Cover Up

by L. A. Witt

  “Let me know. Once you’ve got the all clear, we can take a look online and find a place. It isn’t like we’re going down in the middle of the summer, so there’s bound to be something available for a decent price.”

  “Well, as long as we don’t insist on staying right on the beach,” Lucas said. “Those get expensive as fuck.”

  Nate waved a hand. “That’s definitely not a deal breaker for me. Besides . . .” He grinned, trailing a single fingertip down the middle of Lucas’s chest. “If we’re in our room, I guarantee it won’t matter at all where the beach is.”

  And just as Nate had hoped, Lucas shivered.

  Chapter 14

  It took some effort—and resulted in a couple of lectures—but Lucas managed to get an entire weekend off from all three jobs. He had a feeling he was on thin ice with one of them, too.

  “You’re the best man I’ve got, Brandt.” His boss at the call center had sighed heavily. “You’ve already been off four days this week.”

  Lucas had somehow found enough restraint to not roll his eyes.

  Maybe if you cheapskates allocated enough hours to bring me in full time. . . .

  God, wouldn’t that be nice? Then he could ditch one of his tech jobs altogether and come up with a more regular schedule at Skin Deep. Assuming he didn’t get fired from either of the tech-support gigs first. Then he’d have to find another one, and start at an entry-level wage all over again.

  Fuck, maybe taking a weekend off wasn’t such a good idea. On the other hand, if he didn’t get canned for taking three whole days off, it probably wouldn’t be much longer before they showed him to the door for having a shitty attitude or telling a customer to go fuck themselves. He was at a breaking point, so something had to give. Might as well get a weekend at the beach with Nate out of the deal.

  And first thing Friday morning, that much-needed vacation started.

  With their overnight bags in the trunk of Nate’s car, they left Virginia Beach and headed south toward the North Carolina border.

  “You know where we’re going?” Lucas asked.

  Nate nodded. “Well enough to get us most of the way there. We’ll put in the address when we get closer to Kitty Hawk. No point in having that nagging voice coming on every time I need to go straight through an intersection.” He rolled his eyes.

  “What?” Lucas asked. “You don’t like Siri’s commentary?”

  “Not even a little.” Nate wrinkled his nose and in a high-pitched voice said, “Go left at the next intersection. No shit, Siri—it’s a one-way cross street, and if I don’t turn, I’ll go in the goddamned ditch.”

  Lucas laughed. “My brother said she’s even worse in Europe.”

  “How so?”

  “From what he said, she butchers all the non-English names, and I guess she assumes Americans have no idea how to drive. So she tries to spell out the simplest shit. Like, she’ll tell you to go into the roundabout, take the third exit from the roundabout, and exit the roundabout. In three separate instructions.”

  “Oh my God.” Nate groaned. “I would throw the phone out the window after the second roundabout.”

  “But only after you’d exited the roundabout, right? Otherwise you’d be stuck going in circles forever.”

  “Right. Of course.” Chuckling, Nate rolled his eyes again. “So yeah, I think we’ll navigate the old-fashioned way until we’re actually in Kitty Hawk.”

  “Good plan.”

  Silence started to sink in, but then Nate said, “I’ve never actually been to the Outer Banks.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Which is a shame—I’ve lived in Norfolk for years, but for whatever reason, I’ve never made it down there. What about you?”

  “I’ve been a few times.” Lucas paused. “My second wife and I couldn’t afford much of a honeymoon because we were a couple of broke college kids, but we scraped together enough for a weekend in Kitty Hawk.” He smiled fondly at the memory. “It was nice.”

  Nate glanced at him. “So, is it okay if I ask about your marriages?”

  “Sure.” Lucas shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know. Just . . . I’m curious about them. You were so young. . . .”

  “Yeah. Young and stupid.” Lucas took a deep breath. “Madison and I met in high school. We were both way too young to know the difference between love and hormones, and we figured if we liked sex that much, we must be in love.”

  “Sounds like how teenagers think sometimes.”

