His own stirred beneath the thin cotton of his shorts, and he palmed it lightly, a moan hissing through his teeth.
Jerking off in Evan’s bed was a bridge too far, but oh God, just thinking about it made his dick thicken and twitch. Christ, he was hopeless. He’d really believed he could share space with this man and not feel anything? Once again, he’d underestimated the ability of his romantic notions to turn him into a blithering fool.
A yawn of exhaustion snuck free, settling him into the nest of sheets and pillows. They wrapped him in the warm, splendiferous aura of the unattainable man he’d sworn he could resist, and lulled him to a sleep filled with gingersnaps and stardust.
twenty
. . .
The lamp next to the sofa blinded Evan awake at whatever ungodly hour it was when the island regained power.
His watch and phone were in the other room, so all he had to go on was the pitch dark beyond the windows, the sort of inky blackness that meant dawn wasn’t even close. He rolled over and switched off the lamp, but sleep had already left him behind. A return to dreamland was beyond his grasp.
No loss, really. The sleep he had gotten wasn’t great. The storm kept replaying over and over in his dreams, with a variety of increasingly absurd and gory endings. He felt both hungover and drunk. The sort of over-exhausted stupor that came when you’d gone a little too hard on the intense emotions. Today had brought him to a brink he hadn’t seen in a long, long time, and he was thankful he’d avoided going all the way over the edge.
He had Heath to thank for that. Where the hell was he?
If you’re in that soggy bed, you fucking martyr.
He rolled off the couch and went straight to the porch, but there was no sign of his belligerent husband. On a hunch, he checked the bedroom, and though it was also empty, there weresigns the opportunist had helped himself for at least a short while.
Heath had slept in his bed.
Jesus, man. Get a grip.
There was a strange and uncomfortable twisting in his stomach, but he pushed it off. He was too tired and wrung out to play What If on hard mode. He needed a gallon of water, a shower, and the entire tube of toothpaste he’d brought with him. Then he needed to figure out where hishusbandwas.
Two tall glasses of water and a vigorous scrubbing of his teeth set him on the right path. He ventured out onto the patio, certain Heath wouldn’t have gotten very far. He’d barely survived the walk from the lobby in broad daylight and recounted his run-in with the lizard at every opportunity. No way he’d have gone wandering off in the dark alone.
The stillness in the air bordered on unnerving. A mist had kicked up after the storm, painting the landscape in an abstract haze, but he could see the foamy caps of waves cresting the top of the wall through the dim glow of the solar lighting. That meant the tide was in. What he didn’t see was any sign of Pooks.
“Heath?”
The fog muffled his voice, seeming to slap the inquiry right out of the air. The stones beneath his bare feet held a lingering chill from the storm and the sort of squidgy insecurity only a long-wet surface could provide. He felt the promise of slipping and breaking his ass with every step.
There was a flicker of movement near the pool, caught just in his periphery, and a prickle crawled up the back of his neck. There’d been no mention of spooky island legends, but he’d be shocked if none existed, and he wondered if he was about to discover one of them the hard way.
He turned in that direction, neatly answering the long-held question of how long it would take him to die in a slasherfilm. Without a doubt, he’d be dead before the opening credits.
“Heath? You out here, Pooks?” If nothing else, maybe the pet name would lure him out of the shadows to smack him. The more he hated it, the more Evan enjoyed using it.
As always happened, the moment he gave it his full attention, whatever he’d seen had disappeared. Nothing loitered between the small palms surrounding the pool’s outer edge, and there was no further movement while he watched.
He turned back and continued toward the beach stairs. What if Heath just wanted some air? A little decompression time. He’d had a rough day too. Not only would Evan be interrupting, he’d be opening himself up to having to answer for why he’d acted like a teenager challenging the party to play Spin the Bottle.
That was almost enough to send him back into the house, but the tingling pushed him forward. The silent treatment wasn’t Heath’s style. If he were out here, he’d at least tell him to fuck off. No, something was weird, and if he didn’t investigate, his disemboweled corpse couldn’t serve as a warning to the others.At the top of the stairs, he leaned on the wall and searched for signs of movement in the darkness, half expecting a ghostly apparition to appear hovering atop the water along the rocky shore.
Most of the beach was underwater, so it was hardly the time to be looking for trinkets, but knowing Heath, there was probably some rare urchin you could only find during high tide after a storm.
He descended to the lowest stair that wasn’t being battered by the surf, but saw only sea foam churning between slick, black boulders. The beach was empty as far as he could tell, and he wasn’t crossing over with the tide in. That was a recipe for a broken ankle, and even if Heath had gone that way, the incoming tide would’ve wiped away any footprints.
What really worried him was whether it would have also wiped away Heath. The current was strong. It yanked at his calves as the sand beneath his feet shifted and evaporated with each step forward. The deeper he went, the harder it tried to lure him away from the wall.
He stopped when the water swirled up to his waist and he had to brace his feet apart to stay steady. Invisible hands tugged at his hips, beckoning him to go just a little further, and he thought of his mother’s warnings of sea kelpies waiting to swim off with boys who drifted too far from shore.
A sound caught his attention. Like a shuffling. Faint, but distinct enough to stand out from the babbling water. Giant crabs? Zombies? He dug his fingers into the gaps between the concrete bricks and listened, but it didn’t happen again.
“Heath?”he shouted, wondering if anyone else could hear him, then remembered theirs was the most remote villa. What a comforting thought—he could be screaming his head off and no one would know.
