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“Absolutely.” He sat up, keeping Casey cradled in his lap. “There are wet wipes in the picnic basket, although I expect Kat thought they’d be for our hands, post dinner.”
“Hello, have you met Kat? I’m pretty sure she had a good idea how we’d be using them.” Nevertheless, Casey scrambled off Dev’s lap to dig in the basket.
Dev took a moment to admire the perfect pale globes of Casey’s ass before he snagged his shorts and retrieved his phone. He frowned at the message header, recognizing the sender as one of the regular antique fair vendors. After he read the email, he let his hand fall to his lap.
“Here’s one for you.” Casey held out a wipe with a grin, but his smile faded when he caught Dev’s expression. “Dev? Is something wrong?”
Dev set the phone aside and accepted the wipe. “It’s nothing. One of the vendors had to pull out of the fair, that’s all.” As he cleaned himself up, though, ice crept up Dev’s spine.
The timing was probably a coincidence, but he couldn’t help imagining that the gods of karma had fired a warning shot over his head because he’d committed the unforgiveable sin.
He’d seriously considered leaving Home.
Casey’s blood thrummed all the way back to Harrison House. I’m spending the night with Dev! He hadn’t dared dream their date might go this far. Okay, so he’d dreamed, but he hadn’t been confident enough to hope for it or arrogant enough to plan for it.
Granted, Dev seemed a little distracted as they drove. Every time Casey shot a glance at him, that tiny frown was pleating Dev’s forehead between his eyebrows. As much as Casey would have liked to believe it was because he was concentrating on the road, he couldn’t really chalk it up to that. Yes, the two-lane road was winding, but traffic was nonexistent.
By the time Dev pulled up in front of Harrison House, Casey’s excitement had dimmed but hadn’t vanished entirely. Although, if Dev was sincere about extending their date, wouldn’t they have gone straight back to his cottage?
Dev turned to him, his face serious in the twilight. “I need to follow up on something quickly before we go, so if you’d like to grab a quick shower?” He grinned, and it was almost as bright as normal. “I don’t imagine those wet wipes did an impeccable job. I know I’ll be showering myself once we get to my place, so we can start with a clean slate, so to speak.”
“Works for me.” Casey scrambled out of the car and waited for Dev to join him by the steps. He laced their fingers together and counted it as a good sign when Dev didn’t pull away.
Inside the vestibule, Dev gestured toward the stairs. “Grab whatever you need for tonight and tomorrow morning.” He bent and kissed Casey softly. “I’ll meet you here in fifteen?”
Casey caught him behind the neck and pulled him into a second kiss. “Make it ten.”
Laughing, Dev squeezed his hand once, and then strode off in the direction of his office.
He really wants me. Maybe not as much as Casey wanted him, but heck, that was impossible. Casey took a moment to enjoy the view before Dev vanished around the corner and released his excitement from its self-doubt straitjacket.
Randolph Scott leaped from the top of the grandfather clock in the curve of the stairwell and gazed up at Casey, his ears flattened. Casey planted his hands on his hips and glared back.
“Don’t judge. You’ve got to admit that Dev from the rear is a truly inspiring sight.” He sighed. “Although from the front he’s pretty damn inspiring, too.”
Casey left Randolph Scott nosing the picnic basket and raced up the stairs. Ten minutes. He could get ready in ten minutes. Hell, if more sex with Dev was at the finish line, he could make it in five. He bounded into his room and stripped off his T-shirt. But as he was about to launch it onto the bed, he froze.
The clothes he’d discarded after dressing for the picnic were still scattered across the foot of the bed.
However, they weren’t alone.
Shirt clutched in his hand, he crept closer, belly jittering like his failed crème pâtissière, and stopped well short of his pillows.
Because there, set precisely in the middle of each one, was a dead mouse.
“Randolph Scott,” Casey bellowed. “What the actual fuck?”
“Casey?”
Casey turned with a squeak, clutching his shirt to his bare chest, which was… way too princessy for his own self-respect. “Oh. Kenny. Hi. Didn’t, um… Was I expecting you?”
Kenny shook his head. “Not really. I spotted a Shaker-style end table at an estate sale that I thought would work in the living room, so I brought it by. I didn’t realize you’d be here.” He smirked, his glasses glinting orange in the last sunlight slanting in through the window. “Kat said you and Dev would be out tonight.”
“Yeah, well, that’s a work in progress.” He pointed to his pillows and their unwelcome occupants. “But in the meantime, Randolph Scott is punking me.”
Kenny moved closer, shoving his glasses up with one knuckle. “That’s not punking, Casey. It’s a statement of affection.”
“Affection?” Casey’s voice may have risen an octave or two on the word. “How are deceased rodents statements of affection?”