  “Pretty much. So after graduation, we decided that since we were both eighteen, we could do anything we wanted. We got married in July, and I filed for divorce a week after Valentine’s Day.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. And let me tell you, nothing screams adulthood like asking your mom for a lift to the courthouse so you can get a divorce.”

  Nate winced. “Jesus. No shit.”

  “Right? So, yeah. Way too young and stupid to be married. Thank God I never got her pregnant.”

  “Man, that would’ve complicated things.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Nate tapped his fingers on the wheel. “And your second wife?”

  “Me and Erika met at a party in college. We sort of kept crossing paths all night, then just started making out without even talking to each other. After that, we pretty much couldn’t stay out of each other’s beds.” He laughed. “I don’t think we even knew each other’s names until the second or third night.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive.”

  “Or just another sign of how young and dumb we were.” Lucas shook his head and gazed out the windshield at the passing scenery. Mostly forests and farms out here. “I mean, it worked. Neither of us wanted a relationship because we were trying to focus on school, but we both liked getting laid. And we really liked getting laid together. And partying together. And doing wild, crazy shit together. We were spending so much time together, we accidentally fell for each other.” Sighing, he let his head fall back against the seat. “We’d have been a lot better off if we’d just stayed like that, you know? Didn’t complicate things by getting married. We were way, way too immature for that.”

  “Sounds like you’ve matured a lot since then, though.”

  “Yeah, but as my dad points out all the time, I don’t have to learn everything the hard way.”

  Nate laughed. “My parents have made similar comments to me. I feel ya.”

  Lucas just chuckled.

  “So, um . . .” Nate glanced at him. “What kind of crazy shit did you do with her?”

  “Well, for one, we went to a concert, and there were rumors the lead singer was gay, but she was convinced he wasn’t. So we kind of had a bet going.” He laughed, cheeks burning. “Somehow we got it into our heads that one of us could hook up with him, and that would prove if he was gay or straight. Or if we both got him, then he was bi.” He cleared his throat and added sheepishly, “We were, uh, pretty drunk.”

  “So, she knew you were into men?”

  “Oh yeah. First time she ever saw me, I was blowing a dude on a pool table, and after we started dating, I don’t even know how many threesomes we had with other dudes.”

  Nate laughed. “Really?”

  “Yep. We were a bit wild. And anyway, we’re at this concert, and she knows one of the security guys, so we actually get backstage. The crazy thing is, it turned out the singer really was gay. And I, uh, kind of woke up on his tour bus the next morning.”

  Nate’s head snapped toward him, eyes huge. “No shit?”

  “Swear to God.”

  “Damn. And what did she think?”

  Lucas burst out laughing. “I kind of thought she’d be mad, since she’d wanted to hook up with him. But let’s just say that when I got home that morning, I don’t think any woman has ever jumped my bones like she did. She wanted every last explicit detail.”

  “So she wasn’t mad?”

  “Nope. She thought it was hot.” Lucas’s laughte
r faded, and he sighed. “We pretty much decided we were made for each other after that, and eloped like a month later.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Not quite a year. We dated, like, six months and were married for almost eleven.”

  “Damn.” Nate tapped his thumbs on the wheel and glanced at him again. There were a million questions in his eyes, but he didn’t press.

  “The thing is,” Lucas went on, “we were crazy in love with each other and thought that was enough. We never bothered to figure out if we were compatible in the long run. About things like kids and where to live. Jobs.” He blew out a breath. “I knew we were fucked when she started talking about upgrading to a bigger apartment so we’d have room for a baby.”

  “You don’t want kids?”

  “At the time, I hadn’t even really thought about it. All I knew was I didn’t want them right then.” He paused. “Turns out I don’t want kids, but when she brought it up, it was more like, whoa, put on the brakes and talk about this first.”

  Nate nodded. “Yeah, kind of seems like something you’d want to know before you married someone.”

