Chapter 21
twenty-one
. . .
“Evan?” Heath pushed toward him in the water. Everything was moving in slow motion, including his mind.
What the hell was going on? Why were they in the pool? He had no memory of anything after collapsing into bed.
Evan blew out a stream of bubbles, then surfaced and immediately grabbed him by the back of his neck.
The moment on the boat flashed through Heath’s mind, and he wondered if Evan was about to kiss him again.
Instead, Evan pulled him into a tight one-armed hug, which was a more than acceptable consolation prize.
“You fucking asshole.” Evan’s voice was thick and raw against the shell of his ear. Goosebumps raised across every inch of his skin, the vulgar and threatening tone a goddamn aphrodisiac.
“What—?”
Evan pushed him at arm’s length, looking him over with an intensity that made Heath very glad his lower half was submerged in freezing water.
“You told me I couldn’t die, then went caterwauling in the dark? You could’ve died! What the fuck were you doing?”
“I was doing what now?” Heath dug through the fuzzy contents of his memory and came up empty, but Evan’s words…
Oh, no.
“Shit. What did I do?”
“What do you mean, ‘What did I do?’”
“I don’t have any memory of what happened.”
“You don’t remember?”
Heath sighed. “I was sleepwalking.”
Evan looked dangerously close to throttling him. “You were… sleepwalking?”
“Let’s get inside. I’ll explain when we’re dry and warm.”
Evan didn’t appear terribly convinced, but he nodded and hauled himself out of the pool. “I should put some ice on this anyway. Before it gets any worse.”
Heath didn’t understand what Evan was referring to until they entered the house.
He gasped, the damage on Evan’s side hitting him directly in the gag reflex—which was typically one of his best-trained muscles.
He’d scuffed the skin of his shoulder raw, and it was already bruising.
Blood oozed from abrasions that ran along his ribs to his hip.
It was gruesome and looked very painful.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“That’s good, because I doubt the bread knife is sharp enough for amputation.”
Evan laughed and then winced. “I’m gonna rinse this off in the bathroom.”
“I’ll make an ice pack.”
He hurried ahead to the kitchen and dumped one of the ice trays into a plastic bag, then wrapped that in a dishtowel.
A minute later, a shout of pain announced Evan’s return.
He’d showered somehow, as evidenced by the beaded water dripping off him, but drying off one-handed hadn’t seemed to go so well.
He gave Heath a look of resignation and held out a towel. “Not to be weird, but—”
Heath took the towel, offering the ice pack in return, and Evan rewarded him with a lopsided grin that flipped his stomach like a quarter. Heads Evan clocked him, tails they made out?
The smile changed to a grimace as he placed the ice on Evan’s shoulder. Traces of blood lingered in the deeper scratches, and it was clear the shoulder would be livid come morning. Guilt gnawed at him.
“Evan, I’m so sorry.”
“I’ll take that explanation now.”
“Yes. Right. Of course.”
Heath averted his eyes and patted at the droplets clinging to Evan’s skin.
It was an exercise in humility and a keen form of torture.
The closeness was excruciating. That delectable scent he’d rolled around in like a cat in heat was ten times stronger at the source, and while he might not remember everything that had happened after he’d fallen asleep, he sure as hell remembered what he’d been doing before.
In fact, parts of him were now recalling it with especially stunning clarity as he kneeled at Evan’s feet to dry his legs.
So help me God, don’t you dare, he threatened the stirrings in his groin. In desperation, he closed his eyes and thought of his sophomore year Lit professor, a lovely man with an unfortunate fondness for onion dip.
“Heath?”
He stopped drying and made a massive tactical error by looking up from his subservient position. Mistake. Huge mistake. Evan looked back, his eyes shining golden-green, the light behind him setting his hair ablaze.
He was striking. Captivating. Mesmerizing. Heath stared, entranced by this vision of rigid muscles and freckled skin—and the obvious fact Evan wasn’t wearing anything beneath the shorts he’d changed into.
My God.
Evan eased himself onto the couch, balancing the ice pack atop his shoulder while his head dropped back and his eyes closed. Heath just continued to stare, unsure whether to join him or stay sitting on the floor or…
The thought of crawling between Evan’s legs and thanking him properly for saving his life flashed briefly through Heath’s mind. The effect it had on him elsewhere shot him to his feet, and he dashed to the kitchen, where he began folding the dishtowels into tidy little squares.
“It’s why I don’t drink,” he explained, tucking the neatened stack into one of the kitchen drawers.
“Sleepwalking?”
Once again in control of his faculties, Heath approached with caution and sat at the far end of the couch, pulling his knees to his chest so he could make himself as small as he felt.
“Yes. It started when I was very young. There were tests done and theories floated. It’s consistently triggered by stress or an altering of my faculties. So, I didn’t party and learned to meditate.”
“You meditate?”
“Why do you sound so incredulous?”
Evan opened his eyes and returned his stare. “You scared the shit out of me, man. Does this mean I have to tie you to the bed every night?”
Heath choked out a noise between a laugh and a groan and felt his face grow hot. “What did I tell you before about checks?”
Evan’s eyes slid to his lap, his cheeks slowly flushing, and Heath lamented that his phone was still somewhere at the bottom of his bag and no doubt dead as a doornail. What were the chances he’d ever succeed in getting Evan Westin to blush again?
“About that. I’m—”
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” he snapped, surprising them both. In his mind, he finished the sentence with for giving me fuel for the best orgasm I’ve had in years, but he didn’t say it. He wasn’t that far gone.
“Um… okay.”
“I—um… I just mean you don’t have to apologize for joking around. I’m not that fragile.”
“Right.” Evan’s eyes dropped again, and Heath’s heart skipped. Of course, it was a joke. He’d read into it because he’d wanted to. It was ridiculous to think Evan had really been coming on to him. Ludicrous. Asinine. Preposterous.
Right?
“So the stuff with the storm brought this on?”
“Almost assuredly. I should have been better prepared for the possibility, but—” But instead of meditative breathing exercises, he’d engaged in the sort that stimulated his brain further.
Then he’d dry-humped the sheets instead of locking the bedroom door and setting alarms that would keep him out of deep sleep.
Evan nodded and closed his eyes again, his body going slack as he sank into the cushions. “I’m so fucking tired, but I don’t want to move.”
“If you fall asleep on the couch, I’m stealing the bed again,” Heath warned, though his own eyes were heavy, and the idea of walking all the way to the bedroom was laughable.
Unreasonable.
Absurd.