Courage and Comfort (3 page)

“You do understand this will
be all over even faster than on the beach if you don’t stop teasing me real
soon.” Utah groaned.

“What?
You,
a one-shot-a-night man?
I don’t believe it,” Edmund replied.

“Oh, okay, so this will be
the entrée, and we’ll have the main course later. In that case….”

Edmund gasped as three
fingers plunged deep into his ass with no warning. Utah drove the fingers deep,
twisting and turning them, stroking Edmund’s walls, causing Edmund’s need to
rise to “off the scale” in one second.
Precum
pearled
in the slit of Edmund’s dick, his balls drew up tight, and tingles ran up and
down his spine. “Hell!”

“Got a problem I can help you
with?”

“Yeah.
You’d better get your dick in me in the next three seconds, or it’ll be too
late.”

“Three seconds, huh?
One.”
Utah removed his fingers from Edmund and dug them into
the jar of lube again. “Two.” He coated his cock with lube. “Three.” Utah
grabbed Edmund’s hips, hauled his partner up close and tight to himself, and
slammed his dick into Edmund’s hole.

Both men groaned as Utah
forced his way in, then sighed as Utah’s dick popped through the muscle and
slid deep inside. Without waiting to let them both acclimate to the fullness,
Utah pulled back out a ways and pushed in again, setting up a fast, hard pace
that rocked the bed—and rocked Edmund’s soul right along with the furniture.

“Damn, you’re good,” Edmund murmured,
wrapping his legs around Utah to free his arms so he could hold on.

“Only
with you.
I love you, Edmund.”

“Love you too.” Edmund patted
Utah’s sweaty shoulder, then shuddered in pleasure as Utah swiveled his hips,
dragging his dick along Edmund’s sensitive walls and heightening the sensations
tenfold.

Utah jack-hammered into
Edmund, and Edmund moved right along with him, the bed rocking furiously, their
bodies keeping time with it. Edmund’s cock was pressed between them, the damp
head stroking against two warm bellies.

“Now!
Come now,” Utah ordered, and the very words were enough to send Edmund over the
edge into release, his cock pumping his seed onto their torsos. At the same
instant, heat exploded in his ass as Utah spurted his cum in time with their
ragged thrusts. Without words they turned their heads, and their lips meshed in
a hot, hard kiss, noses knocking together until they got the angle right. “Wow.
We really need to learn to slow down some,” Utah said before kissing Edmund
again.

“We can work on that in the
shower. Let’s get cleaned up.”

“I like the way you’re
thinking,” Utah said, pulling out of Edmund and climbing off the bed. Once he
was upright, he extended a hand to Edmund and hauled the man to his feet, and then
they walked into the adjoining bathroom together.

****

It was much later when they
made love again, and this time it was a long, slow process of gentle, sleepy
kisses, soothing touches, long, and strokes of hands and feet and cocks as they
used every part of their bodies to arouse each other.

Very gradually they
progressed from touching and kissing to penetration and, finally, orgasm. This
time they didn’t bother to clean up but fell asleep again where they lay,
tangled together. Edmund’s last thought as he relaxed was, with Utah by his
side, he would find the Aquamarine and help Mavis start along the path to coping
with her new life.

When he woke in the morning,
that certainty was still with him. “We’ll find the Aquamarine today. I know we
will.”

“If you believe it, I do too,”
Utah replied.

After breakfast, they packed
their beach equipment, which was still sitting on the floor of the room from
the day before, and by 9:00 a.m., they were on the beach, walking to the rock
wall. Once again they left their towels close to the end of the beach, not far
from the cliff. Even though the morning was overcast, Edmund covered his skin
liberally with sunblock before pulling on his flippers and hanging his goggles
around his neck. For just a moment, he was jealous of Utah’s deeply pigmented
skin, of the fact that his partner never had to worry about sunburn, before
shrugging the feelings away and walking to the edge of the surf.

“The tide’s well out. I guess
that means more of the sandbar will be exposed,” Utah said.

“That could be the answer.
Maybe the Aquamarine was there yesterday, but we just didn’t see it. Although
the water was very clear….”

Utah slung an arm around his
shoulder, gave him a quick hug,
then
punched him on
the upper arm. “Yesterday is gone. It’s today that matters. We’ll find that
damn rock today.”

Edmund’s confidence came
rolling back, filling him with hope. He took a deep breath, smiled, and said, “You’re
quite right. It’s right there waiting for us. Let’s go get it.”

Hand-in-hand they strode out
into the sea, walking until the water was up to their waists. Utah squeezed
Edmund’s hand, flashing him a confident grin before diving into the ocean and
swimming out toward the sandbar.

Edmund watched him. Utah had
a clean, neat swimming style, with no extra splashing and no wasted energy. His
muscular limbs cut through the water as he swum steadily forward. Edmund loved
Utah’s body. He was solidly built, but the bulk was muscle, not fat. Utah’s
physique was as hard as the rock wall they were using as their marker to find
the Aquamarine.

The Aquamarine
.
Edmund focused on the task at hand, told his unruly cock to lie down, and dived
into the water to follow his lover.

If there wasn’t the urgency
to find the stone for Mavis, Edmund would have enjoyed the search. The sand was
lightly rippled from the tide, the water was clear and warm, and the occasional
shell buried underwater was invariably pretty. But he wasn’t here for a
pleasant swim. He needed to find this mystical Aquamarine that would help Mavis
adjust to the changes in her life. To help John Jr. cope with having been born
fatherless into the world.