  “Exactly. So that turned into a big battle, and while we were screaming at each other, we started realizing all the other things that didn’t work. I thought she was stupid with money. She thought I was useless around the house. I figured she was going to get a degree and get a job. She’d assumed I’d give up tattooing, get a real job, and let her be a full-time mom. Which, I mean, I have nothing against stay-at-home moms, and she’s got nothing against tattoo artists. . . . But things started to unravel pretty fast after that because we obviously had different plans in life that didn’t jibe with each other. And what really sucked? We were a couple of broke college students who could barely afford to eat. Add a divorce on top of that?”

  Nate grimaced. “Fuck. How’d you swing that?”

  “Lived together for a few months after we’d divorced, just to keep our bills under control.”

  “How was that?”

  “Eh. It was kind of awkward at first, but we actually started getting along better. We’re not friends now or anything, but if we ran into each other on the street, we’d at least say hi to each other.”

  “That’s good,” Nate said quietly. “Being civil, at least.”

  “Yeah. I can’t complain. So, what about yours?”

  “Hmm?” Nate glanced at him.

  “Your divorce. You don’t talk about it much.”

  And just like that, Nate could feel the walls going up and doors slamming shut. He tensed in the driver seat, focusing intently on the road ahead. His knuckles weren’t white from gripping the wheel, but they weren’t far from it.

  Lucas chewed the inside of his lip. He knew damn well this was a red flag. It was one thing if Nate just didn’t want to discuss it. Sometimes Lucas didn’t want to talk about his divorces, either. But it was like Nate went on lockdown as soon as anyone broached the subject. Lucas had just been talking about his divorces—Nate had asked about them, for God’s sake—but Nate wasn’t showing any of his cards.

  He’s not over his ex. There’s no way he is.

  Which meant everything about this—including taking off for something that looked an awful lot like a romantic getaway—was a disaster waiting to happen.

  But damn it, even if this thing blew up in his face in the end, Lucas still needed it right now. The sex. The companionship. The break from his triple-time-clock life.

  I know this won’t end well. Just don’t let it end now.

  He put a hand on Nate’s leg. “We don’t have to talk about it. I was just curious.”

  Some of the tension eased in Nate’s jaw, and he slid his hand over the top of Lucas’s. “I’m sorry. It’s . . . just kind of hard to talk about, I guess.”

  “Well, yours is a bit more recent than either of mine.”

  “I know, but . . . I mean, you showed me yours.” Nate exhaled. “I’ll get there. I will.”

  “It’s fine. When you’re ready.”

  Nate glanced at him, and a subtle smile tugged at his lips. Lucas returned it.

  And he hoped this wasn’t a sign that he should bail now, before things got messy.

  Something told him it was already too late for that.

  * * *

  They crossed into Kitty Hawk around mid-afternoon. Nate pulled over and programmed the GPS with their destination’s address, and the annoying voice guided them the rest of the way.

  The hotels in the area were either expensive as hell, booked solid, or crap, so they’d gone with a bed and breakfast instead. B and Bs weren’t exactly cheap, and it had taken several tries to find one with a room available, but they were generally nicer than any hotel Lucas had ever stayed in down here.

  The place they’d finally settled on was a large house a few blocks from the beach. It was run by a couple in their sixties, and the husband instantly hit it off with Nate when they realized they were both Navy. Turned out the guy was a retired master chief, so they spent a good half hour regaling each other with sea stories.

  His wife didn’t seem entirely enthused about a gay couple staying there, and she almost kept her distaste for Lucas’s tattoos under the surface. Well, that would make breakfast fun.

  The B and B had a hot tub, so of course the guys had come prepared with swim trunks. As soon as they’d settled into their room, they changed clothes and wandered out to the sunroom where the tub was. Nate turned on the jets, and as the steaming water started bubbling, they both slipped into it.

  Groaning softly, Nate leaned back and stretched his arms across the side of the tub. “Oh, this is nice.”

  “Uh-huh.” Lucas sat beside him. “Soon as I saw ‘hot tub’ on the listing, I was sold.”

