by Jane Davitt
“Sorry,” Nick said. He was a bit pale, but otherwise looked better than he had.
“It was enough to turn anyone’s stomach,” John said, not entirely just out of loyalty. He smiled at Caitrin. “You take after me, lass. You’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be fine,” she echoed before scrunching up her face in a way John was fairly sure she knew looked cute. “Suppose Josh isn’t there to meet me?”
John snorted. The months since Josh had left had been filled with e-mails and phone calls between the two teenagers, culminating in Caitrin’s acceptance as an exchange student at the college Josh had chosen, her expenses paid by the Stevenson estate. The scholarship paid for a graduate course anywhere in the world, with a generous allowance included, and when Caitrin’s essay had been chosen by the trustees as that year’s winner, Janet had walked around beaming proudly for days.
John had been proud, too, his pride tempered by a wry amusement that with the right incentive, Caitrin was only too happy to use the brains she’d been born with, after years of declaring that only losers with no lives wanted to bury themselves in a school in search of a degree.
“If he’s not waiting when you walk through customs, call me and I’ll eat my fishing hat, flies and all.”
Caitrin rolled her eyes, a move she’d perfected at least six years before. “That’s a mental image I’d have preferred to live without, thank you very much.”
“I’m with you,” Nick said. At John’s look, he added, “Well, think about it. Eating fishing flies is a very, very bad idea.”
“Isn’t the point that I wouldn’t need to? Josh will be there.”
“He will.” Nick smiled at Caitrin reassuringly. “You know he will. He hasn’t talked about anything for else for weeks.”
She blushed and looked down, fiddling with the strap of her carry-on bag.
“You’ll call us when you get there?” John said as the three of them resumed their journey toward the gate. “Promise?”
“I will, you know I will.”
They got to the security gate and Caitrin turned. “I go through there, right?”
“Yeah, and don’t spend too much in the duty free shops,” Nick teased her. “They’ll announce your flight; you just go to the gate, up to the desk ‑‑”
“Your passport,” John said. “Now, you’re sure you’ve got it?”
“Yes! You checked it in the car, remember?” Caitrin got the passport out anyway and brandished it under John’s nose. “See?”
“Then give your uncle a hug and be on your way,” John said gruffly. He got a rib-cracking squeeze, a kiss planted on his cheek, and a whispered “thank you,” and he supposed Nick had the same a moment later, but he was staring at the ground, his throat constricted. She seemed so damn young to be flying halfway around the world on her own.
They waved until she’d vanished from sight and then turned to each other.
“Well,” John said. “That’s that.”
“I hope she’s okay on the plane.” Nick seemed reluctant to leave.
“She’ll be fine. She’s a grand girl going off on the adventure of a lifetime, isn’t she?” John touched Nick’s hand lightly, tugging at his fingers to get him moving, and they started to walk back the way they’d come. “And we’ll be doing the same in a few months, remember? I’m looking forward to a long holiday with you somewhere tropical.”
“It’s funny,” Nick said. “That she’s so anxious to leave Traighshee, when I feel like I was waiting my whole life to find it. And you.”
John put his arm around Nick’s shoulders and pulled him in for a hug as they walked. Sometimes Nick said things that made him feel breathless, struck by just how much he loved him and the never-failing wonder of being loved back.
“I wanted to leave at her age, too,” he said. “I thought I had to go because what I wanted wasn’t on the island ‑‑ and I was right; it wasn’t. But it was on its way, though I didn’t know it and, you ‑‑” He paused and, ignoring the people around them, cupped Nick’s face in his hands. “You were worth waiting for.”
He waited for Nick to smile and then brushed his thumb lightly across Nick’s lips. “Later,” he said and didn’t make it a question but a promise.
Epilogue
“Finally,” Nick said as he shoved open the door to Rossneath.
