by Lina Langley
Finding Home
M/M Gay Romance
Lina Langley
© 2017
Lina Langley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is intended for adults only. It contains explicit sexual scenes and is not suitable for children.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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FINDING HOME
BLURB
When Nev’s boss forces him to take a vacation, he must decide between pursuing Monica, the hot woman he happens to sit next to on the plane, or her brother, a sexy and worldly man who travels a lot—usually on his current partner’s dime.
Josh isn’t Nev’s type. He’s a drifter, a gigolo. Nev is serious and he doesn’t really do one-night stands.
But that might be exactly what he needs to get Josh out of his system.
Or maybe it’ll just get him stuck inside of Nev’s mind. And heart.
Forever.
This story is approximately 15,000 words in length and contains adult language & erotic adult scenes. It is intended for mature audiences. Content warning for alcohol consumption.
CHAPTER ONE
The cellphone I’d tucked into the inside pocket of my winter jacket vibrated just as I was about to board the plane.
Reaching in, I shut the damn thing off without even looking to see who was calling. I knew it could only be one of my underlings calling to get instructions on how to proceed without me there to micromanage their work day since no family or friends had the number to that phone.
I was officially on vacation and was told if I attempted to work while away from the office, I’d be promptly put on a leave that was more permanent.
You throw one laptop, which just happens to land near your assistant and suddenly that’s what happens, I guess.
The flight attendant looked at my ticket and motioned for me to head to the right, into first class, after wishing me a pleasant flight.
My seat was in the middle of the cabin and on the left by the window. I stuffed my carryon in the overhead bin, then added my winter coat–I wouldn’t be needing it where I was going–before sitting down with a sigh.
I wasn’t the vacationing type and being forced to take one made me even more surly. I stared out at the blank whiteness of the terrain.
My contemplation of the tarmac outside the window was broken when an attractive woman approached and then clumsily tried to lift her bag into the bin, only to have it fall into the seat next to me.
“Oops, sorry about that.” She reached for the bag but I beat her to it.
“Let me help you with that,” I said as I stood.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s only self-preservation on my part. I don’t need to start my trip with a concussion.”
I winked and she blushed as I pushed her bag into the bin next to my own. The brief thought of joining the mile-high club flitted through my mind as she settled into the seat next to me, once her luggage was safely stashed away.
It was quickly banished when she pulled the gloves off her delicate hands, revealing a rock the size of my head on her left ring finger.
“Thank you so much. I usually travel with my husband and he does all the heavy lifting, but this time I left him at home.” She crossed her legs, causing her skirt to pull up just enough so I had a good view of her exposed thigh and the lacey garter belt that held her black stockings in place. “Are you traveling for business or pleasure?”
“I’m on vacation. You?”
“I’m meeting my brother, which is why I left Tom at home,” she flipped her hair back over her shoulder and sighed. “My husband and brother don’t get along.”
I shifted in my seat to put some space between us and pulled the magazine I’d bought at the airport from my computer case in the hopes that she’d get the hint and I wouldn’t have to listen to her talk about her family drama the whole way to the Bahamas.
Thankfully the flight attendant appeared in the front of the cabin and the prerecorded safety announcement began as she mimed fastening and unfastening the seat belt.
When the woman next to me didn’t start talking again right away, I thought I was in the clear, but after the plane took off, I got a whiskey while my seat mate downed a glass of wine and then asked for another. I had a bad feeling about the situation and when she started babbling about her brother, whom her husband thought was a lazy, good for nothing, I politely nodded but tuned her out. She continued until she’d drank four glasses of wine and her words were slurring and then put a sleep mask over her eyes before turning away from me. Her unladylike snores were less annoying than her chatter.
The flight was uneventful but that didn’t stop me from having the flight attendant refill my glass every time I emptied it.
By the time we landed, I was pleasantly buzzed. I still helped the woman get her carryon down when I grabbed my own.
“Thanks again. Have a nice vacation,” she said with a smile that told me she probably thought I was an ass and hoped I got food poisoning the next time I ate.
“You’re welcome,” I replied, smiling back at her. “I hope your meeting with your brother goes well.”
Her smile softened at the mention of her brother. Maybe it was because I’d at least listened enough to know she was anxious about how her meeting with her brother would go, so I wasn’t quite as big of an asshole as she thought.
“I hope it does too,” she mumbled the words as she turned to walk away down the aisle.
I hung back as the people around me deplaned, giving the woman a good head start, until my lurking started to look suspicious. Then I grabbed my bags and walked out of the plane.
The hotel’s airport shuttle took me to the resort where I’d booked an all-inclusive package in one of the most expensive accommodations they had available – a small private cottage. The cottages were clustered together down the beach from the three-story hotel.
