The Teacher and the Soldier (10 page)

“Daniel,” Luke breathed as he arched for a final time and writhed in orgasm beneath him. The tightening of his muscles milked Daniel’s orgasm from him and Daniel finally lost it inside his responsive lover. They stayed connected and kissing until Daniel softened enough to make it easy to pull out then they lay next to each other staring up at the high-beamed ceiling and breathing heavily.

“Wow,” Luke said.

“Wow is right,” Daniel answered.

“You’re good at that, soldier,” Luke laughed.

“You’re not bad yourself.” Daniel could go along with the light-hearted post coital banter as well as the next man.

“We need to do this again before I leave.” Luke moved onto his side then reached out and traced a circle around Daniel’s left nipple. He followed his fingers with a tracing path of his tongue and want spiralled through Daniel as fast as fire.

“Yeah,” Daniel finally said. He was already itching to get back inside Luke, or asking Luke to get inside him. He wanted some of what he had just given to Luke. Was Luke even that way inclined? He’d never met someone entirely like him who wanted to switch it up all the time so he doubted it. All his hook-ups bought into the whole tough marine who gave orders shit. That was probably Hell, it didn’t matter, he could get his fill and he would be happy with what he had. Not everyone met their freaking soulmate like Finn and Max.

“Wanna go now?” Luke asked. He shuffled again and climbed on Daniel, all soft silky skin and heat to touch. Luke concentrated his kisses, biting a trail of heat from Daniel’s ear to his throat. They could fit in at least one more go around before Luke left. Uncomplicated easy sex, hot desperate need-it-now sex, was perfect.

So why, even as he placed his hands on Luke’s butt and pulled him closer between the ‘V’ of his legs, did the thought of Luke leaving fill Daniel with a bizarre sense of disappointment?

Chapter Six

The papers spread out in orderly piles looked like a white sheet had been laid across the lawyer’s desk.

“None of this is too complicated,” the lawyer said. He pushed one pile towards Luke then looked up expectantly. Luke glanced at the sheet then returned the lawyer’s gaze steadily. He hated people thinking he knew what the hell was going on when clearly he didn’t.

“What am I looking at?”

“A schedule of your father’s assets including a copy of his will.”

“He had a will?” Luke said. He couldn’t help the disbelief that his drunken fucker of a father had had enough foresight to prepare anything as legal as a will. He looked down again at the sheet and noted the date was a few days after his sixteenth birthday. The day after his mom had left. The day Luke’s life had begun to change.

“Hence why this is easy. Your mother’s death and this will leave everything black and white. Everything is yours. The stake in the cabins and any cash deposits.”

“Take your fees out of it then you can arrange for any remaining cash to go to a local charity.”

“There would be just short of two thousand dollars.”

“All of it. I don’t want the money.”

The lawyer made a note on some paper then continued. “As to the cabins. All I need is your signature on these.” He paused and passed over three copies of an official looking document. “Then we can get everything in your name.”

Luke held the stiff paper in his hands and ran a thumb down the edge of one. There were an awful lot of heretos and hereafters that made little sense, but this guy sitting in front of him with snow white hair had been a friend of his granddad so he trusted him. Bryan Grover was the keeper of the town’s secrets and the man who had signed off on thousands of births, deaths, marriages and divorces. He recalled the last time he had been in here at the reading of his mother’s will. The damn thing had been written when she had first married his dad and everything had been left to her husband. Luke often wondered if she hadn’t died so soon after leaving his dad—would she have ever changed the will, or hell, even visited him again?

“Then I can sell it all?” Luke asked. He needed to focus and get this done. He didn’t begin to think how much his fifty per cent would fetch. Hell, he doubted that in this climate it would ever sell. Never mind, when it did, for whatever it sold for, would be a good deposit in Luke’s new-place, new-start mission.

The lawyer nodded. “Once it is in your name then you can sell.” Nothing in the older man’s expression gave any hint as to his feelings regarding the selling of the fifty per cent in Ellery Resort Cabins. It didn’t really matter to him, as long as he got paid, Luke assumed.

