Читать книгу Cross My Heart - AM Hartnett - Страница 7

Passing by Evie’s door, Ryan heard the profanity and laughed under his breath. Most people expected Seth to be either crass or a gentle giant. For most of the time, the landlord fitted the latter category – but when he slipped into the former, man, could he ever swear. He made cussing an art form.

It stopped when Ryan knocked on the doorjamb.

‘Need a hand?’

Seth turned around and raised his thick brows. ‘No offence, but you don’t look like you know how to even unclog a drain.’

Ryan crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I know how to put in a catheter. Do you?’

‘What is that? Some kind of threat?’

‘I’m just pointing out that we both know a bit about plumbing.’

Seth shuddered. ‘That might just be the most disgusting thing anyone has ever said to me, and I suppose I deserved that. No, I don’t need any help. I’m almost done. I’m just sitting here pissed off at myself for fucking up to begin with and then not being able to get a plumber. Evie’s at your place, if you’re looking for her. She was chopping up veggies for something when I left her.’

Ryan couldn’t help the thorn of possessiveness that pricked him every time he found out that Evie and Seth had been hanging out. Christ, how could he not? Look at Seth. If Ryan was still in denial about his sexuality, Seth Axworthy would have pushed him over the edge.

He didn’t think he really had anything to worry about, though. Seth was still dealing with losing Rita, and Evie…well, he’d like to think that Evie had chosen him over other men, including Seth, but he knew that Evie still had a little crush on him.

He had to trust her or go out of his mind every minute they weren’t together.

‘Heard you got a little surprise when you were in here earlier,’ Ryan teased, and Seth guffawed even as he strained against his pipe wrench like he was trying to pull Excalibur from the stone.

‘Yeah, quite the colourful collection. Could have been worse. She could have known I saw the stuff on the bed before she ran in here to clean it up.’

Ryan laughed sheepishly. ‘You’ve seen worse.’

‘That’s what I told her, but I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t want to scar her for life.’

‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’

He hiked his backpack up his shoulder and watched as Seth wiped his brow with his bare forearm, and he couldn’t help remembering the last time he’d seen Seth sitting on the floor of a bathroom. Rita had been there, sitting on the toilet seat with a beer in one hand and Marco, the kitten she’d fished out of the dumpster a few weeks ago, on her lap. When sweat got in her husband’s eyes, she automatically reached out and wiped it away with her sleeve, then tucked the beer into his hand.

Ryan couldn’t begin to imagine how lonely it must be for Seth to be on his own after Rita passed. He didn’t see much of her, save for once, close to the end, when Seth was lifting her out of the car. She hadn’t even looked like herself. Even with all he’d seen at the hospital, Ryan had nearly blanched with horror at her skeletal frame before stepping forward to offer his help. He’d received a warning look from Seth and backed off, and a few weeks later she was gone.

As badly as he wanted to go upstairs and lock himself in with Evie at that moment, he found the words tugging at the tip of his tongue.

‘Hey, why don’t you come up when you’re done? There’s always too much left over.’

Seth grunted with effort. ‘It’ll be a while.’

‘Then we’ll get shitfaced on cheap wine until you’re ready. We’re fun drunks.’

The throaty sound Ryan first mistook for a chuckle revealed itself as a growl as Seth settled back. ‘I wish people would stop doing that.’

There it was, the same warning as that day outside with Rita, only with more menace. Ryan shifted uncomfortably, wishing he’d just kept his mouth shut.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t need to be pitied,’ Seth went on, grimacing as he fought with the pipe. His next words came out as a hiss through his teeth. ‘I don’t need pity. I’m not some sad old man sitting around with his cat and a TV dinner, and I got enough free food after the funeral.’

‘I didn’t mean –’

‘No one ever does,’ Seth snapped, and cursed again before sitting back. He shook his head, and for a horrifying moment, as he pinched the bridge between his eyes, Ryan worried his landlord was going to cry.

‘Evie’s waiting for you. She kept checking the clock while I was up there. Go. I’ll slip a note under the door when I’m finished, though she might as well stay the night up there.’

