Page 31 of Adonis (Salt and Starlight #1)

“Where do you live?”

Connor asked.

Adonis had his head on Connor’s chest, but he lifted himself up as Connor asked. His gaze darted to the paddleboards only a few feet away. “Show?”

he suggested, excitement in his eyes and voice.

“I can’t breathe underwater.”

Adonis shook his head. “Not underwater.”

Connor thought about that. “Is it far?”

“Yes.”

“I need a boat, then.”

Adonis shook his head. “Board.”

“To be safe, I need a boat.”

Connor leaned up, pressing a kiss to Adonis’s lips before he could get agitated at the refusal. Connor wanted to go—especially since Adonis seemed eager to show him. But he wasn’t going to be stupid about it. He’d need a boat for going out into deeper waters. It didn’t matter how good a swimmer Adonis was. If rough waters hit and all Connor had was a board, then even with Adonis doing his best to keep Connor above water, he’d drown.

“Let’s clean off in the water,”

Connor said. “I don’t like seeing you vulnerable on the beach.”

Connor stood and groaned. The muscles in his thighs trembled, weakening his knees. And there was a throbbing pain in his ass. Totally worth it. Adonis caught him by the midsection and effortlessly knocked him down.

Connor fell weakly with a groan. “Not rough, Adonis.”

“Not rough,”

Adonis agreed. His hand flattened on Connor’s behind and he massaged slow circles against Connor’s skin. Heat soaked into his skin from Adonis’s touch and Connor’s body went slack. The throbbing was swallowed up by Adonis’s touch, and by the time he’d massaged Connor’s thighs and ass, there was nothing more than a pleasant warmth in Connor’s body. Adonis rubbed his cheek against Connor’s as movement returned to his body.

“Better?”

Adonis asked when he noticed Connor was able to move again.

“Better.”

Connor moved his legs, and when he stood, there wasn’t more than pleasant satisfaction in his gut. He cast Adonis a grin. “I suppose it doesn’t matter if you’re rough with that healing ability of yours.”

“Careful,”

Adonis objected.

Connor chuckled. “Come on, let’s get you back in the ocean. I can’t believe you beached yourself.”

Adonis let out an embarrassed noise. Connor bit his lip as he watched Adonis struggle to drag himself back into the water. The issue was that without his momentum carrying him out of the water, his tail was heavier than his arms were strong.

Adonis cast an unhappy look at Connor as he struggled. “Eyes closed,”

he asked, his voice pitched in embarrassment.

“I won’t watch,”

Connor promised. He shrugged off his filthy clothes and waded out thigh-deep into the water. He rinsed off his clothes with his back to Adonis, though he could still hear splashing water and struggling. It was both funny and tragic. Connor would need to take better care of himself so that Adonis didn’t end up this desperate again.

Connor could only imagine how it would have felt if he’d watched Adonis get sick, and then he was taken away deep into the ocean where Connor couldn’t follow.

The water shifted behind Connor, and Adonis brushed past him. Connor glanced to the side, watching him slink by. Connor tossed his wet, but clean, clothes onto the dock and swam out after Adonis. Relief filled him to see Adonis once again able to move freely. Connor dipped into the water, following Adonis to swim.

The moon was in the sky and Connor’s fingers were turning to prunes when Adonis’s head snapped to the path. He came in, pressing his cheek against Connor’s, before dipping under the water. Connor was floating in the water several metres from the end of the dock as Trevor came down the path.

He estimated that it was probably around midnight by this point.

“Connor,”

Trevor said his name as a sigh.

Connor swam to the end of the dock as Trevor walked down it. He glanced at Connor’s discarded clothes and came to a stop at the end of the dock. His dark eyes regarded Connor with resignation. Connor set his arms on the dock and looked up at Trevor.

“You know, most teenage boys sneak out to go partying.”

“Who discovered me gone? You? Laurence?”

“I went to check on you. Make sure your fever wasn’t coming back.”

Trevor crouched down. “At least I knew where to find you this time.”

