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“Is that your dog whining?” he enquired, after the worst of my nausea was over. I’d been ignoring the noise for the last few minutes, willing Zeus, whom I could picture forlornly sitting at the bottom of the stairs, to accept his fate like a brave soldier and settle into his basket in the kitchen. On any other night, he’d have attempted to trot upstairs after me, but the farmyard stroll had used up the last of his strength; the staircase was the aged doggy equivalent of the north face of the Eiger.
“He’ll settle in a minute,” I reassured him. A perfect example of the triumph of hope over experience.
Evan returned to his book, and I returned to admiring Evan. He lay next to me, reading, dressed in a pristine white thermal T-shirt with a pair of wire-framed reading glasses perched on his nose. The book was heavy enough to contain the whole world inside and a useful weapon against a burglar. I had the impression reading was also part of his normal bedtime routine. His elegant surgeon's fingers cupped the spine lightly, with his thumbs curled around a page. His upper lip twitched into a smile. Very sexy, in an Indiana Jones sort of way. He’d taken the side of the bed I tended to favour; perhaps that was why I felt restless.
“Why are you staring at me?” he said after a few minutes, not looking away from the page of very small writing.
“I’m not staring.”
“Yes, you are.” He retrieved a slim leather bookmark from the bedside table and carefully slotted it between the pages before putting the book to one side. Evan was exactly the sort of person I imagined used bookmarks. “Is your abdomen still sore? Am I not paying you enough attention?”
“Both,” I admitted.
Zeus bleated pathetically. Evan gave me a look over the rim of his spectacles. “He doesn’t normally spend the night down there, does he?”
“Uh…well, um…not always, no.”
“Is that farm-speak for never?”
“Er…maybe?”
Evan sigh-growled. Under any other circumstances, it would have kicked me right in the knackers and had me launching myself on him. But seeing as my knackers felt like overinflated beach balls and the sexy noises were directed at my dog’s low moral fibre, I tried to convey puzzlement instead.
He hauled himself out of bed. Freddie once informed me you could tell a lot about a man from his underwear choices. Mine, for instance, told the world I didn’t give a shit about my underwear as long as it was reasonably clean. Evan’s dazzling white boxers, matching his T-shirt, signalled a man who had his life together. And also, that he had a big packet and a tight arse.
When he came back upstairs, the boxers and T-shirt had dog hairs attached, because he was carrying Zeus, who looked very pleased with himself.
“He can’t do stairs sometimes by the end of the day. His legs seize up,” I offered apologetically.
“Shall I put him down on the rug outside the door?”
“You could.” Stranger things had happened, I supposed. “Why not?”
The whining started around thirty seconds after the lights went out. Small pathetic mews and snuffles, as if he was actually bloody crying. Evan harrumphed—again, quite sexy in a different context. My lover had a whole farmyard of noises indicating various states of pleasure. I looked forward to investigating all of them. But not tonight.
“Rob?”
“Yeah?”
“He normally sleeps with you on the fucking bed, doesn’t he?”
CHAPTER 13
For the first morning since my surgery, I woke on the very edge of dawn without the sensation that I’d gone fifteen rounds with Mike Tyson the evening before. Regardless, I’d greeted every day with a huge grin on my face, despite the discomfort, because since my surgery, the lovely Mr Richardson had hardly left my side.
He was heading back to work today. How the hell Zeus was going to fall asleep either on the sofa or on our bed when his stinky blanket wasn’t as comfy as Evan’s feet was anyone’s guess. My pillow wasn’t as comfy as his hairy chest, either.
I expected Evan to be asleep, but when I gingerly rolled onto my side, there he was, wide awake, and as beautiful as the sunrise. All mussed and sexy, and propped on one elbow, as if patiently waiting for me to wake up so we could continue a previous conversation.
“Y’alright?” I was pretty damn alluring and articulate at five a.m.
“Mmm. Remind me why you brought home that fucking cockerel again?”
On cue, Russell Crow (because I was bloody good at naming creatures) did his thing, proudly informing the world at the top of his lungs that it was a wonderful morning to be alive. In my cosy nest with Evan, I felt like hollering back.
“And you do know, don’t you, Rob,” Evan added, sounded genuinely put out, “that Zeus makes this room smell as if one of us has shat the bed during the night?”
I snorted, then clutched my belly; laughing and hernia surgery weren’t compatible. Patting around under the covers, I found Evan’s hand and laced his fingers with my own.
