Breathtaking was the only way to describe him. His custom-tailored suit stood out and was the perfect complement to my dress. I muttered, “You sneaky bastard.”
“Who?” guy number two asked.
Then he saw where my focus had strayed.
“That guy is a total sneaky bastard, from what I’ve heard. He has a one-and-done rule.”
“Ironclad,” guy number one added.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“I know of him. I mean, I know his name—everyone does.” He paused. “Do you know him?”
I said, “Nolan Lund.”
That’s when Nolan went still. Almost as if he’d heard me. His gaze scanned the room until his eyes landed on me.
He treated me to a once-over. Then another.
I hid my smirk behind my champagne glass when he completely abandoned his conversation, booking it in my direction, nearly plowing over a waiter and a couple exiting the dance floor in his haste to reach me.
My two new pals had gone silent.
Especially after Nolan arrived, swept me into his arms and kissed me squarely on the mouth. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Good thing my champagne glass was empty or I’d be wet.”
He plucked it out of my hand and held it out; within two seconds a waiter appeared to take it from him.
“Neat trick.”
“Did your team win?”
I nodded. “Third place.”
“Congrats, Coach.”
“Thanks.”
“God, you look stunning.” He ran his finger along the upper curve of the necklace and the skin beneath. “I knew these would be perfect on you.” His dark eyes met mine. “Were you surprised?”
“Very. They’re beautiful. Thank you for lending them to me.”
His mouth opened. Closed.
“Tell me you borrowed them from your mother or the Lund family jewel vault.”
“I promised never to lie to you, Happy, so the truth is . . . they’re yours. As is the entire outfit.”
“Nolan. You can’t just—”
“Yes, I can.” He put his mouth on my ear. “Say, Thank you, Nolan.”
“It’s too much.”
“Say, Thank you, Nolan, or I’ll be forced to buy you even flashier pieces because I’ll worry you didn’t like these.”
“You’re ridiculous, Lund, but thank you.”
He kissed me again, the type of kiss that wasn’t a make-out session, but an intimate brush of lips that conveyed more.
When he retreated, he noticed the two guys who’d stuck around but had hung back to give us privacy.
Nolan offered guy number one a smile. “And you are?”
“Rupi Gilroy.” He nudged his friend’s shoulder. “This is Cooper Winchell.”
“Good to meet you both.” Nolan slipped his arm around my waist. “I see you’ve met my girlfriend, Gabriella.”
I gave them a finger wave.
“If you’ll excuse us . . .” He steered me away.
“That wasn’t subtle.”
“Wasn’t meant to be. I’ve done my social duty tonight. I’m debating between ignoring everyone so I can have you to myself and introducing you to everyone because I want the world to know we’re together.”
“Can’t we find a happy medium?”
“Mmm. Maybe.” He led me out of the ballroom into a hallway that had a long red-carpet runner covering the floor. The backdrop was the Grant Foundation Gala logo on portable walls, which reminded me of the sponsorship signs at an ice arena—albeit classier promotion, but paid advertising, nonetheless.
Before I could ask him where we were going, a man wearing two cameras stopped us.
“Lund. That area is off-limits.”
“Hey, Barnes. I was looking for you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“My girlfriend arrived late, and I wanted a pic of us at the gala together.”
“Are you drunk, man?”
Nolan laughed. “No. I’m serious.” He practically presented me with a flourish. “Gabriella, this is Barnes, a freelance photographer I’ve known for a very long time. Barnes, this is Gabriella Welk, my girlfriend.”
“You were already here with a date—your mother—so nice try,” Barnes sneered.
“I’m trying to give you an exclusive.”
“So Notorious Nolan has settled down?”
“Yes. You know how many dates I’ve brought to these types of events over the years and how many times I’ve referred to said dates as my girlfriend.” He paused. “Zero.”
Barnes considered him. “You know I’m gonna sell this pic to the Trib’s society page.”
“Which is why I’m here. You get an exclusive and I get a formal pic of us looking hot together.”
I elbowed him.
“Deal. Stand over there.”
We trooped to the backdrop.
“What’s the deal with her?” Barnes asked, fiddling with his cameras. “Gotta have the story and not just a couple of pics.”
“The deal with her? What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“I’m not doing the work for you, Barnes. Google her name. That’s all you’re getting from me except a promise I’m not messing with you. She and I are together and it’s serious.”
Nolan kissed me softly.
“No kissing shots. I can’t see your faces.” He gestured and Nolan tugged me beside him. “Pose like it’s prom, kiddies. Or RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
I snorted.
“Be serious,” Nolan whispered in my ear.
When Barnes dropped his lens cap and turned around to pick it up, giving us a glimpse of his butt crack, I cracked up.
Nolan tried to stop my laughter by kissing me, but I dropped my chin, and his lips smacked into my cheek. Then we were both busting a gut.
Somehow, we managed to get a couple of killer shots.
