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 happenedafterhe’d fallen asleep, he sure as hell remembered what he’d been doingbefore. 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—andthe 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?”
