Essence of Time (28 page)

“Better?” he whispered.

 Blake glared at him. Damn man always sensed when he was pissed about something. “I will be. Once I get you alone on that thing.” His body tingled in anticipation. He suddenly realized the complete rightness of this moment.

Rob had been furious with him when he’d balked at the concept of this trip, citing responsibilities at the brewery, the new canning line, new staff, his niece. But standing on the burning hot wood of an antique boat dock south of Istanbul, Turkey, he had never been more in love in his life. Or as horny. He cleared his throat, held his backpack over the obvious bulge under his jeans. 

“That’s the whole idea, my love.” Rob bit his earlobe then turned to the attractive woman who stood and smiled at them as if they were a pair of adorable puppies.  “Thank you, Ebru. This is exactly what I pictured.” She checked something on her clipboard, then whistled so loudly Blake startled. A pair of incredibly hot, olive-skinned men appeared from the boat, leaping over to grab suitcases, chattering in rapid-fire Turkish to the woman.

“As you ordered, Mr. Frietag. Enjoy your two weeks.” She shook both of their hands and click-clacked across the wooden surface, leaving the two of them standing there, watching as the crew set the sails in order. One of them gestured over to Blake and Rob.

“All aboard,” Rob smacked Blake on the ass.  “And you can thank me later for the eye candy.” He raised an eyebrow, shouldered his backpack and climbed the ladder onto the deck. Blake followed him, amazed at the shining dark wood hull, the sparkling brass fittings, and the bright white sails’ contrast against the positively movie-set blue sky. His chest loosened, for the first time in what felt like months, even years, contemplating nothing but sun, sky, boat, and the body of his lover for the next two weeks.

Once they'd unpacked their stuff in the luxurious bedroom, Blake jumped into the shower to hopefully stay awake. The lull of the ship’s movement had already made him drowsy. “Hey,” Rob put a hand on his shoulder, as he stood at the sink, towel around his waist. They listened to the clink and clank of whatever the hell it was that was moving them forward, slicing through the increasingly blue-green water. He slid his palm up to the back of Blake’s neck, pulled him close. They stood together a minute, breathing in sync as the small voice of disquiet Blake had been nurturing for the past few years slowly eased away. He had no reason to fear this man. He loved him. They loved each other. Everything was fine. He shivered when Rob’s lips touched his ear. “All is well, baby. You have got to relax. Please. For me?” Rob cradled Blake’s face between his hands, kissed him once, then again.

Blake nodded, tugged Rob over to the huge bed and down, never releasing his lips. Rob’s clothes melted off him, Blake’s towel disappeared along with it. The urgency of need coursing through him made Blake grunt with effort as he slid his lips down Rob’s amazing torso, reaching the already leaking head of his stiff cock. He flicked his tongue around its edges, tasted his familiar salty essence, cupped the other man’s balls and sucked him down, reveling in the sound of Rob’s pleasure, the grip of his hands in his hair. “Shit,” Rob groaned, as his hips thrust up, forcing his cock further down, into Blake’s throat. “Stop. Wait. Blake…oh Jesus.”

Blake slid a finger down, stroked the smooth skin between Rob’s balls and ass, stroking higher and higher, recognized the urgent pump of his lover’s hips then moaned as Rob’s cock stiffened, jerked and filled his mouth and throat. Rob tugged at his hair, as Blake gripped his ass, held him close and drank him down. By the time he’d finished Blake’s head was about to blow off with his own need for release. He slipped his lips up and off Rob’s long, lovely shaft, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and dropped down on the bed beside him. Rob sucked in a deep breath, put his arm around Blake and held him close.

Blake let himself be held, tried not to rub his aching shaft against Rob’s leg too obviously, and ran his fingers across his lover’s strong, chiseled torso. He frowned, sat up, and touched a strange, dimply imperfection on Rob’s otherwise perfect abs, amazed he hadn’t seen it before. “Hey, what’s this?” He ran a finger over it again. Rob opened his eyes.

“I had a feeding tube there, once.” Blake’s whole body froze. Rob’s words decreased his libido proportionally and he stood, his hands shaking as he ran them through his hair. Rob rolled onto his side, gestured for Blake to come back into his arms. But, he couldn't. Blake’s ears buzzed, his brain had clicked into reality mode. This was it. The thing he never knew. The thing that Rob’s friends Jack and Kyle and Suzanne all knew. He was ashamed to admit that when faced with it, he did not want to know.