They’d spent the previous two weeks ‑‑ two wonderful, incredibly romantic weeks ‑‑ in Curacao. Long, luxurious days on the beach, an afternoon diving off the coast, and evenings of tropical drinks and delicious meals had added up to the best vacation of Nick’s life. Of course, the fact that it was a vacation he’d taken with John would have made it that anyway. They’d spent many hours exploring each other’s bodies, exhausting each other until they were capable of nothing except collapsing into sleep.
Still, the journey home had been excruciating even though Nick had managed not to get sick on either of the ferry rides. Now he was grateful to be home.
“Someone’s been sitting in our chairs,” John said, with good humor in his voice, and Nick blinked and smiled as he discovered that the heat had been turned up. He’d been expecting ‑‑ and he was sure John had, too ‑‑ the house to be cold, the sheets damp and miserable in comparison to their amazing vacation in the Caribbean.
“There’s a note.” Nick picked it up and read it. It was in John’s sister Janet’s handwriting, and only said, Dinner in the stove, bed turned down, fire banked. Welcome home. He passed the note to John, who read it and smiled even more widely. “She deserves a medal.”
“Or a lovely souvenir from Curacao,” John agreed. His eyes were very blue against his bronzed skin; he hadn’t burned once, although Nick’s regular reminders to apply sunscreen probably had something to do with that. Nick himself hadn’t been so lucky and his nose was peeling.
They’d brought an entire carry-on bag of gifts back with them. Nick shrugged the strap off his shoulder and set the bag down on a chair. The kitchen smelled wonderful, like roasted meat and vegetables or maybe some sort of stew, and it was warm.
“Do you want to eat?” John asked. There was an inflection to his voice that made Nick think any hunger John was feeling was for something other than food, no matter how good dinner smelled.
He smiled at John. “I could eat,” he said, deliberately teasing him as he’d done so often on their vacation, which had transported them not just to a different part of the world but to an earlier time in their relationship when a look or a word could kindle heat between them that left them desperate with the need to get closer, mouths clinging, hands busy.
It still happened that way even here at home ‑‑ God, he hoped it always would ‑‑ but in recent years it had been more of a steady, constant warmth, their lovemaking falling into a familiar routine. Nick liked that comfortable certainty of loving and being loved, but he wasn’t quite ready to go back to it. One last time.
“Could you now?” John said, nodding his head thoughtfully. “So the turned-down bed doesn’t interest you in the slightest? That’s a pity.”
“Aye.” Nick grinned at the look on John’s face when he used a properly Scottish word like that, even coming close to approximating the accent. “On the other hand, there’s the sofa waiting in the next room, and a fire that just needs a few logs thrown onto it…”
That was all the encouragement John needed; he crossed the small distance between them and pulled Nick into a passionate kiss that took his breath away. Fingers slid up into Nick’s hair and tugged, lifting his chin, and John’s lips found Nick’s throat and mouthed at it.
“What about dinner?” Nick gasped. His body apparently had no trouble becoming aroused even though they’d been traveling for what felt like forever. He’d been sure all he’d be capable of when they’d arrived home was collapsing into a deep sleep, but he’d been wrong.
“It can wait. I can’t.” John sounded pretty definite about that, his voice husky, his lips finding places on Nick’s neck that made Nick shiver. “God,
you make me want you just by being in the same room as me, you know that? All these years and I still can’t keep my hands off you.”
Those hands were finding their way under the jacket Nick still wore and tugging it off him to fall to the floor with Nick cooperating as best he could and returning the favor. By the time they’d moved into the living room, never breaking their embrace, they’d managed to shed their jackets and shoes and they were working on the rest of what they wore.
John gave Nick one last kiss, one last not so gentle bite at Nick’s lip, and then moved away. “I’ll build up the fire so you don’t get chilled.”
“It’s not that cold.”
John bent to pick up a log and gave him a narrow-eyed glance. “It will be when you’re naked,” he pointed out.
