Chapter 10 #3
“It’s either that or In the Night Garden, which is a lot less exciting than the name makes it sound.” He stares at me. “No argument at all?”
I give him a look of incomprehension. “Oz, this is me. When would I ever use loud words and shout?”
He shakes his head. “All the time around Niall. He brings it out in you.”
I sigh and lie back against the sofa, grabbing a throw and winding it around my shoulders. “That’s not very good, is it?”
“Yes, it is,” he says simply, moving in next to me so he can share the throw.
I look around in an attempt to distract. “I need to turn the heater on up here.” He doesn’t take the bait, so I give in with a sigh and look back at him. “Why is it good?”
“Because it shows you’re alive.” He shudders and twists the throw closer. “Although I’m beginning to doubt that if you’re staying in this temperature. Milo, it’s like a meat freezer up here.”
“I never notice it.”
“That’s because for the last week you’ve been wrapped around the handsome estate manager.” He pauses before saying with a tone of delighted revelation, “Oh my God, it’s like Lady Chatterley’s Lover . Oh, please make Niall develop an accent like Sean Bean. It’d make him so attractive.”
“Well, if he wants tips on doing accents, he could ask for them from my brother who is staying with him at the moment.”
“What?”
I nod and close my eyes. “Yep. Gideon is down there. I’d say he hasn’t wasted any time replacing me but that would be ridiculous because I was always in Gideon’s place. Keeping it warm for the real owner.”
“What utter bollocks.”
My eyes fly open. “What?”
“You heard. That’s such a load of crap.”
“You do know that they’ve been sleeping together since they were at secondary school?”
“I do now,” he says primly. “Silas had to spill the beans.”
“How did you get him to tell you that?”
He twists his lips. “I have my ways.”
I shake my head. “I’m sure you have. Don’t tell me because you might scar me for life.”
Amusement flares in his eyes but it vanishes quickly and he twists to face me. “I knew Niall had a good mate that he was fucking for years. I didn’t know it was your brother and I had no idea he also happened to be a very well-known actor famed for his voice and acting ability.”
I sigh. “I know. Now can you see why I was just a bed warmer.”
“No.”
I stare at him and the abrupt way he said it. “What?”
He grimaces. “Niall’s been fucking him for years, but I’ll tell you right now he has never been emotionally attached to him. Silas says he never fell for him.”
“He’s closer to Gideon than anyone other than Silas.”
“He might be. Doesn’t mean that he fell for him. I tell you now, I know how Niall looks when he’s interested. I wonder that you can’t tell the difference.”
“Why would I be able to?”
“Because the person he looks at like that is you.”
“It is not,” I scoff, feeling my heart begin to beat fast. “You’ve been reading too many Catherine Cooksons.”
“While it’s true that Mrs. Cookson does prepare you for any eventuality to do with badly behaved men, I don’t need her to see the truth about Niall. I just need a workable pair of eyes. Even Silas has noticed.”
Hope twists in my heart. “Has he?” Then I slump. “No, I think you’re seeing things. We’re just fucking at the moment. It doesn’t mean anything. If there’s softness there it’s because of who I am in relation to Gideon, not for myself. Niall has never seen me as anything other than a little brother.”
“I think that’s more of a plot for Hollyoaks ,” he says primly, then sighs. “You’re wrong. Out of everyone, Niall has always seen you clearer than anyone. It’s like he has X-ray specs just for someone called Milo Ramsay.”
“Well, I hope he’s taken them off while he fucks my brother and Jacinta tonight, or it might make things uncomfortable,” I say sourly.
He gets off the sofa and bends over to kiss my head. “While that sounds like a Jackie Collins novel, we both know that won’t be happening tonight.”
“How?” I mutter but he just shakes his head.
“I’m off. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”
“Oh, will we?” I shout after him. “Maybe that won’t happen.”
“It will,” his voice floats up the stairs before there’s a click and the door shuts at the bottom of the stairs.
