“You canalwayscall me, Noah. Okay?”
“Okay,” he breathed and nodded, his pupils blown wide. “I just didn’t want to ruin your evening.”
“You couldn’t.Ever. Call me when you need me.”
He pressed his lips together and looked at me out of those doe eyes. I fucking melted.
Yes, for that, too.
“Let’s see if we can fix your heating, yeh?” I wasn’t a mechanic but wasn’t useless around the house. The heating was about a million years old and, at first glance, looked beyond help.
“Sorry, Puppy,“ I said, “I think there’s nothing I can do about this.”
When I turned around at him I found him staring at me out of huge round eyes, hands wrapped tightly around himself, and his fingernails digging into the fabric of his thin jumper.
Fuck, I just called him Puppy again, didn’t I?
I sniffed and took off my hoodie.
“You look frozen. Put this on.”
Noah didn’t hesitate when I thrust it into his hands. He pulled it on and visibly relaxed as he snuggled into the huge piece of clothing. I loved how my things dwarfed him.
It’s ridiculous and so perfect.
He inspected the small logo that sat at my collarbone but on him was placed right above his left nipple.
“That’s from Roy’s brand again, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. They cater especially to the needs of—”
“Big boys,“ he supplied before I finished my sentence, a cheeky little grin on his face.
I snorted and turned back around at his heater. “I won’t be able to fix this thing, I’m sorry. We’ll need to light a fire in the fireplace to get the house warm. Or you can l come back to Lone Fox with me.”
“I tried a couple of times but never got it to burn properly.” His face heated and he retreated a little deeper in my hoodie tohide his embarrassment. “And I don’t want to leave Mr Pickles alone.”
How fucking good would he look with nothing under it after we fucked? I needed to find out, and desperately.
“I’ll show you how it works. Where’s the firewood?”
He walked to the door, opened it, and pointed around to the back of the cottage. “There’s a stack behind the house.”
The steel grey clouds were heavy with snow.
Let’s hurry and get him warmed up.
The cold barely affected me when I left the shack. My thick winter coat meant that I hardly ever felt cold in my life. On the contrary, I usually only wore shirts and hoodies, even in the height of winter, because I ran so hot.
I’d have a word with Ollie, for real this time. He and his parents couldn’t just let Noah fend for himself and possibly freeze in that fucking dilapidated shack they claimed was a cottage.
I wanted to care for him when none of his family did, and I wouldn’t stop until he was warm, well-fed, and well-fucked.
I’d stopped trying to kid myself that this was some kind of older brotherly feeling I nursed for Noah or that he or I had changed too much. We had, but for the better.
If anything, I liked Noah even more now than before.
The thing that bugged me the most was that if he were a woman, the treatment he received from his parents surely would have been different. The Brights had never held back their feelings on how much they resented having only sons.
