Page 47 of Free Wind (Lifeguards of Barking Beach #2)

Damo kissed him softly. “Reckon you’ll be a much better patient. Besides, it’s like a holiday getting out of the house again so soon.” He hurried into the kitchen and poured a glass of water for Blake, asking, “Hungry?” as he returned.

“God, no. But I guess I’ll have to have some toast with the meds.” Blake took the water. “Thanks. Sit with me. I promise I’ll tell you when it’s time for more painkillers.”

Damo walked around to the other side of the bed and carefully lowered himself. “You must think I’m a dickhead calling it a holiday to be here when you’re injured.”

“Nope. Not even a little bit.” Blake took Damo’s hand and kissed the inside of his wrist. A sweet brush of lips that made Damo shiver. “How do you feel about your dad going to rehab? And a long-term facility?”

“The thought of him being in a care home should be awful, but…”

“I’d think it would be a relief. Partly, at least.”

Damo whispered, “Isn’t that wrong, though?”

“It’s human. It doesn’t mean you don’t love him. It’s okay to be relieved. He needs full-time care. It’s not fair to you or Tabby or your mum to have to take that on.”

“It’s not fair to Dad that he had the accident. Even if he wasn’t wearing the bloody harness.”

“I know. None of it’s fair.” Blake held Damo’s hand, threading their fingers together.

Damo’s shoulders slumped. “If they move north, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to leave Barkers.”

“Move in here.”

“What?” He sat up straight with an awkward laugh. “That green whistle must be lingering. I can’t move in.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll be sick of me in a week!”

Blake watched him, steady as a rock. “I won’t.”

Damo opened and closed his mouth, then smiled. “It’s not going to be for months anyway. Fixing up the house to sell, waiting for the new school year.”

“We won’t rush into anything.” Blake grimaced down at his leg. “I’ve learned my lesson.” He nudged Damo’s shoulder, his bare skin warm against Damo’s arm under his T-shirt. “How about we stop trying to be brave and take care of each other. Within limits. I know you’re not a damsel in distress.”

“Sounds good. I’m taking care of you tonight, and you’re not gonna argue.”

“Aye-aye, captain. Or are you the doctor in this scenario?”

“I’m just your boyfriend. Don’t think either of us are up for playing doctor tonight.”

“Well, the night is young,” Blake drawled with a wink, and they laughed. For the first time since the car ride home from Bremer Bay, Damo was able to really breathe.

Mumbling to himself, Damo stretched—and hit warm flesh.

He jolted, opening his eyes to find Blake smiling down at him where he sat against the padded headboard, the covers around his lap. He reached for a remote and muted the surf competition playing on the TV.

Damo sat straight up. “When did I fall back asleep?” He’d woken at dawn to make Blake vegemite on toast and coffee, and they’d had breakfast in bed. “Are you right?”

“I’m good. Heaps better.”

Damo snorted. “I’ve had a fin chop, mate. I know how much it hurts. And I can see the bruises coming out.” He pointed to Blake’s chest. “There on your ribs. Up on your shoulder. I know there are more on your back. Have to be.”

“Okay, it hurts like a son of a bitch, and yeah, I got a little banged up. But I’m home in bed with you, so, yeah. Heaps better. Plus, the painkillers are working.”

“Sorry I conked out.”

Blake brushed Damo’s mess of hair back from his face. “You clearly needed the rest. Don’t worry—you still have a couple of hours before your afternoon shift.”

“Have enough water? Do you need to piss? Want another coffee?”

Blake shook his head.

“Sure you’re okay?”

“I’m okay.”

Damo still sprang up, filled with the need to do something. “More brekkie?”

“I promise I’m good,” Blake said with a soft smile. “Though I don’t mind the view.”

Realizing he was naked, Damo laughed, striking a model pose.

“Oh, yeah. Work it, baby.”

Damo crawled back onto the bed and peeled away the covers to reveal Blake’s body. Being so casually naked together was sexy in a way Damo wasn’t used to. The comfort of it made Damo’s heart ache. In a good way.

“Let me check your bandage,” he said before he got choked up over having their soft dicks out.

“How did I get this lucky?” Blake asked.

Damo pointedly eyed the stitched wound as he opened a fresh bandage. “Look, you’re the one with the uni degree, but I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”

Blake chuckled, and Damo redressed the wound. Waking up with Blake had been different this time—Damo had made sure to keep to his side of the bed since Blake was injured, and the last thing he wanted to do was flail during a dream and kick his wound or something.

Waking up with Blake was still incredible—even with the flood of guilt that had been partly eased by texting with Tabby about the latest Married at First Sight even though he didn’t watch it. Anything she wanted to talk about was good by him.

Mum said they couldn’t visit Dad in rehab yet, and Damo had to admit he didn’t mind waiting. In the meantime, Blake was the only thing he was going to let himself worry about. For the morning, at least.

The skin around the laceration was bruised and red, and he was glad Blake had gotten the good painkillers. He wished he could go back and keep Blake safe on the sand. Take the fin chop himself.

“Sure it’s not too tight?” he asked.

“It’s just right, Goldie.”

