Broke Deep (Porthkennack Book 3)

by Charlie Cochrane

  “Small price to pay, though.”

  “Yep.” Even if he’d have to pour himself straight into the shower when he got home if he didn’t want to wake in the morning smelling like a chippy. “You can’t get food as tasty as this anywhere with a Michelin star.”

  You couldn’t sit so close in a posh restaurant, either. It would be really easy to reach over, turn Dominic’s face to his and share a vinegar-laden kiss—maybe too easy. No rebound relationships, right? How often was he going to have to remind himself?

  “I think I’ll smell of vinegar for the rest of my life,” Dominic said, conveniently breaking the romantic spell.

  “Use the bathroom if you want a shower or whatever when we get back. Make yourself entirely at home.” Morgan crumpled up the chip papers, stuffed them into their paper bag, then lobbed the bag in the back. “Hotel Cadoc will soon be ready for business.”

  Once they’d driven home with the windows part open—freezing them to death but the torture was worth it—the reek had pretty well gone and neither felt the need to go haring off to wash. Morgan busied himself with getting Dominic settled in and showing him the first floor of the house. The guest bedroom, the guest bathroom, the location of the squeaky floorboard that could give you the willies at two in the morning when you trod on it.

  “Nice room.” Dominic laid his suitcase by the guest bed and placed his laptop case carefully on the chest of drawers.

  “It was my brother’s. Close the window if you get too cold.” Morgan stifled a yawn. “Excuse me. Last night’s starting to catch up. I’m going to have a nightcap, I think. Can I pour you one?”

  “A glass of white might finish me off for the night. Which sounds like no bad idea.” Dominic yawned and stretched; that seemed to put the lid on any chance of romantic activity, which was probably as well.

  Nightcaps were soon consumed, accompanied by a bowl of strawberries rummaged out of the fridge and plenty of yawns held back until they refused to be controlled any longer.

  “I know it’s rude, me being host and all, but I’m about ready to stagger up the wooden hill. Mind if we call it a night?” Morgan rolled his shoulders, fighting aching muscles from where he’d sat hunched at his mother’s bedside.

  “Not at all.” Dominic produced another yawn. “I’m ready to hit the sack.”

  They walked upstairs in silence, sharing an awkward good night on the landing, as though they both might have something to say and were too tired or too unsure to say it. But like the moment in the car, this one passed without developing.

  “Sleep tight, see you in the morning,” Dominic said shyly before going into his room and shutting the door.

  “See you in the morning.”

  Morgan smiled, ruefully. He’d convinced himself he didn’t want Dominic to make a pass, so why did he feel disappointed? And what would he have done if Dominic had? Given in, probably; there was enough loneliness weighing down on him to make that a goer, no matter how shattered he felt and no matter how much he kept telling himself it wasn’t the right thing to do. Dominic wasn’t the type of guy you should say no to without good reason. But stumbling into unexpected attraction and stumbling away from James was taking some getting used to.

  But the offer hadn’t been made and that was that.

  Morgan got into one of the T-shirts he liked to sleep in, used the bathroom, then lay in bed listening to his guest pottering about. Dominic made two trips to his bathroom so either the fish and chips had upset the bloke’s stomach or he’d simply forgotten to clean his teeth. Everyday domesticity, the unexpected satisfaction and comfort of having somebody else in the house, no matter that they weren’t in his bed.

  These signs of ordinary life, or the sheer fact that he was washed out from the night before, settled him down and drove him into the arms of Morpheus like Usain Bolt up the one-hundred-metres course.

  Morgan woke in a sweat, unsure of where he was or what was happening, apart from the fact somebody seemed to be demolishing the house with a sledgehammer. When he’d shaken himself fully awake, he grasped it was only someone knocking on his bedroom door.

  “Are you all right?” a muffled, worried voice asked. Dominic’s voice, Morgan’s befuddled brain eventually informed him.

  “Yes. Fine.” He sat bolt upright. “Is there a problem with Mum? Did I sleep through the phone ringing?” He switched on the bedside light; the clock said it was just gone half past one.