After I was all checked in and the front desk clerk had given me the rundown of what the hotel offered, the porter led me down the concrete walkway.
Leaving the main building, he pushed one of those little trolleys with my suitcase and carryon on it. He took my key card and opened the door of the little cabin, but let me enter first.
It looked just as it had on the hotel’s website. There was a sitting room, complete with a desk I had no use for since I couldn’t work, and through the door was a spacious bedroom with a king-sized canopy bed and attached bathroom. The porter waited by the door as I walked through to make sure everything was to my liking, then left after I handed him a twenty-dollar tip.
The view from the French doors, which opened to a large patio extending from the cottage to the beach, was amazing. Stepping out into the sea tinged breeze, I sighed as I pulled off my tie and unbuttoned my dress shirt. I could deal with this for two weeks.
Maybe the fresh air would clear my head enough so that when I went back to work, I�
�d no longer feel like I was going to explode under the pressure of it all.
…
The resort had a private beach which, though populated, didn’t feel overcrowded when I walked down and claimed a set of chairs under one of the straw umbrellas. It was already late afternoon and most of the families with young children were packing up for the day and leaving right after I arrived. A young man dressed in white shorts and a light blue polo shirt with the hotel’s logo came to ask me if I wanted anything. I ordered a fruity drink that came with a sword of fruit and sat back to watch the waves as they rolled up onto the beach.
It took all of an hour for boredom to set in. Looking around, I had to wonder how everyone else did this. They lounged around like they didn’t have a care in the world while I couldn’t stop running numbers in my head. I got up, abandoning my cocktail, and walked back to my cottage. I was about to step onto the deck when a familiar voice hollered, “Yoo-hoo!”
Turning to the cottage next door, I cringed when my eyes fell on the woman from the plane. “Oh, hi, again.” I raised my hand to her and realized that we’d never exchanged names.
“Are you staying here?” She walked to the railing of her patio which put her only a few feet from mine.
“Yep.” Duh.
“Well, isn’t this just the weirdest thing,” she said.
“It is some coincidence,” I agreed as my eyes went to the man who’d come out of her cottage to join her on the patio. I assumed it was the aforementioned brother, and once I got a good look at him, I was certain of it. His sister was beautiful but he was breathtaking in a way she fell just short of achieving, even though the resemblance was almost uncanny. His bleached out brown hair just brushed his shoulders, giving him what I always thought of as a laid-back surfer look which made my pulse rate spike.
She turned and put her arm around the man’s waist. “This is my brother, Josh. Josh, this is the guy from the plane I was telling you about.”
She’d told him about me? Josh’s brilliant blue eyes slid from their adoration of his sister to me and narrowed. Oh, well apparently she hadn’t given him any glowing reviews of our time together. “Hi, Josh, I’m Nevin, but everyone calls me Nev,” I said as I moved to the railing. Leaning out over the small patch of sand that separated our patios, I offered him my hand.
Josh moved away from his sister and reached out to shake my hand. “Nice to meet you. Monica said you listened to her complain about me and Tom on the plane. I hope she made it clear that he’s the problem.” Josh smiled as he released from the handshake and my heart felt like it was in my throat.
“She might have mentioned that you are both stubborn, and more alike than either of you wanted to admit, but yeah, it’s all him.” I winked at Monica, glad to finally have a name for her.
Monica giggled when Josh turned to glare at her. “You said I was like him?” Josh asked.
“Well, it’s true. It’s why you don’t get along.” Monica looked to me as if she needed me to back her up.
Nodding, I added, “It’s usually the case.”
Josh crossed his arms over his chest and pouted. “No fair ganging up on me with someone you just met, Mon. I’m going to tell Mom.”
“You’re such a baby.” Monica elbowed her brother and they both laughed.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to get on with your family reunion,” I said, feeling like I was the third wheel when they did their sibling act.
“Wait!” Monica called when I’d turned around to leave. “Come have dinner with us. We ordered way too much food from room service because someone couldn’t decide what he wanted to eat.” She aimed a chiding look at Josh who just shrugged. “Please, come over,” she wheedled.
“Let me take a shower to get this sand off and I’ll be over,” I said before I could over think what being in a room with two people I found almost equally attractive would mean. Of course, Monica was married which left Josh, I mean, if he was interested.
“Yay!” Monica clapped her hands like a pleased little girl.
“See you in a few,” Josh said, his eyes sliding over my body in a way that made me shiver. He turned, pulling Monica to his side, and walked into their cottage, leaving me with images of me and Josh tangled together in the sand.
The images carried over into my shower and it ended up taking me longer than normal to get clean. Dressing afterwards was harder than it should have been because, while I wanted to look casual and at ease, I still wanted to dress to impress. After jerking off in the shower, I realized it had been a couple of months since I’d gotten laid and Josh was just the type of guy I’d love to end that dry spell with.
