Sail Away

by Lee Rowan

  “You have the most beautiful lips I’ve ever seen,” Davy said, tracing the outline lightly, brushing across the lower lip. “No, no, not yet,” he scolded gently as Will tried to take the fingers into his mouth. His fingers moved up to Will’s eyebrows, tracing them from nose to temple. “You have a look about you, in battle, that almost frightens me. It seems you move outside yourself and forget you even have a body. I don’t understand that kind of courage.”

  “It isn’t courage,” Will mumbled, leaning into the hand that now cradled his face. “It’s terror. I can’t let myself think. If I thought about what could happen to my body, I’d be frozen stiff.”

  “Mmm.”

  Both hands on his face now, and Davy leaned in for a real kiss, deep and thorough. But that was the only contact; though he could sense Davy’s warmth and closeness with the rest of his body, the only reality was the mouth on his, the hands in his hair. He usually closed his eyes when they kissed; he supposed Davy did too, but this was different somehow, more intense.

  Davy stopped for breath and sat back again, breaking the connection.

  “Are you finished?” Will asked hopefully.

  A merry laugh was not the answer he’d hoped for. “I’ve hardly begun!” Those warm hands ran lightly down his arms. “Mine, all mine!”

  Will groaned, the sound drawing out as Davy stroked back up, along the collarbone, and spread his fingers to skim them down Will’s chest, just skirting his nipples. “Oh, have mercy!”

  “I don’t expect you’re going to let me do this very often,” Davy said. “Our opportunities come so seldom.” He planted a wet kiss on Will’s chest and cooled it with a breath. “So I’m going to make the most of it.”

  Will felt goose bumps rise all over his body, the shivers blending with the tingle rising in his groin. Davy’s hands were at his hip bones now, and once again he avoided the part that most wanted to be touched. The part that was getting harder than it had ever been, and how was he supposed to lie still for this?

  Davy shifted, straddling him, one hand on either side of his waist. Will felt a soft weight brush his left leg, and a soft breath on his right nipple. Then a lick—just one.

  “Davy, for pity’s sake—!”

  “Patience, Will.” He did take pity on him with another kiss, and Will could tell from the taste of Davy’s mouth that he was not alone in his state of arousal.

  But yet again Davy broke the kiss to nuzzle along the side of Will’s neck. “Do you know you have different scents?” Davy inquired, raising shivers again with the whisper. “Here behind your ear… and by your arms…. Will, would you move your arms out a bit?”

  Will did, and Davy drew a deep breath like a scent hound seeking a trail. “It’s different here… and down here….” He slid down Will’s chest, rubbing his face against the skin as though he’d been changed into a big cat. “Oh, down here… hmm.”

  “What?”

  “Just a moment.”

  Davy shifted away, and Will could tell from the way the straw mattress rustled that he was now completely alone on the bed. “Are you finished now?”

  “No. Just a moment.” There were a few indistinct splashes, then the rattle of an iron in the fireplace. “It’s too chilly in here. I’m going to stir up the fire a bit.”

  “Oh.” He leaned back once more, summoning his patience. He’d never guessed Davy could be so inventive, or so diabolical. “I’m not going to keep my eyes closed for more than an hour, Mr. Archer.”

  “Wouldn’t think of asking you to, Mr. Marshall.” He climbed back into bed, laying a hand on Will’s shoulder. “I’d just been thinking about one of my favorite parts of your body, and where it was most recently, and I thought…. This is going to be warm, Will—I held it over the fire.”

  Will yelped as warmth and moisture settled over his cock, but it was really very comfortable.

  “Just the washrag,” Davy assured him. “I thought it might be unkind to make you wait while I ordered a bath.”

  “Th—thank you.” He hoped the washing-up was a hint of things to come, and gave a quick thanks to whatever random gods looked after misbehaving sailors that Davy was cleanly in his habits.

  He was also developing into the world’s worst tease, wrapping the wet cloth around the distressed organ and squeezing it not quite hard enough. “Do you know, Will, I think this damned thing gets bigger every time.”

