Chapter 30 #2
If there were obstacles in his way, he didn’t notice, the stacks of tables and chairs simply not registering, nor the pile of boxes from his dad’s study.
Getting to Rob as fast as he could was Jude’s entire motivation.
He finished unfastening his belt one-handed, running the palm of his free hand from Rob’s ankle to the soft dip at the back of his knee.
Then Jude used both hands to quickly strip out of the rest of his clothes, not caring where they landed.
“You are,” he insisted. “So bloody gorgeous.” Rob trembled under his next touch, Jude stroking upwards from Rob’s knee to his thigh, another quiver coming as Jude reached the curve of his arse and said, “You’re perfect. ”
Rob buried his face in his pillow, the of-course-I-am retort that Jude more than half-expected strange in its absence, and only the stagger of a ragged inhale audible as Jude caressed his backside.
Maybe the increased spread of Rob’s legs was a clue to his rare silence, Jude wondered, the tight bunch of his biceps another as Jude traced the divide between his cheeks with the tip of a finger. “Do you want me to…?”
Rob nodded and said, “Fuck me.”
Jude joked, saying, “So romantic,” pleased that Rob let out a huff sounding much closer to laughter.
“That’s better.” Jude ran his hands up from Rob’s behind to the wide span of his shoulders, tugging there until Rob turned over, even lovelier from this perspective.
“Stop trying to make me hurry.” The only rush Jude felt right then was amazement that he got to have this, and the Anchor booked for the whole summer.
Lou being so happy after working hard for so long was a bonus, and Trevor’s postcards were a true gift, bringing all of them closer to real closure.
This—here—was the start of a whole new chapter, a second chance to live instead of existing while searching for forgiveness it turned out he’d never needed.
No way was he going to rush this, not when far from being an entitled nuisance, Rob was the reason for everything good that had happened.
Jude knelt on the bunk he’d rebuilt and wrapped a hand around Rob’s ankle, lifting it to cup his heel in one palm, the thumb of the other rubbing a firm line along its arch.
“You got a thing about feet?” Rob sounded vaguely aghast.
“I’ve got a thing about you.” And yes, even shadowed, there was the start of the smirk that drove him wild before he knew it was Rob’s version of foreplay that extended into a real smile when Jude asked, “Did I tell you that part of the deal with the yacht charter business involves doing whatever guests ask you?”
In the dim light, the jet of Rob’s eyes narrowed and turned beady. “Is this leading up to some kind of kinky role play?”
“No, it means you do whatever makes them happy.” He pressed the pad of his thumb into a spot on the sole of Rob’s foot that prompted a groan.
“One of the first charters didn’t even want to leave the harbour.
Drove me crazy at the time, when we could have been sailing closer to somewhere I needed to search.
” He pressed another spot, and this time, Rob shivered.
“Ended up escorting them around spas on land all week. You know how much people will pay to get a foot rub?”
“Nearly as much as I’ll pay for you to rub my dick right now instead?”
“I can stop.”
“Maybe in a minute.” Rob thrust his other foot into Jude’s lap. “Spas,” he said thoughtfully.
“So many spas. Those clients would pay for someone to put hot pebbles on them, mud, you name it. Then they’d want to sight-see, so I’d have to play chauffeur for them.”
Jude ran both hands up from Rob’s ankles as Rob murmured, “Guided tours,” under his breath, musing.
Jude shifted up the bed, Rob’s leg hair finer as he reached higher.
“I nearly died so many times driving on the wrong side of the road, but sitting around waiting outside spas gave me a lot of time to think.” He leaned over Rob to kiss him.
“Used to wonder if we’d ever get as far as this if I’d stayed in London. ”
“We would have got here, no problem. This was always going to happen.” Rob’s eyes were bright, his smile as wide as Jude had ever seen it.
Jude lowered his head and skimmed the shaft of Rob’s cock first, fingers curling around it to stroke, moisture at the head catching the scant light as Jude leaned over to lick it.
The taste of salt and sex, the thick stretch of his mouth, the warm weight that throbbed in his hand—all this was what he’d wanted.
“I missed you,” he said after he pulled off, his voice ragged.