“How long will it take?”

“I will file papers today. Two weeks at the latest.”

Luke calculated his savings in his head. He had enough for the hotel for another two weeks, and every last stubborn bone in his body was not getting him to take up Daniel’s offer of a cabin in need of work for his stay here.

Daniel. Heat flushed him as he remembered what he and Daniel had done. He couldn’t think of Daniel. Daniel walking and standing next to him in the ruins of his dad’s home. Daniel holding his hand. Daniel understanding. Daniel naked.

Shit. No thinking about Daniel naked for fuck’s sake.

“Are you okay, Luke?” Bryan asked. “Is there a problem?”

Luke blinked at Bryan who was staring at him with concern on his face. He squirmed in his seat and the memory of Daniel inside him, filling him, making him come harder than he’d ever come made him blush.

“I’m fine,” he blurted. Then he coughed to cover up the quick and heated reply. Finding the right place on the papers, he signed his name then on the second and third copies. He could go home. Back to his small condo—that hadn’t sold yet. He could go home then get Bryan to call him when the papers were back. Then he remembered his original reason for being here. Sell the cabins, close down anything his dad had been linked to—debts, whatever—then look for a new job. Zach called him dramatic, but he’d decided when he’d left Richmond that he would drive to Tennessee, get what he needed to do done, then drive on to wherever the car broke down. Then he would find another job and start again. Colorado sounded good.

Luke pushed the signed papers back against the desk. Bryan gathered them together and filed them in a folder.

“Is there anything else I need to do?”

“Not at this time. I will call you with a final figure for your charitable donation. Perhaps you could consider which charity you want it to go to.”

“Dogs,” Luke said instantly. “I like dogs.”

Bryan nodded and Luke stood and extended his hand.

“It’s good to see you home,” Bryan offered gently. He had this whole kindly old man thing going on and Luke stiffened at the cautious but obvious glimmer of sympathy in the man’s eyes. He released his shake then forced his hands in his pockets.

“This isn’t home, Bryan. It hasn’t been home since Dad inherited the cabins.” Luke felt immediately chagrined that he had spoken in such a harsh way, but Bryan didn’t seem to mind.

“I know, son,” he said.

Luke left before Bryan could add any more honey to the sugary pile of ‘understanding’.

Out on the street he stood opposite the diner and his stomach reminded him it was mid-morning and he hadn’t had breakfast. Even he couldn’t call three cups of black coffee chasing headache pills breakfast. He wasn’t exactly avoiding people, but if he recalled correctly mid-morning was a quiet time in the diner. Too late for the early breakfasts, too early for lunch and the preserve of moms with small kids who took advantage of the corner filled with toys, games and a small plastic climbing frame. The owner Eddie had installed the corner back when Luke had been not much past ten, and people had scoffed at the idea, but a place for moms and kids to congregate had turned out to be a damned awesome idea.

He crossed the street to the cafe and as soon as he opened the door the scents of bacon and coffee hit him like he’d walked into a wall. He chose the table in the far corner, opposite to the moms and kids, and ordered breakfast and coffee from the waitress who mercifully was too young to have known him.

His cell vibrated and he checked the caller ID. Zach with his daily phone call of worry.

“Hey,” Luke answered. The waitress placed a cup and filled it with coffee, leaving creamer and sugar as well. Blessed coffee…

“Hey you,” Zach said. “Did you have sex and how did the lawyer’s go?”

Luke chose the easiest question. “As well as can be expected. It won’t be a long drawn out thing because he left a will naming me. I signed it all and the deed will be in my name in two weeks.”

“Then you’re still selling?”

“Yes, Zach,” Luke said patiently. “I’m still selling.” Zach had this half brained notion that Luke should make an effort to run Ellery Resort with Brenda Skylar. Well, he wasn’t going to, especially with the added complication of Daniel Skylar in the mix.

“I still think you should look at your options, including how long you want to stay with soldier boy.”