Perching on the edge of the couch, Nick watched as John put two logs onto the fire. He had it roaring in a minute or so, a lifetime of experience with the chore made him an expert as far as Nick was concerned. As he bent to the task, Nick could see the white line of pale skin at the back of John’s neck underneath his hairline. Nick was almost overwhelmed with the desire to press his lips to that skin. Instead, he undid the front of his slacks ‑‑ which were too thin for this climate and had been bought specifically for their trip ‑‑ eased down his underwear, drew out his half-hard cock, and began stroking it.
It felt wanton, overly indulgent, to be sitting there on the couch with his cock in his hand, but any sense of embarrassment vanished when John turned and saw him.
John didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. The look on his face, yearning, heated, loving as it was, was enough to make Nick’s breath catch in his throat. He expected John to move closer, but John just rubbed his hands once over his thighs, a restless, unthinking movement, and stayed by the fire, kneeling, watching, his eyes intent.
Nick made his next stroke tighter, slower, and made himself moan without meaning to, because good as it felt ‑‑ and it did ‑‑ the way John’s eyes widened and darkened when he did it, his tongue passing over his lips, was even more arousing. He loved knowing he could do this to John; bring him, quite literally, to his knees.
Deliberately, never taking his gaze off John, he stroked the tip of a finger across the head of his cock, still working it with his other hand, and then brought it to his mouth to taste. It was blatant, but it worked. John swore under his breath, the spell of silence broken, and he stood and stripped off his clothes, the firelight painting his strong, tanned body with flickering shadows.
“Don’t stop,” John told him when his hand faltered. “You look incredible, do you know that?”
John was the one that looked incredible, naked and aroused, as he sank down onto the couch beside Nick and rested a hand on Nick’s inner thigh. Nick wished he’d taken off his slacks already, because he knew exactly what John’s slightly calloused, work-worn fingers felt like against bare skin, but then John’s eyes met his, and he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.
His hand hadn’t forgotten, at least. He stroked himself again, harder this time, drawing a bead of clear fluid to the tip of his cock where it glistened in the firelight.
“Touch me,” he heard himself whisper. “God, John, please.”
John leaned down, and Nick sucked in a sharp breath as John’s tongue slid across the glossed-wet skin, the contact over too soon. John ran his tongue over his lips again and smiled, then began to unbutton Nick’s shirt with careful, precise movements. Nick wouldn’t have cared if John had ripped it off him, but in some ways the control John was clearly fighting to maintain was more arousing than the loss of it would have been.
He helped John strip him bare and then lay back on the couch, sprawled out and staring up at John who had moved to kneel over him, his cock pale against the thatch of light brown hair surrounding it, his balls already drawn up tight.
Nick reached up and ran his fingers through the hair on John’s chest ‑‑ hair that was more salt-and-pepper than pepper these days, and no less attractive to him for it. In fact, as the years went on, he found the gradual changes in John’s body almost unbearably sexy. “You have tan lines,” he said, tracing them with his fingertips. In the low light, the delineation between pale and sun-browned skin seemed softer.
“So do you.” John’s thumb brushed across Nick’s hip where his own skin turned from its normal pale shade to a slightly darker beige, then lower, catching and dragging through the hair on Nick’s thigh and teasing the incredibly sensitive skin there.
Nick took John’s hand, not to move it to his erection, much though he craved a touch there, but just to hold it for a moment, palm to palm, fingers pressed together.
John looked at him and smiled. “Handfasted,” he said, his voice low and clear against the crackle of the fire. “In the olden days, it was how a couple got betrothed or wed up here when there was no priest around. If I had a cord handy, I’d wrap it around our wrists and bind us one to the other.”
Nick’s breath caught; his chest felt tight, and his heart gave a little extra thump-thump. He slipped his fingers between John’s, interlacing them, holding on tight. “Do it. Find something we can use.”