“Saw you everywhere I looked, Rob, even when I didn’t want to. ”
Rob pulled him up for a kiss then, this time taking longer as Jude settled in the cradle of his spread legs, rocking together and cocks touching in a way that felt amazing. “Coming home to find you here in my bed was torture, and brilliant. Amazing and awful. All of those at the same time.”
Rob’s voice held an edge of wonder. “Who would have guessed you’d end up chatty and romantic?” Then he choked back laughter and said, “I take it back,” when Jude fumbled under the pillow and echoed something that Rob had recently asked him.
“Warming lube or ordinary?”
Rob said, “Oh, God. I’ve made a monster,” groaning, but he didn’t sound too upset at Jude’s wet touch to his rim. In fact, he was silent.
“Is this good?” Jude paused when Rob stayed quiet, his next exhale more of a croak.
“Fuck, yes.”
Jude eased in a finger. “I thought about doing this for so long. Since London. Even when you were a dick, I wanted to see you like this, feel you open for me, around me.” He readied himself when Rob nodded, pushing inside slowly and slick. “Wanted to fuck that stupid spoilt smirk off your face.”
“Mission accomplished.” Rob half-gasped, half-groaned as Jude eased in, grasping his own dick and stroking as Jude made the slowest possible ingress, the rock of his hips gentle eddies that only strengthened gradually as his pace picked up, a steady push and pull that brought them close together, Rob’s kisses wide open, turning desperate.
Jude slowed his pace, deliberate even as Rob clutched his arse to speed him up, face twisting when Jude found just the right angle, pre-come puddling his belly.
“There, Jude. That’s…” another spurt came with Jude’s next thrust. “If you stop now,” Rob warned, “I’ll throw you off the sea wall.”
Jude thrusts became irregular, short and shallow as he hoped with everything that he had that he gave Rob just what he needed.
“Stroke yourself faster,” he managed to get out, coming with a shout right after Rob, whose gaze melted into something soft instead of desperate as Jude shuddered and spilt deep inside him.
Once they lay side by side, Rob was silent in a way Jude could live with, smiling sleepily as Jude wiped come from his chest and belly, and compliant when Jude asked him to roll over.
The night settled over them both once he was done, the only sounds their breathing slowing, and a yawn from Rob. He rolled again to spoon behind Jude.
“Lou told me, you know?” Jude said.
Rob’s “Hmm?” was sleepy, his breaths against the back of Jude’s neck a warm, regular tickle.
“How did they look?” Jude stretched, drying sweat forcing a shiver that had Rob moving even closer, his front pressed to Jude’s back like it was his job to heat him.
“How did what look?” Rob mumbled.
“The numbers? Lou said you ran them based on the new bookings.” In the dark, the auction-lot of chairs Rob had bought were shadowed towers, the tabletops leaning against them more proof of Rob’s early investment.
“We’ll be able to pay you back so much quicker.
” The hand Rob had curled over one of Jude’s twitched, chef’s scars knifed across his knuckles washed white by the moonlight.
Jude lifted them to his lips, murmuring as he kissed them.
“Maybe even before the end of the summer.”
Rob’s retreat came in stages; the tickle of breath against the back of Jude’s neck stuttering then stopping, his next exhalation much longer, but shallow. The mattress dipped before levelling, his slow roll away evident as Jude’s back cooled.
“The figures weren’t good?” Surprise had Jude up on one elbow.
“Really?” He looked over his shoulder to find Rob facing in the other direction.
“Wow. I thought we might be much closer to being in the black on your spreadsheet.” This was why he left bookkeeping to Lou like Dad used to with their Mum.
There must be something he hadn’t factored in that mattered.
A mental image of Tom dividing tips left by grateful clients was so clear he could almost hear the rustle of banknotes.
“I suppose we will have to pay for more help, once we’re busier. ”
They lay quietly for what felt like ages, the sea breaking against the sea wall a rhythmic shush that had Jude’s eyelids lowering as if weighted.
“The figures are fine.”
Jude rolled over to scoot closer at Rob’s quiet answer, his knees fitting behind Rob’s as he slid an arm around his middle, slotting them perfectly together like same-size spoons in a drawer.
The skin of Rob’s shoulder was salty where Jude’s lips brushed, too close to sleep to form a real kiss.
“We’ll pay you back as soon as we can,” Jude mumbled, so tired that Rob’s whispered reply was dreamlike.
“I really wish you wouldn’t.”