  “It’s going to be big as a nine-pounder by the time you’re done with it.”

  “It’s going to be smaller than it is now when I’m done with it!” Davy retorted. He must have laid the cloth aside, because both his hands were playing over Will’s chest and belly. “I wonder why you have such a little bit of hair up here, and so much way down… here.”

  “To attract your curiosity, I imagine.” He rolled just a little to the left, leaning against his lover, flank to knees. “It’s very strange that you find such fascination in a scarecrow like me.”

  Davy chuckled a little but did not move away; instead, he gathered Will’s balls up in one hand, stroking the underside lightly with the tips of his fingers, while the other hand roamed across his chest. “You have no idea how beautiful you are, Will. I suppose you might have been a scarecrow when you were fourteen or so, when you first shot up—”

  “Thirteen.”

  “But I’ll wager you’ve not looked at yourself since then.” Davy swooped down and placed a quick kiss on Marshall’s belly; his cock leaped but was ignored yet again. “You’ve filled out as well as any man could ask. Look at—no, don’t you look at these legs, I’ll do it. Feel how beautifully your muscles flow.” His hands started at the hip bones, slipped down smoothly over thighs and calves. “You could pose for statuary, but I’ve never seen a statue so fine. Roll over?”

  “Davy—”

  “Only for a moment. I like this side of you far too well to let it be.” Davy waited until Will had grumblingly rolled over, then laid himself full length upon Will’s back. The hot weight of his cock rested in the cleft of Will’s arse, and for an instant, as Davy caught a breath and clutched at him, he thought the game must have reached its end.

  But Davy recovered his control and lifted himself up and off. “You see what I mean, Will?” His voice was shaky. “Can you not feel how very beautiful you are?” His hands swept down Will’s spine, coming to rest on his buttocks, circling with gentle pressure before they moved down his legs and up again.

  His touch set a fire that spread up and in, filling Will and driving him into the bedclothes. “Davy, please. I cannot do anything about your delusions, but if I lie this way another moment—”

  “You are an impatient rogue, Mr. Marshall. Roll over, then, and I’ll hold the thought of your fine stern in my mind’s eye.”

  “Hold anything you like,” Will said as he reversed his heading. “And see if you can’t extend the same courtesy to me.”

  “Soon,” Davy promised. He slipped an arm beneath Will’s neck and pulled him into a kiss as he lay atop him, both their bodies quivering involuntarily as their cocks rubbed together. “Is that better?”

  “Much!”

  “What would you like now?” Davy whispered. “To take me? Or be taken? I might use my hands, or my mouth… or we could just stay like this for a time.”

  Riding on a wave of exquisite pleasure, Will found he could not think, and Davy’s hot breath in his ear made things no easier. All he proposed sounded wonderful, felt wonderful, and he realized it mattered not at all. “Whatever you like.”

  He felt the low rumble of Davy’s laughter against his chest. “Mr. Marshall, I do believe you’re overwhelmed.”

  “I believe you’re right, you ravisher.”

  “Oh, you want ravishing? Happy to oblige!” Davy nipped the edge of his shoulder, then shifted so he was fastened hungrily on one nipple while he pinched the other. Will arched up, restraint abandoned as he clutched at Davy’s shoulders. Davy pulled away gently, kissing his way downward, until his mouth closed around
Will’s throbbing cock.

  But Davy wasn’t quite finished. As Will thrashed against the pillow, he felt Davy’s body over him once again, and realized that there was a pendant weight against his face, a persistent nudge against his lips.

  He didn’t really know what he was doing; Davy was driving him mad. When he opened his own mouth and took Davy’s cock into it, only Davy’s cry, resonating around his own organ, told him that whatever he was doing, it must be right. He had that brief, curious sensation he sometimes felt with Davy—that he was part of one larger being; that whatever he was doing, he was really doing to himself—and then they were both rocking, shivering, holding, and thrusting, until at last the storm passed and Davy rolled off to one side, then crept up to burrow into his shoulder.

  “My God,” Will said.

