Best Laid Plaids--A Paranormal Historical Romance by Ella Stainton

Author:Ella Stainton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: 2020-06-01T13:45:07+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Ainsley

Was it possible to outgrow your skin? Because Ainsley twitched as though he had, and it was bloody itchy and wretched and tight. Made him need to take a long walk or run or just lose himself. Figure out what it was that he wished to do, now that he finally asked the question out loud, instead of allowing it to roll around in his mind at all hours of the day and night.

For two years, he’d been in a sort of slump that was difficult to drag himself out of the house without prodding from Trixie or Barley.

He cut his eyes to Cockburn, who brooded out the window. No, that was unfair. He was transfixed the way Ainsley was himself half the time. Like he knew the younger man was thinking about him, Joachim touched his cheek with the rough side of his thumb and dragged down.

There was a tenderness to it that made him angry and thrilled and confused all mashed together. And God dammit, so itchy inside.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Cockburn asked.

Ainsley did his best to keep from rolling his eyes at the question that his mother had used all too often during his childhood, but the flash of a smile from Joachim made his heart pound. “Probably not worth the coin.”

Please let there be none of that dreck that Ainsley hated—the sort of emotional clawing, like he was adrift and being dragged down into the pitch-black places Mama used to tell him about as a child when she told bedtime stories. Selkies and water horses and all the frightening things that lived under the surface, where you didn’t know they were until it was too late and they’d got you by the neck to steal your skin or your soul.

But Joachim merely smiled. Steady. Dry land, under the sun. Warm.

There was a safety to Cockburn that he felt when he spent any time with Stuart. A visit or two with his family each year was all Stuart managed. A rather cursory question and answer on how things were going, which meant finances and new roofs and why did he buy such a flash motorcar? They forgot the other existed the other ninety percent of the time. But Ainsley knew that Stuart would never hesitate to help if he were called on.

And that was the essence of what he felt Joachim was like when he wasn’t being bossy and ordering him about naked. Not troubling. Or judging or hard to be with. Just—reliable. And who’d have ever thought that would be a turn-on?

Cockburn waved his hand, once. It was enough. “Has inflation raised the cost of your mind’s offerings, Dr. Graham?”

Violet raised her furry head as if waiting to hear what he’d been running from for two years, as well.

He took a deep breath. “Wondering what to write my next book on. I’ve realized that I do miss research and losing myself in studying.”

There. He’d said it out loud twice now. No going back.

The itch was unbearable.

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