Nothing hurt with him so close to me. My throbbing shoulder belonged to someone else and all that existed was his featherlight touch. “I’m okay.”
“You don’t have to be. It was a long day.”
“Only mentally. The rest of it was no worse than normal.”
Gus reclaimed his hand and I just about died of grief. “If it’s any consolation, we had a conversation after you left and he felt pretty bad about riding you so hard.”
“He didn’t ride me. He was his usual self and I wanted to push him off the roof. That’s how we are.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
And you don’t have to give my stubborn arsehole brother a cuddle to make him feel better, but there you go.The jealousy I’d felt at that moment returned like a raging bull. Tension hit my muscles, and a spasm of pain shot through my shoulder.
I swallowed a wince and searched hard for the tiny fraction of myself that was a reasonable human being. “I know it doesn’t have to be like that, but I can’t handle him all up in my face. He thinks I’m an idiot.”
“He doesn’t.”
“He does.”
Gus pursed his full lips, clearly amused.
I scowled at him, but it was impossible to be irritated with him so fucking close. His leg was pressed against the entire length of mine. Our hips were touching. If I sat up an inch I could’ve kissed him, and I craved his ghostlike fingers on my skin.
As if he’d heard my every thought, Gus’s smile faded, and his molten eyes blazed at me. “I need to tell you something. If you haven’t already worked it out, that is.”
Wariness warred with a flash of hope that had no place heating my bones. “If I was any good at working shit out I wouldn’t be cadging your spare room.”
“But you are, so I have a confession to make. At least, I hope it’s a confession and I’m not about to make an idiot of myself over something you don’t even remember.”
Breath caught, I sat up on my elbows. I had hazy memories of him putting me in his bed, and no recollection whatsoever of encountering him on the nights I’d got hammered alone in “my” bedroom. Perhaps I’d stumbled into him on my way to the bathroom. Or made so much noise he’d told me to shut the fuck up. But as Gus twisted his work-hardened hands, and a slight flush coloured his cheeks, my heart suddenly knew he wasn’t talking about anything recent. That his soul had gone back in time and we were about to take a trip down memory lane. “I remember.”
Gus’s smile returned, a whisper at first, but then broader, and brighter, until he seemed to catch himself. “That’s awesome. I was worried you didn’t and you’d think I was a right weirdo.”
“I already think you’re a right weirdo, but not because I jumped you in an alleyway a hundred years ago.”
“Is that what happened? I’ve always remembered it the other way round.”
“Maybe we met in the middle.”
“Maybe.” Gus relaxed again. Somehow, his hand found its way to rest on my stomach and felt like it had been there all along. “Anyway, I never told anyone about it for years, but when you had your accident, and it looked like you might come home, I told Luke.”
“You don’t say,” I drawled, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “That’s your confession? Man, I was hoping for something juicier than that.”
I lay back down, amusement and disappointment sluicing through me in equal measure. Gus leant over me, his hand pressing into my abdomen. “You knew? I didn’t think he’d say anything.”
“He didn’t.”
“So how did you know?”
“Luke twitches when he’s curious. It’s totally different from his deadpan reticence and I can spot it a mile off.”
Gus laughed. “And you narrowed down the source of his twitching without him ever saying anything? That’s some skill.”
“It didn’t take a genius, mate. And I’m glad you told him, to be honest. I never got round to having the sexuality deep and meaningful with him because he wasn’t around when I needed to have it. Sometimes I forget how much my life moved on without him.”
Gus said nothing, just rubbed his hand in a slow, absent circle on my belly. The sensation was fucking magical, and it took every scrap of self-control I possessed not to moan like a dying man.
I closed my eyes, and tried to form the words to continue the conversation. I wanted to reassure him that I didn’t give a single fuck that he’d told my brother about that years-old night, but with Gus’s hand burning fire into my belly, coherent thought was gone.
“Billy?”
I forced my heavy eyes open. “Yeah?”
Gus leant down, and his heated palm slid beneath my T-shirt. “I—”
The oven timer went off.