by Jane Davitt
Nick’s cock was stirring against his thigh, his eyes closing as John’s mouth settled at his nipple again and sucked at it. “That sounds better,” he gasped, staying as still as he could manage and letting John touch him. “Makes me actually excited about the possibility of catching a fish.” John’s hair was soft against his fingers, his tongue hot and distracting against Nick’s skin.
“Fishing is exciting,” John corrected him, pausing for a moment and giving Nick a stern look that melted into a smug grin. “I’m the icing on the cake.” Nick couldn’t help returning it with a grin of his own, and John moved back up the bed and pulled Nick into his arms. “God, I love making you smile like that.” He sounded as if he meant it. “Love feeling this happy with someone. With you.”
Nick wrapped his own arms around John and held on. “I know.” He pressed his lips to the tender spot where John’s neck and shoulder met. “I feel the same way.” It was exhilarating and not a little frightening if he let himself think about it too much. He pulled John on top of him, wanting to feel the man’s weight.
John smiled at him. “I seem to remember when we were downstairs you said you wanted something,” he murmured, taking some of his weight on his forearms, but still leaving Nick pinned beneath him, something that was comforting and arousing at the same time. “Me in your bed, which I am, and my mouth on you. Is that still what you want?” He lifted up slightly and ran his hand in a rough circle over Nick’s upper chest where he’d been kissing him. “Because that bit’s taken care of,” he said. “But there’s more work to be done, I’m thinking.”
His hand stroked lower, over Nick’s stomach, fingers crooked, and he met Nick’s gaze calmly. “I’m not going to let you sleep tonight. Not until I’ve given you what you wanted. Not until you’ve nothing left to give me.”
Nick arched beneath John’s touch, every nerve thrumming with arousal as John slid lower and closed warm lips around his cock. “Yes,” he whispered. “Please.”
He’d give John everything he had, and willingly.
Chapter Fifteen
“I thought that was a joke. Syrup? On your cooked breakfast? On sausages?” John shook his head. “It’s bad enough that the English put it on their porridge instead of salt, but you Americans ‑‑” Words failed him, and he shook his head again and reached for the ketchup bottle and the salt, clearing them off the table as Nick stacked their plates, grinning but choosing not to defend the indefensible.
Or maybe he was just having too much fun listening to John rant. John didn’t care. It was enough that Nick was happy, and he knew that he certainly was.
The late morning sunshine ‑‑ and John couldn’t remember the last time he’d got out of bed at ten, but then he wasn’t used to sleeping in a bed that had a warm Nick in it ‑‑ illuminated more than a few cobwebs, but John still felt at home here, as he’d never really done in his grandparents’ house. He shut the cupboard door and turned to find Nick close enough to be kissed.
“If we’re going out fishing, we’ll need to go back to my house and get some rods and tackle.” His arms were around Nick and damp, freshly washed hair was brushing his face. “But the tide’s not right for another few hours yet, which gives us time to ‑‑”
“Mmm?” Nick asked politely. “Time to ‑‑?”
John grinned and captured the hand that was starting to unfasten his jeans. “Dig for lugworms. We’ll be needing bait.”
“Lugworms?” Nick repeated, turning John around and backing him up until his arse hit the edge of the table, twisting his hand free of John’s grip and going back to the job of unfastening his jeans. “Huh. I guess there’s more of a language barrier than I’d realized ‑‑ I’ve never heard them called that before.” Warm fingers touched John’s traitorously swelling cock, Nick’s lips and teeth tracing the side of John’s throat. “God, your skin tastes so good.”
John’s eyes, which had been closed, opened.
His mother was standing on the other side of the back door, her expression one of stunned dismay as she looked through the glass and their eyes met.
“Oh, fuck.”
Nick’s head jerked up. He followed John’s gaze and then stepped, not back, but in front of John, giving him chance to fumble hastily at his jeans, fastening them with fingers that were trembling slightly and icy-cold with shock.
When Nick stepped aside again, his face mirroring the concern John knew was on his own, John’s mother was turning away, her head bowed and her hand coming up to rub at eyes John knew were wet with tears. He’d seen her cry too often this last year not to recognize the signs.
