathing, the obvious answer to having his red lips so close. Gabe’s arms around my back held me safely anchored, in the only place I could imagine wanting to be.
Almost the only place. Very close to the place I wanted even more.
“I told you to hold that thought,” I whispered against his jaw, kissing my way down to his throat. I needed my mouth on that nipple piercing again, nearly as much as I wanted to finally get his cock all the way down my throat. Which was, in turn, nearly as much as I wanted to push his thighs open and drape his legs over my shoulders and taste his pretty hole. “I always try to keep my promises.”
Gabe moaned, arching up to make himself as available as possible for my lips and tongue, and I tried to show him how much I meant that, pressing my sincerity into his flesh with every motion. I worshipped him slowly, all the way down, swirling my tongue in his navel and nibbling at his hipbones, licking and sucking the head of his cock before I pulled him in all the way and made him shout his pleasure to the ceiling.
I wouldn’t do this if I’d only wanted to use him, right? I’d fuck him, maybe, but not kiss down the tender skin of his inner thigh, nuzzle and lick his balls and the base of his cock, open him up for me so I could go lower still. Tease my tongue inside his body while he shook and whimpered, his head thrown back and his long fingers clenching in my hair.
My own cock throbbed, but I ignored it until I had him thrashing, begging, calling out my name over and over again. Christ, he needed to understand that he meant something to me, something he’d never believe in retrospect if I only used words. He needed to remember this when I told him the truth, when he doubted everything I’d ever said or done.
I had to make sure he couldn’t doubt this.
When I finally pushed inside him again, I went as slowly as I could, making sure I paid attention to everything he told me with his body and with his eyes.
I left my own open when I came inside of him, his bitten lips and tousled purple hair and the glint of golden stubble on his jaw and the open, vulnerable, look in his eyes doing nearly as much to push me over the edge as the tight, perfect clench of his body around me.
My head dropped down, my shoulders heaving. Aftershocks shuddered through every limb.
I rested my forehead on the pillow next to his head and closed my eyes. Shower, food, real life. It could all wait. Gabe’s hand stroked down my back, and he whispered something that sounded like my name.
It could wait.
