“Mate, I ain’t going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
“I promise, Shay.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Ollie didn’tgo back to sleep. Instead he watched over Shay and read the news on his phone, all the while trying not to freak the fuck out over the insanity of the last twelve hours.You let him fuck you.More than that, he’d let Shay love him, and now his body was on fire with the best kind of heat. His scars tingled where Shay had touched him, and he realised with a start that he wanted Shay to touch him again, and to keep on touching him until Shay begged to let him stop.
He was upside down. He was sure of it. Shay had always made him feel like someone brand new that even Ollie didn’t recognise, but he was sorely unprepared for the barrage of contentment his heart sent out to combat the doubts in his brain. He searched for regret but found nothing but love.
Love.Fucking-A. Could he do that? Could he love Shay? Because his heart already knew that Shay loved him. It was in every gentle touch and kind word. Every fierce glare when Ollie was being a dick. And Shay deserved to be loved so hard in return. Cherished. Adored. Could Ollie be that man?
A year ago, hell, even a week ago, Ollie would’ve said no. Now he wanted to be that man so badly his chest ached. The need to take care of Shay was overwhelming, and it was only the necessity of food that drove him from the bed.
The Tupperware pot he’d retrieved from the freezer last night was still in the sink. He chucked its contents in a pan to heat up, dug out somekopytkato go with it, and put a pan of water on the stove to boil. The tiny potato dumplings took minutes to cook, and by then, his grandmother’s goulash was heated through.
He was digging around for matching bowls when Shay shuffled into the kitchen, sleepy gaze halfway between alarmed and confused until it fell on Ollie.
“There you are.”
He thought I left.Pain lanced Ollie’s heart. Crockery forgotten, he straightened and closed the stride-length distance between them. He pulled Shay into the kind of embrace that lasted forever, and Shay sagged against him, his obvious relief cutting Ollie to the bone.
He nosed Shay’s hair out of his face. “Are you ready to eat?”
“Uh-huh.” After a long pause, Shay raised his head. “That’s what woke me up. It smells like that place you sent me to up north.”
“Good. Then I made it right. You liked the goulash, didn’t you?”
“Loved it.” Shay peered around Ollie, and his expression brightened. “I’ve been dreaming about it ever since. Did you seriously make this?”
“I did. Can’t remember when, though. It’s been in the freezer a while.”
“You’re so organised.”
“First time for everything, eh? Seriously, though, it’s a Polish thing. In my family, the men cook as much as the women. More, probably. We like it.”
“You’ll have to teach me.”
Warmth replaced pain. “I’d like that.”
Ollie sent Shay to the couch and followed him with their dinner… lunch—whatever it was. “You want a beer?”
Shay shook his head. “Fuck that noise. I need a detox.”
Ollie couldn’t argue with that. It was only driving the van that saved his liver from coming home pickled.
They ate in companionable silence, the glow of what they’d left in the bedroom still burning bright between them. Emotions Ollie couldn’t name rippled through him, and it didn’t seem to matter how close he sat to Shay, it wasn’t close enough.
Shay disappeared to check his sugar level. When he came back, he looked better than he had in days. “I think it’s over.”
Relief washed over Ollie. He’d blocked out how much seeing Shay so incapacitated had scared him, but with the shadow gone—for now—everything seemed lighter. He held out his hand. Shay took it and dropped back onto the couch beside him.
“We have thirty-six hours,” he said. “What do you want to do?”
Ollie could think of plenty of things, all of them involving little or no clothes, and more self-imposed restraint slipped away. “You know, before the, uh, accident, I was a bit of a slag—different fella every night—but after, I never slept with anyone until you.”
If Shay was taken aback by Ollie’s extreme answer to his benign question, it didn’t show. He lolled his head on Ollie’s shoulder. “I’ve slept with, like, four people my entire life, and two of them were girls. I mean, I love sex, but I have a hard time separating it from my emotions, so I’ve only ever done it with people I lo—um, have strong feelings for.”