It takes me a long while to go to sleep that night. I twist and turn on the mattress as if it’s made of stone while my mind races and twists down labyrinthine paths. That’s probably why it takes me a second to realise that the lamp switching on in my room isn’t part of my dreams.
I sit up, blinking and pushing the covers away before scraping my hair back from my face. Then I gape at the figure at the bottom of the bed. “What are you doing here?”
Niall pauses where he’s taking off his jeans. He’s already managed his jumper and the light dances over his hard, muscled chest. “You’re here, aren’t you?” he says somewhat crossly.
“I don’t understand,” I say blearily, watching as he flings his jeans over the sofa and slides into bed next to me.
He looks around. “This bloody place,” he mutters. “It’s like Helena Bonham Carter decided to take up interior decorating for The Swiss Family Robinson .”
“And yet here you are, rather than in your white and grey bedroom in the white and grey house.”
He eases next to me and raises one eyebrow. “That sounds like a subtle hint?”
“If a subtle hint means saying that you have the decorating ability of a Travelodge decorator, then yes, it’s subtle.”
“Ouch!” His mouth quirks and he nestles closer, pushing me gently onto my side and snuggling up behind me. I can feel all his long, warm body against mine and his arm is a heavy weight across my hips. I feel my body unravel the tension in it as if I’ve got into a hot bath.
“Mmm,” he says hoarsely. “That’s more like it.”
“Why are you not in your own bed?” I pause. “Is it too full for you?”
“That’s very catty.” His voice is sleepy and curiously pleased, but his arm tightens so I can’t turn and see his face. “Settle down,” he grunts. “I need to sleep.”
“In here?”
“Yes. This is where you are. So, if I want to sleep that’s where I must be.” He settles into the mattress and me with a soft grunt of pleasure. “I can’t seem to sleep without you at the moment.”
The darkness makes me brave. “I know,” I whisper. “I’m the same. What does it mean?”
His body goes tight against mine as if I’ve taken him by surprise, and his voice when he speaks is cautious. “Why don’t we just take it as a fact. Don’t overanalyse, Milo. You’ll only see problems that way.”
I know there are tons of things wrong with that statement but because it echoes my own need to hide my head in the sand, I adopt his suggestion. “Where’s Gideon?” I whisper.
His arm tightens almost painfully, and I murmur a complaint. He relaxes immediately and kisses my shoulder in a sweet gesture that’s so very him despite his sardonic exterior. He’s actually one of the sweetest men I’ve ever met.
“He’s back at my house in the guest bedroom.”
“Did you?”
His indrawn breath stops my words. “That you could think that.”
I grab his arm and squeeze it. “I’m sorry,” I say immediately. “I know you wouldn’t.” And I do. It’s not him. No matter what Niall is, he’s honest. It can be brutal, but he always tells the truth.
“So, why didn’t you come after me sooner?” I whisper and feel my cheeks immediately heat when the words come out without my permission.
He stiffens as if surprised and then croons something under his breath and kisses my neck, nestling his long nose under the fall of my hair. I shudder at the touch of his warm, soft lips and the tickle as he breathes in deeply.
“He wanted to talk to me,” he finally says. “And I couldn’t stop my arrangement with him without speaking first. I owe him that.”
I breathe in. “You’re stopping it?”
“Of course, sweetheart. You know I am.”
Silence falls as I digest his words but despite my best efforts, I’m sleepy. The warmth of his body, the way my body has relaxed its tenseness, and the late hour conspire to make my blinks longer until my eyes drift shut. Nevertheless, I stir myself with one last question. “So, how did it go?”
He chuckles sleepily. “It didn’t. We got in the house and he started talking about other things. No matter how I tried I couldn’t get round to the subject. You Ramsay men are determined.”
That should bother me, I think sleepily. But I’m so tired and when he whispers ‘Sleep, darling,’ I let the sweet words push me into sleep.