A Rulebook for Restless Rogues by Jess Everlee

Author:Jess Everlee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises ULC
Published: 2023-05-02T14:42:21+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Noah

When Noah awoke the next morning, it was still real. They were both stark naked, lying in his own bed in his own home and they’d been sober and everything.

Bloody hell.

David was sleeping. Hints of daylight creeping through the edges of the curtains lit up the bits of gold and bronze in his hair like some god really had combed him through with precious metals.

Noah got up quietly and slipped into a pair of silk trousers and his lace-trimmed dressing gown, definitely not staring at David. He never smoked in his home, already plagued by the hypocrisy of a smoking tailor, but today, he went into the bathroom and allowed himself exactly two forbidden puffs of a cigarette. He disposed of the evidence, sprayed some perfume, and brushed his teeth, as if that would actually undo his lapse.

Another peek at the vision in his bedroom. Still there. David, still there, sleeping, too beautiful to be believed. David, in his bed. Not just in a friendly way, but in his bed in the most in bed way possible.

He caught himself biting his lip as he thought back on what they’d done.

Oh, it had been good.

He felt sick. Sick and excited, like he’d already had one too many goes on a carousel, but was itching for one more spin. He’d felt like this the first time he went properly to bed with someone too. Far from home in a trattoria that he stupidly called a pub and couldn’t pronounce the proper name of either way, he accepted too much Campari from a stranger he could barely speak to and woke the next morning with the sense that he’d partaken in either a miracle or his own death sentence. He felt the same way as he watched David’s chest rise and fall under the blankets. He felt foreign and lost and absolutely thrilled.

But what sense did that make? This was his room, his bed, his best friend. He’d done nothing new, nor drunk anything more interesting than English tea. He knew just who he was, what it was, what it meant. His lover was a Londoner whose name he knew better than any other on the planet. He was home, home, home, but for some bizarre reason, he wanted to shake Davy awake and tell him what had happened like it had happened with someone else.

But that was even more insane than the letters he’d scribbled to David about his lovers in Milan. He hadn’t sent those, and he didn’t wake David up now. He should let his friend sleep. He’d been so tired last night, and Noah had kept him...up. Best to let him be.

Noah went down to the kitchen. Emily was at the little table, dressed in comfortable skirts with her hair hidden in a cotton cap. She was reading the paper and drinking black coffee, like she did every Sunday.

Her eyes flicked up for just a moment when he came in, then back down to her paper. “You’re up awfully early,” she said.

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