He found himself moving to the door alone, Nick hanging back as if unsure how involved John would want him to be. He opened it, and his mother stopped with her back to him, waiting. Waiting for him to say something.
John had no words. Neither of them moved.
“Come in,” he heard Nick say from behind him. “Mrs. McIntyre, please. Come in and have a cup of tea.”
“Aye.” John found his voice again, although it didn’t sound like his, strained and desperate. He couldn’t imagine a worse way for her to have found out what he’d been planning to tell her later that day, but with Nick there helping him, a calm presence behind him, he allowed himself to hope that he could salvage something of the careful speeches he’d been rehearsing in his head and make her see ‑‑
“Please. I ‑‑ will you not turn around, even?”
She turned slowly, her eyes lowered and her hands clasped in front of her, hands that were trembling as much as John’s had been. He stepped forward instinctively and hugged her. “Oh, God, Mother, please. Don’t. Don’t cry. Please.”
He felt her lean into his embrace for a moment, her head resting against his shoulder, but then she pushed away and faced him with anger darkening her eyes. “Don’t cry? I’ll cry if I damn well choose to, John Robert McIntyre! After what I’ve just seen, I’ve got a right to do worse than that!”
“Fine.” John found her anger easier to bear than her silence. “Cry. Swear at me. Do whatever you like, but just come in, for the love of God, and let me explain.”
“If you loved God, you wouldn’t do such things!” his mother snapped, but apparently her anger was short-lived, because her shoulders slumped and she moved past John and into the kitchen, going without another word to the table and sitting down in the chair Nick pulled out for her.
Nick went to put the kettle on as John shut the door again and stood helplessly, not knowing what to do.
“I knew something was wrong last night,” his mother said finally, breaking the silence. “Soon as I saw the two of you together.” She turned her head and looked at Nick. “Is this what you do, then? Turn women’s fine, upstanding sons into abominations in God’s eyes?”
Nick’s gaze flickered over to John.
“If that’s what I am in your eyes, it’s how I’ve always been,” John told her. He was damned if he was letting anyone, even his mother, make Nick the scapegoat for his actions. “You needn’t be looking to blame him for it, or any of the other men I’ve ‑‑”
“Others?” Her voice cracked. “There’ve been others?”
“Well, of course there ‑‑” John took a deep breath and walked over to sit beside his mother. “Listen. No, look at me, Mam.” The childhood name slipped out easily as he took her hand in his, chafing it gently. “I was going to tell you today. About me. About Nick. I should’ve told you years ago, but I was ‑‑”
“Ashamed?” she asked coldly. “Aye, I can understand that.”
“I’ve never been ashamed of what I am.” That was true enough. “I just knew you’d be like this, and I couldn’t bear to see you look at me with anything but love in your eyes. Scared, maybe, aye. Of what you’d think. Of the whole lot of you on this bloody island staring at me as if I was some sort of freak. So you can call me a coward and a liar if you’re wanting to, and I’ll not argue with you, but you needn’t think I’m going to repent my sins, because I haven’t do
ne anything wrong.”
“Ye have, John. It’s not right. Men should be with women, get married and have families ...” His mother’s eyes were less angry and more hurt now as acceptance began to set in. “It’s not too late. You could still find a nice girl and settle down.”
“I could do what?” John stared at her, groping for words that wouldn’t hurt or insult her. “You’ve just seen me with Nick and you think ‑‑ oh Lord. Mother, I’m gay. I’m not going to ever go looking for a girl, nice or otherwise. If you’re meaning that you want to see me find someone I can love, well, he’s standing right there, but don’t ever ‑‑” He let go of her hand. “I know you’re upset, and you’ve every right to be. I’ve deceived you. For years, I’ve deceived you, although it wasn’t all for selfish reasons. But now you know and I’m glad of it. I ‑‑ I didn’t like you not knowing.”
He could feel the hot sting of gathering tears at the disillusioned, defeated look on her face, but he blinked them away. They wouldn’t help. Nothing would.