That was so hard. John had
loved Mavis passionately, and together they’d been so excited when she’d found
out the baby was on the way. Edmund had known he was gay since his early
teenage years and had never been interested in children or babies. But once he’d
held his orphaned nephew in his arms, he’d felt a surge of emotion roar through
his body. Instinctively he’d known he had to protect this helpless little
child, to support his sister, to do what was needed to set them back on the
path to enjoying life again.
Which meant finding the Aquamarine
and taking it to Mavis.
He still didn’t know how the stone was supposed
to work, but he was 100 percent committed to finding it.

Edmund kicked his flippers
strongly and hurried to catch up to Utah. Maybe there was some validity in the
idea that they needed to be together to search. The premise seemed somewhat
absurd, but AJ had said the Aquamarine would only call to lovers, and despite
all their hours looking yesterday, neither of them had seen anything remotely
like an aquamarine.
So….

Together Utah and Edmund
floated for a few minutes, clearing and oxygenating their lungs. Then, making
sure they were exactly in line with the point, hand-in-hand they dived into the
water, trailing slowly along the edge of the sandbar, back and forth, back and
forth. Again and again they dived, crisscrossing the sand, always either hand-in-hand
or with their bodies touching each other.

Edmund sensed Utah was tiring
and would soon need to rest, but he had the urge to try one more dive, a little
farther east than they’d been so far today. He signaled to Utah, and Utah nodded,
then
wrapped an arm around Edmund’s waist. Locked
together, they dived and searched, their gazes moving constantly as they swam
very slowly along the edge of the sandbar.

An almost-physical tug
stopped Edmund, causing Utah to have to somersault to stay with him.
Aquamarine?
Is that you? Where the hell are you?

Utah grabbed Edmund’s arm and
pointed. Almost buried in the sand was a rock. Together they dived deeper and
hovered over it.

Should
I pick it up? Should we pick it up together?
Unwilling to risk
jeopardizing their mission—if this even was an aquamarine not just an ordinary
rock—Edmund took Utah’s hand, and with clasped fingers, they reached down and
picked the stone up together. It felt almost warm in Edmund’s hand, and he
floated for a long moment, staring at it, until he realized they’d better get
to the surface and breathe, or the rock wouldn’t be their biggest problem
anymore.

Edmund pointed upward, and he
and Utah kicked up to the surface,
then
swam together
over the sandbar to a very shallow area where they could sit. The tide was
still out, so the top of the sandbar was actually out of the water completely.
They settled on the damp sand and looked at the stone in their still-joined
hands.

“It’s so smooth,” Utah
whispered.

Gently they turned it over
and saw the pale blue flash of light on the underside. “It
is
the aquamarine.”

For long moments they stared
at the gemstone, and then Edmund smiled. “Hey, we did it! We found the
aquamarine!”

“We need to get back to the hotel
so we can phone AJ and tell her. Then we have to pack up and head home as fast
as we can.”

“Yes. Should we keep holding
it do you think, or is it safe for me to zip it into my wetsuit?”

“Oh. That’s a tricky
question. I don’t know. What do you think it wants?”

Edmund held the rock and
stared into the heart of the pale blue fire. All he could think of was fucking
Utah’s brains out with the joy of their success. He was pretty sure that wasn’t
what he was supposed to be thinking. He cleared his mind and asked, “Do we have
to keep holding you?” Again, all he received was a picture of
himself
leaning against the wall as Utah slammed into his
ass. He turned to Utah and felt the heat of a blush cross his face. “The only
message I’m getting is that we should fuck.”

“Woo-
hoo
!
I’m agreeable!” Utah paused,
then
said more soberly, “You know, AJ was quite clear that
only lovers could find the stone. Maybe
us
fucking is
part of the process that makes it work.”

“Well, it just seems weird.
We’re doing this to help my sister.”

“I’m pretty sure she knows we
fuck.”

Edmund laughed. “That’s true.
Okay.” He tucked the stone inside his wetsuit and waited to see if he got a
contradictory message, but nothing came to him. “Let’s go back to the room,
call AJ and Mavis, and then—fuck.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Chapter
Four

Utah stood toweling his hair,
watching and listening as Edmund called AJ on the speaker of his cell phone. Edmund
had been in such a rush to tell her they’d found the aquamarine, he was still
wearing his wetsuit, although he’d unzipped it, and was holding the stone in
his hand as he spoke.

“It was right where you said
it’d be, although I’m sure we looked there yesterday and didn’t see it. But
today I knew to move a little farther east and then I saw it.”

“I said it’d call to you. It
calls to lovers. What’s it saying to you now?”

Utah hid a grin as red
flushed across Edmund’s pale skin. His skin was so fair, blushing made him look
adorable.

“Um, actually, AJ, I don’t
think you want to know.”

AJ’s laugh echoed through the
room. “Uh-huh. Well, you go off and do that. We’ll expect you back here in time
for lunch tomorrow. I need to meditate on how to give Mavis the stone. It needs
to be introduced to her with ceremony and sensitivity. And I believe we all
need to be present to do it.”

Giving Mavis the aquamarine
during a ceremony seemed reasonable to Utah. More important was the information
that the stone really did want them to fuck. Well, Utah was always ready to get
into Edmund’s pants. The man was dead sexy and didn’t even realize it. Nothing
was more arousing than to see his pink handprints on Edmund’s white ass, unless
it was maybe to wrap those silky blond locks around his fist as he pulled
Edmund’s head back and fucked him against a wall.

Hmm,
there’s a plan for what to do next. Spank him,
then
fuck him against a wall. Beds are boring. Vertical sex is much more arousing.

Utah dropped the towel,
pulled his board shorts down and kicked them off, then grabbed the jar of lube.
As soon as Edmund clicked off his cell phone, Utah pushed him against the wall
and said, “Bend over.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Oh, you’ll like this, I
promise.”

Edmund leaned his crossed
forearms against the wall, rested his head on them, and stuck his ass out. His
legs were wide apart, ready for whatever plan Utah might have.