  “Smart man.” Nate brought his arm down and slid a hand over Lucas’s thigh under the water. “So we’ve got all day tomorrow and most of Sunday. What should we do with it?”

  “Hmm. I don’t even really know what’s down here besides the lighthouses and beaches.”

  “Might be enough to keep us entertained. We’re here to relax, after all.”

  “Yeah, we are.” Lucas closed his eyes and exhaled, sinking down to his chin in the water. Relax. What a concept. And starting in a hot tub with a sexy man who’d be sharing a gigantic bed with him tonight? Yeah. This was perfect.

  “I’m curious about something,” Nate said after a while.

  Lucas opened his eyes. “Sure.”

  “That singer you hooked up with—someone I’ve heard of?”

  “Probably. But he made me swear on my life I’d never tell anyone. And he’s still got that whole hetero image thing going on, so . . .” Lucas shrugged apologetically. “Can’t say.”

  Nate laughed. “Fair enough.”

  “You probably have heard of him, though.”

  “Now you’re just teasing.”

  “Um, yeah?” Lucas smirked. “Of course I am.”

  “Bastard,” Nate murmured, and gathered Lucas in his arms. “Too bad for him, he doesn’t get you right now.”

  “Mmm, but you do.”

  “Mmhmm, I do.” Nate tilted his head and pressed a long kiss to Lucas’s lips. Moaning softly, Lucas combed his fingers through Nate’s short, damp hair.

  Rico may have had a tour bus and a gorgeous ass, but he’s got nothing on you and what you do to me.

  A door shut somewhere in the house, and they both turned toward the sound. No one appeared in the sunroom, though, and Lucas didn’t hear any footsteps or voices.

  He turned to Nate. “Think any of the other guests will be horrified if they find a couple of gay guys in here?”

  Nate laughed. “They will if we’re making out like a couple of teenagers.”

  “Hmm.” With a grin, Lucas slid closer. “That would keep anyone from joining us, wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh, I like the way you think.”

  “Do you?”

  “Mmhmm. C’mere.”

  Lucas didn’t need
any convincing. He climbed onto Nate’s lap, straddling him, and they kissed breathlessly as he ran his wet fingers through Nate’s hair.

  Nate tugged Lucas’s hair back and started kissing his neck. Up and down. Across his throat. Down to the collarbones. Up to his jaw. Fuck, but Lucas never got tired of Nate’s talented, enthusiastic lips skating across his skin, exploring as if this time—every time—were the first time.

  A shiver straightened Lucas’s spine, and Nate grinned against his skin.

  “You’re not cold, are you?”

  “In hundred degree water with you?” Lucas drew back and looked down at him, and whatever witty remark he’d had died on his lips. Wow. Nate was amazingly hot like this. His skin was flushed, and water dripped from his spiky hair down his face like sweat. As hot as the tub was, some of it might’ve been sweat.

  And for that matter, with the water this hot, neither of them was going to be able to stay hard for very long—never mind come—but Lucas didn’t mind. He liked just lazily making out, so he went in for more.

  As they kissed, Nate gripped Lucas’s ass cheeks through his swim trunks. It was weird to have his touch filtered through fabric while they were getting this hot and heavy, but it was kind of sexy, too. Like a thin reminder that they were only going so far this time.

  Lucas usually found this kind of thing frustrating. From the time he’d started having sex as a teenager, making out had become foreplay instead of the main attraction. He could do it forever, just kissing and groping, but there was the unspoken agreement that it would end with hand jobs at the very least.

  It shouldn’t have surprised him that things were different with Nate. If this was all they did tonight—if they never bothered getting the condoms out of his overnight bag, if he didn’t get to listen to Nate gasping and cursing through an orgasm—that was fine by Lucas. As long as Nate kept up this lazy, sensual kissing, and running his hands all over his body, Lucas didn’t care if the guy ever touched his dick again.

  The conversation in the car still lingered in the back of his mind, though, and he had no doubt he was letting himself get in deeper than he should. They were too close. Too intimate. Too tangled up in ways that had nothing to do with limbs and skin.