Chapter 23
J ude barely thought of anything else other than getting somewhere private as he left the Anchor behind and strode towards the boatyard, Rob’s hand tight in his.
Guy Parsons could go hang for all he cared.
The whole rest of the world could. The moment the boatshed door swung closed behind them, Jude stood close, arms around Rob’s waist and face tucked into the divot between his neck and his shoulder, breathing him in.
“Not that I want you to stop doing that,” Rob said breathless, laughing. “But they’re all still probably waiting for their dessert.”
“I’m not stopping you from going back to serve it.” Jude kissed the side of Rob’s neck, lips skimming south to north as Rob leaned into him, very close to clinging.
Rob’s next laugh came with a shudder. “Oh, I think that you are.” He gripped one of Jude’s wrists, pulling his hand down to where his cock was firming. “Any more of that and you’ll have to lend me your apron. Cover up what you do to me.”
Jude kept his hand where Rob had placed it, tracing what he wanted to explore when Rob had fewer clothes on.
“No, really.” Rob shuddered. His breath was so warm across the shell of Jude’s ear, his lips dragging as he added, “We have to finish what we started.”
“Yeah.” Jude wanted to finish as well. Finish all over Rob, if he’d let him. In him, if that was up for discussion. He walked Rob backwards, wanting nothing more complex than a mattress to stretch him out on.
Behind Rob, a tower of stacked chairs wobbled.
“Steady as she goes, sailor.” Rob kissed the hinge of his jaw, arms wound tight around him. “The door’s in the other direction.”
The door would do, Jude decided, turning Rob sharply enough that his breath caught, only for him to expel it in a huff. Jude pushed him up against it and tugged at the buttons of his chef’s jacket. There. Skin he could get his mouth on.
“Oh, my God.” Rob squirmed as Jude’s kisses turned to bruising sucks. “Anyone would think it’s been ages instead of only last night since you got off.”
It had been ages though; ages that he’d wished Rob wanted him even half as much as Jude had, dreaming of him while the Aphrodite bobbed beneath his back.
“You wanted me too.” He was certain of that now where before he’d guessed Rob flirted with everyone the same way.
A tremble under his palms had him checking. “You do now? Want me?”
“God, yes. But—” the sound of Rob’s head hitting the door barely registered, nor did the rest of his sentence “—we have to go back.”
There was no going back for Jude. No returning to the way he’d felt for so long—adrift, alone, and wishing so hard for Rob to lighten moments of almost complete darkness.
Waiting for the sun to rise each morning to scour each new horizon for sails, or each beach for wreckage might have been more bearable with Rob beside him.
Jude yanked open more of Rob’s jacket buttons, annoyed that an undershirt hampered his exploration.
Dropping to his knees made that easier, as did pushing fabric up from Rob’s waist to bare his belly.
Following the path of hair from his navel to the waistband of his jeans with his lips was as simple as breathing, even if Rob seemed to struggle with his own inhalations.
His breaths shuddered, stopped and started as Jude ran his palms up Rob’s legs from shins to knees, and then up his thighs, quads tensing under his palms when he reached their juncture.
Jude pressed the swell of Rob’s cock with one hand while wrestling with his belt buckle, an urge to get his mouth on him relentless, a wave that was unstoppable until Rob yelped the sole word that could stop him.
“Louise!”
Jude’s fingers tightened around the leather he’d been about to free from its loops. He looked up to find Rob as dazed as he felt, eyes pitch-black and glinting, colour as hectic as if he was just as turned on as Jude before he’d slammed on the brakes. “Did you really just mix me up with my sister?”
Rob’s next yelp was of laughter. “No. For fuck sake. She’s much prettier than you.
It’s just…. We have to go back,” he panted, breathless.
“For her. For Louise. To make sure Guy Parsons isn’t giving her a hard time.
” His back was still pressed to the door as he slipped down, ending in a crouch that brought his mouth within kissing distance.
“It’s not that I don’t want…” he held Jude’s face in both hands, and Jude saw himself reflected in his wide pupils, just as starstruck.
“The minute I get you alone….” Rob’s kiss was a filthy promise of where they’d pick up when this crisis was done with.
For good or for bad now, no matter how Guy framed his review, at least they’d still get to have this.
“The very first minute, Jude.” It almost sounded like a warning that came with a hint of frustration as Rob looked over Jude’s shoulder at the narrow bunks where they slept. “I only wish we had somewhere…”
Better?
He’d thought the same only that morning about giving Rob the best room in the place rather than the worst one.
Bigger?
A wider mattress would make stretching Rob across it much easier.
“Private,” Rob admitted as he pulled Jude upright, his hold tightening on Jude’s hand as they left the boatshed.
“Can’t help feeling a bit under a microscope here.
” Susan and Carl confirmed that, waving at them both from the far end of the harbour, hand-in-hand too on their way home.
“Since we put on a show,” he said under his breath as Marc exited the pub with Louise, one arm slung around her shoulder that he removed the moment he saw Jude in the distance.
“I feel like they’re all watching.” He inclined his head in the direction of the harbour opening where Guy Parsons posed, Byronic hair whipping wildly as Ian crouched with his camera.
“They’re all waiting for something to happen.
” His grip on Jude’s hand loosened as they drew closer to the Anchor, his tone reverting to teasing.
“Not gonna lie. It’s all giving me a tiny bit of performance anxiety.
” He winked, but Jude wondered if there wasn’t something truthful buried beneath that humour.
“Hey.” Jude wouldn’t let go of Rob’s hand.
Instead, he stopped and pulled him closer.
“You know I’d give you that, don’t you? Privacy, I mean.
I’d take you away in a heartbeat if I could.
” The kiss he pressed to Rob’s lips came with a whisper.
“Take you anywhere on the planet. Sail you, fly you, walk you there if I had to, if that made you happy.”
“Wow.” Rob blinked. “Romantic.”
“Maybe there’s something in the water.” He nodded again in Guy Parsons’ direction, who now stood with Ian’s back to his chest, chin resting on his photographer’s shoulder as he pointed out to sea.
“I see your sister’s drunk it as well,” Rob noted when she edged closer to Marc.
“I’m pretending not to notice,” Jude said, but it was hard to sound too grumpy.
They headed inside to finally serve some dessert that Guy Parsons ate with obvious pleasure, agreeing to stay the night so that he could sample a New Anchor breakfast as well.
Jude cleared the kitchen later while Rob went to work on something in the office, but fragments of their conversation circled, returning to Jude when he found the office empty and the laptop open later.
A map of the nearby coastline filled the screen, a hand-written list of boutique hotels in St Ives beside it.
Jude sat down and searched a few of the hotels listed, all of them pricey and perhaps worth emulating.
And wasn’t that something? Even after a stress-filled few days, Rob was still investing in research to secure the Anchor’s future.
That was an investment Jude badly wanted to pay back, and not, he had to admit, because he wanted Rob out of their business in a hurry.
He recalled Rob’s blink of surprise after Jude had said he’d whisk him away if he could, and that memory had him opening a brand-new tab to check his bank balance.
Jude murmured a prayer of thanks that Tom had paid him for a full month instead of the bare week he’d last sailed.
Before, he would have hoarded every penny to pay for flights between islands, only spending his cash on a search that had never paid off.
Now, Jude checked Rob’s research list of hotels and made a new investment.