His Heart's Obsession Read Online Free PDF Page B

Because…” His fists clenched and he bared his teeth, but furious tears glimmered in his accusing eyes. “Don’t! So you guessed my shameful secret already? Well, you can have me hanged if you will. You can cut me dead if you will. But don’t laugh! ”
    Robert dabbed at his tongue again, the sting of salt from his fingers a distraction from the sensation of having thrown the dice badly and lost everything on the gamble. What was left except honesty, naked and inadequate though it was? “I’m not laughing, Morgan. This person I’m in love with? The one who doesn’t have the faintest idea of what I feel? It’s you, you fool. Didn’t you know? It’s always been you.”
    “No!” Hal punched the closed shutters. His knuckles split, and blood mixed with the flying flakes of paint and rust. “You can’t take anything seriously, can you? You’d laugh at your own mother’s funeral. I did hope this at least might be worthy of your considered attention, but no, you have to pull some strange prank. It isn’t funny. It never has been funny.”
    “I know. I know that. You love Hamilton. I love you. It’s not terribly amusing for me either.”
    These words at least struck home. Hal raised his hands as if to cover his mouth and froze solid for a moment. A bead of blood welled, pooled and ran down his fingers, before he slumped against the wall. “What are you talking about?”
    Robert sighed, leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the pulse of desire slowing as he grappled with the attempt to convince a man who had suffered from his practical jokes in the past that this time he was sincere. Perhaps he should have taken this a little slower, convinced Hal of his friendship first? But that would have meant allowing the present misery to go on even longer, and he didn’t think he could have borne that.
    “You’ve had enough. I’m right, aren’t I? Enough chasing, enough eating your heart out over a man who doesn’t know you exist, and to whom you would not dare speak if he did. You’ve had more than you can stand, and you thought ‘I’m sick of the pretence. Sick of monitoring every word and gesture in case they betray me. I’ll tell Hughes what I really am. It doesn’t matter if he sends me straight to the gallows because I honestly don’t care to live anymore. I just need one person in this whole damn world to talk to without having to lie.’ That’s it, isn’t it?”
    Hal froze again as though a freak arctic breeze had turned the blood in his veins to ice, barely even breathing, as though he could not think and be at the same time. Then his shoulders slumped and he admitted, very quietly, “Yes, that’s it.”
    “Is it impossible to believe I might feel the same?”
    Hal trudged to the chair, pulled it to himself and settled with a groan. It rocked on its uneven legs beneath him, tapping out a disapproving tattoo “Is it impossible to credit that you’re an invert like myself? God love you, Hughes, but I’ve known you say worse things in jest. Still, I can’t imagine you’d insist on it if it weren’t true, though it’s a shock. I never suspected.” The beaten softness in his voice took on a note of tension. “But love? Is it possible to believe you love me? No. No, it is not.”
    “Why?” Robert asked, gripping his new bedspread hard. Creases radiated out from his palm like cracks in ice.
    “What is this?” Hal waved a contemptuous hand at the carefully shuttered windows, the suspiciously large brandies, the sabotaged chair. He rose and knocked it to the ground, his lip twisting with disdain. “You know what I feel about Hamilton? The hopeless purity? The daily martyrdom? If that’s love, what’s this? What has love to do with luring a man to your room with sympathy and then getting him so drunk he forgets how to say no? Love? I should want a great deal of proof before I even accept that you know what the word means.”
    Grabbing his coat from the floor, Hal stormed out, slamming the