Ryan took a step back. He lingered even though he wished he had the ability to teleport upstairs, or at the very least erase chunks of time like the last minute.

Seth shot him another warning look, and then he laughed. It seemed to Ryan as though the other man was laughing at himself.

‘Get out of here before I make you help me.’

Ryan quietly exhaled. Free with no hard feelings. ‘If you change your mind, we’ll be upstairs.’

As soon as he locked the door behind him, Ryan dropped his pack and went in search of Evie. He found her sitting on his bed, feet bare and hanging over the edge of the bed as she channel surfed. She turned and smiled, and before she could say anything he leaned down and kissed her.

Aside from the small sound of surprise at his intensity, Evie gave in to his kiss immediately. She let the remote drop and cupped his face, and when he’d leached enough good vibes from her with that kiss and lifted his head, she was ready with a smile.

‘Bad day?’

‘A little bit, but mostly I missed you,’ he said quickly, deciding instantly that he wouldn’t share the moment downstairs with Seth. He straightened and stripped off his coat and his uniform, then sat on the edge of the bed – close enough so that his shoulder pressed against hers – and removed his shoes and socks. ‘What smells so good?’

‘Chicken soup. I found the recipe online and made a huge pot. We’ll be eating it for days.’ She wrapped her arms around his neck and dropped a ring of soft kisses beneath his ear, making him shiver. ‘Did you miss me?’

‘You have no idea.’ He rested his temple against hers, then chuckled. ‘Didn’t I tell you to wash your toys in my dishwasher?’

‘Oh, shush.’ She smacked a kiss on his cheek and drew back. ‘Go shower. You smell like hospital. I’ll set the table.’

He caught her by the wrist as she drew away and hauled her into his lap. ‘Come with me.’

‘I just got out of the shower, and besides, you’ll be too relaxed to eat –’

‘I don’t mean that. I just…’ He slipped his arm around her waist, her warmth bleeding into him. ‘I just want to be closed in with you for a little while.’

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you all right?’

Ryan pressed his lips together. He was suddenly breathless, desperate to wrap his arms around her so tight he couldn’t tell which was her heart beating and which was his.

‘Let’s take it easy tonight, OK? Just hang out on the couch together. I’ll let you pick the show.’ He smiled, then gave her bottom lip a delicious nibble. ‘I’m feeling a little nostalgic for the days when we just talked and talked until we fell asleep.’

‘Am I wearing you out?’ she teased, then squealed as he gave the meat of her ass a hard slap.

‘That’ll never happen, but even sex fiends like us need to take a break every once in a while.’

He kissed her again, slowly and tenderly, until she sighed against his lips, and moments later, as the hot water poured over them, he mouthed against her damp hair what he couldn’t bring himself to say to her face.

Even without the sex, Ryan was out like a light by eight o’clock. One minute they were muttering together, his head on her lap as they watched The X-Files, and the next his low snore vibrated against her.

She kept stroking his hair as he slept, and when she was sure he was in a deep enough sleep not to stir she dragged her phone from the table alongside the sofa and opened the dating app.

In total, she had received 42 messages since she created her profile. The picture she had used was completely unremarkable, just a grainy webcam shot of the lower half of her face and delving only as far as her midsection where the desk cut it off.

A few were just looking for a good time for a night, but the majority of her responses were genuinely interested in what she proposed. The quality of respondents seemed to improve as well. Only premium members could contact her unless she contacted them first.

She hadn’t seen anyone who downright scared her yet. In fact, she had kept messages from five men. The most risqué photo shared with her was of a man with his shirt open to the navel and his trousers opened to reveal an impressive bulge inside white undies.

She read through them again and studied the pictures, trying to imagine this body moving on top of her or those hands closing in Ryan’s hair, and she kept going back to one messenger who had introduced himself as David.