  “No, unless we both slept through it.” Dominic didn’t wait to be invited in, opening the door and peering round it anxiously. “You didn’t sound fine. I thought you were being murdered.”

  Hell, had he been that loud? “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I know that.” Dominic smiled, coming completely into the room before perching gingerly on the side of the double bed. “Were you having a nightmare?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Morgan tried to give the impression it was nothing to get worked up about. “Side effect of excess of those mushy peas, I suspect.”

  “Probably as bad for you as cheese. You look like death warmed up.” Dominic patted Morgan’s leg through the duvet. “Want me to make a cup of tea or anything?”

  “No, or else I’ll be having to get up again to use the loo.” Morgan forced a smile. “Actually, I tell you what might help. Could you stay here a while? Only for company.”

  “Of course I can, so long as I can slip under the covers. It’s getting bloody freezing out here.” Dominic shivered; whether that was accidental or done deliberately to emphasise the point, Morgan wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure if this was the start of a pass, either. Still . . .

  “Come on, then. Can’t let guests get cold.” Morgan edged across, freeing the duvet and letting Dominic under it, although he kept his distance.

  Hell, it felt like an eternity since he’d had anyone other than James to snuggle up (or wrestle) with. If this turned out to be a fledgling night of passion, it was like none Morgan had ever known. Instead, it was as though two schoolboys were having a sleepover and discussing ghost stories in the night. Ghost stories. Morgan shivered at the thought.

  “You must be freezing cold as well.” Dominic felt Morgan’s arm. “Bloody hell, you’re like ice. Come here.” He grabbed Morgan’s left hand, rubbing it between his. Dominic’s fingers were strong, adept, and hugely comforting. “It must have been a pig of a dream to leave you like this.”

  “Tell me about it,” Morgan said, immediately regretting his words. “Here. Warm the other one.” He turned, slipping his right hand into the reassuring grip.

  “What you really need is a roaring fire. Or a cuddle. I can’t offer the fire.” Dominic freed his hands, slipping his arm round Morgan’s shoulder to take him into a wiry but gentle embrace. “The only way to stop parts of you freezing off.”

  Morgan could think of another more effective and more appealing method, and maybe he’d been wrong to think his guest wouldn’t have the same thing in mind. If this was an attempted seduction on Dominic’s part, it was certainly endearing, if clumsy and clichéd. In character, then.

  “Thank you.” Morgan sighed, happily leaning into the embrace.

  “Thanks for what?” Dominic hugged him closer.

  “For melting this here iceberg. I thought I’d never be warm again.”

  “It’s what any half-decent friend would do.” The hug changed, Dominic’s fingers now wandering lightly across Morgan’s shoulder.

  “What about a lover?” Morgan turned his head up so he could peer into his guest’s eyes, having one last rethink before they crossed the bridge over which there’d be no going back. “What would a lover do?”

  “What a stupid question. He’d do this.” Dominic leaned in for a kiss or three. Soft tender kisses, firm longing kisses, desperate needy kisses. No further words for now, only two mouths—and bodies—beginning to familiarise themselves with each other.

  Dominic proved surprisingly skilful, touching and caressing with assurance and style; the
bloke was good at this. He was so adept, and eager, that Morgan soon lost any guilt that he might be forcing his guest into doing something he only had half an inclination to do. And that he might be getting himself into something which wasn’t a good idea in the long run. He needed comfort tonight, and he’d work through the consequences, whatever they were.

  “I’m going to sound mad, but I’ll risk it. I usually sound mad, anyway.” Dominic whispered against Morgan’s neck as they stopped to take a much-needed breather. “I’ve fancied you since you first appeared in view on Saturday, haring down that path like there was a fire to put out.”

  “I was running because I was worried you’d go too far and end up over the cliff.” Such a bizarre concern, looking back. “Don’t ask why, I just got it into my head that some terrible accident might happen. That if you were a stranger who didn’t know the dangers, you couldn’t be trusted . . .”

