Five months was hardly enough recovery time for a three-year relationship, anyway, was it? I was a comforting rebound, nothing more, and I’d only make us both miserable by wanting to be anything else.
Lee, for reasons I didn’t understand, grinned at me.
“I love it when people bring me coffee, too,” he said, sitting down opposite me. “There’s even pastries coming.”
He thought it was a joke.
Everything was fine. He thought I’d been joking, or at least that it was the kind of tired slip everyone made when someone they were comfortable with did something nice for them.
I’d never said that to anyone who wasn’t family and meant it before, and Lee thought it was a joke.
That was probably for the best.
“I did say you didn’t have to make it up to me. And I do want to hear it. About your dad. If, uh…” I paused to circle the rim of my coffee cup with my finger. “If you want to tell me.”
Lee shrugged. “Not much to tell. He was a truck driver. One day he left and just… never came home.”
Even now, there was a tremble in his voice when he said it.
“He’s fine,” Lee continued. “Moved out, started a whole ‘nother family with the woman he’d been seeing for years. Sent me birthday and Christmas cards every year until I moved out. I’ve got his number in case something happens. But…”
“You’re still angry,” I said. “But you miss him anyway.”
Lee nodded, clutching his coffee to his chest. “That. I mean, I think I miss… the man he was when I was eight, y’know? People change, and that’s okay. I’ve changed, too. But I caught a glimpse of that uncomplicated happiness again today. So. Thanks for coming along with me today.”
“Thank you for sharing it with me. The experience and the history,” I said, trying not to imagine a heartbroken fifteen-year-old Lee missing his father. I couldn’t take it. I hated the thought of him being in pain and I wanted to do everything I could to prevent it.
Which meant keeping my stupid mouth shut about how I felt.
“And for this.” I nodded to the still-scalding coffee. “This more than makes up for the dilapidated mannequins burying treasure.”
“There’s another one of those five-dollar words,” Lee teased. “And this isn’t making it up to you. Takes a whole day to get back to New York.” He grinned, eyes sparkling with unspoken but very real promises.
Staring down at my coffee didn’t stop me blushing, but I did it anyway. A hundred years with Lee wouldn’t have been enough to stop me blushing when he said things like that.
“I do like things other than sex, you know.”
“I’d offer to play chess with you, but I don’t know how,” Lee said. “So that leaves reading quietly and watching killer whales eat baby dolphins, which you’re still not forgiven for.”
“I said I was sorry.”
Wildlife documentaries were all fun and games until something got eaten. Lee had taken it harder than expected.
“You made it up to me,” Lee said, shifting in his seat.
He really, really liked having his cock sucked. So much that I wanted to keep doing it because the look on his face after was quickly becoming one of my favorite things in the entire world.
“I like this,” I said. “I even liked going to that museum with you.”
I like spending time with you and I don’t want it to be over.
“You’ve let me call almost all the shots the whole time,” Lee said. “I feel guilty.”
“I didn’t want to go on this vacation in the first place.” I sipped my coffee, sighing happily at finding it drinkable. Lee was good to me, and flirting with the barista probably helped. “You’ve made it fun. I have actually… enjoyed myself. And now I’ll have to tell my sister that and she’ll tell me that she told me so. Thanksgiving’s going to be so embarrassing.”
Lee chuckled. “But you’ve got proof someone liked you,” he said. “Like you wanted.”
“I do,” I agreed. “Thanks to you.”
Conversation died off for a few minutes, but the silence wasn’t awkward. It was the silence of two people who’d gotten comfortable with each other. Who’d reached the point of walking in on each other in the shower—when we took separate ones—dressing in front of each other, sleeping curled up together in the same bed.
I was even borrowing one of Lee's t-shirts today, since I’d underestimated how much I could possibly sweat in the heat, and he’d had the foresight to wash some of his clothes in the sink and hang them around the bathroom to dry on day four.
