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He held his hand over the microphone. “You’re not cancelling your op, Rob,” he hissed. “I’m not letting you do that. You need it. You’ll become much worse if you do.”
With another wink, I took the phone from him. “Sally, hi. It’s Robert Langford. I’m a patient of Mr Richardson’s. I—”
“I remember you!” She giggled. Yes, definitely had a couple of drinks. But not too many, I hoped. I had an important message for her. “You were the anxious farmer with the hernia!”
“Yes, that’s right. The anxious farmer with the hernia. So sorry to disturb you on a Friday night. Be sure to bill the lovely Mr Richardson appropriately.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. He’s lovely. Tell him another spa day like he got me for my birthday should cover it.”
“Make it two days,” I answered. “I’ll pay for the second. Listen. Can you recommend any of Mr Richardson’s colleagues?”
“What on earth for? He’s the best! You don’t need to go looking any further.” I pulled a face at Mr Goody Two-Shoes and received a cautious smile.
“I know he is. But can you anyway?”
“Well…” Her voice trailed off. “Heather’s very good. Heather Branson. She’s also very popular. She did my Aunt Pat’s varicose ve—”
“Super. Heather sounds perfect. I’m going to pass you back over to Mr Richardson now, and he’s going to tell you that I’m no longer his patient and that as soon as this phone call ends, you have to leave a message with Heather’s secretary saying that all my care, including my op, will be handed over to her. And send an email too, just to be sure. As of now.”
I relinquished the phone to Evan, then flopped back, weirdly exhausted, letting my eyes close. As Sally talked, Evan held the phone up to his ear. He spoke quietly, interjecting with a few yesses and noises of assent. I was out of ideas. If this scheme didn’t work, then I’d walk away. Maybe we’d pick up again in a year or so. I had his number. I knew where to find him.
Or maybe not. Maybe my bravado would fade, and I’d crawl back into my shell. Evan would be fine, he’d find a nice guy—he wouldn’t have much trouble—and that would be that.
Warm fingers slipped into mine, giving them a squeeze. The softest of kisses landed on my cheek. “It’s a good job I don’t fall for all of my patients,” Evan murmured against my skin. “I’d be skint and out of work.”
A sigh of relief, or maybe happiness, whooshed out of me. I turned my head to find his lips already waiting, wondrous and wanting. This kiss was different yet again, tender, and slow, both of us knowing plenty more waited patiently further down the track and in no hurry to get there. “I’m holding you totally responsible for outing me to my secretary, by the way.” After we pulled apart, he gave me a teasing smile. “I was going to do it next week anyhow.”
Lifting our joined hands up to my mouth, I gave each of his knuckles a soft kiss. “Do you mind?” Our hands were ridiculous together: mine like a chewed piece of old leather, his slender, with nimble fingers, and skin like a new-born calf.
“No,” he chuckled. “It’s a relief letting go. I should have told her months ago. You must know how that feels. Not carrying that baggage around all the time, pretending to be someone you’re not?”
Didn’t have a scooby.
He gave me a sideways look. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, and maybe tomorrow morning, when I’m sober and had time to think, I'll regret it. But right now, I feel like a new man. I don’t feel sorry for a single thing.”
He made it sound so fucking simple.
CHAPTER 8
We didn’t exactly gallop to Evan’s apartment, but neither did we walk. More of a steady trot, our feet gobbling up the pavement. And we carried on holding hands too, a first for me. Once the pubs closed, Allenmouth at night was fairly dead. Whilst it was the sort of provincial small town where narrow-minded citizens whispered and pointed at two men briskly trotting down the street together hand-in-hand, even stopping for a quick snog, we didn’t feel especially daring. Just fabulously unreal, floaty even. I wanted our destination to never come and yet arrive immediately.
Evan fumbled with the door key, not helped by me rubbing up against him like Zeus did to his favourite blanket on the rare days when the sun warmed his bones and he forgot he was ancient. Evan's apartment was on the ground floor of a tastefully converted Georgian vicarage; he’d been renting it for the past few months waiting to buy somewhere. Right now, details of his property circumstances interested me about as much as the décor and elegant architecture, which was to say not at all, because we finally pushed through the door.
As it banged shut behind us, I slammed him up against it. “I’ll apologise in advance if this is quick.”
He shimmied out of his jacket, letting it drop where he stood. I pulled viciously at the pink shirt. A button pinged, skittering to the floor. Another yank, another button ping, and the shirt slipped off his shoulders to join it. A rich mat of curling black hair, spiralling out like the branches of a tree from the midline of his chest, greeted my eager mouth. And his scent. Oh my God, his scent. On legs like porridge, I leaned into him, drunk on his musky, sweaty, sweet bloody maleness. The scratchy, stubbly column of his neck was finally mine to taste.
He made a sound in his throat. “Fuck, I might be quicker.”
Evan’s clever surgeon’s fingers worked at his belt. He slipped lower down the door, his hips rolling against mine as he spread his legs wider, inviting me in. My mouth closed around the rose-petal disc of a nipple, nipping. As I feasted on the delicious salty tang of him, he moaned in shock.
“Rob, Christ, that feels good. Rob.”
He whimpered my name, and I suckled harder, marking him, seized by an urge to add my scent to every single inch of perfect male flesh. Pushing down my own jeans, I freed myself with a stroke and a squeeze, and his head thudded against the wooden door.
“You look so good doing that,” he breathed. That fucking elegant throat opened up to me even wider. “Are you going to do it to me?”
Roughly, I jerked open his trousers, yanking them over his narrow hips. “You want me to?”
