AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Pretty much.” I nodded. “Aside from a couple of your friends up at the big house. And they would never out anyone who wasn’t ready. It’s a very well-kept secret. I’m quite good pals with Freddie, you know—Lucien’s cousin? Me and him go back a long way.”
“I wouldn’t put you two together as…er…natural buddies,” Evan remarked diplomatically, his brow wrinkling slightly. Fair point. The other members of my social circle were farmers, gardeners, an aged dog, and Watermelons.
“Very good buddies, actually. We…erm…deflowered each other. Years ago, when he was still a teenager.”
“What? You and he…?” He gestured vaguely between our bodies. “You’ve had...um…full-on sex with Freddie Avery?”
“It was a long time ago, but we weren’t milking the cows, that’s for sure. Milking each other, maybe.”
“Bloody hell!” Evan side-eyed me. “I’m glad you told me that after I exposed my pasty paunchy bits to you, and not before. I’d never have had the nerve otherwise.”
I shrugged. Even straight men noticed Freddie was exceptionally beautiful.
“Blimey,” Evan continued. “Downhill all the way for you from there.”
I looked across at him, at his strong profile as he grinned up at the ceiling, at the thick dark hair stubbling his jaw. And then at my hand, squeezed tight in his, cradled on his chest just above his heart. “Your pasty paunchy bits aren’t too bad.”
Turning my head back, I closed my eyes. “Freddie tells his cousin Lucien everything, so I suspect he’s aware too, which means your mate Jay probably knows (not that he and I are more than acquaintances), and Freddie’s husband too. And Toby, of course.”
“Toby who? You mean the guy I met at Christmas? Lucien and Jay’s nanny?”
I nodded. Christ, revealing this was long overdue, even if it was excruciating. But Evan deserved to know my secrets, I reminded myself. Especially the ones painting me in a less-than-perfect light. “Yeah, but don’t call him that—he’ll put you straight very quickly.” An image of sweet, freckled Toby pushing the buggy through the woods, singing to baby Orlando as they went about their day, popped into my head. I used to conveniently bump into him as often as I could. “He’s a manny. We also had a thing.”
“Really? Hasn’t he got a boyfriend? I met them both at Christmas. When did that happen? Toby only looks about twenty.”
Oh joy, he was prizing out all my mucky secrets now, underlining exactly why I preferred silence before breakfast. I inhaled deeply, keeping my eyes firmly shut, but fully aware Evan was propped up onto an elbow, watching me and waiting for my response.
“He’s a little older than that,” I answered. “But not much. I…um…didn’t treat him very well. For a few years, since he was, um, quite young, we…er…we had a thing. He had a crush on me. In retrospect, I took advantage of his youth and the limited pickings in the village, and well, yes. A thing. Not sex, not full-on sex, anyhow. But a thing.”
“Oh.” Ever so slightly, Evan drew away.
“I’ve since apologised to him. Massively, and on more than one occasion. And beaten myself up about him. Repeatedly. If it makes you happier, then his boyfriend, Noah, beat me up about it too.”
Evan stayed silent, still holding my hand. I chanced opening an eye. Once more, he stared at the ceiling, lips pursed in thought.
I took a deep breath in. “I’ve never had a relationship, Evan. Not once. Because I’ve never been out. We don’t know each other very well, but…but if you’ll have me, I want to try to have one with you.”
I should probably have brought up the subject of sex before I laid all that out on the table. What if enjoying being fucked by him had been a one-off, but he still wanted to top me every time? A recipe for a short-lived, disastrous relationship, all on its own, never mind if we weren’t compatible in any other spheres.
A little too late to backtrack now.
Rolling over, he brushed his lips against mine, a response I needed more than he’d ever realise. “That’s good, because I want one with you, too.”
I brought us both a mug of tea in bed, and we sat up against the pillows, enjoying a morning cuppa. Such a simple thing, but something I’d fantasised about since he’d stayed at my place after the accident. The rumpled look most definitely suited him. Almond milk lent a fairly unusual quality to the teabags; I was possibly the only dairy farmer in the world at that exact moment drinking it. It was tolerable, if it meant the ritual would become a regular thing.
“So, six people up at the house know you’re gay.”
Jesus, get a man’s guard down with a few friendly strokes of his cock while he’s newly caffeinated, lull him into a false sense of security and then have a crack at him again. Evan was like a dog with a bone. I gave a tight nod, then tried to distract him with a few friendly strokes of my own. Annoyingly, he was having none of it.
“And presumably, a few other men that you’ve met along the way. You seem to...ah…know your way around a man’s body.”
Now he was flattering me. And absently playing with my hernia, which had decided to pop out and join us. The sensation was…bizarrely pleasant.
“Uh-huh.”
"And you’re thirty-six, solvent, single, have a supportive family, and a decent social life.”
“Uh-huh.” I could see exactly in which direction this conversation was headed—I’d had the same one with myself inside my own head, multiple times. The palm warming my hernia stopped its gentle massage.
