Island Heat

Island Heat © E. Davies 2015.

Amazon Kindle Edition.

Edited by Adalia Temple.

Cover design by ResplendentMedia.com.

All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

The author has asserted his/her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.

This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature readers.

First
LoveLight
 
Press
electronic publication: December 2015.

http
://
lovelightpress
.
com

Island Heat is set in the USA, and as such uses American English throughout.

Table of Contents

The cool metal of the man's silver engagement ring left a mark against the bare skin of his partner's hip as he gripped it tightly. He knelt behind the man who was on all fours, driving straight into him with his head bowed over the other man's back.

Both men grunted and moaned, pushing back and forth into each other and rutting with the desperation of men driven by base need towards a shared climax, the bed creaking under the effort of their thrusts.

“Oh, fuck, Tom...” the kneeling man moaned, pressing his forehead into the rumpled sheets of the bed and curling his fingers into the sheets.

Tom answered by moving his hand from his partner's hip to the back of his neck to pin him down, and then raised his other hand to bring down in a sharp slap against the other man's thigh.

The crack rang through the air, but not as loudly as the gasp from the doorway. As both men became aware of the sound at the same time, their hot, fast fucking froze.

“You bastard.”

Tom was quick to pull out of his partner. His cock still throbbed with clear desperation, but his face crumpled in even more visible panic. “Eli--”

Eli – shirtless, barefoot, wearing the trousers Tom loved – leaned heavily against the doorway of his bedroom. It was not just any bedroom.
His
bedroom, the bed he shared with his fiancé Tom, when Tom wasn't away or working late nights filming. No, not the bed he shared... the bed he used to share.

“You might as well come,” Eli spat out at Tom, his voice louder. His gaze shifted for a moment to the man under Tom. Whoever the hot young idiot was, he was trying to pull the duvet over himself, and gather his clothes and morals again. “Go on, fuck him again,” he egged Tom on. “Keep going. Show him what you've got!”

“Eli, it's just a one-time--”

“Shut the fuck up, Tom,” Eli breathed out, his voice shifting into a dangerous whisper. “You don't get to speak to me.”

Tom scooted backwards on his knees as if trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the guy under him. “Jon talked me into it... all day on set today, he was chasing me. I couldn't help it, I wasn't thinking.”

Eli's laugh was sudden and harsh, his breathing almost as heavy as that of the men who had just been rutting like animals on his bed. “You sure as fuck weren't.” He raised his left hand, making sure Tom's eyes fell on the engraved silver band on his ring finger, then slowly pulled the ring off and held it up in the air between two fingers.

“Eli... we can talk about this.” Tom's face was slack, his voice low and crushed.

Eli smiled.
Now
Tom was taking this seriously. Served him right. Too bad it was too late. “No, we can't. You can have him, Jon. Hope your finger's the same size.” He tossed the warm metal band from his finger across the room, resisting the urge to fling it at his ex-fiancé.

Jon said nothing as he pulled his jeans on and avoided Eli's gaze. He flinched when he saw the ring hit Tom's bare chest and fall into his lap.

Tom was stunned into silence, his mouth open and bare chest still rising and falling quickly.

“Never talk to me again. Get out of my house and my life.”

Eli turned on his heel, barely seeing straight as he walked quickly down the hallway past the guest bedroom doors, sitting room, and bathroom. He turned sharply onto the staircase and clattered down it, taking the steps three at a time. By the time he reached the door to the backyard, he was jogging.

His chest felt hot and tight, his eyes stinging, but he refused to let a tear fall while Tom was still in his house. The fury that cut through him gave him more clarity than he could have dreamed.

He rose onto tiptoe on the edge of the illuminated, heated marble pool, then let himself arc through the air to hit the warm water with his steepled fingers.

After a few choking moments of water, Eli surfaced and began swimming in long, clean strokes, the splashing water and his own gasped breath all he could focus on. Stroke, stroke, stroke,
breathe
.

Don't tell the world on them.

Stroke, stroke,
breathe
.

Don't scream. Don't lose your temper. Don't give him the satisfaction.

Stroke,
breathe
.

His hand smacked the stone at the edge of the pool as he blindly, instinctually reached out to hold onto the edge of the pool. Eli was weighed down by his trousers but unwilling to kick them off just yet. Tom hadn't appeared after him, which meant his fiancé – now ex-fiancé – had taken his word. Tom wasn't going to chase him.

Good.

Eli turned around in the pool, then pushed himself off and away from the wall to do another lap. He'd give Tom ten laps to grab his shit and get out of the house.

Nine to go.

***

Eli lay naked on the deck chair by the side of the pool, his eyes closed as he dripped dry in the cool evening air. The smell of evening-blooming flowers and fresh grass nearby barely registered.

Eli had heard a taxi arrive in front of the house, and then a familiar car engine start up and leave, telling him that he was alone now – and he'd subsequently remotely locked the mansion's front security gate. That left him in peace and quiet, though it was disturbed by his own thoughts.

