The Sea Ain't Mine Alone

by C. L. Beaumont

  Sydney yelps when the water hits his face. “You’re disgusting!”

  “Not like you haven’t tasted my spit and ocean water before,” James smirks.

  Sydney cocks an eyebrow. “You don’t have a problem with tasting ocean water then, Captain?”

  Before James can groan, Sydney’s leaping on top of him from his board, shoving him down under the water again and fighting with him to keep him under the waves. James grips at slick, wet skin with his palms, feeling Sydney’s muscles ripple and flex in his hands as he struggles to fight back towards the surface and get a breath.

  He finally gets a grip on Sydney’s curls and yanks before bursting up through the surface and gasping down a lungful of air. “You fucking dick!”

  Sydney surfaces and immediately shoves James away, panting. He clutches his head with his hands and frowns. “Jesus, that hurt!”

  He’s also laughing—face wet and glistening with soaked ringlets dripping across his forehead and neck.

  Before James can decide whether it’s a smart idea or not, he reaches through the water and pulls Sydney’s bare body against his, then licks the salt off Sydney’s lips with his own gasping mouth.

  Sydney immediately clings to his body, nearly sinking them both as they try to tread water. Wet skin meets wet skin, sliding slick and smooth.

  “Come on,” James breathes, grasping Sydney’s sides. “Come here . . .”

  They kiss and wrestle in the small swells, James’ legs kicking and fighting to stay afloat while Sydney’s huge hands roam and grip and stroke. James’ cock begins to thrum in low, steady pulses as his erection grows in the warming water. He grabs Sydney’s slick, wet thighs and wraps them around his own waist, then moans as Sydney presses his thickening cock into James’ clenched stomach.

  “Shit,” he breathes.

  Sydney’s thighs squeeze him harder. “James . . .”

  James grabs Sydney’s ass as his legs wildly kick to keep afloat, pressing Sydney’s bobbing cock closer against the hard, muscled plane of his own stomach, and they both choke down wet moans in their throats. Sydney kisses him deeply, his rough hands grasping James’ face, before pulling back to gulp down air, lips full and pink.

  His voice is low and gravelly—foaming waves rushing over a rocky shore. “Get on your board.”

  James runs a hand up Sydney’s dripping wet chest, running his fingers through the soft hair and catching Sydney’s nipples under his thumbs. He can barely think straight. He wants to drag Sydney from the water and throw him down into the sand and fuck slow and deep against Sydney’s wet skin. His erection bobs in the water, resting just under the crease of Sydney’s ass. He wants to press it against Sydney’s body, slide between his warm buttocks, the slick pressure of his saltwater-soft skin . . .

  Sydney had just said something to him, hadn’t he?

  “Wait—what?”

  Sydney kisses him again, gasping into his mouth, before falling away from James’ body and pulling James’ board back towards them through the water. “I said, get on your board.”

  James heaves himself up onto the waxy surface without asking why, shivering up his spine as his aching cock brushes across the board. He straddles it, erection standing proudly between his legs, then clenches his abs and thighs as the board suddenly rocks deeply to the side.

  “You’re gonna sink it!” James cries out.

  But Sydney still slides on behind him, gripping James’ shoulders as they both fight to steady themselves and keep balance. “Be cool,” he whispers into James’ ear, right as the board sinks down into the cool, clear water, bringing it up past their waists.

  James looks down to watch Sydney’s arms wrapping around his waist, sliding slowly up his stomach and chest. His fingers look even more pale against James’ tan skin and soaked hair. He can feel Sydney’s chest pressed up smoothly against his back. Can feel his hard cock pressed into the low of his spine, warm and thick between his hips just under the water’s surface.

  Sydney’s voice is lower than James has ever heard it. “It won’t sink. I didn’t study physics for nothing.”

  James barely huffs out a weak laugh as Sydney’s hands start to rub firmly across his skin, trailing up and down over his nipples until they peak. James’ thighs start to shake with restraint, the effort of keeping them steady on the rocking board, and Sydney’s breath echoes loudly in his ear, mixing with the splash of the water lapping at their bare skin and sides.