It still smelled a little of him and I was thinking about smuggling it into my luggage. Since we were talking about piracy today.
How much could he possibly miss one plain black t-shirt that was too small for him anyway?
“Would you have signed up?” Lee asked, startling me out of my thoughts.
“Come again?”
“If you were, y’know, on a ship and pirates boarded it. Would you have signed up if they captured you?”
I snorted. “They wouldn’t have wanted me,” I said. “As we’ve established, I can’t even cook. I’d die trying to climb the rigging. I’m not cut out for life at sea.”
“You’d make a good quartermaster. Or you’re in HR, you know people, you could’ve been a bosun’s mate, worked your way up.”
I laughed, sipping my coffee. “I see you’ve given my pirate career a great deal of thought.”
Lee shrugged. “I would’ve been first to sign up,” he said. “Just thinking about how you and I could’ve met back then.”
“Maybe I’m the son of a merchant travelling on my father’s ship, and you’re a pirate, and you kidnap me for ransom.”
“This is starting to sound like one of those bodice rippers my mom used to read,” Lee said.
“If you know what’s in them, you must have read them too,” I teased.
Of course he had. Lee was curious, above all else. That was one of the most appealing things about him.
“Might’ve. The ones about pirates, anyway. How come I’m a pirate in this scenario?”
“You just said you’d sign up!”
Lee shrugged. “I might be a merchant’s son and you might be the pirate.”
“We’ve established that I wouldn’t make much of one,” I said.
“You’d make a good captain,” Lee argued. “Fair and sensible.”
“I’d have to survive on a ship for quite a while before that, though. No. You’re the pirate, I’m the innocent second son of a merchant, desperate to make my father proud.”
“Now who’s given too much thought to this?” Lee grinned, moving his coffee cup out of the way as the pastries he’d promised earlier finally made an appearance.
Service had been slow all over the Caribbean—except in the places Andries had brought us—but it hadn’t bothered me once. I wasn’t in a hurry, here.
It was nice, for a little while, not to be in a hurry.
“I’m just saying,” I defended. “I wouldn’t make much of a pirate.”
“I’d take care of you,” Lee said. “If we did kidnap you. Let you share my quarters. Save you getting cold at night.”
“I’m starting to like this story. I could be gay, but hiding it, and find a life of liberation and freedom among the pirates. Maybe you’d drop me off here and come back for visits.”
“What, like, keep you in a little cottage? Like a pet?”
“I was thinking like an illicit lover you adored but knew couldn’t handle life aboard ship.”
“What would you do while I was gone?” Lee asked, biting into one of the fried pastries that had been one of the big highlights of this trip for him. Fat, sugar, and simple carbohydrates seemed to be three of Lee's favorite things, but then he was the one going rock climbing and scaling cliffs and swimming.
A gentle walk was the best I’d managed and it was more physical activity than I’d done in months back home.
That, and the sex. T
he sex was surprisingly athletic.
“Pine, I imagine,” I said. “Watch the sea and worry that you were never coming back.”
“I bet the reunion sex would be incredible.” Lee grinned, a spot of powdered sugar on the tip of his nose. “Yeah. I like this idea. If we fall into some kind of portal that takes us back, let’s do that.”
“Deal,” I agreed, half-wishing that a portal would open under us.
A life with Lee—even if I only got to see him between voyages—sounded better than what I was going back to.
24
Lee
The naked rise of Rowan's shoulder was too tempting to resist, a shaft of moonlight from the window falling across it, reminding me how good his skin felt under my lips.
I tightened the grip I had on him and bent my head to kiss him, taking a moment to breathe in his scent.
“Are you kidding?” Rowan murmured, voice sleep-rough and low, tingling all the way down to the pit of my stomach. He rolled his hips back, gorgeous ass skimming over the hard-on I’d woken up with and making me gasp.
“Not even a little,” I said. “Roll over.”
