Wow. It had been a long time since anyone had made Dante feel things like that just by looking at him. A really long time. Before prison. Before managing a road crew had turned him into a man his only family didn’t want to know.
Dante had forgotten how hot the fire in his belly could burn. How hard his blood could pump. How loud.
He swallowed again, still lost in Sid’s dancing blue gaze, tongue thick as he searched for something to say.
Nothing came to mind. No words. No thoughts.
None except the stark irony that the only correct assumption he’d made about the man in front of him was the existence of his fucking beard.
3
Sid’s heart was beating too fast. Too hard. Logic told him it was the injection he’d given himself that morning after forgetting to do it the night before so he could sleep through the side effects. Blame the drugs. But the rest of his body was telling a different story, inside and out, from his hyper-awareness of every facet of Dante Pope’s beautiful face to the hot blood in his veins rushing south.
Yeah. It was happening again. One glimpse of this dude and Sid’s unreliable cock was apparently reborn. Yay me.
He stepped back from the tall streak of loveliness in front of him and took stock of his animated form. His messy hair, masculine jaw, and strong shoulders. And those lips. Fuck. The grainy photograph hadn’t even begun to do them justice. Sid’s fingers itched to trace them. Or maybe it was the Copaxone. Blame the drugs, blame the drugs, blame the drugs. Either way, there was no denying the hypnotic quality to Dante Pope’s hazel eyes. They were liquid caramel. Warm honey. And every other ridiculous edible comparison Sid could think of. Because that’s what this man was: edible.
And silent.
Sid cleared his throat. “So . . . did Benjamin show you the accommodation?”
Dante nodded.
“And you got settled in?”
“Yep.”
“Did he show you around the rest of the grounds?”
“Only the bits I’m allowed in.”
Dante spoke without inflection, unlike Benjamin that morning as he’d read Sid the riot act about keeping an eye on the assistant he’d never fucking asked for. The assistant Sid had somehow found himself defending.
“Don’t judge someone you haven’t met. You don’t know his story, and even if you do, if you can’t see past where he came from, you shouldn’t have brought him here in the first place.”
“I do know his story, Sid. That’s why I’m worried.”
“You don’t know shit except the three paragraphs the prison sent you. That doesn’t make an entire human.”
“You haven’t read those paragraphs. I can—”
“Fuck no. Not unless you’ve given him chapter and verse on everyone else. It’s not fair.”
Or maybe it was. Maybe Dante Pope was a serial killer and he was going to murder Sid with a roll of garden twine. Either way, he was here now, and he belonged to Sid.
Down boy.
In the distance, the bell rang for staff lunch, reminding Sid that the rest of the world existed. He pointed back the way Dante had come. “Come on. Let’s eat. Then I’ll show you around the good bits Benjamin probably missed.”
Dante nodded, adding nothing to the handful of words he’d said so far. Sid waited a beat, then set off for the path back to the greenhouses. Or, at least, he tried. On the first attempt, his left leg didn’t move, caught in a burning spasm that shot from his tingling toes to his irritable sciatic nerve.
Sid cringed, biting back a curse. Low-key pain was his constant companion, but dealing with the violent sparks that hit without warning was still a work in progress. Come on, come on, come on. He bit his lip and forced his delinquent leg forward, dragging his foot through the dirt until his gait returned to something close to normal. The entire process took less than five seconds but was so exquisitely excruciating it was all Sid could do not to cry.
Only Taurean stubbornness kept his eyes dry. That, and his tenuous pride, not that Dante seemed to have noticed the meltdown going on beside him. He kept his gaze ahead and walked slowly, as if he had all the time in the world to reach wherever Sid was taking him and he didn’t much care if they took it all to get there.
Sid pulled himself together and reclaimed his equilibrium. He picked up the pace a little and pointed to the renovated barn that served as the staff area. “We eat in there, breakfast and lunch. Did Benjamin tell you that?”
“Yep.”
“Did he tell you it’s free so you can eat as much as you like?”
“No.”
“Well, it is,” Sid said. “And most of the produce comes from the gardens, so don’t be shy. It’ll be your blood, sweat, and tears that puts it on the plates.”
“Will it?” Dante shot Sid a shrewd glance. “I thought I was here to facilitate yours.”
That was one way of putting it, and Sid didn’t have a sensible response, so he went back to talking about vegetables until they were close enough to the barn that he could smell garlic and herbs scenting the air. “It’s pasta day,” he said.
“Okay.”
“You don’t like pasta?”
Dante shrugged. “I’ll eat anything.”
Or not much at all, as it turned out. Sid led Dante into the barn, and they joined the line of staff already queuing up for plant-based riffs on classic pasta dishes—courgette carbonara, mushroom mac and cheese, and the lentil bolognese that kept Sid upright on days he’d rather have slept through. He helped himself to a loaded bowl, added extra olive oil for his rusty joints, and grabbed a dish of blueberries from the haul he’d collected from the polytunnel yesterday.
Dante took an apple.
Sid frowned. “Not hungry?”
Dante shrugged. “It’s a lot.”
“What is?”
“All of it.” Dante rubbed the apple on his grey sweatshirt and took a bite.
Sid waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t, and it dawned on Sid that Dante had woken up that morning behind bars. That everything that had been thrown at him ever since, even the good stuff, was probably freaking him out.
Give the bloke a break. Sid steered Dante to a quiet table at the back of the barn. He usually sat with the forestry team so they could spend an hour arguing about land management, but that was irritating on a good day. He sat with his back to them and offered Dante the chair where he’d be able to see everything and everyone around him. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think.”
Dante ripped his gaze from the bustling barn. “Think about what?”
“About how different this would be to where you woke up this morning.”
“This part isn’t so different.” Dante glanced around again. “Mealtimes are noisy inside. Cramped too, with everyone jammed into one place. It is kind of strange to know I can get up and leave whenever I want, though.”
Second-hand claustrophobia rattled through Sid. He hid a shudder around a big bite of his lunch and offered the bowl to Dante. “Sure you don’t want a little bit?”
Dante eyed Sid’s mess of garlicky lentils and spelt spaghetti. “What is it?”
“Lentil bolognese. It’s good for you.”