His cellphone rang. Eli paused to make sure the chime wasn't the sensual drum beat he dreaded hearing.
If he even dares to try...
It wasn't; the phone rang with soft chimes.

Thank god. It was Dean.

He rolled over to press the green button. The phone, lying next to him on the poolside table, automatically switched to speaker mode.

“Hey, what's the matter?” Dean sounded freaked out. Eli couldn't blame him. His text to his closest friend – the man he'd known longer than and trusted the most besides Tom – had just read,
Call me now.

“Tom was fucking Jon.”

There were a few seconds of silence before a sharp inhalation. Dean sounded crushed as he whispered, “No.”

“I found them tonight. I'd sent all the staff home to surprise him. Guess he thought that meant I wasn't around.” Eli's chest burned as he recounted these sparse details.

“Oh, Eli, no,” Dean groaned. “Is it – what are you going to do?”

“We're done. I gave him his fucking ring back.” Eli laughed again, but it sounded bitter even to his ears. “He can get his money back. It's less than sixty days.”

“Eli, I'll come over--”

“No,” Eli interrupted quietly. “It's late. I'll come over tomorrow. I swam for a while, got the first anger out.”

Dean sounded reluctant. “If you're sure. Look, how about we rent a place on Ember Isle tomorrow?”

Eli's shoulders sank. Ember Isle: the playground for rich, gay men, where the island's owner, Bill Montgomery, rented out villas and mansions to the millionaires of the world and cheap, classy apartments to hot single men they might like. A bustling Main Street in the summer was filled with a mix of world-class facilities and businesses ran by talented up-and-coming gay businessmen.

It was a paradise he wasn't sure he could handle. Last summer, he'd gone with Tom. One night, they'd stayed up swimming in the clear blue ocean under the moonlight, fucked secretly on the beach, swam again... Tom had drawn a heart in the sand around him and they'd eaten brunch from a cute beachfront diner, still covered in fine white sand, before sleeping all day.

“Come on,” Dean encouraged when Eli was silent. “I'll go with you. We'll make it a good time. You don't have to hook up if you don't want to, but it'll get you out of the house. We'll see friends.”

“We'll talk about it tomorrow,” Eli promised. Now that he was mostly-dry thanks to the warm spring evening, he was exhausted. The thought of going to bed made his stomach turn, though.

He'd sleep in a guest bed tonight. He'd ask the maid to clean his bedroom from top to bottom tomorrow. Maybe he'd get fresh bedding... or a fresh bed. Burn the fucking old bed.

“Take care. I'll see you first thing tomorrow,” Dean promised. “And Eli? I'm sorry.”

“Thanks.” Eli hung up and smiled slightly to himself, his chest feeling a little lighter. Thank god he had Dean. Tom didn't have anyone that close to him – at least, nobody that he knew of. It was lonely at the top of the A-list. For his part, Eli's wealth meant he knew that difficulty, but he'd known Dean since college.

He'd be happy to go with him to Ember Isle. Hanging around this mansion would only emphasize his isolation once Tom's absence – for good, instead of days or weeks like usual – sank in. A little island heat would make all the difference in the world.

“Kevin? Can you talk to me when you're done?”

Kevin paused, his pen hovering over the order slip as he glanced up at his boss. It was an uncomfortable angle for his neck with the phone propped between his ear and his shoulder. He shifted to turn his head towards his boss, and then nodded directly at him before looking back at the page to scribble.

“Sorry, ma'am, what was that? Oh, yes, pink edging...”

When he hung up the phone, he clicked his hearing aid battery compartment shut again and pushed the ear mold back into his ear, hooking the device over his ear. It was annoying to have to turn off half of his hearing whenever the phone rang, but he dealt, except when his asshole boss talked at him while he was on the phone.

He drew a deep breath and let it out, walking the cake order back to the stack in the back of the bakery. A quick flip through the stack of orders told him that this cake was no more urgent than any earlier requests, so it went to the back of the stack. Then, he ducked into the back hallway and knocked on the office door. “Yes?”

“Come in.”

His boss, Darren, was an older man who thought Kevin was young and lazy, but Darren rarely spent more than five hours a day in their bakery. Darren took it upon himself to do the most interesting cake orders, but he left all the grunt work – the everyday baked goods, the kids' birthday party cakes, the bread – to the employees. Kevin was getting a little sick of it.

“Was that another cake order?”

Kevin nodded. “You told me to take a few more. It was a birthday party next Saturday.”

“You're going to have to put some elbow grease in if you think you can get them done before seven o'clock, son,” Darren advised Kevin in that tone he thought was a kindly, paternal, perhaps motivational one. In reality, it drove Kevin batty.

Kevin drew a deep breath to stay calm. “Are you asking me to stay late?”

“Oh, no, no,” Darren assured Kevin. “Why, did you have plans tonight?”