Damo’s cheeks heated. “Glad to hear it, Bear.” When he was finished, he kissed Blake’s raised knee and curled beside him, resting his cheek on Blake’s outstretched left leg.

Idly tracing patterns on Blake’s shin, hair tickling his fingertips, he sighed. It had been a hell of a couple of days, but for the first time since he was a kid, the future truly felt…possible.

“The things I want to do to you,” Blake murmured.

Damo grinned. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.” Blake caressed Damo’s hair. “Everything.”

Before he could remind himself that Blake was injured and this wasn’t the time for it, Damo asked, “Like what?” It was just talking. No harm, right?

“I want to fuck you again, obviously.”

“Duh.”

He could hear the smile in Blake’s voice as Blake said, “Get you on your hands and knees. You remember the cave?”

Damo’s breath hitched. “It’s really a ledge, but yeah,” he whispered. No harm, his arse.

“Open you up with my mouth again. My tongue. Get you ready for my cock.” He tightened his fingers in Damo’s hair. “Make you scream. You’ll come so hard, won’t you?”

He could only nod against Blake’s thigh.

“I want you to fuck me too. Make me beg for it.”

Damo lifted his head to find Blake watching him with a grin. Damo swallowed hard. “Suppose that sounds all right.” He put his head back down, because if he kept looking at Blake’s gorgeous face and the heat in his eyes, he was going to have an…issue. “Not for a few weeks at least, though.”

“Good thing we have plenty of time.”

Damo tightened his hand on Blake’s knee. “Yep.”

“I want to watch you ride me. Your hair loose. Your skin flushed that pretty pink. Watch you straddle me and sink down on my cock. Think you can take every inch of me?”

“I did before.” Annnd, he was hard, and he ached to press the heel of his hand against his dick.

“You did.” Blake smoothed his hand over Damo’s head, then traced the shell of his ear. “Such a good boy.”

Damo sat up because he’d come soon just from Blake’s fantasies and fingertips on his ear. “What’re ya doin’? You’re in no state.”

“No, between the pain and the meds, I don’t think I am.” He eyed his soft cock ruefully—then raised a brow. “But you clearly are.”

“Diabolical!” Damo groaned. “Give me a minute.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m—” He motioned to his dick. “And you can’t.”

“But you can. Let me watch.”

The rush of heat filled every pore, and Damo could only make a strangled sound that might have been, gorgleguuuuh.

“Can I watch you, baby?”

Nodding, Damo asked, “Just like this?”

“You can’t ride me yet, but will you use your fingers?”

He practically lunged for the lube before realizing he didn’t know where it was.

Grinning, Blake directed him, and Damo straddled Blake’s outstretched ankle, sitting back on his heels.

He couldn’t sit over Blake’s hips yet, but he liked the warmth of Blake’s calf against his inner thigh where they touched.

With slick fingers, Damo pulled back his foreskin and teased the swollen head of his cock. With his other hand, he pushed his middle finger into his hole.

“Bit like rubbing my belly and pattin’ my head.”

So sexy!

But Blake laughed and watched…adoringly? Was that a word? Whatever it was, it made Damo’s heart swell. And when he crooked his finger and hit just the right spot, his dick grew even more in his grasp.

“Fuck, that feels good,” he mumbled.

That first night, he’d been too awkward to finger himself while Blake watched. Now, the heat of Blake’s eyes on him turned him on in a way he didn’t expect, and he only wished Blake could reach to tug his hair.

“You’re so beautiful,” Blake said. “I could watch you all day.”

Damo shuddered, his balls tingling. “Appreciate it, but I won’t last that long.”

“You need to come, baby? That’s okay. You can come.”

He couldn’t work jerking his cock and his finger in his arse at the same time, so Damo pulled out his finger and squeezed his nipple hard. Arching his back, he came, shaking and moaning, eyes closed, every little bit of his body lit up with bliss.

Also coming all over Blake as it turned out, which made his balls seize up again at the sight. His performance had also worked magic on Blake, whose cock stood up, straining and almost purple.

Damo knelt on Blake’s good side and leaned over carefully, sucking him down as far as he could before choking. He moaned around the rigid, hot shaft as Blake twisted Damo’s hair in his fist, pulling too hard, then not hard enough, and then just right.

When Blake came into his mouth, he groaned, his body rigid. Damo swallowed, then lapped at the jizz that dripped from his lips. Panting, he lifted his head. “Did it hurt?”

Blake was wincing, and he was clearly about to say it hadn’t bothered his leg. Then he nodded. “Not too bad, though. Well worth it.”

“Yeah?”

Blake gave him a big thumbs-up, and it took Damo a second to get it. “Fuck off!” He laughed, shoving at Blake’s shoulder playfully, making sure not to jostle his leg. “Let’s not make my humiliating thumbs-up emoji a thing.”

“I can’t make any such promises.”

“Guess you are lucky after all, because if you weren’t injured, I’d tackle you. I’m an expert tickle fighter. Tabs’ll tell ya. You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

A grin spread over Blake’s face, and he pulled Damo in for a long, wet, dirty kiss. “I can’t wait to find out.”