  “That’s quite a promotion,” Davy murmured drowsily.

  For a while neither of them spoke, but Will could not suppress the anxiety growing within him, and at last he found the right words. “Davy, that was astonishing. But was it—do you—”

  “Speak, thou apparition!” Davy said without opening his eyes. “Will, whatever is the matter?”

  “Do you mean we should do all that every time?”

  He thought Davy was coughing until the sound resolved into giggles. “Of course not, you ass! We almost never have the time—and I like hard and fast.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  Another long silence.

  “But you did like it this other way, as well?”

  “Loved it,” Davy said, following the words with a prodigious yawn.

  “Good.” Will pulled the blanket up and wrapped his arms around his shagged-out lover. “Because next time it’s my turn.”

  WORLDLY GOODS

  BY CHARLIE COCHRANE

  “ONE. QUITE a big one. Two—no, three. All of them absolute beauties.”

  “Must we have a running commentary on this procedure? I don’t think we need to keep a log.”

  “I thought that you’d be interested, you being such a stickler for facts and figures. The exact time for two rolling broadsides, to within a second—the correct latitude and longitude, to half of a second—therefore, the precise number of lice. I’ve given up counting the nits.” David Archer carefully wiped his comb on a towel; the guttering light from the gun room lantern meant his tally couldn’t be as precise as he was claiming.

  William Marshall grimaced. He was happy to submit to his hair being washed with some particularly foul-smelling soap, and for Davy to be disentangling it with a comb designed for the express purpose of removing Pediculus humanus from its unwilling host. But he really didn’t want to have the gruesome details spread abroad.

  “Anyway,” Davy continued, “you must have removed many more of them from me when we were just a pair of snotties, back on Titan. I think I scratched my head to pieces before you set to work—this is a mere bagatelle compared to that.” He drew the comb through the hair again, looking like he was enjoying himself. Davy had rarely dressed his friend’s hair, even back in those far-off days. Will had been far too independent—and, he now realized, stupid—to rely on a tie mate.

  Will shut his eyes under Davy’s tender ministrations, trying hard to keep his thoughts above waist level, even though, for once, the activity didn’t put them at risk of breaking the Articles. It was difficult enough working alongside a man whose body you knew as intimately as your own, but when he was actually rubbing your scalp and caressing your temples…. “Sorry, Davy—did you say something?”

  “I asked where you thought you got them, these little visitors?”

  “Back in that wretched room we took for the night in Plymouth, I suspect. Vile, vermin-infested place.”

  “That wouldn’t work, Will. These buggers only pass from head to head, or so my mother used to say, and I have no reason to doubt her. Who have you been tête-à-tête with?”

  “No one!” Will’s protestation was just too quick and defensive—as if he was desperate to assure his lover that he hadn’t strayed willy-nilly into any particular arms.

  “Well, it’s not me—I’ve been clean for ages.” Davy waved the nit comb. “Been using it regularly, like a good boy. Ever since we escaped our captivity.”

  Brave of him to mention those desperate days of being kidnapped. Will knew Davy’s memories of the time were unpleasant—he’d tried hard to shut his mind to much of it also—but the close proximity had been precious to both of them. In the midst of misery, there had been stolen pleasures, and now, in the midst of duty, there was the same.

  Will suddenly rolled his eyes. “Mr. Korthals.”

  “What about him?”

  “A couple of weeks ago we were looking at some charts together, plotting out the shoals. Our heads were over the papers, very close, and I remember now he’d been scratching his scalp with the end of a quill as we talked.”

  “Nice present he gave you to bring back to the gun room. Don’t feel that you have to share it with me.” Davy grinned and wiped the comb again. “Six—and I suspect that’s the end of the adults. Just these little clinger-onners to get at. Think we’re winning, although it would be so much easier if your hair were a lighter color.”