  James lets himself lean back into Sydney’s body, trusting the the stability of his warm, lean chest. Sydney’s arms caress and hold him close—holding him up out of the sea.

  And James thinks that maybe he would’ve been content to stay just like that for a long time, calm and relaxed and watching the sun smear gold across the grey sky. He would have, if not for the pulsing want settling deep in his thighs.

  God, he’s hard.

  His flushed cock bobs obscenely under the surface of the water. It rocks with the movements of the board beneath them—the waxed board which keeps rubbing gently across James’ ass, teasing at the hole Sydney had stroked with his fingertip the first time James had ever come in his arms, right under the stars.

  With a groan, James rocks his hips down against the board, pushing himself deeper into the V of Sydney’s thighs, and Sydney licks a stripe up his neck, humming at the taste.

  “God, this is . . .” but James loses his train of thought on another deep sigh.

  “James.”

  Sydney’s hands move down to James’ bare thighs, running slow and firm up the length of the muscle, rustling against the hair on James’ legs through the water. Sydney leans forward to rub his cheek against James’ stubble, humming deep and low in his chest. “Fuck, James.”

  James thinks he must be floating in a hovering bubble of sea and sky, effortlessly held up by the touch of Sydney’s hands on his skin, roaming across his sides and chest, dipping down under the water to caress his waist. To stroke up the inside of his sensitive, quivering thighs.

  James leans his head back on Sydney’s shoulder, baring his chest and neck, and he dips his hands under the water to grip the outside of Sydney’s legs, clenched tight around James’ hips.

  Deep down in his brain, James knows that he should probably feel too vulnerable—too naked and open before the edge of the earth with Sydney’s full cock pressed thickly against his back. With Sydney’s hands roaming possessively over his wet and trembling skin for the entire open ocean to witness.

  But James also recognizes that he’s never really felt safer in his life. It washes over him like a burst of fresh oxygen blasting across every inch of his skin. It brings a watery smile to his lips as he closes his eyes and continues to relax, focusing on the strength of Sydney’s lean muscles keeping them upright and afloat. He basks in the pure, breathtaking fact that he hasn’t once yet felt shame that he is the one being held, not doing the holding.

  Then his eyes fly back open, and he gasps as Sydney’s large hand suddenly grips the base of his erection, holding his cock in callused fingers as James’ pubic hair ripples in the water.

  “Jesus,” he breathes. His neck falls back onto Sydney’s shoulder. He pushes his hips forward unwittingly, needing to press himself deeper into the tight grip of Sydney’s palm. Sydney’s other hand comes up to rest across his chest, fingertips just barely caressing the edges of his scar.

  James stops himself from thrusting for just a moment, using the entire force of his will. “You don’t have to,” he barely grunts out, not even knowing why. “You must be tired. You—you surfed yesterday. We can go ba—”

  Sydney’s hand pumps slowly along the length of his erection, immediately knocking the breath from James’ lungs. He shivers down his spine as Sydney’s voice rumbles against his ear, breath tickling the hairs at the back of his neck.

  “I want to,” he whispers. His fingertips trace the tip of James’ cock peeking through his foreskin, swirling the water around his wrist. “Let me . . .”


  James groans as Sydney’s mouth leaves a wet trail of warm, prickling air along his neck. Sydney’s hand keeps caressing his cock beneath the water, splashing gently into the buzzing air as his fist pumps along James’ aching erection, following it up towards the surface of the water before plunging back down to the base. His touch is gentle, as if he’s feeling James’ skin for the first time. James watches Sydney’s fingers on the most intimate part of his body, slow and callused and warm. Wet.

  The splashing water echoes loudly in James’ ears as he starts to thrust his hips harder into Sydney’s fist, hot pulses starting to thrum and build from between his thighs. He watches the tip of his own throbbing cock disappear again and again within the tight grip of Sydney’s long fingers, blurred and hazy beneath the water in the thick golden light.

  “Look at you on me,” James hears himself groan. He stares down between his legs, barely wanting to blink, and he barely recognizes the wild, rough sounds coming from his own throat. “God, your hands . . .”