  “Do you trust me here? In this bed?” Dominic’s voice had taken on an authority it hadn’t carried before, not even when he’d been talking about his beloved research. Maybe in the bedroom he found his truest metier. “I promise I’m safe as houses. Safer than ships,” he added, kissing Morgan again.

  “Then I’m putting myself in your hands.”

  Morgan did so—literally and figuratively. He wasn’t disappointed, innocent kisses and caresses soon sailing the seas of passion and into the dangerous waters of abandonment. He wasn’t going to mind what they did or how they did it; he wasn’t expecting the romantic encounter to end all romantic encounters.

  “What do you fancy?” Dominic asked, as they broke from a wonderfully stimulating clinch.

  “What have you got?” Morgan would take anything at the present moment, and Dominic would have to be sharp about it. Excitement was reaching fever pitch, and Morgan didn’t feel inclined to keep it under control.

  “Whatever you want. I’m flexible. In more ways than one.”

  “You say the most romantic things,” Morgan laughed. “Surprise me.”

  Which was exactly what Dominic did, showing an adeptness with hands—and tongue—that Morgan would never have predicted he possessed. And Morgan had never realised how stupidly exciting it was to be stroked on one particular spot on the tender skin between his legs, a spot which Dominic found with unerring accuracy.

  Release came quickly, and with a careless pleasure Morgan had long forgotten was possible. He gave as good as he got, revelling in the delight of discovering what worked and didn’t for this new and unexpected lover.

  “That was good,” he said when they had both got their breath back, snuggling down at Dominic’s side, determined that the bloke wasn’t going back to the guest room for the rest of the night.

  “Only good? I must be out of practice.” Dominic laughed gently. It had probably been a minor miracle he hadn’t said sorry when they’d been rolling between the sheets, but in the sex department he’d had nothing to apologise for.

  “Maybe we should organise some further chances for you to get into training, then.” Morgan, wonderfully sleepy, gave his guest a good-night kiss. “See you here in the morning, gorgeous.”

  “Yeah.” Dominic returned the kiss. “Hope the bad dreams have all gone somewhere else now.”

  “So do I.” Fucking hell, didn’t he just?

  Morgan had managed to get back to sleep very easily, only to wake again fighting for air and coughing, as though expelling water from his lungs. He panicked at finding a body next to him, a split second of incomprehension followed by happier remembrance.

  Dominic started, then woke. He grabbed Morgan’s arm, sounding increasingly concerned. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Only a touch of indigestion. I’ll be fine.” That didn’t sound convincing. Why did the dream have to come back tonight of all nights, and with such recurring vengeance? All the talk of Troilus the last few days must have stimulated parts of Morgan’s brain which were best left fallow.

  “It isn’t ‘nothing.’” Dominic got out of bed, slipping on the T-shirt he’d discarded so easily earlier. He switched on the bedside light. “Have you had another nightmare?”

  “Yes. How the hell can you know? I’m starting to think you’re psychic.”

  “It’s bloody obvious, from the same ‘rabbit in the headlights’ expression you had earlier. The same face you wear when we talk about Troilus.” He sat on the bed, taking Morgan’s hand to rub it, and swopping the hard edge in his voice for something lighter. “I’m starting to think you’re having nightmares just to stop me from sleeping.”

  “Pillock.” Morgan glanced up at the window, unsettled. Had the curtains not been drawn, he still wouldn’t have been able to look out to sea—this room faced inland—but the Devil’s Anvil kept calling to him. “Okay. You’ve got me bang to rights. It isn’t the mushy peas. It isn’t the business with Mum unsettling me.”

  “That’s been obvious too.” Dominic squeezed the hand he held. “Don’t talk about it if it makes things worse.” Trust him to have to sprinkle everything with an apology, even if it was in his tone rather than his actual words.

  “It doesn’t hurt to talk. Not with you, anyhow.” Morgan sighed.

  You’ve trusted him with your body—why don’t you trust him with your mind?