  “I shall see what I can acquire when we’re next home—I’ll dye my hair so it resembles yours in the height of summer if you wish.” Will wondered how it would feel if the roles were reversed, to tend to Davy’s locks. It would certainly be easier to pick out the vermin against Davy’s lighter hair, paler skin. He’d have happily performed those duties every day for a year, sitting on the table, towel on his knees and a glorious golden head on the towel. It would be bliss to be allowed to touch the hair and skin of the man he adored, out in the open. It would be painful too—to be so close and not to be able to proceed further—but what other chance did they have? Oh, for the privacy shore leave brought.

  “Korthals has planted the seeds of a zoological garden in your thatch.” Davy sounded full of concentration. “There’s a particularly difficult patch of nits behind your ear.”

  “I’m glad they’re just on my head.” Will shivered to think of an all-round infestation.

  Davy laughed. “My father used to know an Admiral who got completely infested—head to toe—in a house of ill repute in Provincetown.”

  “You’d have thought the man would have had more sense than going after loose women at his age.”

  “Wasn’t a woman—” Davy gently tugged at one of Will’s curls. “It was a young man caused all the problems. Now don’t jerk your head like that—you know it’ll hurt.”

  “A man? A male doxy?”

  “Didn’t you know they exist, Will? They may not be as obvious as those girls at Portsmouth, winking their eyes and jiggling their accoutrements, but they can be found.”

  “But he was an Admiral. How could he?”

  “Well, I don’t think that all romantic inclinations stop when you get a second swab on your shoulder. Life in old dogs yet, as they say.” He wiped the comb carefully on the towel again, reluctantly bringing his task to an end. “At least I hope there will be.”

  “There’ll be no doubt on that score.” Will risked a kiss on the hand that held the nit comb. “But I hope it’ll be in my britches and not on my head.”

  Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from

  Walking Wounded

  Royal Navy Series: Book Four

  By Lee Rowan

  John Hanson joined the military because he wanted to serve his country. Lacking a home and family of his own, the idealistic young man longed to be a part of something bigger than himself. He didn’t expect to find love in officer’s training—so when an assignment took him away from Kevin Kendrick, the love of his life, he sacrificed personal happiness and did his duty.

  Kevin has made his own sacrifices. Career came first and the impressionable Army brat, tired of living in his father’s shadow, pledged his loyalty to his country and followed his ambition.

  Now, seven years later, when the
Army that Kevin so faithfully served has made him the scapegoat for their latest Middle East snafu, he can only think of one place to go, one man who can provide solace and heal his wounds—John.

  Reunited, the two war-weary lovers once again discover their passion for life, love, and one another. But Kevin’s past isn’t through with him yet, and when an old enemy surfaces, the two men realize that they must face the nightmares of the past together if they are to have the future they dream of.

  Coming Soon to

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  “JOHNNY?”

  For a moment John’s voice froze, and so did his hand on the telephone receiver. Then he asked cautiously, “Kevin?” It couldn’t be, couldn’t be. He hadn’t heard that voice in years. Where had the time gone? But there was no one else who ever called him that. He had always been “John” to everyone else, or “Lieutenant,” or now just “Mr. Hanson.”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  The silence stretched out so long that he was almost ready to add audio hallucinations to the list of his afflictions. But then Kevin said, “Would… would you mind very much if I stopped by?”

  John’s throat closed up at that and his eyes filled with tears. Damn the old emotional hair-trigger! He hadn’t had this strong a reaction to anything for longer than he could remember. “No,” he finally managed. “No, of course not. When?”

  He heard a deep sigh at the other end of the line and realized this must be just as hard for Kevin as it was for him. Worse, maybe—Kev would’ve had to get up the nerve to make the call and risk being turned away.

  “I can be there tonight,” Kevin suggested. “Say by eight? And if you could recommend a hotel—”

  “Nonsense. You’ll stay here.” He bit his lip, wondering if he’d said too much, if the offer would be misinterpreted. Or not. “I mean—there’s room enough, I have one of those futons. It’s not too lumpy.” He pushed aside the image of Kevin sprawled on dark blue sheets, relaxed and sleepy. No. Forget it. That was part of the past now. What they’d had between them was over. But maybe there could still be friendship.