“No...”

“Well, how about you see how many of tomorrow's orders you can get done? If they're not finished by seven, you can stay until we close at nine.”

Kevin bit his tongue. For the crappy fifteen bucks he'd earn from staying late, he'd rather get home early enough to see his best friend and roommate, Troy, before he left for his evening job. Still, he couldn't afford to argue the point. Ever since his high-end cake store job had closed down, he'd been forced to work at a second-rate place with second-rate pay, and his savings had slowed down considerably.

The phone rang again and Kevin glanced out of the office. “I'd better get that. Amanda's up to her ears in bread dough.”

“Of course,” Darren dismissed Kevin. Kevin strode to the front to pull his hearing aid out again and answer the phone.

It turned out to be someone looking for their store hours, so Kevin told them they were open until nine before hanging up. Once he put his hearing aid back in, Amanda glanced over, opened her mouth, and waited for a few moments. His coworker knew it took time for it to start up now, and, unlike their boss, would always wait before addressing him.

When Amanda judged that enough time had passed, she began to speak. In reality, it hadn't finished turning on, so Kevin turned his other ear towards her to hear her say, “What was that about?”

“Staying late to do cakes.” Kevin had already been in since ten AM, and staying until nine at night was the last thing he wanted to do.

“Oh,” Amanda frowned. “Again?”

“Yep.”

The office door opened and Darren checked his watch. “I'm out for lunch, kids. Be back in a while. Make sure you take your breaks.”

“Yep, will do,” Amanda said with a smile at Darren, waiting until they heard the front door of the shop ring before she looked back at Kevin. “Seriously?”

Kevin grimaced. “I couldn't say no.”

She nodded. “You
are
the best at writing. Your roses have stopped falling apart, too.”

“Hey!” Kevin protested with a laugh, startled out of his funk. “That was
once
, and that was when the damn AC was broken--”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Anyway, I'm gonna eat after this goes in the oven. Can you take it out?”

“Of course.”

Amanda finished shaping loaves, then shoved the tray into the oven and headed to the back room to grab her lunch. While she was gone, Kevin snuck his cellphone out of his pocket to check the time. He knew as well as Darren did that there was no way he'd get all the cakes done before six, or even by nine.

Fuck his boss. Darren was handsome – at least, Amanda said so, and Kevin wasn't the right guy to judge
that
. That was about all he had going for him, though. What he had in looks, he made up for by lacking in personality.

He sent Troy a quick text.
Darren's keeping me until 9 again. See you tomorrow :(

He leaned against the counter, waiting for the oven timer to go off for the first batch of loaves. Troy answered almost immediately:
Not again! Come by the bar and see me.

Kevin smiled to himself. Troy worked at one of the top gay bars in the city, and he deserved it; his mixology expertise was mind-blowing. The guy could make a cocktail out of
anything
. But Kevin was a little too straight to frequent Troy's bar.

Not that he was very good at being straight – he'd never actually dated a girl, even in school. He'd never really gotten around to dating anyone, and nobody had ever expressed much of an interest in him. Once he'd left school, it got a lot harder to find eligible dates, and he didn't really feel like he was missing anything. He could tell who was hot; he just didn't feel the pull.

He doubted he'd find what he was missing at Troy's bar, though.
Nah, I'll make you breakfast tomorrow morning if you don't come home with someone.

No promises.

Kevin laughed under his breath. They were polar opposites. For every girl he hadn't dated, Troy had to have brought two guys into their apartment. He was used to it now, though, and Kevin and Troy teased each other about their respective lack of interest in sex and excessive interest in sex. Once, Troy had mentioned asexuality, which sounded right... but Kevin had never cared enough about sex even to spend time thinking about being uninterested in it.

He put his phone away when the first timer rang, bending over to check the browning loaves in the oven. When the front door jangled, he quickly strode out to greet the customer and chat about the goods in the display case.

The new customer was a young man in a very good suit, and he was particularly interested in whether Kevin had come up with any of the treats. He looked like a model, but for some reason, he was particularly interested in Kevin.

Kevin knew the man probably wanted more than a sweet treat, and he took the attention as a compliment. He showed the guy three of the treats he'd invented, mostly based on his experience at the award-winning bakery he'd worked at until last year.

His customer sat at a table indoors as he sampled all three of them. When the oven timer rang, Kevin excused himself to go pull the bread loaves out of the oven, and when he came back, the man was gone.

I hope he liked them.

Kevin felt pretty sure he had. Most people liked what he came up with, and it gave him hope. Someday, he'd be better than this shit. He'd have his
own
bakery, and he'd treat his employees well, as his old boss had used to.

He and Troy had plans. They wanted to open their own dessert bar together with Kevin's treats and Troy's drinks, but they'd never be able to afford the rent anywhere that would be willing to pay the premium they'd need to make.

For now, all he could do was keep working his overtime shifts, doodling menus, and saving his paychecks.