Page 28 of September’s Tide (Island Tales #2)

Chapter Twenty

David sat at the table, staring blankly at the laptop screen, the cursor blinking like a metronome keeping time with his disappointment.

Nothing.

Still nothing.

Three days of silence. Three days since Taylor had walked out the door, and with him had gone David’s words, his rhythm, his focus, his fire. The ideas were still there, swirling faintly in the background like smoke behind frosted glass, but when he reached for them, they dissolved.

“Brilliant,” he muttered, rubbing his temples. “Can’t write for shit. Again.”

It wasn’t a new pattern. Good sex always kicked his creativity into overdrive.

There was something about being physically and emotionally cracked open that let the words pour out of him like water from a spring.

But heartbreak? That always shut the tap off in a way that was cold, clean, and merciless.

And this felt like heartbreak.

He tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling. It should’ve just been sex. That’s what it was supposed to be. Except somewhere between the teasing smiles and lazy mornings and the way Taylor had snuggled in close after they’d made love, it had become something more.

He hadn’t meant for that to happen. But God, it had.

David missed him. Not just his body, the sex, the heat between them. He missed Taylor’s sharp wit, his exaggerated facial expressions. His habit of scrunching up his nose when he was thinking, and how he seemed to light up whenever he laughed.

God, that laugh . It had echoed through both the Lighthouse and West View, as bright as sunlight. David hadn’t realized how quiet the place had become without it.

He hadn’t realized how loud his own self-loathing could be.

He sighed and pushed back from the table. His reflection in the darkened laptop screen stared back at him: stubble, bloodshot eyes, slouched posture. A man falling apart quietly, one drink and one regret at a time.

“Enough.”

He closed the laptop, then headed up the stairs.

He shed his sweats and grabbed a towel. In the shower room, he turned the water to steaming hot and stepped into the stream.

The shock of heat bit into his skin, then softened.

He braced both hands against the tile and let the water pour over him, willing it to scrub away everything: the guilt, the ache, the suffocating silence.

When he stepped out, dripping and raw, he felt clearer. Not healed, but getting there.

He shaved, then got dressed in something that wasn’t yesterday’s T-shirt. Back in the kitchen he made a fresh cup of coffee that wasn’t laced with whiskey, and reopened the laptop to the pages he’d written before Taylor left.

An hour later, he leaned back and let out a breath. It was far from perfect, but it was something, a start.

The first start since Taylor’s departure.

He glanced up, drawn to the light outside.

The storm that had rolled in the night before had scrubbed the sky clean, leaving it a deep blue dome that stretched above a sunlit sea.

The waves lapped softly against the rocks below, and through the open window a breeze carried the scent of salt and something sweet from a garden nearby.

David opened the kitchen door and stepped onto the deck, taking his coffee with him. He settled into the same chair where he’d watched so many sunsets since arriving on the island. David closed his eyes and let the breeze play over his face.

When he pictured his new protagonist, Chris, it wasn’t a vague silhouette that came to mind. It was Taylor. Taylor’s eyes. Taylor’s voice.

Goddamn it.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, trying to write in his head what he couldn’t yet say out loud. Then he heard footsteps. Not just in his head, either, but actual footsteps crunching along the pebbled path below the deck. His eyes flew open.

And there he was.

Taylor stood at the gate, his hair a little mussed, arms tense at his sides, his eyes full of some emotion David couldn’t identify.

“I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

David stood slowly, his heart racing. “You’re not disturbing me.” His breathing hitched.

“I won’t stay long. I… I needed to say something.”

David’s smile faltered. Not the reunion he’d dared to fantasize about, then. He swallowed. “Okay. You’d better come inside, then.”

Taylor stepped through the gate and fastened the latch. He followed David into the house and waited while David closed the door. For a moment neither of them spoke, and each passing second was torture.

Taylor cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t have walked out the way I did. I got overwhelmed. I didn’t know how to deal with it, finding out who you really were. But I’ve had time to think and… you didn’t owe me that explanation. Not then.”

David shook his head. “You had every right to be upset. I should’ve told you. You deserved better than that. You’ve always been honest with me.” He gave a small, self-deprecating smile. “I was just too scared to believe you were different from the last person who hurt me.”

Taylor smiled faintly. “I’m different. Believe me, I am nothing like Clark.” A quiet moment passed, and then Taylor’s voice cracked a little as he whispered, “I missed you.”

That did it.

David moved without thinking, crossing the space between them in a few quick strides. He curled his hands around Taylor’s upper arms, grounding himself in the solid warmth of him.

“Me too,” he breathed. “God, Taylor… I missed you so damn much.”

Taylor’s breathing hitched. His eyes shone. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he murmured, his voice trembling. “Not even for a second.”

David cupped Taylor’s jaw, brushing his thumb over the flushed skin just below his cheekbone. “You’ve been in my head nonstop. Every word I didn’t write? It was about you.”

Taylor leaned in a little, and David met him there, pressing their foreheads together, their breath mingling.

In that fragile, perfect moment, nothing else mattered.

The books? The past? The leaving?

They’d figure that out later. For now, they had this.

This breath.

This closeness.

This chance.

And it seemed neither one of them was letting go. They stared at each other, silent and so so still, the weight of too many unsaid things hanging between them.

“If you don’t touch me again, I may have to kill you,” Taylor murmured.