Rowan sighed the long-suffering sigh of a tired spouse sick of their husband’s insatiability, but there was laughter in his eyes when he turned to look at me, and I couldn’t stop myself kissing it out of his mouth as I tickled under his ribs.
“Saw you sneaking that shirt into your own luggage,” I murmured between kisses, fingers stroking up and down Rowan's side.
I could feel the heat of his cock now, showing an interest despite his protests.
This was our last night together. I wasn’t about to waste it.
“Keep it,” I added before Rowan could apologize, or offer to give it back. “Souvenir.”
I liked the thought of him wearing it later. Wearing it to bed, maybe, waking up in the middle of the night with my scent on his palate, cock aching for release, the last few images from a sexy dream playing through his mind.
Hand curling around his cock, cheeks flushed pink, lip bitten, thighs tense and chest heaving as he gasped for breath, groaning and whimpering as he jerked off desperately so he could get back to sleep.
“What are you thinking about?” Rowan asked.
“You,” I admitted. “Thinking about you jerking off.”
Rowan gasped as I ran a fingertip down the velvet-soft skin of his half-hard cock, his hips rocking into my hand.
“You still have no idea how hot you are.” I paused to kiss my way along Rowan's jaw, stopping at his chin and then brushing my lips over his, not done kissing him yet.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever be done kissing him, not even if we had a lifetime together.
“Do you?”
Rowan's wide, lust-darkened eyes made me shiver. The way he looked at me was so intense, and somehow it was getting more and more that way as time went on.
He shook his head, all innocent surprise, and I had to have him.
“Are you sore?” I asked, kissing my way along his neck, hoping like hell that he’d say no.
Rowan shook his head again, cock twitching in my hand.
I reached out for the hastily-discarded lube from earlier that only made it as far as the edge of the bed.
“Can I?” I kissed my way down his throat, feeling him swallow under my lips as he nodded.
“Yes.”
Yes.
This time, everything was easier. With one knee thrown over my hip and his face buried against my neck, Rowan gasped and moaned his way through one, two, three fingers, sliding in and out of him as his breathing evened out, cock leaking precome all over my stomach.
This was how I wanted to remember him, desperate and needy and painfully turned on, hot breath condensing on my neck, hips rocking in time with my fingers because he liked this.
The gay men of the world owed me a beer each for helping Rowan discover the joy of bottoming.
“Roll over, gorgeous,” I said, not entirely sold on the pet name.
Rowan rolled over all the same, settling onto his side, one hand curled into the sheets.
I watched it clench, the knuckles going white as he felt my cock pressed against him.
“Nothing you haven’t done before,” I soothed, splaying my hand over his belly, rubbing circles with my thumb. “You’re so good at this. So good for me.”
“I want it,” he murmured. “Lee, please.”
There was no way he could know that all he needed to do was say my name in that breathless, husky voice and I was his. All his, ready to do whatever he wanted.
I closed my eyes as I sank into the warmth of his body, slick and relaxed. Blood pounded in my ears, a wave of lust washing over me at the feel of him.
A low groan escaped me as I bottomed out, heat rushing south as my cock throbbed in time with my heartbeat, and then again, harder, as Rowan tightened around me.
“No rush,” I panted. “Take your time. Got a few hours until sunrise yet.”
The way Rowan gasped when I kissed the back of his neck was the most gorgeous sound in the world to me. Head tilted back, chest heaving as he caught his breath.
“I like this,” Rowan said softly, as though he was confessing a secret.
“I’ve noticed,” I laughed, nuzzling his hair, trailing my hand down to his cock, gathering up the precome dripping from the head and savoring the hitch of his breath as I spread it down the length, slicking the way.
“I’ll fall asleep if you don’t move,” he added, moving his hand down to cover mine.
The mental image of him jerking off came back to me in a rush, and I moved my hand back to the soft skin of his belly.
“Touch yourself,” I murmured, shifting so I could look over his shoulder, mouth watering at the sight of his cock, hard for me. Hard because I’d turned him on and because he was getting off on this, on having me inside him, having me touch him.
