Chapter One #4
To do that, he’d have to find a way into the lagoon. If he was late, Tim might think he’d backed out of…whatever this was, and he’d leave, and Lachlan would miss this once-in-a-lifetime chance at possibly, maybe doing whatever they were going to do.
Possibly.
Heart racing, he glimpsed the massive pool through the leafy bushes and flowers and beyond the lagoon-front villas.
His thongs slapped on the pavement as he rushed along another curving path in his blue board shorts and T-shirt.
Good thing he hadn’t accidentally brought his black work boardies, which said LIFEGUARD across the arse.
Tim would think he’d stood him up. Not that it was a date, but… Tim had been hitting on him. Right?
“Or maybe I’ve lost the plot,” he muttered.
Finally, he followed a sign and hurried down a dock, low lamps illuminating the way. The lagoon stretched out in both directions, disappearing around bends and flowing into side channels. It was lit from below and along the sides with gentle lights.
“Over here.” Tim’s low voice came from the right, and he glided into view.
“Hey!” God, that was practically a squeak.
The crush on Mr. Bullock when he was a kid had been fun. Safe. A bit of hero worship that was just for Lachlan. Standing on the dock, he hesitated.
What he was about to do was anything but safe.
“Come in.” Another low command from Tim disguised as an invitation.
Lachlan peeled off his tee, confidence surging as he felt more than saw Tim’s hungry gaze on his bare skin.
This wasn’t his imagination.
This was happening.
He found the steps and concentrated on breathing steadily as he entered the cool lagoon.
Under the cloudy night sky, Tim’s face was in shadow. “Want to take a lap?”
“Sure.”
They set off in silence aside from the soft splashes of water as they stroked lazily, following the curve of the lagoon past villas glowing with golden light. Hearing murmurs of conversation and bursts of laughter, cutlery clinking on plates.
In the water, Lachlan didn’t feel the need to speak to fill the silence between them. He and Tim glided along, passing other swimmers from time to time. A breeze rustled the palm leaves and cicadas sang in the humid night.
The water had always been a safe place. After the accident, he’d spent hours at Barking, the steadiness of the tides bringing a strange kind of peace. He’d been too snowed under as a fledgling lawyer to get to the beach often, and he’d run right back to it when everything had gone wrong.
Tim didn’t speak either, and as they swam, Lachlan again felt like he was underwater in the best way. The caress of the water over his skin and the desire for Tim had his nerve endings singing. He didn’t often get turned on so completely, a hunger absorbed through every pore.
Back when he was with Jules, definitely.
He’d fallen hard and deep, maybe the way first love always was.
In law school, there’d been an intense few months with a guy in his class, but that friendship-turned-infatuation had fizzled out when Patrick had revealed himself to be a cheating arsehole who couldn’t be trusted.
Otherwise, the hookups he’d tried had been…fine. On paper, they should’ve been spectacular—the guys were gorgeous. He’d gotten off, but without the fire in his blood that had him alive with anticipation now.
When they returned to the small dock, Tim climbed up the underwater steps in his tight, square-cut bathers that were only slightly bigger than Speedos. The dark material clung to his spectacular arse, and Lachlan watched droplets slide down his meaty thighs in the low lamplight.
“Water?” Tim turned, holding one of the small refillable glass bottles the hotel provided to help prevent “Bali belly,” which had left one of Lachlan’s mates confined to the toilet for two days.
With the lagoon thankfully hiding his hardness, Lachlan nodded. He realized that while they’d been swimming, a staff member had left the filtered water along with rolled towels. Carrying both bottles, Tim slowly descended the steps.
Lachlan tried not to stare at the bulge in Tim’s bathers and failed miserably, imagining the material stretching over his cock as it hardened.
One horn of the bull tattoo Lachlan knew was on Tim’s right hip curved across his belly above the material.
As a kid, he’d spotted the horns peeking out in the front and back over board shorts.
He tore his gaze past the newer tattoo of a compass on Tim’s left pec to find Tim watching him with that sexy smirk. Their fingers met as Lachlan quickly took the bottle, their legs brushing beneath the surface as they treaded water.
