Ebb Tide Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Ebb Tide

  EBB TIDE

  Jade Astor

  EBB TIDE

  by

  Jade Astor

  Published by Tulabella Ruby Press at All Romance EBooks

  Copyright 2014 Jade Astor

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.

  Other titles by Jade Astor:

  Snow Bite, Blood Red (Once Upon a Man Book 1)

  Bachelor and the Beast (Once Upon a Man Book 2)

  Darius (Moon Lake Wolves Book 1)

  Caleb (Moon Lake Wolves Book 2)

  Serge (Moon Lake Wolves Book 3)

  Artemis Gardens

  Passionate Lessons

  Passion Unmasked

  Cover design: 3 Rusted Spoons

  When Fletch and I had been together, an argument lasting half an hour would have seemed almost insultingly brief. Given that we’d spent six years moving beyond that unfortunate phase of an otherwise satisfying relationship, thirteen minutes and forty-five seconds struck me as a tad excessive.

  On the other hand, it had been a while since Fletch had pulled a stunt like this one.

  “You still should have told me you were bringing someone up,” I persisted, “even if it hadn’t been a hustl—well, someone like Duane.”

  In response, Fletch snorted derisively. We were standing in the dismal kitchen of our rented cottage, shielded only by a pair of flimsy folding doors. Looking through them into the tiny living room, I could see Duane lounging on the puke-green vinyl sofa and picking at the imitation-wood paneling. A rangy-looking kid with long blond hair and fashionably shredded jeans, he could have passed for a college student. The too-hard lines of his body and the angry leanness in his cheeks and hips, though, gave him away—at least to me.

  I didn’t think he could hear what I’d said about him, but it was also possible that he simply didn’t care. Why should he, after all, when Fletch so obviously didn’t?

  “I think I’ve had enough of your paranoia for one evening,” he finally shot back, biting his words off like the tails on cocktail shrimp. “I’m paying for my room here, same as you, and it’s my concern if I choose to share it. And now I’d like to end this conversation. Duane is coming to dinner with us, and I’ll expect you to treat him like any other guest of mine.”

  “And just when was the last time you had a guest, Fletch? The last election year? Those weren’t exactly the same kind of guests.” A cheap shot, I knew, when I’d always been so casual about bringing my own boyfriends to the cottage. But hell, I’d always figured, we only had it for one week out of the year, and Provincetown wasn’t exactly hopping in April.

  Softening my tone, I tried to get through to him one last time. “Look,” I said, “at least let me run a background check for you. It’s my job, for cripes’ sake, and it would only take a couple of phone calls. Just get me his social security number—or his real last name, if he has one.”

  “I think this conversation is at an end, Gabe.” Flinging open the door, Fletch marched back into the living room. When Duane got up, Fletch slid an arm around his lanky, denim-clad shoulders. “It’s all settled, love,” he said huffily. “We’re going out to dinner.”

  Duane was looking at me edgily, like he was waiting for me to give him permission to move. Shrugging, I pulled on my barn jacket and opened the front door.

  “So now you know why he broke up with me,” I mumbled. “Why don’t I buy the first round of drinks—you are of legal age, Duane, aren’t you?”

  “He has an ID, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Fletch snarled. Sighing, I jabbed my hands in my pockets and preceded them outside. The air was cool and crisp, the sky a little blurry with the threat of rain.

  “Ah, a real Cape Cod evening,” Fletch declared, breathing deeply. He started to tell Duane about the first time we’d stayed at the cottage. “It was eleven years ago this spring. What I remember most about it was the quiet. We were so used to the city that the birds kept us up every night.”

  “Well, that was one thing,” I suggested.

  Duane snickered as Fletch hauled him closer. “Thank goodness all that nonsense ended. Now we can actually enjoy ourselves when we come to Provincetown.”

  Relaxing, I laughed with them. After all, Fletch was right about one thing. I was always trying to protect him. Deep down, I still knew that no lonely vacation or pitiless hustler could hurt him the way I once had.