David cupped Taylor’s cheek once more, and Taylor leaned into the touch like a man starved of it.

David bent his head, and their lips met, tentative at first, searching.

But when Taylor exhaled softly against his mouth, something inside David broke open, and he kissed him deeply, pouring in all the need, all the ache he’d felt in the long days without him.

Taylor moaned, his hands curling into the fabric of David’s T-shirt.

David’s fingers threaded through his hair, holding him steady as he tilted his head and slipped his tongue into Taylor’s mouth, tasting him, relearning him.

The kiss was slow, wet, and lingering, building with every passing second, stealing their breath.

David’s cock hardened, and he pressed it insistently against Taylor’s hip. Taylor shifted, rocking his body against David’s, and they both groaned at the friction.

When Taylor broke the kiss, his lips were swollen, his pupils blown wide. “Take me to bed,” he whispered, his voice husky but steady. “Please. I want to feel you.”

David’s chest swelled. “I want that too.” He wrapped his fingers around Taylor’s and pulled him gently toward the stairs, climbing up into the light-drenched bedroom. This time he didn’t care about pulling the blinds. He wanted to see every inch of Taylor in daylight.

No shadows, no hiding.

They kissed again at the foot of the bed, a claiming hungry, almost frantic connection, but then David slowed it down. He helped Taylor remove his hoodie, then pushed his sweater up and over his head, exposing the soft, warm skin he’d dreamed about for the last three nights.

Longer than that, if I’m honest.

His lips laid a trail of kisses across Taylor’s chest, over the line of his collarbone.

Taylor gasped when David eased him down onto the bed. He stared up at him, his eyes burning with anticipation. David stripped slowly, never taking his gaze from the boy sprawled across his sheets. His dick rose, hard and aching, and he palmed it.

“See how much I want you?”

Words couldn’t show Taylor how much this meant. This called for Show, not Tell .

Taylor pushed his sweats down, his shaft springing up, thick and solid.

“You’re beautiful,” David murmured as he tugged them from Taylor’s legs.

Taylor flushed. “So are you.”

David crawled onto the bed, covering Taylor’s body with his own, skin to skin once more, heat to heat.

He kissed him again, slower now, savouring the taste of his skin, the smell of him.

Their limbs tangled, and their hands roamed as if they were relearning each other, memorizing each caress.

Taylor’s fingers traced along David’s ribs and up his spine, anchoring him.

David stroked Taylor’s cock, relishing its warmth and girth.

Taylor licked his lips. “Please.”

In a heartbeat, David swung himself around, the head of his dick pointing down at Taylor’s mouth, Taylor’s shaft rising to greet him.

That first taste, the feel of silken skin between his lips, the sweetness of Taylor’s pre-cum on his tongue, Taylor’s warm mouth closing around his cock…

It felt like coming home.

Noises fell from both of them, filling the quiet room, until David couldn’t wait a moment longer. He pulled free of Taylor’s exquisite mouth and turned around once more to grab the lube from the nightstand. Taylor’s breathing caught.

“God, yes.”

David settled himself between Taylor’s spread thighs, and slicked his fingers.

Taylor lifted his hips in silent invitation, and when David pressed a single finger inside, Taylor whimpered, his hand covering David’s as David stroked the soft, smooth skin of his inner thigh.

David whispered to him as he prepped him, a litany of soft nothings, reverent words of praise, punctuated by grounding kisses.

By the time David was ready to enter him, they were both shaking.

Taylor clutched at the sheets, his mouth open in a silent gasp as David filled him, inch by slow inch, Taylor’s ankles resting on his shoulders.

And when he was fully seated, Taylor caged David’s waist with his legs and David lay on him, both of them still, locked together, their foreheads meeting as their breaths mingled again.

“God, I’ve missed this,” David said against his lips. “Missed you.”

Taylor cradled his face. “I’m yours, David. Just... take me.”

David moved languidly at first, savouring every stroke.

Taylor’s body welcomed him, tight and hot, moulding to him as though they were made for this.

David kissed every inch of him he could reach, his movements growing more urgent as Taylor writhed beneath him, whispering his name, begging for more.

They moved together with a fluid rhythm, and what overwhelmed David was the realisation this was so much more than just sex.

It was a reclaiming.

A promise.

A plea not to waste a single second more.

David gripped Taylor’s cock and stroked him in time with his thrusts, gasping when Taylor’s body tightened around his shaft, creating a delicious friction.

“Do that again,” he moaned.

There it was again, and the sensation pushed a wave of exquisite pleasure through him.

He watched Taylor fall apart beneath him, crying out as his climax overtook him, his release spilling between them, coating his belly.

David followed soon after, burying his face in Taylor’s neck as he came with a hoarse cry, trembling with the force of it.

They lay in the aftermath, tangled and breathless, David’s heart thundering, in competition with Taylor’s that he could feel against his chest. Their mouths met in kiss after leisurely kiss, their arms around each other.

“I missed you so much,” Taylor murmured, his lips brushing against David’s jaw.

David kissed him. “The longest three days of my life.”

Taylor stroked his back, his fingers gentle. “We’ve got just over a week left,” he said, his voice low. “And I want all of it. Every second. Every night.”

David nodded, then buried his face once more in the curve of Taylor’s neck, breathing him in. “You’ve got me,” he whispered. “Every minute I have left here... I’m yours.”

And this time, David wasn’t just saying the words. He meant them.

Every single one.