Page 22 of Undercover
“I never said I didn’t want to take you home and—and fuck your brains out,” I said, my voice going so low on those last words I almost couldn’t hear myself. Justsayingthem had me nearly jumping out of my skin. Acting on them might actually kill me. “But I want to wait.” Oh fuck, that sounded so incredibly lame.
But miraculously, some of Gabe’s tension seemed to ease. His shoulders slumped, and he let out a gusty sigh. “You’re not making excuses, right? Like, you’re not—in a long-distance relationship? Or you have erectile dysfunction, I mean, it’s nothing to be ashamed of—”
Okay, no. So much no. I closed the distance between us and yanked Gabe against my body again, and he cut off with a squeak. “Does this feel like erectile dysfunction to you?” I growled in his ear. I ground my cock against his abdomen to make my point, and he made that sound again, and I got even harder.
Point definitely made.
“No,” he said, “it really doesn’t, okay, I’m sorry, but if you keep doing that—”
I let go of him again, having to consciously force my fingers to unclench. “I’m not in a relationship, either. I told you about my dating history, remember? Did it sound like one of those guys hung around long-term?”
“What you are is a cock-tease,” Gabe said after a second, but a little smile had started curling the corners of his lips, and his eyes had a gleam of mischief in them.
“Not on purpose.” I tried to smile back. Christ, I wanted to be able to smile at him without feeling like a liar. “Hold my hand again? On the way to get more coffee, maybe?”
I held out my hand, and after a moment of hesitation, Gabe slipped his into it. The warmth of his skin paradoxically made goosebumps break out all over my arms. Fuck, I was starting to get why Victorians got so damn excited over a glimpse of ankle. When holding hands was all you could get, it felt far more erotic than it had a right to.
I wrapped my hand around Gabe’s smaller one, and tugged him into a walk again. He bumped me with his shoulder, and when I looked over, he was grinning up at me.
“Buy me some ice cream instead, and we’re even.”
I squeezed his hand. “Deal.”
Even if Gabe licking an ice cream cone might give me a heart attack, it’d be worth it to make him happy—and to feel like less of an asshole for a few minutes.
Gabe
Chemistry had been my true love, academically speaking, but erotic performance art had its appeal. Maybe it wouldn’t actually get me laid, but at least the ice cream was helping me get my own back for Alec’s precise assault on the sushi at lunch—and for his making out with me,again, in another park, and then backing off.Again.
He watched, perfectly still, pupils dilated, as I twirled my tongue around the base of the ice cream, right above the cone. I’d have grinned and fist-pumped if my mouth and hand hadn’t been otherwise occupied.
I wished they were occupied with the real thing I’d been mimicking. But hey, this worked too. I loved ice cream.
And oddly, his reluctance to see what my tongue could do to the real thing had bolstered my confidence enough that I could be this flirty and this bold. He wanted to take it slow. Which meant, unfortunately, that flicking the tip of my ice cream cone with my tongue probably wouldn’t incite him to jump me.
But it also meant he wouldn’t accuse me of being a cock-tease myself. It meant I could flirt, and yes, tease, and feel free to…well, just feel free. Not constrained by how self-conscious everything usually made me. Or nervous about what the guy staring at me might expect of me. Or nervous, period.
I could lounge here next to him on this shady bench in the park, our knees brushing as we sat turned slightly toward one another, and fellate my ice cream without a care in the world.
And bonus: the ice cream really was delicious. Everyone always thought I had weird taste, getting one scoop of chocolate with one scoop of the most unusual fruity thing on the menu, but it tasted freaking amazing.
I slurped and licked and thoroughly enjoyed myself while Alec ate his single scoop of mint chip more sedately, and a lot more methodically, in actualbites.
“Okay, who bites an ice cream cone?” I demanded, taking a break from swirling my tongue inside the cone to get the ice cream clinging to the sides. “Seriously. Are you secretly a serial killer?”
Alec took another chomp of his ice cream, looking at me as if daring me to comment. “If I was a serial killer, it’d definitely be a secret, right? So I don’t think that’s the best question to ask.”
“Well, what should I ask?” I took a bite of the cone, and Alec raised an eyebrow. I stuck out my tongue at him. What did he expect? You couldn’t lick the cone, dammit. “How do I weed out the psychos, if I don’t go by their freaky ice-cream eating habits?”
Alec frowned down at his cone. “You could ask about whether I had any childhood pets, and what happened to them. How often I travel. Whether or not my parents had substance-abuse problems, or if I had trouble in school.” He broke off abruptly, an odd look on his face. I thought it was probably mirrored on mine. I mean, I didn’t think he actually was one, but…seriously? He added hurriedly, “Anyway, ice cream’s probably not the best barometer. Besides,” he said, his tone a little too chipper, like he was overcompensating, “I ordered mint chip. That’s normal. Everyone knows the psychopaths get chocolate with strawberry rhubarb.”
He could be a serial killer. No last name given, not from here—supposedly, anyway, and he hadn’t elaborated by telling me where he’d allegedly come from—and I didn’t know where he was staying. Or what he actually did for a living, beyond some kind of vague freelance work that might or might not be legal. And maybe construction.
Where he’d have access to lots of places where he could hide bodies, and equipment to bury them properly and cover them with concrete.
So sue me, I’d watched a few too many episodes ofMindhunter.
“Strawberry rhubarb is delicious.” I’d lost my appetite, though, and I couldn’t help edging very slightly away from him along the bench.
