Laying a Ghost (32 page)

“I’m right here.” Nick nuzzled John’s jaw. “And I’m not going anywhere. God, how could I? I never want to leave you.”

There was something very like bewilderment in John’s eyes, as if he was struggling to accept that, but then his face cleared and certainty replaced the confusion. “It’s not been a week yet.” He cupped Nick’s face in his hand. “I can’t say how it’s possible to know this soon, but I’ll not leave you either. This place, yes, if we have to, but not you. Not now.” John brushed his thumb over Nick’s lips and then kissed them. He echoed Nick’s words back to him. “How could I?”

Nick knew with utter certainty that he wouldn’t be able to bear it if John left that night. “Spend the night here? Please? I want to wake up with you next to me. I need to.” He hoped he didn’t sound as anxious as he felt.

“I wasn’t planning on going home tonight, and I’m damned if I’m getting up at sunrise either.” John glanced around the room as they moved apart and began to clean up. “I like it here,” he said suddenly. “It feels ... welcoming. Do you feel that, too? Or am I getting fanciful all of a sudden?”

Nick shook his head as he returned to the bed after throwing away the used condom. “No; I like it, too. It’s weird, though. It feels like too much space for one person. I can imagine my grandmother raising her family here, but it seems too big for me. Maybe it’s just that I can hardly remember living in one place at all, let alone a whole house.”

“It’s a nice house.” John settled in close beside Nick and put his arm around him. “Solid. My great grandfather built it,” he added, with a note of pride in his voice. “I’m named after him.”

There was something about the continuity of that which appealed to Nick. Another link, however tenuous, between him and John; another link to a past that he was beginning, slowly, to feel connected to, as if he really did belong here, on this remote island where the sea was all around, in every breath he took, with the ebb and surge of it echoed in the soft, musical voices of the islanders.

Nick tongued John’s shoulder, licking at the taste of sweat that lingered there. “Did you know him? Your great grandfather?” He ran his hand along John’s side, relishing the ability to touch him without anyone there to disapprove.

“I can remember him.” John’s breath was warm against Nick’s face. His hand began to trail over Nick’s back, exploring each hollow and curve. “Just. I’d have been six when he died. He was a quiet man. Strong. He’d carry me up high on his shoulder when we were out walking and I got tired, and I was never scared that he’d let me fall, because you couldn’t imagine that happening, somehow.”

“I would have been scared I’d fall.” Nick thought back to the boy he’d been. “I would have ridden on his shoulders anyway, but I’d have been scared. I always made myself do things that scared me.”

John pressed a soft kiss against Nick’s throat and then tilted his head, meeting Nick’s gaze. “You still do. It’s one way of dealing with things, and a brave one, but don’t feel you have to do anything with me that you don’t want to.”

“I won’t. I haven’t.” Nick felt a little puzzled.

“Fucking me, I mean. If you haven’t before, I’m thinking there was a good reason, but --” John frowned, his eyes questioning. “You
liked
it,” he said. “I couldn’t be mistaken about that.”

“You weren’t,” Nick said reassuringly, his hand stroking over John’s ass. “Of course I liked it. It just wasn’t ... I don’t know, I just never did. Not with Matthew, and then the few other people I’ve been with here and there, I was nervous enough about it being new and different without adding a whole other element of new, you know?”

John nodded slowly. “I can see that happening with the new people. Not with Matthew, though, but I suppose if you got in the way of it always being him --” He shrugged, dismissing the subject, and shifted closer, his leg pushing between Nick’s so that their bodies were touching in a dozen places. “Aye, well. Either way suits me fine, in case you were wondering.”

“Me, too.” Nick grinned and kissed John gently, sucking on his lower lip and closing his eyes as he inhaled the scent of them both. He wasn’t sleepy, but he was sated, at least temporarily, and their combined body heat made enough warmth that he was comfortable.

John made a contented sound, managing to nestle closer still as he returned the kiss. “Come out on the boat with me tomorrow.” He began to cover Nick’s shoulder and what he could reach of Nick’s chest with slow, drowsy kisses. “You’ve been here all this time and never been on the sea. It’s not right.”

He sounded quite serious about it and he finished with a slightly reproving, if still gentle, bite at the skin above Nick’s nipple.

“Hey.” Nick laughed. “Okay, okay. Tomorrow we’ll go out on the boat, and you can show me how to fish. If you won’t be too frustrated by my complete lack of experience and skill.”

“Maybe I’ll give you an incentive to be a quick learner.” John bent his head and let the tip of his tongue tease around Nick’s nipple until it was hard enough for him to catch between his teeth. “Let me see now ...” He glanced up at Nick, looking thoughtful. “Right. How’s this then? If you
don’t
catch something, you have to swim back?”

It was obvious that he was holding back a grin from the slight quiver of his lips as he pressed them together firmly.

“I’m a pretty good swimmer, but I can’t say that sounds all that appealing.” Nick reached down and ran his fingers through John’s hair.

“Hmm.” John turned his head so that Nick’s caressing hand fell across his mouth and kissed the palm, his tongue darting out to flick at it lightly. “Well, I suppose if it’s not appealing, it’s not much of an incentive, is it?”

“Not really,” Nick agreed, returning his hand to where it was, and twining a lock of John’s hair around his fingers before tugging at it gently. “Try again.”

John drummed his fingers against Nick’s hip, pretending to be lost in thought. “Fine. If you catch something edible, and seaweed
doesn’t
count, then we’ll stop fishing and I’ll take you over to one of the islands over to the west -- there’s three of them, all empty saving a rabbit or two -- and cook it for you.” John returned his attention to Nick’s chest, seemingly determined to kiss every inch. “And you can have me for dessert.” His thumb made lazy circles in the hollow of Nick’s hip, matched by the ones his tongue was painting across Nick’s skin.

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 done anything wrong.”