“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 werethe 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 withfor giving me fuel for the best orgasm I’ve had in years,but he didn’t say it. He wasn’tthatfar 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 wantedto. 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.
twenty-two
. . .
“Don’t. Move.”
“Wha—?”
They’d fallen asleep. After he’d pulled Heath from the brink and they’d collapsed onto the couch, he’d wanted a second to catch his breath. Just a few minutes to let his heart rate return to normal and the ice pack do its job, then he’d go to bed and get some proper sleep.
It was a solid plan, except for the moving part. The longer he’d waited, the more difficult it had been to make himself get up.
That sure as fuck wasn’t his problem now.
“Don’t! I just… I just need a minute.”
At some point, crashing on the couch had becomecuddlingon the couch. He didn’t know when Heath had worked his way up to settle on the pillows. He just woke to find him passed out on top of him, their limbs tangled and his soft exhales warming the side of his neck.
Gentle nudges and jostling had failed to make him move. Heath’s response was instead a koala grapple. Shoving the bastard onto the floor was tempting, but his stupid sense ofdecency worried that startling him might trigger an episode. Less altruistically, his good side was pinned and his bad shoulder hurt like a sonofabitch, so pushing anything wasn’t happening. Especially something as heavy as a Heath that slept like the goddamn dead.
His final bright idea had been an attempt to roll Heath onto his other side. If he could just squirm a little closer to the edge, he could slip onto the floor. That had gone even worse than expected.
He wriggled his good arm until he could wrap it around Heath’s waist and tried to twist and lift simultaneously. Instead of rolling over, Heath nuzzled closer, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and sleepily kissed down the side of his neck. Right overthatspot, the one with the direct line to his dick. So, now he had a… situation, and no goddamn idea what to do about it.
“What’s wrong? Is it your shoulder?”
Groggy and even less coordinated than normal, Heath ignored everything he’d just been told and shifted his weight.