  Sydney’s voice rumbles in his ear as his other hand on James’ chest holds him close. “Can you imagine,” he breathes, “if you were sliding your cock into my ass?”

  James almost screams. The thought slams into his mind with the force of one of Waimea’s waves, knocking the breath from his lungs and clenching every muscle in his stomach.

  Sydney gasps raggedly in his ear as he lets James continue to slowly fuck the tight circle of his hot, wet fist. He keeps talking, voice like gravel, and James’ can feel the panting shakes of Sydney’s chest along his back.

  “If I was on my hands and knees in front of you,” Sydney moans. “My cock hanging down between my thighs. If I was dripping . . . begging you . . . if you were watching my balls sway, full and heavy.”

  James’ face burns. “Jesus fuck, Sydney. The fuck are you doing—”

  “If you looked at my tight little hole and saw it pulsing and wet.” Sydney gasps and trembles behind him, his voice coming out in ragged pants. “Begging to be filled . . .”

  “What are you . . . God, I don’t—”

  Sydney’s lips brush his bare neck. “If you shoved your fingers into my mouth . . . got them dripping wet. Ran those fingers around my ass . . . feeling how hot it is . . .”

  James grips the back of Sydney’s neck with his hand, barely processing the words pouring out of his mouth. “Shit . . .”

  Sydney grunts deep in his throat as his fist pumps James’ throbbing erection. “How tight. . .”

  “Fuck. . .”

  “Fuck me.”

  Sydney’s wet lips burn hot and filthy in James’ ear, pouring streams of shivers down his sides and across his spine as Sydney grips him from behind so tightly James can barely draw in air. His long fingers trace the length of James’ erection—holding and caressing the rock-hard skin, skimming gently along the veins, brushing with an aching touch just across the slit.

  James looks down through the ripples caused by Sydney’s hand and sees precome leaking from the tip of his cock, slowly dissipating into the ocean water in a long, opaque stream, swirling in the little waves caused by Sydney’s restless hand on his body.

  James swallows over his dry mouth and runs his shaking hands slowly up Sydney’s thighs, bracketing his hips. It’s dangerous and it’s thrilling and it’s reckless and it’s a lot.

  He arches his back slightly away from Sydney’s own erection pressed into his spine, needing to try and force conscious, clear thoughts through his melting brain. He tries to speak. “I . . . Sydney, I didn’t know—”

  He stops, swallowing hard. He’s not even sure what the fuck he wants to say.

  He wants to turn around and double check that it really is still Sydney Moore behind him—the man who tried to apologize for loving him just twelve hours ago. That it’s the Sydney Moore James has known and held and kissed who’s currently whispering about being fucked in his ass in James’ ear.

  He wants to say that he didn’t know Sydney thought of these things, or that he even wanted them. He wants to tell Sydney that even in his deepest, darkest fantasies about Rob, it was never, ever this.

  And he wants to tell Sydney that he didn’t think he would ever have this in his life—another man wanting him, plain and fucked up James Campbell, to be inside them.

  James closes his eyes against the vast horizon and centers himself in the feeling of Sydney’s arms around his skin. His brain meanders and swerves, idly trying to come up with a way to say all of the above and then some, when suddenly James realizes that Sydney’s hand has stilled on his cock.

  “Syd—”

  Sydney’s hands immediately fly off James’ body, flinging space between them on the board. His voice comes out in a frantic rush. “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I don’t know where that came fr—”

  “Shh, Sydney—”

  “I didn’t mean any of that. I don’t even know what I was saying. You don’t—”

  “Love, listen to me.”

  James marvels at how effortlessly that word now falls from his lips, then turns around as much as he can on the board without tipping them over, twisting his spine so he can look back over his shoulder.

  Sydney looks like he’s just run twenty miles and seen a ghost. For some reason the sight of him now, looking wrecked and shocked and nervous just seconds after groaning the word cock into James’ ear, fills James with an easy confidence—a fierce protectiveness he never knew he had. He reaches back to put a hand on Sydney’s drying shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Sydney whispers again, looking down at the board between them.