  Good question. Nobody, not least James, who’d been a damn sight more intimate body-wise, had been allowed access to the darker recesses of Morgan’s thoughts. Maybe it was time to get it all into the open. He nudged Dominic’s arm. “Want to go downstairs and get a drink? Somehow I don’t fancy going back to bed and finding I either can’t sleep or I nod off and the dream comes back.”

  “We don’t have to try to sleep.” James might have said the same thing, but he’d have been distinctly lascivious, trusting that sex would solve any problem. Which it never did.

  “We don’t,” Morgan replied, returning the squeeze. “Except this wretched nightmare’s knocked my libido for six. Sorry.”

  “That’s my word,” Dominic said, leaning over and kissing him on the forehead. “And we’re both banned from using it remember? A drink it is. Want me to get the kettle on?” He grabbed a rug from the end of the bed and enfolded himself in it like a cloak.

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll find my dressing gown.” Bugger, it was perishing tonight, like November rather than May. “You get in the kitchen, and I’ll put the fire on in the lounge. No point in catching our deaths of cold, like poor sailors washed up on the rocks.”

  “No,” Dominic said slowly, giving Morgan another sympathetic smile.

  Obviously the cat was at least half out of the bag. Might as well release it entirely. “I’ll tell you downstairs.”

  Morgan soon got the lounge cosy, with a couple of table lamps lit and the imitation log fire turning out warmth and light. Just like his childhood days: fire, hot drinks, some blankets from out of the cupboard under the stairs, ones left there from when they’d been used to wrap poorly children. Comfort all round. If Morgan wasn’t in a situation where he could tell everything now, he never would be.

  “I used to have the bedroom that you’re in.” Why not start by giving Dominic some context? “You’ll have an amazing view over the sea tomorrow.”

  “I did wonder if that was the case. There are some old things in the cupboard where I hung my jacket, which I thought might be yours.”

  “Are there?” That showed how much Morgan avoided the room.

  “I also wondered why anyone would give up such a stunning view. I guess you’re going to tell me.” Dominic blew on his tea before sipping it appreciatively.

  “Something weird happened to me in that room when I was about seventeen. I relive it, in recurring nightmares—usually when I least want to.” There, that wasn’t so hard to confess, was it?

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “No, I don’t. But I will.” Morgan took a deep breath. “It’s odd. Sometimes the whole thing feels like it happened to someone else, then the dream recurs and it’s all too real.
”

  “Then tell it like it happened to someone else. See if that helps.” Dominic nodded, cradling his mug and waiting patiently.

  “All right. One night, Morgan got out of bed and went to the window. He looked out through the trees . . . Oh, this is bloody stupid.” He punched Dominic’s arm.

  “Steady on! Don’t spill my tea.”

  “Sorry. I looked out.” How to capture how peculiar that night had been? Some faint light from the westering sun had still been catching the top of the waves; grey water, with a northerly wind whipping up the white horses. “I was watching the sea, when a storm came in. That sounds clichéd, the old ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ thing, but that’s exactly what it was like. Eerily dark, like I was staring into a barrel of pitch. The wind rattling the windows and rain howling. I used to like storms, from when I was a little boy, watching the sea scudding and the birds taking shelter and me feeling snug inside.”

  “Rain’s a great thing to watch from the other side of the window.”

  “I always thought so, but I’ve changed my mind since that night. That was different. You have to understand that this isn’t just about being scared.”

  “I do understand that.” Dominic rubbed Morgan’s fingers. “Go on.”

  “The wind had swung onshore.” He shut his eyes. “The surf breaking over the Devil’s Anvil’s quite something, if the sea and wind run in a particular combination. I had to go and look.”

  “I get that. Like having to watch a train wreck.”

  “Yep. Granddad used to say ‘God bless all sailors on a night like this.’ He’d seen ships out there in distress on several occasions, and he believed it was stupid for people to think they’d tamed the world. That you couldn’t ever tame the sea.” The dam had been breached, words tumbling out over each other. “The night I’m talking about was in late August. Keep that date in mind. Out at sea, I spotted what I assumed was a replica sailing ship, one of those sail-training jobs that usually have a backup engine.”