The kettle clicked off, and John turned to see Nick making tea, his back to the both of them, shoulders tense. He wished he could spare the man some comfort, and hoped that Nick would understand why he couldn’t.
“I’m sure everyone on the island knows by now,” his mother said. “You know how rumors spread. Young Moira’s telling anyone who’ll listen, and some of those that won’t, that she saw the two of you ... together ... last night when she went outside to smoke a cigarette. Not leaving what she saw up to folks’ imagination, neither.” Fresh tears glistened in her eyes. “Carson told me this morning, and I went over to let you know the lies she was spreading and to ask what you might have done to her to have her telling such tales, only to find you not at home. So I came over here.” She didn’t as much as look at Nick as he set a cup of tea in front of her.
There was something about all this that wasn’t right, but John couldn’t concentrate when he was finding it hard to get air into his lungs. Oddly, it wasn’t panic as much as anger that he was feeling. “The nosy, interfering, spiteful ‑‑” He ran out of ways to describe Moira that wouldn’t have had his mother’s eyes widening in affront more than they were already. “And you’re angry now, because you’re thinking I lied when I told you Nick wasn’t well. Think I left your party just so that I could be with him.” She bowed her head in what might have been assent, and he sighed. “That wasn’t a lie, Mother.” He pushed her cup nearer to her and watched her fingers curl around the handle automatically. “I wanted to be with him, aye, I did, but I’d not have left your party just for that. You know I wouldn’t.”
“Then why did you go?” Anne lifted her head, looking at him and then Nick, who was leaning against the counter with his eyes fixed on the empty doorway. “Did you fall out, the two of you? I saw him ‑‑” She indicated Nick with a sharp nod of her head. “-- leave in a hurry with a face on him that’d turn the milk, and you go after him, but I thought ‑‑ oh, I don’t know what I thought!”
“It was true, what he told you.” Nick sounded like he’d rather be doing anything than speaking. He wasn’t looking at either of them. “I wasn’t ... I see things, sometimes. I don’t want to. Saying that I’m ‘not well’ after it happens would be ... kind of an understatement.” His eyes shut. “No, not now. I can’t.” He looked at John. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m sorry, John.” And without pausing long enough to grab a jacket or to let John respond, Nick was gone, out the back door and shutting it loudly behind him.
“Nick!” John got to his feet, shoving his chair back and taking two steps toward the door before he changed his mind. He rounded on his mother, who was wide-eyed and pale, her hand covering her mouth. “Do you know what upset him last night? Do you?” He was shouting now, raising his voice to her as he’d never done in his life “He saw Sandy, dead. Saw him as clear as I see you right now. I don’t know about you, but I think he’d a right to be shaken by that, and if Moira ‑‑” He couldn’t help the way his mouth twisted as he said her name because it was like biting into something rotten. “If Moira had an ounce of compassion in her, which I doubt, she’d have seen that he was crying and I was doing no more than comforting him. Christ.”
He kicked out at his chair and sent it skidding across the floor, needing to do something to bleed off the tension rising in him, and then looked at his mother.
“And now you’ll be thinking we’re crazy, as well as abominations, or whatever the fuck you called me.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“That will do.” Anne stood up and walked over to him, her chin jutting out the way his own did when he was in a temper. The way it was now. “John, that will do.”
John took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to get hold of himself because, if nothing else, shouting at his mother wasn’t going to solve anything.
“Get yourself a cup of tea and sit down.” His mother gestured at a chair as if she expected him to obey.
Rather numbly, he did, sitting at the table with both hands wrapped around his mug and waiting for her to say whatever she was going to say. He was worried about her, and worried about Nick, but he didn’t feel anything at all for himself.
“Now, I understand that you’re upset, but I’ll not allow you to speak to me in that tone of voice. I raised you better than that.”
“Aye, you did.” John felt the heat of the mug scald his hands and welcomed the discomfort as a distraction. “And I’m sorry.” He swallowed some tea and looked at her, frowning slightly. She seemed calmer than he’d expected, or maybe, like him, she was so stunned with shock that one more wasn’t making any difference. “Do you believe me then? About what he can do? Because I swear it’s true, and Sandy owes him his life, although I don’t plan on telling him that.”