Yanking on shorts and a t-shirt, mumbling something about “getting into the sun for a while,” he rushed out of the room. Maybe if he ignored it, the hard truth of whatever it was would not reach him. Would not spoil the carefully constructed happiness he’d built for himself in the last years, even in the face of the wild ride his sister and Rob’s friend Jack had taken them on.

 
Yeah. Right. Way to be mature. Fuck mature. I’m on vacation.

He flopped onto a huge pile of pillows on the starboard deck and closed his eyes, holding back the impending onslaught of chest-crushing panic. He knew damn good and well that Rob had been holding back something. The closer the two of them got, the madder Blake became over the giant secret that hovered around the edges of their relationship. Whispered conversations between his man and Jack, or his man and that gigantic ex-football player/BDSM club owner guy had to stop.

The sounds of the engine, the smell of the ocean, and a soft breeze across his face finally lulled him to restless, needed sleep. Cluttering it was memories of the last five years’ worth of drama fit for a daytime television and he jerked awake after only about twenty minutes. He noted the plate of fresh fruit and bottled water that had been placed by his side and gave up on rest.

Images of his sister, the beautiful daughter she’d had nearly four years before, and the ongoing bullshit between her and Jack Gordon, flooded his brain as he sipped water and ate strawberries.  Tension made him frown, which escalated his frustration with himself.

“A girl,” his mother had clutched his arm that day, tears streaming down her face. “She’s okay. Sara’s going to make it.” He’d pulled away from her so fast he had to apologize later for being so rude in his haste to reach Sara’s bedside in that horror of an emergency room. Blood had been all over the place. Jack had crouched by her head, whispering and wiping her face. Blake had to do a double take but he’d bet his brewery on the fact that Mr. Gordon had been crying at some point.

Her friend Craig had held the baby, but Blake only had eyes for his sister. Jack had glanced up at him them moved out of the way. They’d reached an uneasy détente during Sara’s difficult pregnancy. Hell at one point Blake had actually called the asshole, told him to get his butt over to Sara’s and help her. Blake shook his head, gazing out over the picture perfection of the Mediterranean Sea and the deep greens of the Turkish coastline.

Rob had finally proven himself right about one thing: Jack was madly in love with his sister. Blake got that. However, he knew Sara well, knew her tendencies toward emotional avoidance. So the relationship was fraught with endless rounds of give and take, push and pull, ups and downs, even since his beloved niece, Katie, had entered the picture. Jack had not been that involved with her—but Blake blamed himself a bit for that, as did Rob. Amazing really, the full circle moment when he had to look his stubborn sister in the eye and tell her to get her fucking head around the fact that she and Gordon were meant for each other.

He sucked in a lungful of salty air, glanced around and saw a young man hovering nearby. He held up his hand, unsure what the protocol was for getting something with alcohol in it.

“
Merhaba
, welcome to your Blue Cruise.” The kid’s soft accent was nice, and his face was, in a word, perfect. Blake smiled, remembering Rob’s “eye candy” comment.

“Thanks. Um, I’m Blake. Can I get a beer?”

The kid nodded. “Of course. I am Bulent. Mr. Rob made sure we packed beers from Europe before we left. Which color of beer would you like?”

Blake grinned wider, made his choice and sat back when the kid brought the sweating, perfectly chilled bottle to him. The last years had been fraught with one trauma after another to be certain. Opening a business in a recession, trying to work through their own personal issues of space and intimacy, then the added bonus of his sister fucking around with the one guy on the planet even Rob questioned was good for her. Until they all looked up one day and acknowledged that Jack was a good guy, and Sara, being Sara, was being a stubborn bitch.

And then there was Katie. The near picture-perfect clone of his sister all the way down to her attitude, had charmed Blake and everyone around her. He stretched his legs out on the lounge, loving the sensation of sun on his skin. He startled when a hand lifted the beer from his grip, lips touched his forehead, a soft, beloved voice whispered in his ear. “Sleep, my love. We have lots of days left.” He sighed, and did just that, dropping directly into a deep slumber in minutes.

