Page 8 of Undercover
I forced my eyes back to his face. Not much better in terms of getting myself under control, but at least his face wasn’t completely X-rated.
Except for his lips. Fuck.
“I wasn’t looking for that,” I said, my voice low and harsh. Or at least I hadn’t known that’s what I’d been looking for until I almost had it. Fuck. And I’d virtually said I had been, anyway. Backpedal. Backpedal fast. “Not in a park, anyway. I meant it about getting to know you. I was curious about you. And I haven’t been in Burlington for long. I thought I had a job lined up, but it fell through. Now I’m kind of at loose ends. Looking to meet some people.”
Meet some people. Jesus. That wasn’t me. Jenna would laugh herself sick if she could hear me.
But I needed to find out what the fuck this guy’s angle was, which meant finding a way to keep him talking. Spend a little time with him.
Taking him back to his place and screwing his brains out counts as spending time with him.
Fuck that, not a chance. There were lines I didn’t cross, and fucking someone I suspected of being a criminal in order to gain his confidence transcended aline. That was more like a demilitarized zone.
“Meet some people,” he replied slowly, flicking his tongue against his lower lip in a way that had my thoughts circling right back to X-rated. “Okay. Um. You followed me to the park? Why didn’t you introduce yourself? You could’ve just met me instead of stalking me.”
I hesitated, not sure if I should tip my hand about knowing he’d bought me the books. Probably better to just go for it. Take the direct approach. It gave me a reason for following him, specifically, and his reaction might tell me a lot more than dancing around it would.
And then he cut me off and left me speechless all at once.
“Look, I know it was weird to buy books for you,” he said in a rush. “I’m guessing you figured it out? But I like books. And it looked like you like books too. And it sucks to like books but not be able to aff— I mean, you know, it was like, a random act of kindness. I’m sorry if it freaked you out!”
A…random act of kindness? Books about drug cartels, left for a fucking FBI agent working a drug trafficking case? I couldn’t decide if he thought I was an idiot, or if he was an idiot. Both couldn’t be ruled out.
All right. Fine. I’d follow his lead.
And I’d play dumb.
“Yeah, it was a little weird,” I said. “But hey. I mean, it’s flattering.” I shot him a smile I hoped came off more charming than menacing. “Still weird.”
He shook his head and laughed, his expression rueful. “Okay, I get where you’re coming from. But I’d seen you looking at that shelf a bunch of times. I picked out the books you’d been looking at, and then a couple more at random. I wasn’t sending you a coded message or anything, really.” He paused, looking up at me through ridiculously long eyelashes. That message wasn’t coded at all, and I had to grind my teeth and hope my erection didn’t show through my jeans. “If you don’t think I’m too weird, we could hang out?”
Where would a party-boy maybe-criminal meet up with his like-minded friends? For fuck’s sake, I’d only seen thirty in the rearview mirror a year ago. I wasn’t old.
“Were you headed home? We could meet up at a club later.”
He blinked at me and bit his lip. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I was. Um. Maybe…I wasn’t really planning on that tonight.” He sounded dubious, bordering on reluctant.
Okay, so the club idea might be a no-go. Well, if I couldn’t get him to go out with me somewhere I could scope out his contacts, that left me with getting to know him in a more personal way.
Which brought me right back to crossing the demilitarized zone. I’d never done that, though undercover agents certainly did sometimes. It wasn’t the most ethical means of gathering information, and not the preferred means, either, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen. Fuck.
I tried another smile. “I’m Alec, by the way.”
“Gabe,” he said, with a faint smile of his own. “I guess we skipped a step there.”
He pushed himself off the wall, shifting slightly to the side so that he wasn’t trapped between it and me anymore. His body language screamed wariness, from the tense set of his shoulders to the way his eyes kept flicking to the side, like he wanted to scope out his escape route.
Shit. I’d had him on the hook, and I could see him in the act of sliding right off and escaping.
Shit, shit, shit. I could show interest without actually taking the step of tackling him onto the nearest surface, right? Again. Although to be fair, he’d pulled me. Yeah, Jenna and AD Kyle would be really fucking impressed by that explanation.The tiny twink overpowered me, and I was forced to kiss him and then take him home and fuck him. It wasn’t my fault!
“Yeah, I guess we did. Maybe a few other steps too, right?” He nodded, and a little of the tension bled out of him. “What if I just—you know, walk you home? And maybe you can give me your number. We could, I don’t know. Have a drink at that bar attached to the bookstore.”
Too late, I realized that didn’t really fit the image I’d tried to project so far. Unemployed randos didn’t hang around queer-friendly wine bars. Any kind of wine bars, really.
Gabe’s eyebrows rose. “Is that really your scene?”
Fuck. Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all.