“I believe there’s something touched about the lad, and that’s the truth.” His mother held up a hand. “No, hush now and let me speak, John.” She took a sip of tea as if to give herself a moment to think. “Now, I don’t know him well enough to say he’s a bad sort, this Nick, but it’s clear to me that he’s not right in the head. I’m not saying it’s his fault ‑‑ his mother was always a bit touched, and I can’t say it’s a surprise to find out that he inherited that as well. He’s ill, John. I don’t know what it is he’s told you, but he’s managed to convince you of things that aren’t true, and I won’t stand for it. It’s not too late to change where this is headed ‑‑ you can still find a young woman to marry, have a few children, put all this behind you. You’re a good man, and you feel sorry for him, I can see that, but that’s no reason to jeopardize your own future.”
“Get out,” John said dully.
“What?”
John reached over and took the cup from her hand before standing up and taking it to the sink and emptying it. The brown liquid swirled around the plug hole, trickling away.
“John!”
“You’ll not sit in his house and talk about him like that.” John was unable to look away from the streaks of tea remaining in the sink. He turned on the tap and watched the spluttering stream of water chase the stains away. “It’s all a pack of lies anyway. His mother couldn’t do what he can; she just wanted to see more than this island, that’s all. She wasn’t touched; she was just restless. Adventurous. You want to blame him for me liking men, too, but you can’t. He didn’t do anything. I knew what I was ‑‑ oh God, how old was I? Fourteen? Aye, maybe. Fourteen, and as deep in love with Michael as you can be at that age.”
He turned to where she sat and said harshly, “Will you get out, as I’ve told you to?”
She shook her head, her lips shaping a word that he knew was a name.
“Aye. Michael. And since we’re holding nothing back; yes, he knew. He and Sheila both know what I am and how I felt about him. And they know about Nick, too, and they’re glad for me.”
“They may be saying so, and Michael’s a good enough friend to you that he’d not be rude to your face, I’m sure, but no decent person w
ould be happy for someone who was ... that way.” Anne seemed incapable of being direct as far as the proper word for it went. “When word gets to Reverend Sinclair ... I hate to think. You’ll never be allowed to set foot in the church again if you admit that it’s true, you know that.”
“I don’t, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t care.”
“You will soon enough!” His mother rose to her feet again, her voice shrill. “When young Nick leaves the island, leaves you alone here with our good family name dragged through the mud. You won’t have a friend left, John. Please ... I beg you ... it’s not too late to turn this around. Please.”
“Will you just ‑‑” John heard his voice rise again and didn’t care. “For the last time of saying it, I can’t change and I’m done with lying about it. I know you’re not stupid but you’re acting as if you are.” He strode to the door and flung it open. “Out. And I don’t see Nick leaving, or why the hell he should, but if he does, I’ll be on the ferry with him, just so you know.”
“You wouldn’t!” His mother looked utterly horrified, as if the idea of him leaving Traighshee was something she’d never considered.
“I would, Mam; I care for him that much, you see.” John hated that this was so difficult for her, but he couldn’t help but feel that she was making it worse by refusing to see reason.
“John ...” Anne reached a hand toward him, and then let it fall back down at her side. “Very well. You need some time to think about things, and I won’t have it said that I wouldna give you that time. I’ve things to do ‑‑ your sister to thank properly for that party, for one. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Will you tell her?” John asked curiously as she walked past him through the doorway. She paused and glanced back at him. “Janet, I mean? Or does she already know? Christ, is there a mob waiting back at my house and all my windows broken?” He laughed without humor as her eyes widened. “What? I’m sure Sinclair could find a bit in the Bible to make that the right and proper thing to do.” A thought occurred to him and he said slowly, “They can do and say what the hell they like to me, but anyone goes near Nick or this house and I’ll sort them, you understand? You’ve been very ready to put this on him, Mam, but if I hear that you’ve been telling anyone else it’s his fault, I’ll not find it easy to forgive you.”