Page 68 of Merry & Bright

“That’s the rice,” Rob said, letting his hand drop from Cam’s shoulder. His voice sounded husky and he cleared his throat self-consciously, hopping off his stool. “Listen, why don’t you go through to the living room while I serve up dinner? I lit the stove in there when you went up for your bath—it should be nice and cosy now.” Without waiting for a response, he crossed to the hob and reached for the bubbling pan.

“Okay,” Cam said behind him, then, after a pause, “I’ll take the wine glasses through with me, shall I?”

Rob was already on his way to the sink to drain the rice. “Yeah, thanks,” he called over his shoulder. His voice sounded too cheerful. Not his. “Grab the wine out the fridge while you’re at it, will you?”

“Sure.”

It was absurd how attuned Rob was to Cam’s movements behind him as he worked—the pad of the man’s bare feet on the tiled floor and the hum of the fridge as he opened it to extract the wine bottle.

The snick of the kitchen door as he left the room.

Alone at last, Rob stopped what he was doing, closing his eyes briefly. His reaction to Cam McMorrow excited and dismayed him in equal measure. Fancying someone was one thing, but this interest—thisfascinationwas something else. He couldn’t remember feeling this way in ages. Not since Andrew. It was like waking up. Coming alive. And he felt ready for it, eager even.

Except.

He had no reason to believe Cam returned his interest.

“It’s about time you gave someone new a chance...”

If only it was as simple as that.

Chapter Nine

As Rob had promised, the living room was much cosier with the wood stove burning merrily away in the corner. Rob must have turned off the main light while Cam was in the bath and now the room was more softly lit. A couple of lamps glowed in opposite corners of the room and the orange heart of the fire could be glimpsed through the open doors of the stove.

Cam deposited the wine bottle and glasses on a long, low coffee table and took a stiff seat on the sofa.

He still felt strangely unsettled after that moment in the kitchen. The echo of Rob’s touch lingered with him, a ghostly weight on his shoulder, and he found himself lifting his hand to that point of brief connection as though by touching himself he could turn the echo of it into something real.

Such an odd moment. And what had possessed him to blurt out his worries about the business?

Perhaps it was something about the knowing compassion in those bright silver eyes.

“I know how it feels, Cam...”

Compassion wasn’t the only emotion Cam had detected though. No, there had been something else in Rob’s too-brief touch. A flicker of attraction in his gaze. A flickering that felt like a weak reflection of the snaking, insistent desire that had curled in Cam’s own belly in that moment.