Dangerously Yours (Titans of Chicago #3)

NOAH

I hadn’t expected to see Lucy Davis standing outside of my gym, but lately, I seemed to run into her a lot. It seemed to be par for the course during the offseason, though. I not only played for a Chicago team, but I was born and raised in the city, so I lived here year round, unlike a lot of others on the team. I was also a Titan, so if there was a chance to mingle with high society, I was usually there. Sometimes it was more out of obligation than desire, but I rarely turned down events, even the retirement party for Armand Saint the other night. I remembered it well because I had actually run into Lulu’s husband, Cade, and he seemed to be pretty close to the redhead on his arm.

In my circle, we saw things all the time, and none of us ever questioned it. I supposed it was how my father had gotten away with everything he had done for so long. It wasn’t hard to turn a blind eye when something didn’t concern us. I could’ve done the same thing for Lulu tonight, but she looked flustered, and it wasn’t something I was used to seeing from her. If anyone was always put together, it was her. Once I found out what was troubling her, I was determined to help her, and I was now glad that I did.

When I told her that I thought I could salvage this for her, Lulu’s voice was incredulous. “You can?”

“Yeah,” I told her, then dropped my bag. “Is there a reason the fountain is over there, and the food here?”

“No,” she said as she shook her head. “Do you think we could move the fountain? The delivery men had trouble themselves just getting it inside.”

I eyed it, then walked over to the fountain with the large ice sculpture. I attempted to move it to just test out its weight, then stepped back. “It will be light work. You just need a little muscle.”

“Well, I’m lacking that at the moment, and the chef over there?—”

“I’ll be glad to help you. Let me call a friend and we’ll get this done.”

“Where is your friend?” She asked, and I noticed the way she kept looking down at her watch.

“He’s next door, but I’ll get him over here.”

I saw the relief on her face, then stepped to the side to send a text message to Gabriel. He responded seconds later that he had just finished with the speed bag and would be right over. Gabe and I had been best friends since we were born days apart in the same hospital. If there was ever anyone I could count on for anything, he was it. I was about to tell her that when we heard the door open. I glanced at it, and sure enough it was him. He walked over to us and smiled at Lulu.

“Good evening, Mr. Blake. I app?—”

“We’ve known each other for years, Lulu. Just call me Gabe.”

“Gabe,” she corrected herself. “Do you think the two of you can swap these tables?”

He looked at what I had wanted to do, then chuckled. “Yeah, I think we can.”

This time, I heard the relief in her sigh, and I stood beside my friend. “It might be easier to move the food over here so that the sculpture will only need to be moved once.”

“I agree. Ready, Noah?”

I nodded, then I got on one side of the long table, and he got on the other. Within seconds, we had it lifted off of the floor, then we slowly and carefully relocated it close to where it would be going now. When that was done, we got on either end of the smaller, but much more fragile and heavier table. Where the other one lifted up easily, this one seemed to be rooted in place.

Gabe and I both had the same thought because we both knelt to make sure the table wasn’t secured to something. When we saw that it wasn’t, we both straightened back up. “Looks like we need to hit the weights when we get back to town,” Gabe said, and Lulu who was standing nearby cleared her throat.

“You two are leaving town? I hope I’m not keeping you from?—”

“We’re leaving in the morning, so you’re good,” I quickly assured her. I then placed my hands back on the table. “On the count of the three, Gabe. One... two... three...”

We both lifted it at the same time with all our strength, and thankfully it did rise from the ground. I had my back to the area where we needed to relocate it, but I looked over my shoulder as we safely moved it close to the leak. My idea had been to place the fountain portion of the large ice sculpture directly under it, especially since it had various streams of water coming from it already. If lucky, no one would even notice that some of the water was coming from another source. We finally got it in place, and Lulu hurried over to see if it worked.

When she got closer, the scent of her perfume enveloped me. It was very enticing, not that the woman herself was not. In fact, I had started to see Lulu in a much different light than I ever had before over the course of the last few weeks. While older than me, she was still very damn hot, which was another reason I was so confused when I had seen Cade with Rita instead of his own wife.

I turned and looked at the blonde. Yeah, her husband was a damn fool. She was hot as fuck, and he was blind if he didn’t see it. She was now smiling, and it only infused more youthfulness into her appearance when she did so, not that it mattered. She had to be close to forty, but according to the latest magazines, it was the new thirty. That was a place I would be soon.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you fixed this for me. How will I ever repay you.” When she looked at Gabriel, she added. “Repay you both.”

“No repayment is necessary. Let’s just get this other table moved to its new place, then get ready to go.”

