“Or didn’t happen, you mean.”
“Hmm. Yeah.” I crouched on the floor at the foot of his bed, pulled another box open without even thinking to ask if this one was also full of books.
It was. Kazuo Ishiguro, Wally Lamb, Ian McEwan. Vladimir Nabokov.
My eyebrows lifted and I glanced at Steven. He caught my eye and stood, unmoving, one hand on the shelf at his shoulder height. “Like what you see?”
I gulped. “I’m impressed.”
“You say that like you thought I was a complete philistine.” He sidled nearer, but stopped when he was a foot or two away, thumbs hooked into his trouser pockets.
I remained on the floor, looking up at him. Now this, I both liked, and didn’t. I hated the way he looked at me, even as his scrutiny intrigued.
“Much as I’m sure you’d be uncomfortable if I went for the really obvious punch line,”
he began.
“What?” I asked. “While you’re down there?”
“See? Maybe we are on the same wavelength after all.” Steven grinned. “There’s hope for you yet.” Another shrug, and he went on. “Let’s see to the books first. You can talk about my taste in literature when the real reason for your call makes you too, you know…” He rolled each shoulder in turn, then grimaced. “Icky.”
“Look, I…”
“Come on. Bring the whole box over. I know how icky it makes you handing over a few books at a time. My touch has that effect on a lot of men.” Steven retreated and added from the other side of the room, “Well? I’m offering you the opportunity to hold the box in between us like body armour. Can’t say fairer than that. I can’t possibly stick my tongue down your throat in front of Vladimir Nabokov, could I? It wouldn’t be proper.”
I groaned as I rose, the box in my arms, and did as Steven bid. He’d only ordered me to stand there, holding the box while he did the organising work, but being this close to him was hard enough.
And it wasn’t the only thing that was hard.
One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand…
“So.” He shot me a sideways glance after lightening my load by two Ishiguros and a Rushdie.
“So?”
“You knocked on my door, Kit.”
“Ah. Yeah. The…”
One McCarthy, a Mistry and a Kunzru. “Kiss-that-wasn’t-a-kiss?”
“That.”
“And you wanted to talk to me about it, did you?” Two McEwans. Two more.
Obviously a big fan.
“Yeah.”
“That’s strange.” His lips quirked in a parody of a smile and I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Steven paused with both hands on the waist-height shelf and turned his head to look at me. His body, however, remained angled away. “Because I’m the one doing most of the talking.”
“It’s…” I cleared my throat, looked up at the ceiling, and startled when some weight lifted from the box in my arms. Two hardbacks. I didn’t see the names or titles. I’d somehow lost the ability to read. It didn’t help that they were Steven’s fingertips which skimmed over the gold leaf embossing a title which may have been written in a foreign language for all I could make out. “You know.”
“Hard?”
“Yes. No,” I amended instantly, but not quick enough to stop him bursting out laughing.
I glanced back at the door, as if I expected someone else to have crept into the room unheard by either of us.
“It’s all right. No one’s there.” Steven shook his head slowly as he emptied the box of its final novels. “Besides, I just laughed. If Gary heard me laugh, he wouldn’t think we were up to anything, would he?”
“He’d wonder what the hell Miserable Git Kit had done to entertain our new housemate.”
“Oh, I’m sure you could think of a few things.”
The way he looked me down and up made my spine tingle.
“If I’m in a guy’s bedroom and we’re up to something and he starts laughing, there’s something wrong with my pulling technique,” I muttered.
“Ah, but we’re not, though, are we? Up to something, I mean.”
“No. Maybe, but, oh, where should I…?” I indicated the box and he made a moue with his lips, I’m sure deliberately.
“Just leave it at the foot of the bed. I’ll crush the boxes up and stick them in the recycling bin tomorrow.”
All he’d said about his job since moving in was that he worked in an office. It probably didn’t allow its employees to show up in muscle-tight vests and jeans or shorts—dear God, shorts—but a crisp white shirt and dress trousers would look hot enough as I passed him on the stairs or in the kitchen and—
“Kit?”
“Oh, right. Yeah.” Tossing the box on the floor I turned back to him, startled by the furrowed brow, the intense scrutiny on his face. “I didn’t want you thinking, in the bathroom…” I rubbed the back of my neck as I always did when trying to initiate a bloody uncomfortable conversation, nearly dislodging the painkilling strip. I patted it back into place and cleared my throat. “Look, it’s just with us living together. I mean, sharing a house, not living together, that sounded a bit, you know…”
Near-imperceptibly, he shook his head, the merest twitch and an equally gentle, near-silent, “No,” was the only thing he said, leaning against the bookcase, arms and legs crossed.
“Look, it’s unusual for someone to, you know, in the…” Come on, come on, Kenton. Give me something here.
“Bathroom?”
“Yes.”
“You’d prefer I make a move on you in the privacy of my bedroom?” He pushed his weight off the bookcase and I shuddered, half in fear, half in anticipation. That twist in the pit of my stomach refused to fade.
“No. I mean, not that I…” I gulped when he took a step closer.
“Okay. Should I sneak into your bedroom in the middle of the night?”
“Now I know you’re taking the piss.”
“Why? How do you know?”
I fought the urge to back off, to beat a hasty retreat followed by a fervent session of beating off in my own room.
“Men like you…”
He lowered his
