Giving Up the Ghost (31 page)

“I don’t do goodbyes. They stink. I’ll stay here.” Green eyes blinked up at him. “See you around.”

Nick nodded, took one last look at his brother, and walked around the side of the house to where John was waiting for him, leaning against a garden seat and telling Stacy about his vegetable patch on the island and the best way to kill slugs with beer.

John saw him and broke off, smiling at him. “There you are.” He raised his eyebrows. “Ready to go home?”

“Yes,” Nick said, heartfelt.

He was more than ready.

Chapter Eighteen

John lay on his back in bed, warm under the pile of blankets, well-sated, and listened to the sounds of Nick downstairs in the kitchen below. They’d arrived home to Traighshee the day before and stopped just long enough on their way to the house to pick up a few things for breakfast that morning. Then, of course, they’d ended up sleeping half the day, their bodies so confused by the jet-lag that, when John had opened his eyes to find the sun streaming into the room, he’d barely been able to remember what day it was.

A glance at the clock had told him, and then Nick, lying underneath him, John’s head cushioned on his shoulder, had woken up, and they’d had a long, leisurely session of re-christening their bed. Just remembering the sight of Nick above him, fucking himself slowly on John’s cock, was enough to make John’s body stir again.

Nick’s footsteps on the stairs -- he’d insisted on bringing tea up for John, as the house was cold in the mornings and he hadn’t quite got over the bout of over-protectiveness he’d been in since John’s near-death experience -- distracted him. “Guess what came in the mail?” Nick asked, coming into the room with a tea tray, a thick envelope split across the top balanced beside the mugs of tea.

“Can’t. That would mean thinking and I’m not capable of that.”

Nick put the tray on the bedside table and picked up the envelope, smacking the top of John’s head with it lightly. “I didn’t break you, did I?”

John stretched out, grinning. “Maybe. Get back in here and find out for yourself.”

He didn’t think he could really get hard again, not this soon, but Nick had a way of making his body forget that it was supposed to be basking in the afterglow and get eager, and it wasn’t as if they had anything to do. Well, apart from a lot of laundry, but that could wait…He eyed Nick’s thick sweater and jeans with disapproval, wishing Nick was bare under an easily removed robe instead. Although he couldn’t blame Nick for getting dressed. After
Florida
, the island seemed colder than ever, wrapped in winter damp and drizzle. It didn’t bother John, who was well used to it; but the previous afternoon, when they’d got back, Nick had shivered for hours until the central heating had finally raised the temperature to a bearable level.

To his pleasant surprise, Nick set down the tray on the edge of the bed, stripped off his clothes in a couple of easy movements, and crawled back under the covers, snuggling up close to John’s warmth. “Mm,” he murmured, lips against John’s shoulder. “I think we should just spend all day here.”

“Aye.” John turned his head and kissed him. “There. What was it you wanted me to see?”

“I think you’ve seen it all,” Nick joked, reaching across him to pick up the envelope again. He pulled the folded pages out and handed them to John. “It’s the article Greg Duncan wrote.”

“Already?” John saw that Greg had sent it by the fastest method possible, spending a considerable amount of dollars to do so, and sniffed disapprovingly, getting an elbow in the ribs from Nick who knew him too well. “Right, then. Let’s see what the man has to say.”

He spread the pages out, fingering a Post-it attached which read, “These are copies of the draft; I’ll send you the magazine when it comes out. Or maybe hand-deliver it. Tell John that was a joke before he gets his claymore out. Best, Greg.”

Taking a long sip of tea to fortify himself
and
his claymore, John began to read. It wasn’t long before he was spluttering with laughter.

“‘His emerald eyes flashing darkly as he described an encounter with a vengeful spirit --’. What?” He peered at Nick, who was flushing and looking uncomfortable. “They’re green, right enough, aye, but emeralds? Is the man mad?”

“He probably has to write like that,” Nick said, and John couldn’t help but feel a flash of jealousy that he was
defending
the man. “You know, to make it more interesting. If he just made it sound like I could be anyone, no one would care.”

“More fool them,” John grunted. He carried on reading, his eyes widening at the style, which, while not as sensational as he’d feared, verged on it at times. The only part he read without a twist of distaste shaping his lips came when Greg described the events of the final night at the crash site. The horror and genuine shock Greg must have felt came over strongly and his words were simple, measured, and convincing.

John got to the part where Nick was bending over his “to my eyes, lifeless” body and set the article aside. “God.”

“Which bit?”

“You really thought I was dead?”

Nick tensed beside him. “Yes,” he said softly. “You knew that. I told you.”

“I know,” John said slowly. “I just…I hadn’t thought it through. How you’d have felt. If it’d been me, and you lying there…” He shuddered, the pages spilling from his hand to the bed and from there to the floor. “Come here, will you?”

He turned and pulled Nick into his arms, feeling the need to hold him and be held as strongly as he ever had in his life.

Pressing close, Nick held him just as tightly in return, one hand resting at the small of John’s back in the spot that was oddly comforting. “I was so scared,” Nick admitted. “I don’t know what I would have done.”

“I don’t know, either.” John nuzzled into the crook of Nick’s neck, less of a kiss than a way of getting the smell and taste of Nick’s skin inside him. He couldn’t get close enough to him. “I’ve not known you that long. Not even two years, yet, but you’re in my life now. If you left, I’d be missing you until the day I died and that’s the truth.”

“I’ll never leave,” Nick said. He pulled back far enough that John could see his face and how very serious he was. “That’s the truth, too. I need you too much. I want you too much.”

John could see the emotion, raw and desperate, on Nick’s face, and was sure his own expression matched it. He cleared his throat, trying to make his voice normal. “We’re getting awful serious considering we’ve both agreed we’re not going anywhere and we’re --” John brought his hand up to cup Nick’s face, his palm shaping to Nick’s jaw. “In love? Still? Always?” He brushed his lips against Nick’s, not letting him answer until he’d had that one kiss. “Tell me we are?”

“Yes,”
Nick said, every bit of that desperate emotion clear in that one word. “Always. Nothing’s going to change that. Ever.”

“I don’t want that to change. Ever.” John let his hand move to the back of Nick’s neck, feeling the strong, taut muscles there relax and then tense again for a different reason. “So that’s all sorted, then.”

His mouth found Nick’s, the kiss taking the place of the words that never quite came out right, no matter how perfect they were in his head. There were other ways to show Nick he loved him; some he knew already, some he was sure he’d work out in time, but this…aye, this was a good way.

And as Nick kissed him back with every bit as much feeling, fingers tracing his spine, warm body pressed to John’s, he knew that in the long run the words weren’t that important.

That, in the long run, they’d be together. And that was all that mattered.

THE END