Page 41 of Undercover
13
Gabe
I half-woke at dawn to Alec’s body curled around mine, his hand stroking my belly, his voice whispering softly in my ear.
For such a big man, he could be so incredibly gentle. The way he spoke. The way he touched me.
Except when I didn’t want him to be gentle. Mmm. No complaints there either.
“I need to go, Gabe. Call me when you wake up. All right?”
That knocked me into full consciousness, making his suggestion moot. I rolled over onto my back, turning my head on the pillow to peer into his face. He had that rumpled, washed-out look everyone got when they’d been up all night alternating eating pizza and having incredible sex.
And of course he still looked like sex on legs, with his broad bare chest and rough stubble, because some guys had all the good genes.
But some tension had crept in around the edges. This wasn’t the teasing lover of the night before.
“Where do you need to be at—what the hell time is it, anyway?” My voice rasped, rough from sleep and from the blowjob I’d given him in the shower around midnight. “It’s Saturday.”
Alec hesitated, his mouth a hard line. “Just a couple of errands.” He leaned in and kissed me, closed-mouthed but lingering. “I’ll bring you lunch when you call me. Just—go back to sleep, baby.”
I didn’t usually like endearments all that much, but no-nonsense Alec calling me baby in that low, gruff voice hit a button I hadn’t known I’d had. Sort of like those photos of firefighters holding kittens. Incongruous, but perfect.
What did he have to do at dawn on a Saturday that could possibly be better than morning sex, though?
I didn’t get the chance to push it, because he’d already rolled out of bed, gathered up his clothes, and gone into the bathroom.
My eyelids started to droop, no matter how determined I was to keep them open. It wouldn’t hurt to roll over onto my stomach and wait for him to come out while getting a little more comfortable.
I fell right back asleep.
By the time I woke up again, noon had come and gone, and my condo had that empty, quiet feeling a place gets when no one’s been moving around for hours.
I squinted at my phone for a while, bringing myself to consciousness via scrolling Facebook. As always, nothing more interesting than a few moderately entertaining memes.
God, I needed to get back into school. I’d kept up on advances in my field, more or less, and I read a lot of popular science. But I hadn’t truly exercised my brain in months, and it felt like a muscle that’d been left to atrophy. An ache somewhere I couldn’t quite pinpoint, but cast a shadow over everything else I did.
I tossed the phone aside and stretched long and luxuriously, letting that very pinpointable ache in my ass remind me of all the fun I’d had the night before.
Nearly twelve-thirty. High time to get up, call Alec, and have him bring me lunch like he’d promised. My stomach rumbled.
But shower first. We’d shared one the night before, but we hadn’t exactly stopped fucking afterwards.
The light on my phone blinked at me as I stepped out of the bathroom, towel around my hips and a spring in my step. Alec. God, would I always smile like this, just thinking his name in my head? How pathetic was I, especially when he’d high-tailed it out of there this morning?
No, I had to derail that train of thought before it could get going. He’d been more than generous the night before, with his touch and his kisses and the way he’d given me more than he’d taken, in every way. So maybe he didn’t have much of a facility for telling people how he felt. I could live with that, as long as he showed me the way he had the night before.
I grabbed the phone, ready to punch the call button, and saw it wasn’t Alec who’d called me—it was Dave.
Oh, what the fuck now? Hadn’t he done enough, badmouthing me to Alec the night before? I’d be perfectly happy never talking to him again, let alone letting him spoil the first morning I’d woken up happy in a long fucking time.
Another call came in as I stood there glaring at my missed call log. Dave again. Not giving up, the asshole.
Fine. If he wanted to have it out, I’d have it out. No more knuckling under the second he got bitchy. I’d tell him to fuck off, and then I’d block his number.
“What the fuck do you want, Dave?”
“I need you to come down to the factory,” he said without preamble, his voice tight and strained.