Tim swam toward an open-sided hut in the middle of the lagoon with a thatched roof, holding his bottle out of the water. Lachlan realized as they neared that there were underwater couches set around a table below the roof that would block the sun during the day.
When had Tim gotten the newer tattoo? Likely some years ago judging by the chest hair over it. Lachlan still didn’t have any ink, despite Ryan’s insistence that he needed a lock of some kind to match the pronunciation of his name.
Granted, that had been when Ryan was getting a Southern Cross constellation over his chest for his nineteenth birthday like a million other kids their age. Lachlan had watched in the corner of the tattoo parlor, standing firm that his skin was remaining free of padlock-related art.
He and Tim sat on the submerged couch, water bottles in hand.
Tim’s right knee skimmed against Lachlan’s left.
Neither of them moved, and for a moment, Lachlan was ridiculously scandalized.
He had to remind himself he was almost thirty and a grown man, not some lovestruck teen with a harmless crush.
And there was nothing stopping him from having a man he wanted.
Except for the fact that it was extremely messed up to have sex with his best friend’s father. It was wrong. He was lying to Tim and betraying Ryan. That was all there was to it.
But Tim’s knee was so warm against his. It was only the two of them. The rest of the world and all the stress that came with it had vanished. He needed this.
There was something oddly comforting about being with someone he knew, even if Tim didn’t recognize him. Even after whatever had happened with that money, Lachlan trusted him in a way he couldn’t explain.
Has to be temporary insanity.
A forbidden thrill shivered down his spine. After Tim leaned forward to place his empty bottle on the table, his whole thigh pressed against Lachlan’s.
It’ll be my secret.
Thick, tropical trees swayed in the growing wind. The air was heavy with impending rain, and anticipation buzzed through Lachlan like a million mosquitoes.
No one ever has to know.
The skies opened, unleashing rain in a torrent as it had every night that week. “See any lightning?” Lachlan asked, his mouth dry.
“Nah.” Tim’s leg still pressed firmly against him.
Then his strong hand slid over Lachlan’s thigh, and in the shadows of the hut in the middle of the lagoon with driving rain cutting them off from the rest of the world, Lachlan leaned in for a kiss he’d never imagined actually happening—
Tim jerked his head to the side and flattened a firm hand on Lachlan’s chest.
“I don’t kiss,” he bit out.
Despite the icy disappointment flooding him, Lachlan nodded. Okay, so he wouldn’t get to feel Tim’s beard against his face, taste his mouth and touch his tongue and share his breath…
But Tim was still pressed against Lachlan’s side. In the distance, laughing swimmers climbed out of the lagoon and ran through the rain back into their villa, leaving them truly alone.
Tim opened Lachlan’s boardies with a firm rip of Velcro. With tropical rain thundering around them, sheltered under the thatched roof in the darkness, Lachlan couldn’t bite back a loud moan before he’d even been touched.
Tim laughed—not unkindly. Then he took hold of Lachlan’s rock-hard cock with an unquestioning grip, and Lachlan was going to explode. His brain, his balls—he was flying apart at the seams from only the stroke of Tim’s callused hand.
He burned to touch and taste—if not Tim’s mouth, then his skin. Yet Lachlan was frozen in place, breathing in shallow little gasps. After several more firm strokes that sent ripples of building pressure and pleasure through his heavy limbs to his fingers and toes, Tim’s brow arched.
He was surely expecting reciprocation, but before Lachlan could coordinate his brain to order his hand to move, Tim was lifting him, weightless in the water, to sit on his lap with Lachlan’s back against his chest.
Tim’s whisper filled Lachlan’s mind and soul, lips brushing his ear. “Wound too tight, aren’t you, boy?”
“Yes.”
For a terrible, wonderful moment, he almost burst into tears.
Tim’s gravelly voice was so familiar even after so many years.
So comforting. His secret crush had been a haven growing up—a solace during awkward, painful years when he’d been confused about his sexuality and his parents had started fighting. That crush had been his and his alone.
And now Mr. Bullock was touching him.
Boardies around his knees, Lachlan arched into that strong grasp as Tim stroked. Beneath him, Tim’s hard cock prodded, still trapped in the slick fabric of his bathers. Lachlan pushed down, grinning when Tim groaned.