“Email those to me ASAP,” Nolan said. “Don’t make me track you down.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Barnes ignored us so we walked away.
“Do you trust him?” I asked when we were out of earshot.
“I trust his greed.”
“But you want a pic of us to be in the paper.”
“Yes. I haven’t been in it for months and this is an opportunity to let the world know we’re a couple.”
“While I know we are, do you worry that others might interpret it as a maneuver on the part of LI to put the rumors to rest that you’re still too much of a playboy to run the company?”
That question brought Nolan to a complete stop.
“I guess if PR had put me up to that I might see it that way. But I had no ulterior motive besides wanting to have a happy end to what was one of the roughest weeks of my life.”
I reached up and caressed his face. “If that put a smile on this handsome mug, then I’m happy to’ve been part of it.”
Nolan kissed me. “Thank you. Now will you dance with me?”
“I’m kind of a lousy dancer, but sure.”
But come to find out, I wasn’t terrible if I followed his lead.
The man could move on the dance floor. I found myself monumentally turned on with every precise snap of his hips. With each grind of his body against mine. With each soft kiss he teased me with. I’d only had one glass of champagne . . . so why did I feel light-headed?
Because you are intoxicated with everything about this man.
Nolan could see my hunger, my restlessness growing. After the song ended, he towed me off the dance floor, smiling at acquaintances, but not making a point of introducing me like he had for the past hour. The only official good night was given to the members of the Grant family after Nolan thanked them for a remarkable event and evening.
As he
led me toward the exit, his deep voice tickled my nerve endings from my ear to my toes. “You’re coming home with me.”
I handed him my coat-check tag and he made a brief call while he waited for our coats.
He seemed to take great pleasure in swinging the cape around and buttoning it. “This looks amazing on you. The way the fur catches the light and changes the color from silver to different shades of gray reminds me of your eyes. Shining one moment, dark the next.”
“God. Stop with the sweet-talking words. You’re making me wet.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And that’s an issue because . . . ?”
I stood on tiptoe to reach his ear. “Because I’m not wearing any panties.” I wheeled around, letting the soft edge of the cape flap against his chest before I sauntered outside.
Less than a minute later, his hands rested on my hips and he planted a kiss on the side of my neck.
I smiled. “Are you going to torment me the entire time we’re waiting for the valet to bring your car around?”
“No, smart mouth. I’m going to torment you until the car service arrives.”
“Did you hire a car service before or after you saw me here?”
“Before.” He traced the shell of my ear with the underside of his bottom lip, eliciting my shiver and moan. “But I upgraded it after I saw you.”
Just then a glossy black limo pulled up.
I whirled around. “Did you really order us a limo?”
“Yep.” He smiled. “You seemed excited about that idea the night you rode home with Jensen, so here’s your ride, baby.”
“You are ridiculously awesome, man of mine.”
A valet stepped over and opened the limo door for us. Nolan palmed him a bill as I tried to get in gracefully, without tripping. Once my ass hit the seat behind the driver, Nolan slammed the door shut.
“Good evening,” the driver said. “Still headed to the address in St. Louis Park?”
“Eventually. I’d like it if you drove around some first. I’ll let you know when to head to our destination. Oh, and engage the privacy window, please.”
“Certainly, sir.”
While I watched the glass change from clear to reflective, Nolan pulled the champagne out of the ice-packed silver cask and gently worked the cork free. He poured the bubbly into one glass and said, “We’ll share.”
He offered me the first glass.
I downed it.
Not to be outdone, he poured himself a glass and downed it too.
We shared the third glass. Then he set the bottle and the glass back in the ice.
“Have you ever ridden in a limo?”
“Yes.” I rose to my knees on the seat—whoa, plenty of headroom—and straddled his lap. “But I’ve never been fucked in one.”
After he unsnapped my cape and set it aside, his teeth were on my neck and his hands cupped my ass. “I intend to make all your fantasies come true.” His fingers found the hem of the dress and he began to slide it up. “I should hoist you up on the seat and spread you out so I can gorge on you, but I need inside you first.” He groaned when his fingers met bare skin and then proof of my desire for him. “Christ. You weren’t kidding about no panties.”
“I never kid about VPL,” I whispered before I crushed his mouth beneath mine.
We kissed ravenously as he got his pants undone and his dick freed.
The fact we both needed this right now, without foreplay, just intensified the effect of the champagne—my head spun, my breath caught when he aligned me over his hardness and slammed home.
“God. Yes,” I moaned and let my head fall back as he thrust up into me.
We moved together with a synchronicity that would’ve scared me had it not been everything I’d ever dreamed of. If it hadn’t been spontaneous. While Nolan obviously had mad bedroom skills, I considered myself lucky that all that expertise was now solely focused on me.
All. The. Time.
He traced the cord in my neck with his nose. “I think I could come just from the scent of your skin. Drives me fucking insane.”