They regarded each other a moment before Connor decided to have mercy on Trevor’s nerves. “I suppose you’ll want me to come in, then.”

Trevor reached down, pressing the back of his hand to Connor’s forehead. “You’re cold, so… yes. I would like that. How long have you been in the water?”

“I wasn’t timing myself.”

Trevor sighed. “See, you’re just saying that because it’s long enough to worry me and you don’t want to own up to it.”

“You worry too much,”

Connor said. “And yes, I know I’ve been sick, and there were quite a few bombshells just dropped on us—but you act like a mother hen.”

“A mother hen?”

Trevor’s eyebrows shot up. “I know I can be—I don’t think I overly worry. I just worry about things any parent would.”

“Uh huh,”

Connor said, noncommittal. He pushed off the dock and swam along the length, snagging his boxers from the pile of damp clothes. He got them on underwater and then swam the rest of the way to the beach.

“You don’t need to sneak out to the water,”

Trevor said, keeping in step with Connor. “You can just say that you’re going swimming. I’m not going to bother you.”

Connor laughed.

“I don’t want to step in on your freedom.”

“Right. And what would you have said if I’d mentioned going swimming at dinner? You would have said, ‘wait until you’re feeling better.’”

“Or I would have acknowledged that you’re going to sneak out if I try to stop you, so I might as well get a towel warmed up and a hot water bottle ready?”

Trevor shot back.

Connor wasn’t sure if he believed that or not.

“Did you have a nice swim?”

Trevor followed up.

“I did.”

Connor had enjoyed letting his mind empty out and bask in Adonis’s company. Adonis was talking to him more and more, and Connor was seeing more of that teasing, mocking personality as he did. He liked Adonis more and more as he opened up. Now that he knew Adonis was seeing his real self, reacting to his words with perfect understanding—well able to handle even the smallest amount of snark from Connor—he was pleased. So pleased that it scared him.

“Is Adonis a dolphin or a friend?”

Trevor asked him as they reached the house.

Connor cast his gaze sideways to Trevor, taking in that curious look directed Connor’s way. At Connor’s look, he raised his eyebrows. “You talked a lot while you had the fever, mainly about an individual named Adonis. It was jumbled and confused, so I couldn’t figure out whether Adonis was a person.”

Connor thought about it for a moment. He was well sick of his evenings ending with Trevor scaring Adonis off, and Laurence’s reaction to him gave him hope that things could go calmly if Trevor was introduced. Though Adonis had seemed willing to show himself to Laurence where he wasn’t anyone else… Connor would have to talk to Adonis about it.

“I’ll introduce you,”

Connor said. “If he wants to meet you, that is. He might not.”

Trevor looked thoughtful. “Am I going to like Adonis?”

Connor cast him a puzzled look.

“I made a big deal about you going out alone on the water. I feel like you would have brought it up that you weren’t going out there alone to stop me fussing sooner… unless there’s a reason you didn’t want me to know about Adonis.”

“You’ll understand when you meet him. And you’ll possibly freak even more when you know I’m going out on the water with him, but I’ll warn you now, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Just what I wanted to hear,”

Trevor said in good humour.

Connor dumped his pile of drenched clothes on the porch outside and stepped inside, dressed only in his wet boxers.

“Ah,”

Trevor said.

Connor cast him a questioning look, catching the end of Trevor’s gaze darting away, a bemused and embarrassed expression on his face.

“What?”

“Adonis is a biter, is he?”

Trevor asked innocently.

Connor’s face flushed. “Feck sake.”

How did he make the same mistake twice? “Don’t look, pervert.”

“Trust me, the last thing I want to see on one of my sons is love bites.”

Trevor put a hand over his face and let out a world-weary sigh.

Despite Connor’s embarrassment, a pleasant warmth filled his gut. Trevor called him one of his sons so casually, without any thought going into the label. He fought a smile. “What version of the sex talk do you give?”

Connor asked, his urge to needle Trevor further too overpowering. “Did you go into the mechanics of gay sex with Laurence? Will I get a PowerPoint presentation?”