“Sure thing, Gabe. On three,” I said, then counted down like I had done a few minutes earlier.

It didn’t take long for the two of us to move the caterer’s table another few feet. Once it was in place, I couldn’t even tell that it should have ever been on the opposite side, and I doubted that anyone else would be able to either. I then realized that my shirt was now soaked with sweat, even worse than it had been before I moved the two tables, so after rifling through my bag for a clean one, I pulled the wet one off. Once I had a dry shirt on, I joined Gabriel.

Lulu was back talking to what looked like entertainment. From what I could tell, it appeared to be a jazz or blues band, which wasn’t quite my scene. I continued to stare for a few more seconds, then wryly shook my head. She was definitely more of the in-charge event planner I was used to seeing, instead of the one on the verge of tears earlier. I almost wanted to know what the celebration tonight was for, but then realized it didn’t matter. This didn’t strike me as the type of party I would want to be a guest at, so I said nothing else until we got outside. Gabriel was looking at me strangely, so I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

“What?” I asked my friend.

“Don’t what me, Noah. I saw the way you were looking at Mrs. Davis, and I?—”

“Lulu,” I corrected him, causing him to chuckle.

“Very defensive when it comes to her. And don’t think I didn’t see the way you looked at her. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear you and her had?—”

“She’s a married woman. In case you’ve forgotten, she’s married to Cade who just happens to be a Titan.”

“She wouldn’t be the first society wife to get bored in her own bedroom, and go looking to crash in a few others. I’m pretty sure Cade isn’t laying the pipe that well because I saw the way she was also looking at you.”

I had missed that completely, and usually this is where I would say something arrogant, and move on from this topic. The way my best friend was studying me, however, let me know that whatever he had concocted in his head would not be so easily dropped. I let out a low growl which only made him grin wider.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’ve done nothing with that woman.”

“Yet,” Gabriel said, and this time I was the one to eye him suspiciously.

“I have seen her a couple of times around town, and I helped her carry groceries into her place one day when she got caught out in the rain. Even today, she was practically in tears as she stood outside. You can trust me when I say that nothing has ever happened between us, nor will it.”

“Yet, and that is the operative word. But hey, you do you, Noah. I’m not in any position to judge anyone. I’m just glad as hell that I reunited with Harper because she’s the only woman I have eyes for.”

“You two are so disgustingly domesticated. I’d once expected it, but after she moved away and things ended between you both, I never thought I would see the day that Gabriel Blake would settle down with anyone.”

“She’s always been the love of my life, and she will always remain that way, too,” he told me, and I shook my head.

“And that is great for you two, but don’t expect me to fall into some false sense of domestic bliss because I intend to stay single as long as I can. Monogamy works great for guys like you and Callum, but not so much for Daxon, Romeo, and me.”

“The time is coming for all of you, so don’t worry about that. Once it gets here, I just suggest you don’t waste precious time fighting it. Accept your lot, then enjoy the hell out of that life. It’s a hell of a lot better than you will have ever thought it would be.”

I huffed at that. “I’ll keep that in mind, but don’t worry about me and Lulu. I’m only trying to be helpful, and nothing more.”

Gabriel seemed to accept it because after responding with a shrug, he started to walk toward the nearby parking garage where his car was. I had ridden to the gym with him, so I followed closely behind him. The very idea that I would bed Lulu was preposterous, or maybe it wasn’t. My cock hardened at the vision of the blonde on her knees in front of me wearing nothing more than a sexy set of black lingerie like the type one might buy from Mitchells. Charlie was fine as hell, especially when modeling some of the designs that came into her store, but I could now very easily see Lulu wearing something similar, and it affected me more than it should have.

Lulu was married, and while that hadn’t stopped me before from bedding a woman, I doubted the blonde was the type who would have salacious affairs while married, even if her husband was a womanizing jerk. He had to have been doing something right because the two of them had three kids, and the son was someone I had mentored last summer for a few weeks.

No, I was simply just doing a few good deeds as I had tried to explain to Gabriel a few minutes ago. There was nothing more to it. I forced my mind away from the older woman, and onto the upcoming trip I was about to take. My friends and I were all headed back to New York City, only this time, it was strictly for fun. Well, outside of the interviews that Romeo and I needed to give for an ESPN show. Gabriel was also going to join us on set, then we would have the rest of the week to hang out in a city that was like a second home to me.

The last real amount of time that I had spent there had been when Callum’s cousin had gotten married to his long-time love. Mason Steele was a legend on the national nightlife scene, and I planned to party hard once my professional obligations were over and done with this week. I got into the passenger side of Gabe’s car, then we headed back to our respective places to finish packing for the trip.