Rob sighed, and rolled onto his back, his pulse racing. The recent spate of stress over Blake’s sister and niece had had him tied up in knots for weeks. Finally calling Sara and telling her to tell her brother that he’d better pack his shit for this vacation or he, Rob, was leaving had been one of the toughest things he’d ever done. It had been worth it. Blake was finally starting to relax. He’d been around the guy long enough now to recognize the signs. He slept better for one thing, was less inclined to quick anger, as if the whole convoluted shit heap that was his friend Jack’s relationship with Blake’s sister had smoothed his edges. Made him more equipped to deal with upheaval without completely freaking out. Freak-outs had come, to be sure, but less often. And there was no denying how much Blake adored his niece. She, more than anyone, by turning him into “Uncle Blake” had given him a focus Rob would not deny.

He stood, a little shaky thanks to the rocking boat, and tugged on fresh clothes. When his hand closed around a folded piece of paper in the jeans he’d ditched earlier his heart sped up. He forced himself to take a breath, unfold it, and stare at the numbers.  Jack’s words floated through his head.
“Telling him when you get sick again is kind of dirty pool, my man. Never mind the hell I will catch from his sister. It’s not like you are gonna relapse or whatever. But, if for no other goddamned reason than I have asked you to, tell him. Now.”

Rob shut his eyes, shut his mind to the possibility that Blake would leave him, would rather be alone than face the potential nightmare of a cancer relapse in a man he had only just come to really trust. But that was just part of it.  There was something else he wanted to discuss. Something he’d been thinking about ever since Katie came into their collective lives.  He took a breath, squared his shoulders, and stared at himself in the mirror a moment for ascending to the deck.  He certainly looked the part of “healthy man,” and according to the PET scan year before this, he was. There had been no reason to panic. Last year. Now, however, was a different animal altogether.

“Just a small shadow in one lung Rob,” his doctor had assured him as Rob’s brain roiled and seethed at the unfairness of it all.  “I’m gonna bring you in for a quick biopsy, no big deal. You’ve been so incredibly resilient all these years I have to believe it’s nothing.”  Rob had nodded, dazed, walked out and booked this vacation that day. Now, every fucking breath he took he analyzed, every time his allergies acted up and made him cough he panicked.  Christ.

He got to the top of the steps and had to halt at the perfect vision of Blake, draped over the cushioned bench at the aft end, long, strong legs crossed at the ankle, one arm flung over his eyes. A muslin curtain that could be pulled to shield that entire area fluttered, hid his lover from his eyes a split second. In that weird, half-lit moment as the sun made its lazy way toward the horizon, Rob had to grab the rails to keep from falling over as the curtain blew aside once more and the sun hit the other man’s hair, lighting it with deep golds and rich browns, seeming to halo his head. A different, darker unexplainable vision lit his imagination next. Blake, still, calm, but not breathing. A strange, keening sound tickled around the edges of his consciousness. Then it all disappeared in the blink of a wind-blown second when the curtain hid the man from sight once more.

He leaned against the rail and saw that appetizers had been set out on the low table near Blake’s dangling feet. He felt completely out of breath as a pall of terror covered his vision. Figuring it relative to the news he was about to impart to the love of his life, he shook his head, pulled it together. Blake rolled over and almost dumped himself out onto the shiny wood deck, letting the near full beer bottle he held slide to the floor. Rob caught him, hoisted him back up on the cushions, pressed his lips to Blake’s furrowed brow. Using words he had many times before, he calmed him, then sat, plucked a few olives from the tray and ate, picking out a Munich pilsner from the collection of bottled beers in a nearby tub of ice.  He watched Blake sleep, enjoying every movement, every sniffle, every damn thing the man did. He did not want to die. The long-held conviction that the cancer would get him someday had forced him to avoid emotional attachment. And led him here, to this moment, with this man.

After nearly an hour, Blake rubbed his face, and sat, leaning over the edge of the large chaise-like bench, staring at the floor. “Jesus. I have never slept that hard I don’t think. Amazing.” He smiled up at Rob, stood and wandered downstairs, returning clad only in jeans. Rob had to suck in a breath at the subtle beauty of Blake’s strong torso. He licked his lips, tried to keep his tone light.

“All right, come on, have a seat. Let’s eat.”

Blake tilted his head, as if he expected something different, then shrugged and started to sit. Rob held up a hand. “Wait, let’s go over here. I want to be close to you.” He pulled the table closer to the large bench Blake had just vacated, sat on the cushions and patted the one next to him.  Blake settled in the crook of his outstretched arm, hand trailing along his thigh, reaching for a beer with his other hand. They sat a few minutes, sipping. At one point Rob took a corner of pita bread, dredged it in what looked like fresh hummus and put it to Blake’s lips.