Page 43 of Gage (Love Under the Lights 1)

The warmth of Gage’s hand against the lower portion of my back made it hard for me to concentrate. I kept flashing back to the moment outside of the pressroom doors when we’d kissed for what absolutely hadn’t been a long enough time. My body was still humming from that small amount of contact. It was also busy reminding me of how incredible it felt to be naked in a bed with Gage. In the grand scheme of things, it had only been a week since we’d made love, but it felt like an eternity.

Within a minute of Mario and Howard leaving, I felt someone jabbing at my left arm. I grinned as I turned, knowing from the annoying bam-bam-bam of it that it was Allie.

“Hey—”

“Yeah, hey,” she said with a little laugh-snort. “Girl, you’re national news right now and not only because you just won an Oscar.”

I cringed. “How bad is it?”

“Scale of one to ten?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Twenty-two,” she answered, totally deadpan.

“Shit,” I sighed. “Really?”

“In the past ten minutes, I’ve watched the footage of you two kissing your way into the press junket no fewer than forty times. You’re breaking news on CNN right now.”

Gage slid his hand from my back to my waist, where he gave me an encouraging squeeze.

“It’ll be okay, beautiful. We’ll deal with the paparazzi together. I’m sure we’ll be old news in a hot minute.”

Allie and I exchanged dubious looks. Gage wasn’t just some guy. He was Gage freaking Ryan, for God’s sake. All around the world people were seeing news alerts that he’d used the B word—as in boyfriend. The story wasn’t going to blow over easily. Even though I’d known when we went public that the press would have a field day, I hadn’t realized that it would be worldwide news. Then again, I hadn’t planned on us being caught making out two seconds after I won an Oscar, so there was that.

Regardless, whatever happened, I’d be going through it with him at my side. That being the case, I knew I’d be okay. I was momentarily diverted from thinking about myself when I spotted Vaughn Corbett coming toward us.

“Gage, my man,” he said as he stopped next to Allie. “I just saw the footage of you in the pressroom. Are we getting a new addition to the casino night crew?”

Gage laughed as he ran his hand up and down my side. “She’ll be with me, but I’m not going to force her to participate if she doesn’t want to,” he answered before looking back at me. “Do you play casino games, beautiful?”

“Like poker?”

He nodded. “We do regular poker, dart poker, roulette, and dice.”

“I like to think I’m good with cards, but I’m not great with roulette, and I’ve never played dart poker, so there’ll be a learning curve there.”

Gage grinned down at me. “I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” he said huskily. I fell into some kind of trance as I stared into his eyes for countless seconds. I could tell he was just as lost in me as I was in him.

He smiled as he leaned in and kissed me softly, the tip of his tongue teasing against the seam of my lips for a second before I opened them. He pulled me in closer and deepened the kiss. I leaned into him, a happy sound erupting from my throat as I learned the addicting taste of him. When he lifted his head, I stared up at him with a dopey smile, wishing we could kiss forever.

“You’re really good at that,” I murmured.

“It’s all you, Morgan.”

My smile turned to a wince when my left arm protested the position I had it in.

“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.

“I’ve always heard this thing wasn’t light, but I had no idea it’d start to weigh down on me the way it is.”

Gage laughed as he reached over and took it from me.

“I’ve got you covered.”

Suddenly, it dawned on me that we’d been mid-conversation with Vaughn when we’d broken off into a kissing session. Blushing furiously, I looked back his way, only to find that he and Allie weren’t paying even one bit of attention to me and Gage. Instead, he was leaning in to talk to her, his forehead almost against hers as they whispered back and forth.

I was wide-eyed when I looked over at Gage, who seemed just as surprised as me. My gaze narrowed when I turned my attention back to Allie and Vaughn, and the pieces started coming together. He’d been pretty weird on the red carpet when we’d first walked up, but I hadn’t any clue why. Now that I was connecting the dots, I realized Allie only started acting like a nut after we left Vaughn’s area.

“Huh,” I mused aloud.

Allie turned my way, blushing furiously as she did. We exchanged a silent look that was a world of BFF conversation in a fraction of an instant. Yeah, she was into Vaughn. I couldn’t wait for a chance to have girl talk with her.

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