  James shakes him. “You owe a couple dollars for that jar now, remember?” He moves his hand to Sydney’s face. “Don’t say sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I wasn’t upset. I’m not.”

  Sydney swallows hard. “I . . . I didn’t mean that. Any of that.”

  James traces his thumb along the corner of Sydney’s mouth, waiting for Sydney to finally look up and meet his gaze. His cheeks are flushed, and his eyes squinting like he’s in pain, and his curls are wild from the grasp of James’ hand minutes ago. James isn’t sure if he’s ever seen anything so beautiful.

  He dips just the tip of his thumb between Sydney’s lips, and watches as goosebumps cascade down Sydney’s chest.

  “Didn’t you?” James whispers in a low voice. “Mean it?”

  Sydney’s eyes grow wide.

  James has the sudden sensation that he’s gone back in time, back to those eternal seconds before he’d placed his hand on Sydney’s bare erection for the very first time, mouth watering at the thought of finally getting to taste a cock—his cock. The electricity in the air, the crackling against his skin, the sensation that he’s tilting, tilting, tilting off the edge of a cliff and he can’t go back. He’s going to fall.

  Good thing Sydney’s right behind him.

  “I just wasn’t expecting it before,” he says, still tracing Sydney’s lip. He laughs under his breath. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

  Sydney immediately blushes from his throat to his hairline, and James can’t help it. He twists his aching back even further around so he can brush a quick kiss across Sydney’s half-open lips. When he pulls back, Sydney rapidly blinks, then sucks in a breath.

  “So, you would want that?” Sydney whispers.

  The answer forces itself so strongly into James’ mind he nearly laughs. “Yes,” he breathes. Then, because it feels important to be unmistakably clear in this moment, “With you.”

  Sydney bites his lip, then tentatively puts a hand back on James’ thigh. His eyes look very far away. “And . . . that’s okay?”

  James’ mouth twists. He can hear the hidden question behind Sydney’s words—the fear that it would be painfully, utterly wrong for either of them to want to touch each other that way. And despite it, maybe even because of it, James feels a sudden courage fill his chest, even though he sure as hell doesn’t know the proper answ
er to Sydney’s question. It’s a question he’s asked himself unsuccessfully ten thousand times.

  “I don’t give a shit about what’s okay,” he says, fully aware that Sydney might hear the part-lie. He looks at Sydney’s Adam’s apple bob, the beautiful curve of his throat. “It’s okay for me.”

  Then he frowns. “But you? Is that actually what you—?”

  Sydney’s sigh explodes from his mouth. “Shit, James, more than anything.”

  “Fuck, come here . . .”

  The board dramatically rocks to the side as James immediately turns back around, rolling his spine back into Sydney’s chest and bringing Sydney’s hands up from his thighs to once again wrap around his sides.

  Sydney doesn’t hesitate; he sighs and plants a wet, open kiss at the base of James’ neck as he rolls his body back against him, sending shockwaves of ripples out across the quiet water. His hands rove slowly up James’ stomach and chest, trailing fresh saltwater across his shivering skin and covering his muscles with his huge, warm palms. James presses forward into his hands, head leaning back and lungs full of air as he lays himself open to Sydney’s touch before the horizon line.

  He loses himself in the touch of Sydney’s palms ghosting up his sides, fingertips trailing over the muscles in his stomach and thumbs stroking in small circles just around his nipples. James looks down and sees his own body as he’s never seen it before—as capable and muscled, as something desired to be touched, not just a left behind mishmash of useless aches that got shipped back halfway across the world.

  For the first time since stepping up next to him in the sand in LA, James doesn’t feel too old and worn out for Sydney Moore.

  Sydney’s hands make one final pass, starting at James’ thighs and slowly, firmly trailing up his body all the way to his neck, caressing James’ skin with his palms and covering him with frothy ocean foam. Then James groans in the back of his throat as Sydney’s hand dips back beneath the waves and strokes once again up the full length of James’ cock. He brings him back to full hardness in just a few rolling pumps, sending shivers down James’ bare thighs, his hair swaying gently in the waves.