Rowan hesitated, his hand wavering for a moment before he wrapped his fingers around himself, hissing through his teeth as he thumbed the head. Teasing.
“Show me how you do it,” I added, rolling my hips gently, a tingle at the base of my skull as his body accepted it so easily.
He trusted me. He liked me, and he trusted me, and I could have come my brains out just thinking about that.
But I wanted to see him come first. One more image to add to my mental catalogue of Rowan, who I never, ever wanted to forget.
I watched in awe as Rowan's free hand trailed down his stomach, brushing my fingers, then slipping down past his balls and ghosting over mine as he felt my cock inside him.
“You play with yourself like this?” I asked, rocking my hips again, barely holding back a shudder of pleasure at the way his fingers felt, adding just a little more pressure.
Rowan nodded, the back of his neck burning hot against my cheek.
“Only ever on the outside,” he said. “You’re… you’re still the first to…”
“Show you a whole new world?”
Rowan nodded, gasping at a harder thrust, squeezing his cock tight as I built up a rhythm, slow and steady, easing him into it.
We were both exhausted, but I needed this. To be with him, to feel his body pressed against me, to hear him gasp and moan.
This was all so close to being over.
Rowan, sweet, gentle, easy to get along with Rowan just let me have whatever I wanted and made the prettiest sounds while I took it.
“Ooh,” he gasped, belly tensing under my hand as I hit something sensitive inside him. He was still so surprised when that felt good.
“Slow and steady,” I murmured, in danger of rocking myself to sleep like this. “Slow and steady.”
Rowan nodded, his fingers brushing over mine as he eased his grip on his cock, gasping again as he thumbed the head.
“So sensitive,” I hummed, squirming at the thought of every time we’d done this before now. How responsive he was, how good he felt.
My eyes fell closed as we found a rhythm together, the salt of Ro
wan's skin on my lips as I kissed the back of his neck, nuzzled his hair, stroked circles into his belly as he worked himself lazily, like a Sunday morning with nothing better to do. Soft and slow and easy. We could have kept this up forever.
My stomach clenched at the thought. I wished we could do this forever. Just him and me. The perfect boyfriend I hadn’t realized I was looking for until I found him.
It was too easy to lose myself in Rowan's body, hands all over him, roaming over soft skin, stroking the silky trail of hairs that led down from his belly button to his cock, listening to him gasp and moan and sigh with pleasure. He still hadn’t figured out how hot this was, feeling him enjoying himself so much, getting off on me touching him.
I pushed him onto his front and pulled him up to his hands and knees without conscious thought, gripping the headboard over his shoulder and curling my fingers around the thick length of his cock, slick with precome. Rowan gasped and moaned all the same, but louder, harder, grunts of effort spurring me on until the whole bed shook beneath us.
Before I knew what I was doing, I set my teeth over the crook of his neck and bit down, hard, hard enough to make him cry out, more than hard enough to bruise. To leave a mark on him. Lee was here.
I couldn’t stand the thought of him forgetting me.
“Close,” Rowan growled through gritted teeth, thighs trembling, body tensing in waves with every hard, short stroke, every skin-on-skin slap. He was stunning like this, pale back arching, nape beaded with sweat, hair damp and all over the place. I could have held onto his hips and kept him like this for hours, slowing down and balancing him right on the edge, but not now. Not tonight.
Tonight I needed him too much, and this was the second time I’d woken him, and dawn was only a couple of hours away. I was exhausted. We both were.
This was probably our last chance, and I wanted Rowan to come thinking this was the best fuck of his entire life. I wanted to be the best he’d ever had, carve out a little space for myself in his life.
“Let go,” I murmured. “Come for me.”
Rowan gasped and panted as I rocked into him, harder now, faster, giving him what he needed and listening for every little hitch of his breath, every half-muffled cry of pleasure as I pushed him higher and higher, body almost vibrating with tension.
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