“It was a one night stand Zach, and I’m a teacher, not a manager of a holiday home place. What do I know about any of it? No, it’s not right for me. I’m selling and moving on. Too many memories here. I’m staying for the two weeks and I’m researching teaching positions over in Colorado.”

Zach sighed noisily as his opinion on the matter, but Luke simply ignored his friend.

“What does Daniel say about you going?”

“He knows.”

“Is that all you’re giving me?”

“Yep.”

“Fucker.” Zach sighed. “So tell me something about the lawyer guy? You said he was a friend of your granddad? Is he hot? Should I be moving to small town Tennessee?”

“He must be nearly eighty,” Luke said. His breakfast arrived and he switched the phone to his other ear and organised his plate and cup to where he wanted them. “Thank you,” he said to the waitress.

“For what?” Zach asked.

“Not you. I’m in the diner eating breakfast.”

“Two eggs, three pieces of bacon, one hash brown? Am I right?” Luke glanced down at his plate. He hated that he was so predictable that his ex-lover knew exactly what would be on his plate.

“I have a tomato as well.” God, even that sounded sad to his ears.

“Living dangerously then.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you back, Fitzgerald.” Zach chuckled and there was no heat in the exchange of words.

“Tell me more about this Daniel,” Zach ordered.

Luke sighed inwardly. Part of him wondered why he and Zach had stayed friends, as all his ex did was ferret out information on Luke’s somewhat sparse sex life. Then he smiled. They’d stayed friends because they were friends—they should never have been lovers. Glancing around to see if he had anyone near him, which he didn’t, Luke dropped his voice and described Daniel in terms Zach would really love.

“Handsy, strong, insistent…and big.”

“I’m drooling.”

“Chiselled abs, broad chest, strong arms and these awesome tattoos that circle them.”

“This is turning into a phone sex line script. I don’t know whether to ask for a photo or book a flight. So you and this ex-marine, who I am assuming is gorgeous, of course he’s gorgeous, goes without saying? You had wild, hot monkey sex?”

“Should I really be talking about this to my ex?” Luke teased. He forked some egg and bacon into his mouth and savoured the flavours for a moment.

“On the ten scale?” Zach asked.

“A definite ten. What that man could do with his tongue, and his hands, and gah, his cock.” Luke may well be teasing Zach with this kind of detail, but for the first time in a while he wasn’t actually lying. There had been something in what had happened between them. A fire that sparked and connected. Everything felt so easy and even when he’d rolled out of bed as the dawn had lit the sky with rose pink everything had been natural. Daniel hadn’t asked for more, hadn’t questioned why Luke was leaving. Had just told him to flick the latch on his way out. He’d then rolled over into the space Luke had vacated and grabbed at the pillow and curled into it. No drama. No demands. Just easy, no ties sex.

“A ten? The last time I had a ten was…jeez…I’m not sure I ever had a real live ten before.”

“What was I? Dead meat? Should I be hurt?” Luke smirked. The bell over the door jangled a warning of an incoming or outgoing customer and Luke glanced up. The bacon he had just chewed stuck in his throat. Daniel. In the diner. “Okay I need to go.”

“Talk to you tomorrow,” Zach said as his goodbye. Daniel was scanning the interior of the diner and a smile crossed his face when he spotted Luke. Shit. Recognition smiles were not a good thing. To Luke’s mind they implied a friendship outside the hot casual sex.

“You don’t need to call me every day to check up on me,” Luke said.

Zach huffed a laugh in response. “Yes I do. I want to. Stay safe and go get some more of that sex. You have two weeks, make the most of it.” He ended the call and Luke ended up with a dead phone connection against his ear. Daniel was walking his way, calling for coffee to go from the waitress and hell, he’d stopped by the table.

“This seat taken?” he asked as he slid into the seat opposite Luke and leaned with his elbows on the table. Luke placed his cell on the table next to him and picked up his coffee mug. A drink in his hand was always a good barrier.