John’s eyes widened. “Love ‑‑” He glanced down and away, so that all Nick could see was the soft rumple of his hair and then sighed and looked back up. His eyes, sea blue, sky blue, were full of rare tears, and as Nick watched, John reached up to rub them away, giving him a rueful smile. “You always did know how to get to me. Aye. I will. Wait here.” John brought their linked hands up to his lips, gave the back of Nick’s hand a swift, warm kiss, and then stood. He walked over to the dresser that stood against one wall and pulled out a drawer they used for all sorts of oddments.
Nick found himself on his feet as John walked back to him, holding a rough length of twine that had been floating around in the drawer for years, probably. He half remembered shoving it out of his way dozens of times when he’d been looking for something else, at least.
“Like this,” John said, taking Nick’s right hand in his left and interlacing their fingers again. “And the cord goes around our wrists.”
Between the two of them, they managed to get the twine tied. A little too tightly, with some of the strands cutting into their skin, but somehow that seemed appropriate. They had to work together to get it done, but they knew how to do that, even if this particular task was new.
“Now what?” Nick’s voice was hushed, the crackle of the fire louder.
“I don’t know. This?” John brought his free hand to Nick’s face, and Nick felt tears sting his own eyes without falling. John’s hand was shaking, but the touch was still the most comforting Nick had ever felt, wordlessly conveying a love he’d never ‑‑ would never ‑‑ take for granted. He leaned into the hand cupping his face and kissed the thumb that brushed lightly over his mouth.
When John’s lips replaced his thumb, Nick closed his eyes and kissed him, a brief, almost chaste kiss, oddly formal. John drew back and, with happiness alive in his eyes, grinned at him, a wicked, mischievous grin. “Och, you can do better than that, can’t you, Nick?”
John’s thumbnail scored Nick’s palm in a deliberately arousing caress, and Nick shivered.
“I love you,” John said, murmuring the words because they were so close he didn’t need to do more than that. “And I don’t know what words we’re supposed to say, but you’re mine, and I’m damn sure I’m yours, and it’s been a long time since I’ve doubted that. I’ve never known what I did to deserve you, but I thank God I’ve got you. Nick. My Nick.”
The tears that had been threatening spilled over. Nick blinked them away as quickly as he could, more because he wanted to see John clearly than because he was ashamed of them. John had seen him cry before, on many occasions ‑‑ this time wouldn’t be the first or last. “I’m so lucky to have you,” Nick said. He had to stop and swallow past the lump in his throat. “I’ll never stop being grateful for you, not ever.”
Their hands were gripping each ot
her tightly enough to hurt, but Nick didn’t care. He wanted to feel John’s strength, to know that John was there, would always be there, holding on.
John’s arm went around him and brought him even closer, John’s face against his, tear-wet as was Nick’s. They were both no more than half-hard now, their emotions taking over from their arousal but that didn’t mean that Nick wasn’t aware of how good it felt to stand like this. He put his arm around John and ran his hand over John’s back, an action he’d done countless times before, the curve of bone and muscle so familiar.
“When you go, or I do ‑‑” John stumbled over the words, and Nick wished he could see his face. “Nick ‑‑ I don’t ask you to promise because you’ve told me you don’t know what’s next any more than I do, but there has to be something or what you do wouldn’t be needed ‑‑” He took a breath Nick could feel as if his own body had taken it, a long, deep breath that he released a moment later. “Wait for me, will you? If you go first? Because I’ll tell you now, I won’t be far behind you.”
“Don’t say that.” It was an automatic response, no thinking required, but that didn’t mean John’s words had been easy to hear. Nick’s chest ached fiercely at the thought of John dying, and he knew it was true for him, too ‑‑ if John died first, he wouldn’t be able to go on long without him. “I will. I’ll wait. I couldn’t go anywhere without you.” He sounded as desperate as he felt, considering it, and he clutched at John with his free arm as best he could in the awkward position. “But you…just go, if you can. Don’t try to wait if it means you might get trapped here. I couldn’t stand that.”
He could barely stand it now, literally ‑‑ John was half holding him up.