Husband Sit (Husband #1) by Louise Cusack Read Free Book Online Page A

heatstroke,” he said, “but you’re probably just hungover.”
    “There
is no such thing as just hungover,” I told him, and headed out of the
kitchen, slurping water everywhere.
    He
took the glass out of my hand and walked it to the coffee table. Then he put it
on a coaster for me while I stood obediently behind.
    “I’m
going to die,” I announced again, just to be sure he understood. Then I laid
back on the black leather lounge and put my good arm over my eyes. I couldn’t
have looked more melodramatic if I’d tried.
    “Do
you want me to stay home from work?” he asked.
    I
lifted my arm and looked at him through one eye. “Can you?”
    He
nodded. “My study is set up for it. I can work here if I need to.”
    I
stopped being a princess for five minutes to think about that. I felt dreadful,
and I didn’t want to be left alone in a strange house. I might drown in my own
vomit—which is exactly the reason I hate vomiting. It’s so
unpredictable!
     “I’d
like that,” I said, feeling a surge of warm gratitude.
    He
pointed back the way we’d walked. “I’ll be on the other side of the kitchen.
Call out if you need me.”
    “You
don’t have a bell?” I made a tiny bell-ringer motion with my fingers.
    “No.”
He laughed. “Drink water and sleep. I’ll check on you in an hour.”
    “Thank
you, nursie!” I called as he walked away, but all joking aside, I felt loved in
that moment. Finn was a stranger. Well, a stranger I’d kissed. But he cared
enough about my wellbeing to stay home from work and that meant something.
    Of
course, what it probably meant was that I was needy and would take any sliver
of affection and blow it out of all proportion. But in my hungover, and
possibly heat-stroked condition, I was happy to lie there focusing on feeling
loved instead of wondering when the room was going to stop spinning.
    I
slept. Thank God. When I woke up it was lunchtime and I could smell something
delicious. I wriggled on the lounge, trying to sit up.
    “You
didn’t drink your water.” He was bossy nurse now, stirring something on the
stove, looking hunky and completely at ease in the kitchen.
    “Drinking,”
I replied and sipped the tepid water until I was sure it would stay down. Then
I guzzled the rest. “Peeing,” I added, and lurched up to head for the bathroom.
Now that my body was starting to feel like I owned it again, my back was
stinging and my wrist hurt. Burns sucked.
    When
I came back into the kitchen he said, “I don’t need a running commentary, you
know.”
    “I
know. It’s just an additional extra you don’t need to pay for.” I leant around
his broad shoulders and looked into the saucepan. “Soup?”
    “Potato
and leek.”
    “From
scratch?”
    He
nodded.
    “I’m
impressed. Can you cook other stuff?”
    “I
do all the cooking,” he said, and something about his proximity and the
sexiness of a man who knows what to do in the kitchen warmed me down low, as if
we were somehow involved in foreplay. Even my nipples tingled as I imagined
standing behind him and rubbing them against his back while he stirred the
soup.
    He
distracted me from my fantasy by adding, “I haven’t done a lot of vegetarian
meals. I’m liking it.”
    “Who
needs chicken stock,” I replied airily and helped myself to a fresh glass of
fridged water. We were companionably silent then until I said, “So do you work
at home often, or is this my rare privilege?”
    “Not
during the day,” he replied and there was something different in his tone. “Kat
likes the house to herself.”
    Right . No prizes for guessing that
would be to facilitate her adultery. Did I want to go there? I was just
thinking I was too fuzzy for a deep and meaningful when he said, “I know what
she’s doing on this holiday with her girlfriend.”
    Shit.
    I
had to say something. “ Sex in the City tour of New York?”
    He
put the wooden spoon onto the side of the sink and turned to face me. “If it
was a man I’d go