I felt a little strange showing up at their door with nothing, but with the short notice and only having what was in my room available to me – and assuming they had the same fruit basket – there was little I could do. I knocked on the door and it swung open immediately to reveal Monica. She was wearing a sundress that barely covered her ass – yes, I looked when she turned to lead me into the room.
“Hey, took you long enough. Did you have sand in your crack?” Josh asked from his spot on the floor in front of the couch, not bothering to stand to greet me. When I looked confused he added, “Sand in the crack is hard to get out, at least in my experience it is.” He grinned and ducked when Monica threw a throw pillow at him.
“No talking about cracks tonight. I get enough of that when you tell me about all the men you’ve slept with.” Monica plopped down across from her brother on a pillow next to the low coffee table which was loaded with food from room service. “Pull up a cushion, Nev.” She pointed to a pile they’d gathered from the bedroom.
Grabbing one, I put it at the end of the table and sat as I mulled over what Monica had just said about Josh and the men he’d slept with because now there was no more wondering which way Josh swung. Maybe a little vacation fling was just what the doctor ordered, I thought as I let my eyes take in Josh’s sinewy body.
“You love it when I tell you all my raunchy stories, admit it.” Josh turned his grinning eyes on me and I was glad I was already sitting because that look would have made my knees go weak.
“Keep it clean, we have company.” Monica was giggling so hard her words came out in stuttered strings.
“Pfft, I’m sure Nev’s heard worse.” Josh maintained eye contact with me as he spoke and I could tell he was interested in my reaction to the beans Monica had spilled so casually.
“I have. I am a man and we tend to hang in groups and speak of nothing but that which would make the average woman cringe,” I said with a tip of my head.
“See?” Josh asked, looking vindicated as he reached for the bottle of wine that was already open and half empty. He held it out over the third glass and looked at me. I nodded and he poured. “I brought this from Spain. A man I met there had the most impressive collection in his wine cellar and before I left, he gave me a case of this one, which is from his family’s winery.”
“Oh, is there a story behind this mystery man?” Monica’s eyes sparkled as she asked, leaving me to guess she really didn’t mind it when her brother told raunchy stories.
“Not really, just the same old, same old. Went to a party, met a handsome man, went home with him, stayed a few days and left with a parting gift.” Josh leaned back against the couch and sipped his wine. His eyes slid shut and a small smile settled onto his lips as if he was remembering something nice.
Monica turned to me. “That’s always how it goes. He travels all the time and he always comes back with a treasure trove of gifts. I wish I had such a charmed life.”
I nodded but I was starting to form a not altogether nice opinion of Josh after what he’d just said. From the sounds of it, Josh was a sexual grifter, flitting from man to man only to get something from them when he left. “So what is it you do for a living?” I had to ask even though it probably made my suspicions clear.
“Oh, well, I travel a lot.” Josh opened his eyes to look at me once again. “Other than that,
not much else.”
“Don’t lie, Josh,” Monica snorted. “He takes photographs.”
“I don’t like to talk about it,” Josh snapped as he sent his sister a look. They held a silent conversation with their eyes until Monica looked away. Apparently whatever argument they were having, Josh had won. Josh shifted so his leg brushed mine under the table and I jerked away from the touch of his warm flesh against mine, making him grin. “My photography is private…until I make it public. I don’t like to talk about what I’m currently working on because other people’sopinions have a way of getting into my head and making me lose focus.”
“I get that. I had an artist friend who never let anyone see what they were working on because of a similar issue.” My response made Josh’s face relax back into the easy-going expression he’d lost when Monica had brought up his photos.
“What do you do?” Monica popped a shrimp into her mouth and said, “Have some food, just grab whatever you want.”
“I’m an investment banker.” I looked over the selection of food and noticed that they didn’t each have a designated entrée, they were just picking at them all.
They both nodded but it was Josh who said, “You owe me a hundred bucks.”
“I know but I would have bet that if you hadn’t picked it first.” Monica kicked Josh’s leg to punctuate her sentence. My eyes bounced between them as I tried to puzzle out what they were talking about. Monica noticed and giggled again. “He bet me you were an investment banker right after he met you. I had to pick something else so I went with insurance salesman.”
“I just knew it. You reek of corporate money.” Josh laughed at my stunned expression. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you can’t see the big flashing sign above your head in the mirror.”
“The sign?”
“Yeah,” Josh said, pausing to sip at his wine, “The one with dollar signs on it.”
“Quit it, Josh, you’re making him uncomfortable.” Monica looked at me apologetically. “I’m sorry. My brother can be a jerk sometimes, ignore him. He still thinks he’s fighting the man by not conforming to the world’s idea of what success is.”