Bracing myself with my hands on his shoulders, I let the sensations roll through me. The friction of his suit pants on the backs of my thighs. The heavy breathing that’d already fogged up the windows. His hands squeezing my hips as he drove into me.
And his scent, skin-warmed wool, cotton and piney cologne. I already felt that tightening in my core, that tiny tingle that lit the fuse toward detonation. Swiveling my hips, I ground down every time he rocked his pelvis up.
“Like that. Just like that,” he panted against my throat.
“Yes, I’m almost there.”
“Give it to me. I wanna feel you come around me.” His lips found mine again and he interspersed kisses with words. “Nothing is sexier than that. Nothing gets me off faster than that.”
“Say it. I wanna feel the rumble through my body when you say it.”
His mouth returned to my ear. “Gabriella. My Gabriella.” The low-pitched near growl reverberated through every nerve ending, every skin cell, every synapse, and I flew apart.
Nolan didn’t kiss me as I came. He kept his mouth on my ear, saying such dirty, delicious things that it made me shiver and tremble.
Best thing ever that he’d figured out my trigger point without me having to tell him.
Then he said, “Fuck,” his quads tightened and he was there too. I matched his frantic race to the finish line, but managed to angle my head so I could watch his beautiful face awash in pleasure.
In the aftermath we clung to each other. Bodies still. Breathing labored.
His voice was ragged when he said, “How can it get better every time?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself.”
He framed my face in his hands. “I love you.”
“I love you too. But don’t you dare make me all teary eyed after you just fucked me stupid.”
He laughed. “Never a dull moment with you, Welk. Let’s finish the champagne.”
I found tissues and we cleaned up, setting our clothes to rights again. “Love that suit on you too. Total coincidence it matches with my dress?” I teased him.
“Not even close. I knew that we’d have an occasion to wear them, I just didn’t know when.”
“That was before . . .”
“I kissed you or touched you or had any idea whether you’d laugh in my face at the thought of us being more than friends.” He grabbed my hand and kissed my knuckles. “And look at us now. Getting tipsy in the back of a limo after you rocked my world.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I let it stay as the last word.
We drained the champagne, classily passing the bottle back and forth, laughing—about what, I had no idea, but we were just two happy, silly fools in love. That would’ve been the perfect end to our night . . . except the limo driver informed us he couldn’t make it up Nolan’s driveway.
“That’s fine, we’ll walk.” Nolan helped me out of the car and tossed me my cape. I teetered dangerously on my stilettos as I caught it.
I squinted at the Mount Everest of driveways. “Dude. There’s no freakin’ way I can walk up that in these.” I pointed at my feet.
“Take ’em off and walk up barefoot.”
“It’s thirty fucking degrees out here.”
“I’m not sober enough to carry you.” Then a gleam entered his eyes. “However, I could give you a piggyback.”
“What part of ‘no panties’ is confusing to you? You want me to flash your entire neighborhood?”
Nolan laughed so hard at that I feared he might’ve pulled something since it took him forever to quit holding his stomach.
Or what forever felt like to a very tipsy woman, tipping over in her high heels.
He wiped his eyes. “Okay, leave it to me.”
; His grin just . . . god. Filled me with joy because this playful, sweet, carefree Nolan was only mine. No one else got to see this side of him.
“Take off your shoes. I’ll take off my jacket and you put it on, it’ll be long enough to cover your girlie bits when you hop up on my back. We’ll go slow and you have to promise me to stay bent forward over me like a turtle, so we don’t get off balance.”
I slipped the jacket on under the cape. My purse and my shoes dangled from my left hand. “Ready?”
“Climb on, hot stuff.”
It only took one try until my body was curved high over his back, with my knees bracketing his hips and his hands cupping my feet.
Nolan made a run for it and I half expected to hear his war cry too. I bit my cheek to keep from laughing about how crazy we must’ve looked. But his plan worked, and we were at the top of the driveway.
I kissed his ear. “My brave man. You’re breathing a little hard. You’ll have to get into better shape if we ever want to compete in that wife-carrying contest.”
“Probably. I’d have to add ax throwing to my workout regimen too.” He carried me to the front door and punched in the alarm. Then he gently set me on the floor, shut the door and reset the alarm.
Then he stalked me.
“What?”
“It freaks you out if you’re not wearing the right clothes, but the thought of being my wife someday doesn’t?”
I shrugged. “You fit me no matter where we go or what we do. Unfortunately that’s not the case with clothes.”
“Well said,” he whispered against my cheek. “Let’s go to bed where clothing doesn’t matter at all.”
Twenty-Eight
GABI
My week had started out great. I spent all day Sunday lazing, laughing and loving with Lund.
On Monday Liddy had returned from her long trip to London, so we spent the evening catching up until jetlag caught up with her.
Since hockey season had ended, I didn’t have many responsibilities at Lakeside, teaching wise. Jax had already started pushing for a new schedule, but I couldn’t discuss his options until I received the all clear from my new boss to share the news about my career switch.