Trevor had an expression of death as he dropped his hands to his sides. “We can sit down and go through it,”

he offered genuinely. “And touch base if you’d like, discuss questions that might have cropped up in your relationships that you want to ask about.”

Connor couldn’t roll his eyes when Trevor was being too dad-like. The kind of dad that Connor never got to have.

“And before you make a smart remark on the matter, I know that Google is available at your fingertips. But, sometimes, talking to a person about it, too, can be helpful. And yes,”

Trevor cast Connor an unabashed look. “Given Laurence’s preferences, I have educated myself in that area as well. In the meantime, if you need help buying condoms or anything else, please ask me. I know, I know, it can be embarrassing, but it’s better to be a little embarrassed and practising safe sex.”

Connor thought his face had stayed level, but the way Trevor’s gaze sharpened told him he was sorely mistaken.

“Connor… you have been using condoms…”

the question petered out. “Okay, you joked about the talk, but it’s just become a requirement. You shower, and we’ll discuss it once you’re out.”

“I don’t need a safe-sex talk.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “We’re exclusive. We don’t need them.”

And Connor’s instincts told him that if the next time they were having sex he rubbered up, Adonis would be distraught.

“Have you discussed it with Adonis?”

“Not technically the condom thing, but we have talked about the exclusive thing,”

Connor said. And again, despite having gotten dumped in oil and fried alive by Austin’s betrayals—what the betrayal even was anymore, he didn’t know—he trusted Adonis. His devotion and affection said enough, and Connor’s own want to do nothing else but buy a boat and join him in the ocean told himself about how he felt, too.

Heavy footsteps sounded. Connor knew the quick, angry step well. He turned his head to catch Edith ascending the staircase. Trevor looked as well, and when Connor glanced back at him, he saw that his good humour had faded to uneasiness.

“I’m going to talk to Edith first, then I’ll get some tea poured for the two of us.”

Connor’s gaze lingered on Trevor’s expression for half a second longer before he looked away. His gaze landed on a family photo hanging up. One of Trevor and Edith with Laurence and Nick. Their outfits indicated it had been snapped at the wedding.

“When she walks like that, it means she’s ready for a fight,”

Connor said. “I usually take it as a cue to pick one, but if it’s a conversation you’re looking for, you’d best wait a while.”

Connor felt Trevor’s gaze on the side of his face, and then his head turned to follow Connor’s gaze to the photo. “Aside from the first day you arrived, I haven’t ever seen you pick a fight with anyone.”

“Where exactly have you been looking? I’ve been fighting with everyone since I came home.”

“You rise to the occasion when someone picks a fight with you. But you don’t start it.”

It was like what Laurence had said to him before about being “nice.”

Delusion clearly ran in Trevor’s family. Connor had never considered himself anything but combative.

“You’re a good kid,”

Trevor added.

Connor was filled with both a slimy feeling and a pleased one. He’d heard that at school from frustrated teachers. People telling him they knew he was a “good kid”

if not for his personality and disposition… Edith had never called him a good kid before. He loathed to think that his attachment to Trevor had led him to try acting like someone he wasn’t.

“God, your face…”

Trevor chuckled. “Forgive me, I’ll not call you a good kid ever again. You look murderous.”

“I prefer murderous to good.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,”

Trevor said, cracking a smile. He mused a hand through Connor’s wet hair and chuckled again as he kissed the top of his head.

“Stop laughing.”

“I’m sorry. But out of everything we learned today, everything you’ve gone through the past few weeks, the thing you can’t stand is being called a good kid?”

Trevor’s amusement was intolerable. “Go on, go shower.”

Trevor nudged him toward the downstairs bathroom. “I’ll throw some clothes in the dryer for you so they’re warm when you’re out.”

Trevor walked upstairs. Connor was about to go into the bathroom when headlights through the front windows caught his attention. The way the car outside pulled in was familiar. Connor had heard his dad pulling into the driveway enough times to recognise the sound of it now.