He had videos posted, too. Short clips of him with both men and women, and watching them had given her a queer mixture of arousal and trepidation. She could never really get aroused by the genuine porn she and Ryan sometimes watched together. Like most straight porn, it was too campy to do anything more than make her snicker. David’s shaky, grainy videos were nothing to chuckle at. For the most part he was the faceless entity behind the camera, murmuring edicts to his partner – or partners – as they knelt before him, or panting and groaning as he fucked them.

Unlike most, he had a photo of his face. Not some blurry selfie but a candid shot of him at the beach, squinting into the sun.

Glancing from the phone to her sleeping partner, Evie wondered if Ryan would say David was his type. Did he have a type? She wasn’t sure. Browsing on the free site he seemed to gravitate towards the young and fit, like him, but she suspected he had a taste for older, more experienced men. She’d catch him lingering just a few seconds longer on profiles of men who looked a little rough, and she suspected that deep down he had a thing for bad boys. REDWOLF77 had been a mixture of the two types with his polished exterior and aggressive smile.

She took one last look at David’s profile, then set her phone aside. She’d make up her mind tomorrow whether to reply to him, and then she’d decide whether to tell Ryan.

‘Hey,’ she whispered and stroked his cheek. ‘Hey, wake up.’

He sniffed and shifted on to his side, and with a deep sigh opened his eyes.

‘My legs are falling asleep,’ she told him.

He caught her fingers and pulled them to his lips. ‘Come to bed with me?’

‘It’s too early.’

He flashed a droopy smile. ‘Come with me anyway. You can watch TV in bed. It’s more comfortable than this lumpy sofa.’

‘You just crashed on this lumpy sofa.’

Ryan groaned as he got up. ‘I’m not a chronic insomniac like you.’

They turned off the big television and Ryan pulled her along, his feet shuffling on the laminate contrasting with the naughty smile he flashed her.

‘Don’t you even act like you’re not going to crash in about five seconds,’ she teased from her side of the bed as he wriggled out of his clothes.

‘Don’t you underestimate my stamina,’ he quipped, then dived beneath the covers, yet by the time she’d changed into his most comfortable T-shirt he was dozing once more.

She made it through one episode of an 80s sitcom on Netflix before she popped out of the bed again. She went to Ryan’s computer and pulled up a new private browser window, then logged into her secret profile and typed in response to David’s initial greeting.

Hey to you, too. Nice pictures. Even nicer videos. Care to –

A shiver went through her and she looked towards the bedroom, but in spite of the feeling creeping through her she found no one there.

No one save for the lithe shadow that crept through the open window.

She closed the laptop and stood. ‘Marco, you know you’re not allowed to be in here. Big Poppa is going to swing you by your tail if you keep sneaking around like a big perv.’

The cat’s attempt to evade her was a miss, and it meowed indignantly as she went to the window.

‘Seth! You down there?’

She listened and could hear voices, but she was too far up to tell whether it was from the television or he had a visitor.

With Marco resigned to his captivity and purring against her chest, she stepped on to the fire escape and descended. She’d reached her window when a cool breeze reminded her that she didn’t have any panties on. She cursed, then cursed again when a tug on her window confirmed that after Seth had finished in there he must have locked it.

And another sound confirmed that it wasn’t the television she heard. Seth had company.

Good company, if that woman’s moan she heard was any indication.

‘Eep,’ she whispered on the top of the cat’s head and looked back up. She supposed she could keep Marco for the night and he’d probably wander out by himself, but the more likely scenario would be that Seth would go looking for the cat before settling in for the night.

‘Do me a favour, would you? Just this once, do as you’re told,’ she whispered, and as quietly as she could she descended a little further.

Without peeking around into the window, Evie put the cat inside on the sill, but the little bastard just strutted back out and started to follow. No amount of shooing or wild gestures would get him to move, so she took a deep breath and picked him up again, then crouched right in front of the window.

Seth had company all right. A woman she’d never seen before, lying in his recliner, legs draped over the arms and panties hanging by one ankle. She had her hand on Seth’s head, which bobbed between her legs, and she was crowing louder and louder.

