“Neither had I until thismorning.”
Dylan stared at Angelo, his bloodshot eyes suddenly more intense than ever. “Don’t lie tome.”
“Why would I lie? If I really am a stalker, I’m a pretty shit one, given that you know everything about me and my family. No mystery there, mate, isthere?”
“I guessnot.”
“Right.” Angelo started to moveaway.
Dylan caught his arm again. “Don’tgo.”
“Whynot?”
“I don’t know.” Dylan’s grip on Angelo’s arm tightened. “Because it’sraining?”
Angelo laughed for what felt like the first time in a year. “If you’re worried about getting wet, it’s a little late for that.” He gestured at their drenched clothes and shivered. “I gotta get home before I bloodydrown.”
A bus rumbling past drowned out Dylan’s reply, and his feet moved in the wrong direction. Belatedly, Angelo realised that Dylan was tugging him in the direction of his flat. “What are youdoing?”
Dylan speared him with a determined frown. “I’m taking youhome.”
“I live over there,remember?”
“I meant myhome.”
“Why?”
Dylan yanked on Angelo’s arm a little harder. “Because we don’t know the answer to that question. Now come the fuckon.”
Chapter Three
Dylan closedthe door behind them and leaned back on it, watching as Angelo turned a slow circle in the hallway, his gaze flicking around the mesh of urban and vintagedécor.
“This place isnice.”
“This is the weirdest day ever,” Dylan countered, and it truly was. For years, he’d kept most facets of his life separate, but today they’d collided and his brain had caughtfire.
“?...?you did more for me a week ago when I railed you atLovato’s.”
Was that true? Thinking back over their meeting that morning, it probably was.Brilliant. So you’re a better shag than you are a debt counsellor. Guess Angelo can use a fuck-hot blowjob to pay his overdraftthen.
Dylan shook his head to clear it, struggling to match the Angelo, who’d apparently chucked him all over the basement room mattress, with the exhausted man he’d found in the interview room that morning. Both versions of Angelo Giordano weregorgeous, but what had happened in the eight hours since Angelo had dropped his bomb was all kinds of screwedup.
And now Angelo was in Dylan’s house.What the hell do I donow?
A hundred questions burned on Dylan’s tongue, but none seemed right. Water dripped from both of them onto the hardwood floor. Dylan watched the puddles grow until a violent shiver wracked Angelo’s slim frame and spurred him into action. “I’ll get sometowels.”
He dashed to the airing cupboard and retrieved two towels, tossing one at Angelo when he returned to the hallway and pointing at the kitchen. “Comethrough.”
Angelo’s presence behind him was like a live hand grenade, and the silence that drowned them was too loud. Dylan flicked the switch on his wireless speaker as he passed. The Cooper Temple Clause drifted out, smooth and low, heady and deep, and did nothing to ease the scratchy friction in Dylan’sveins.
“The ‘Murder Song’? Are you sure it’s not you that’s the mad axemurderer?”
A dry chuckle caught in Dylan’s throat. He opened the fridge and found his last two bottles of Polish lager. “Here. It tastes like piss, but I make lousycoffee.”
“I’m sick of coffee. Been brewing it allday.”
Dylan had forgotten that. The deli that belonged to Angelo’s family made the best paninis in east London, but Dylan couldn’t picture him slaving over the press or wrestling with the ancient coffee machines it was famousfor.
