Page 27 of Love Spell

“Huh?Oh, I’m fine.Won’t even notice it by the end of the week.Did you know ‘constellation’ is Middle English, but before that it was Latinconstellatio?Is that still the word they use for constellations in Italian?It must be.Do you speak Italian?I would love to learn Italian.You must have been speaking English since you were a kid.It’s perfect.”

Noah was a cheeky drunk, but a bit of an annoying stoner.Timo added that to his mental pinboard.Sweet cocktails.No weed.

“I know that,” Timo said in his ear.“Because I work at it.”

“Not anymore.”Noah laughed like that had been a stupid thing for Timo to say.“Since it’s already perfect.”

“Except the accent.”

“But you’ll always have the accent.I love your accent,” Noah said dreamily.“Makes me think of my favourite books.”

The electric jolt that lanced down Timo’s spine was enough to make him jump.I love your, which was exactly the same asI love youwith a tiny extra sound, not even a syllable, not even counting.How many years had it taken him and Rhys to start saying that to each other?And now here was Noah saying it before the first kiss.

As to the accent, Noah couldn’t know how tirelessly Timo had worked for years, first to get his vocabulary and speech patterns perfect, and now to soften his accent.First language-learning audio programs even when he was mostly fluent, then endless audiobooks, novels with dialogue and good narrators doing accents and finding real speech cadence in the text.But no, Timo didn’t suppose he could ever truly throw his accent.Not when he’d come into fluency relatively late, only speaking a bit of English until his late teens.Still, he never made syntax mistakes anymore and he hunted for an English word less often than the English did.He’d even eventually mastered when to add an article.Triumphing over “the” and “a” had been the hardest fight of his life.

None of that was any concern of Noah’s.Noah loved his voice.He loved Timo.He was going to love the red roses Timo had for him.

Timo was so hard it was a painful struggle to get his own fly open while Noah still stargazed, talking about …?Stars.

He captured Noah’s hand at the same time he got his fingers around Noah’s balls in those unfortunately chunky jeans.Noah gasped, tensed, leaned away from him.

“Timo, don’t —”

Timo pulled Noah’s hand to his own hot erection in the cool night, leaning in at the same time, going to find his mouth, but Noah reacted like he’d touched a live wire, springing back.Timo didn’t let go, still gripping Noah’s wrist in one hand, crotch in the other, so they ended up staggering to their feet together, locked for a moment in a breathless wrestling match.

“Noah — I’m not going to hurt you.”Unless you want me to.

“You’re hurting me right now!Let go of me!”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Stop it!I saidno!”

“What do you want?We’ll do anything you want —”

“I want you to leave me alone!”Noah twisted his arm free and slammed his heel down into the toe of Timo’s shoe.With no give below it, only rock they stood on, the impact landed like a hammer.

“Fucking hell!”Timo dropped to his knees on muddy rocks, sure his toes were broken.

“Why won’t you listen to me?”Noah was yelling.

Even through the pain, Timo was bewildered.“You’ve had a workout, a massage, a spa day, dinner, three strong drinks, and a joint!How bloody relaxed do you need to get before you can enjoy yourself?”

“I’m not enjoying myself!I keep telling you to stop!”

“That’s the problem!”

“No!You’re the problem!I told you I’m not even gay!”

“But you were lying!”

Silence, aside from Timo’s ragged gasps and Noah’s heavy breathing as he stood over Timo.The night all around seemed suddenly much darker, much quieter, much colder than it had been a minute before.

Panting against the pain in his foot, Timo fumbled to get his fly done up, then pulled himself onto the boulder so he was again sitting and could get his shoe off.Better not, though.If it was in bad shape, he needed that shoe to stay on so he could get back to his room, then remove it if the foot wasn’t too badly swollen and assess the damage.

“Where did you … learn to fight?”Timo panted, voice hushed now, holding his shin pulled up to the other knee but avoiding touching his foot.

“Self-defence class,” Noah muttered, carefully backing away from him in the dark.

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