Above the driving rain, all Lachlan could hear was his own harsh breathing. But he could feel Tim’s exhalations against his neck, hot and insistent. The heat of his cock thrusting up against him, only the slick fabric between them.
“Please,” Lachlan begged.
“Need to come?” Tim’s lips were damp and warm on Lachlan’s ear.
Lachlan needed more than Tim could have known. He needed to bend over and beg to be fucked. He needed to climb back over Tim and ride him. He needed to haul him out of the water and swallow his cock until he couldn’t breathe.
He needed to kiss this man.
All he said was, “Need you.”
Tim’s grip tightened as he stroked Lachlan without hesitation. “I’ve got you.” His free hand slid up Lachlan’s chest to twist his nipples.
Lachlan gasped, his balls tightening. He rocked with Tim’s strokes, pushing back into his lap eagerly. He was weightless in the water with Tim’s iron grasp keeping him grounded as the pleasure boiling through his veins spilled over.
When he arched, rigid, Tim’s hand slapped over his mouth, muffling a cry that not even the tropical rain could have smothered. Lachlan came in jerks, white stars behind his eyes as Tim held him down, grinding up against his arse and groaning.
Tim’s palm was wet and heavy, and Lachlan twisted his head so he could suck his thumb, desperate for more. He had to see Tim’s face. Had to see him to believe this was happening. Before he could talk himself out of it, he turned and straddled Tim’s lap, the water easing his way.
That perfect smirk lifted Tim’s lips again as he reached around to squeeze Lachlan’s arse.
Lachlan spread his fingers over Tim’s hairy chest, combing through the hair, teasing his nipples with one hand and tracing the compass tattoo.
He squeezed the other into the straining fabric of Tim’s bathers to jerk him.
Tim nodded, thrusting up, one hand spreading over Lachlan’s head, fingers tight in his wet hair. His cut dick was steel in Lachlan’s hand, the head glistening. He thrilled at the gasp he earned from Tim when he reached lower to cup his balls.
“Guess this isn’t your first time,” Tim huffed out with a laugh. “Wasn’t sure at first.”
As devastatingly embarrassing as that was, Lachlan pushed it aside, determination taking over. Tempted as he was to sink down onto Tim’s cock and beg him to come inside him, they were in a public place and that was a step too far even given what they were doing.
Lachlan couldn’t kiss Tim but he could still use his mouth.
He’d show him he wasn’t some virgin.
After the kind of deep breath he would take before copping a huge wave on the head, knowing he’d be pinned down under the surface, Lachlan sank to his knees under the water, shoving his thigh under the bottom of the couch to stay down.
Tim’s fingers flexed and tightened in his hair as Lachlan swallowed his cock.
Keeping his lips in a tight seal, he sucked like his life depended on it, tasting saltwater, precum, and hot flesh. Tim bucked, his thighs spreading as Lachlan’s lungs started to burn. Years of holding his breath underwater paid off.
When Lachlan pushed up for air, Tim pulled to help, both laughing as he surfaced with a gasp. “Christ!” Tim exclaimed, then seized up when Lachlan took his cock in hand, coming in a few hard strokes with a long shudder, his eyes closing as his head tipped back, Adam’s apple bobbing.
Lachlan memorized every gorgeous wrinkle and angle and the sweep of Tim’s eyelashes against his wet skin. He leaned close and rubbed his cheek against Tim’s beard, hugging him too tightly even though Tim’s arms were limp at his sides.
The rain was easing, the deluge slowing to a patter. Lachlan could have curled up in Tim’s lap and spent the night there even though they were practically the same size—and were in a public lagoon.
“Good thing they clean this place so diligently,” he said because he felt like he had to say something. Even if it was that.
Tim shifted him to the side, sliding out from beneath him. “Told ya I was a bogan.” His voice had gone hoarse. “Can’t take me anywhere.”
Laughing, Lachlan glanced around and pulled up his shorts. “Maybe we can—”
But Tim was already swimming away with strong, even strokes, his voice distant. “Thanks, mate. See ya.”
Before Lachlan could even process the words, Tim Bullock was gone.