Dylan bit his tongue and settled for ghosting his hands over Angelo’s twitching muscles, swallowing a sigh of relief when Angelo’s breathing evened out sometime later. Fucking him like that had been incredible, but seeing Angelo in pain would never stop tearing himapart.
“Stop fretting,” Angelo mumbled. “I’mfine.”
“I know you are, babe. Rest, it’sokay.”
Whether Angelo heard him or not, Dylan couldn’t tell, as he was pretty much asleep a moment later. Dylan watched over him for a while, tracing patterns on his glorious skin, and counting his heartbeats, but then his phone buzzed too incessantly for him to ignore, and he reluctantly snuck out of bed to deal withit.
In the kitchen, Helen’s name flashed up on the screen, and Dylan’s heart juddered as he realised that he hadn’t given last night’s events a second thought since his lips had touched Angelo’s. He answered the call. “Helen?”
“It’s me,” she said. “I’ve been calling you all morning. You had me worried when you didn’tanswer.”
“Sorry.” Dylan moved automatically to the kettle and flicked it on. “I wasasleep.”
“Really?”
“That so hard tobelieve?”
“Recently? Yes, actually, it is. You didn’t go out last night, did you? The paramedics told you torest.”
“And I did. I slept till?—?” Dylan checked the time and calculated roughly how long he and Angelo had been fucking. “Shit. I slept till nine. I haven’t done that in years.” He spoke to himself as much as Helen as his mind drifted back to the crazy twenty-four hours that had brought him to this point. She was halfway through a sentence when he realised that she was speaking again. “Sorry.What?”
“The client from yesterday,” Helen said. “You were right: he wasn’t one of ours. Romford had his family’s case on file, but they’d archived it by mistake. The tax credit sanctions were from last year, and no one had done an assessment to see if they could afford the repaymentplan.”
“Romford.” Dylan abandoned the kettle and sat heavily on a stool. “Why is that office a permanent pain in myarse?”
“I’m actually more worried about your leg. The paramedics said you were in for a nastybruise.”
Dylan’s gaze flickered to the shin that had taken the impact of the raging man’s steel-capped boot. He’d been so wrapped up in Angelo since he’d woken up that he hadn’t thought about it. Looking down, the blackish bruise seemed rather small as he recalled the pain he’d endured at the time, but he welcomed the faint throb now. Without it, it would be too easy to pretend that yesterday hadn’t happened. “My leg is fine. I don’t think he wanted to hurtme.”
“I think you’re right,” Helen agreed. “But the fact remains that he did. He brought a machete into the office and threatened you with it?—even if he didn’t say the words. The police will want a statement from you at the very least, so you might want to draft something while it’s fresh in yourmind.”
The only thing fresh in Dylan’s mind right then was the tight heat of Angelo clamped around his dick, but he knew his hyperactive mind well enough to know that even Angelo couldn’t distract him from yesterday’s events forever. “Is the man okay? He went down like a sack of shit when they taseredhim.”
“The hospital released him into police custody this morning, but that’s all I know. I just wish there was something we could do to help his family. If he goes to prison, they’ll be without his incometoo.”
Dylan concurred and then, after agreeing to take a week off work, hung up on Helen with a heavy heart. Yesterday had been so pointless in so many ways it was tough to swallow, and despite Helen’s best intentions, they both knew there was absolutely nothing they could do to make thatright.
He returned to bed, craving the comfort of Angelo’s skin on his. To his surprise, Angelo was awake, lying flat on his back and staring at the ceiling. Dylan recounted Helen’s call to him, and Angelo absorbed it with littlecomment.
Then he sighed and coaxed Dylan into his arms. “You didn’t even know this guy. None of this is yourfault.”
“I know that. It just all got so messy when it didn’t needto.”
“Doesn’teverything?”
Dylan kissed Angelo’s chest. Then he sat up slightly and wove his fingers into Angelo’s hair. “How are you doing? You didn’t get muchsleep.”
“I’m okay,” Angelo said. “Tired, but wired. It’s weird, actually. My brain feels clearer than it has in a longtime.”
“That’s good. You told me in the hospital how much the brain fog frightensyou.”
“Did I? I don’tremember.”
Dylan remembered everything about that night?—how terrifying it had been to see Angelo so ill, but conversely, how he’d come away from it feeling like they finally had a chance. “You want to stay in bed today?” He lightly scraped his fingers over Angelo’s scalp. “To rest, I mean. We could Netflix andchill?”
Angelo shook his head. “As much fun as that sounds, I’ve got to get up. That’s what I’ve learned this week?—that if I can move, Ihaveto, however much it hurts. Muscle memory, youknow?”
Dylan didn’t, but he took Angelo’s word for it and helped him up with a smile that Angelo didn’tmiss.