Evie threw the cat in and was gone before its feet landed on the floor. On the way up she heard murmuring and then giggling.

After shutting the window behind her and closing the one in the bedroom to only a crack, she returned to the computer and discarded her message to David, then went to the bed.

‘Wake up, I have to tell you something,’ she hissed at Ryan as she shook his shoulder.

He sat up. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong. I just need to rub something in your face.’

‘What?’

She giggled and scooted deeper under the covers. ‘Seth is down there eating out some woman.’

Ryan stared at her a moment, then clapped his hand over his bleary eyes and laughed. ‘What?’

‘I think Marco was ashamed to watch. He came up here and so I took him back down, and there was Seth on his knees with his face in some red-head’s crotch.’ She grinned and punched him in the shoulder. ‘And you said he was still too busted up about Rita to get involved with someone.’

‘Are you sure he wasn’t, I don’t know, wiping up something she spilled on…her crotch…you know, with his tongue?’

Evie threw a pillow over her face and hooted into it, and the bed shook as Ryan joined in.

‘How long did you stand there and watch?’

‘Three seconds, tops. I had that delayed reaction where my brain needed to catch up to my eyeballs. Then I threw Marco in and came back in here. That cat is going to be pissed the next time he sees me.’

‘Did they see you?’

‘God, I hope not. It’s bad enough thinking he can hear our sex noises without adding that to the mix.’ She stuffed the pillow under her head and grinned back at him. ‘I told you so.’

Ryan opened his mouth but caught what he was about to say and pressed his lips together.

She gave him a light kick under the covers. ‘What is it?’

He puckered his mouth into a scowl, then lost it in a chuckle. ‘I think this might be my fault.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Sighing, he shifted closer to her. ‘Tonight when I passed your place I dropped in and invited him up and he took it the wrong way. He thought I was feeling sorry for him – which I was – and went all angry dog on me.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Oh, yeah. So it’s possible he’s down there fucking that woman to spite me.’

Evie raised her brows. ‘I hope she comes up here and thanks you afterwards.’

‘That good?’

‘Not that I could see his technique, but if the sounds she made were any indication I’d say Seth has got a gold medal in clit gymnastics.’

Ryan flopped on to his back and laughed until he wheezed, then wiped tears away as he looked back to her. ‘You think we should ask him up so he can show me a thing or two?’

‘I think you’re doing just fine.’

‘But I only have a silver medal. I have big dreams, you know.’

‘You may only have the silver medal, but you deserve the gold.’ She leaned over and kissed him, giving his tongue a quick swipe with hers. He raised his head to deepen the kiss, but she drew back. ‘You’ll conk out if you try, and then I might really have to invite Seth up here.’

‘Cruel woman and your wicked words.’ He pulled her close and buried his nose in her hair, making a warm and tingly spot where he breathed. ‘Good for him, though. I mean, even if he’s not ready to date there’s no reason why he can’t at least have a bit of fun. Did you recognise her?’

‘Nope.’

‘I’ll bet he found her online,’ he said, then lowered his voice with his renewed laughter. ‘I’ll bet he found her on the same site we’re on. I’ll bet he’s seen our profile. Maybe he’s one of those guys who messaged me to tell me how badly he wants to come on my chest while you stick a massive dildo up his bum.’

‘That did not really happen, did it?’

‘Actually, it did. I delete those kinds of messages before you have a chance to see them.’

‘I don’t know whether to be annoyed or to thank you.’

‘Trust me, if I showed you a picture of some old man’s hand covered in his own jizz, you’d be more than annoyed with me.’

‘Uck.’ As Ryan’s lids started to droop again, Evie stroked his cheek to have one more minute with him before he went under. ‘I’m happy for him, and I guess that gives us something to be optimistic about. If Seth can get himself a playmate, there’s no reason why we can’t.’

Ryan’s smile only reached one side as he tucked her hand against his chest, and then he was asleep.

Though she still wasn’t ready for bed, Evie stayed with him and watched with one thought running through her mind.

And if we can’t, will this be good enough?