Higher Ground by Becky Black (notion reading list txt) 📗

happen to a couple of scofflaws like us? Sending illegal distress calls, waving guns around, stealing trucks.” He was grinning, which made Zach suspect Glyn hadn’t made any of his threatened complaints against Adam or Torres.

“Yes, clearly we’ll be tossed in jail.”

“As long as they put us in the same cell, I’m happy.”

“I think I’d be in the prison hospital for a while.”

“True,” Adam said, looking at Zach’s bad leg.

He reached out and touched the good leg, resting his hand on the bare thigh, close to the hem of the gown, under which Zach had no underwear. He’d have to have a word with someone soon about the gown. He felt sure he was putting far too much on display. But later. Now he wanted to enjoy the warmth of Adam’s hand on him in an intimate gesture which felt like one of ownership, reminding them both of the permission he had to touch Zach.

“What about us?” Zach asked. “We kept saying we’d talk about things afterward. It’s afterward.”

“Yes, it is.” He didn’t move his hand from Zach’s thigh. “I want to be with you, Zach. I know, it’s been strange so far, everything moving too fast. We definitely need to take it slowly for a while.”

Zach gestured at his leg. “I’m going to be taking everything slowly for a while.”

“Quite. And I’m volunteering to take care of you while you’re laid up.”

It didn’t surprise Zach. Adam had done so the last few days as naturally as if he’d been doing it all his life. With anyone else, Zach might have felt belittled and emasculated being so dependent. But all he’d felt with Adam was trust and gratitude.

“I accept your offer.”

“Good.” Adam grinned. “They figure it’ll be about six weeks before you’re walking normally again. Then a few months of physiotherapy. If we can still stand the sight of each other after six weeks of being together all day, then I guess we can call it love.”

“I can call it love now.”

“Me too. But let’s see if it can survive real tests, you know, like who gets which side of the bed. By comparison, earthquakes are a piece of cake.”

“Adam, would you kiss me, please?”

Adam chuckled. “I do love the way you talk, you know?”

“I can’t do what I want to do, which is grab you and throw you down on this bed and ravish you. So if you’d, please, just kiss me.”

Chuckling, Adam stood up and leaned in. Zach raised his arms, which ached with the effort. But he forgot the ache quickly when he put them around Adam and their lips touched. Adam slid his arms around Zach, more cautious than usual. The feel of him through the light hospital gown raised goose bumps all over Zach. He opened his mouth, inviting and welcoming, and touched Adam’s tongue with his.

When they parted, he relaxed back into the pillows with a sigh, Adam still leaning over him, smiling.

“Go on,” Adam said. “You know you want to say it.”

Zach looked at him, puzzled for a moment, then got it. He smiled back.

“Thank you.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The apartment door slammed, and Zach clicked his tongue. Adam could never just close a door.

“Hi.” Adam stuck his head round the door into the living room. Zach looked up from typing at his terminal. “I bought some groceries. I’ll put them away and then come bother you, okay?”

“Sounds good,” Zach said. He went back to typing while Adam banged around in the kitchen. In a few minutes, the noise subsided, and Adam came in carrying a couple of glasses of orange juice.

“You looked thirsty,” he said, putting one down on the desk and leaning over to kiss Zach. “How was physio today?”

“Good, thank you.” He sipped the juice. “How was work?”

“Same old same old. But I’m making some good progress with my experiments.” He put his glass on a table and flopped onto the couch with a sigh.

Zach turned back to his terminal. He smiled to himself. Adam would start trying to seduce him away from here at any moment, if his record of the last few weeks was anything to go by. Meanwhile, he typed away steadily. He’d learned a lot about teasing since he met Adam.

“Ann sent me her revisions for the paper,” he said. He’d insisted Korrie coauthor the paper about the Zahara disaster, since if she hadn’t taken her copy of his data with her when she left, he’d have nothing at all. His original data had been lost somewhere on the mountain. He and Adam had left with little more than the clothes on their backs. Zach hadn’t even had boots. “I think we’ll finish it by the end of the week.”

“Great,” Adam said. The couch creaked. Was he undressing back there? Unexpected nudity was one of his favorite tricks. He’d wait until Zach was busy with his back to Adam or had gone into another room for a few minutes, and when Zach looked around or returned, entirely unsuspecting, he’d find Adam wearing nothing but a cheeky grin.

“Well, I think I’ll do some reading,” Adam said in a fake-sounding tone. Zach heard a couple of soft beeps from his Link. “Now, where was I up to? Ah, here we are. ‘Zachary displays exceptional facility with building blocks.’”

Zach groaned and spun his chair around. “Don’t! I still can’t work out how you persuaded my mother to let you have that.”

“You know me, I ’ave ze great charm with ze ladeez.”

Indeed he had. He’d sweet-talked Zach’s mother within minutes of meeting her when they arrived back on Earth a month ago. She thought he was wonderful.

“I simply told her I wanted to get to know you better and how I’d heard so much about the amazing baby journal she kept about you. Naturally, she sent me over a copy immediately.” He grinned.

“Well, don’t read it aloud.”

“But it’s so sweet. I’ll bet she talks for another five pages about how you’re probably going to be an architect because