  Just as we got to the restaurant, it started to rain. From our table in the corner, we sipped watered-down drinks and listened to blades of water slash the roof. Duane sat very close to Fletch, his dark eyes fixed on the tacky nautical-themed wallpaper. I didn’t have to look to know that they were pressing their thighs together under the table.

  The silence was broken by the arrival of our salads. “So tell me about yourself, Duane,” I said. “You have a job back in the real world?”

  “Not right now.” Duane shrugged. “I’m looking around.” His brittle gaze tracked mine for a moment. I didn’t flinch, so he turned instead to the tomatoes on his plate. He rolled one against the other with his knife point, arranging them around a little green sprig so they looked like a guy’s balls. Then he jabbed at both of them and smirked as he watched the pinkish pulp ooze onto the Romaine lettuce bed.

  “Duane’s trying to break into the music business,” Fletch said. “In fact, he’s got an audition lined up with some new band as soon as we get back to New Jersey. College boys, aren’t they, Duane?”

  Leaning back, I sipped my drink. “Well, I wish you the best of luck, Duane. Music’s a tough field to break into.”

  Duane finished crushing his tomatoes into a sticky, wet mass, then pushed back his chair and stood up.

  “I’m going outside for a smoke,” he announced, though none of his pockets seemed to contain cigarettes. When he was gone, Fletch and I faced each other over his demolished salad.

  “You make him nervous,” Fletch told me. I finished my G and T, then rattled the ice cubes for effect. A waiter appeared instantly, asking me if I wanted another. Uncharacteristically, Fletch ordered one, too.

  “Well, he makes me, nervous, too,” I said. “Forgive if I’m assuming too much, Fletch, but he doesn’t seem at all your type.”

  “He’s not much like you, you mean. Well, that’s true, and I’m glad of it. You might recall that the two of us weren’t exactly made for each other.”

  I sighed. “No, I can’t deny that. It’s a wonder you put up with me as long as you did. Or now, for that matter.”

  Fletch blushed, shaking his head. Obviously he’d said more than he’d meant to. “It’s different now. You’ve always been a very good friend to me, and I wouldn’t want to lose that. But you’ve got to face the fact that Duane makes me happy.”

  “Fletch, we’re not talking about your dick here. I’m talking about your wallet, your self-respect. The kid’s a player, believe me. He’s after something. Out for what he can get.”

  “Well, dear, contrary to what your ego might let you believe, all that he’s after is pleasing me.” Catching himself, Fletch lowered his voice and glanced nervously around the room. I was about to remind him that we were in Provincetown when he hurried on. “Duane’
s very...open, sexually. You know how I am—afraid, guilty. You always hated that about me. This is a totally new way of living.”

  “You, Fletch? Swinging from the chandeliers? With him?”

  Fletch gulped his drink, a faint blush stealing into his cheeks. “Yes. We do everything. He’d...he’d probably suck me off right under this table if he thought I’d really like it.”

  I laughed out loud at that. “Get out!” I was picturing Fletch at my thirtieth birthday party, threatening to leave me as I arranged a naked limbo tournament. “Now that I’d love to see.”

  “You will, then.” He took another drink, then crunched the ice cubes in his teeth. “You will see it.”

  We sat there, facing off wordlessly, until Duane sauntered back. His clothes and hair were damp, but he seemed more relaxed than before. When he sat down beside Fletch, asking why our lobsters hadn’t arrived yet, Fletch leaned over and whispered something in his ear.

  Duane’s sandy brows climbed his forehead. “Wow, you mean that? Well, whatever, man.” Strategically draping his denim jacket over the back of his chair, he started to bend over. Within seconds, he had disappeared under the table.

  Duane was good, I had to admit that. I didn’t hear so much as the slide of a zipper. In fact, Fletch’s quivering mouth and convulsive eyelids were the only clues to what was transpiring down below.

  At first, anyway.

  Normally, I’m the type of guy who can play it cool, no matter how tense the circumstances. Keeping control of myself, and of virtually any situation, is a skill I’ve worked hard to develop. But I admit I almost yelped out loud when I felt Duane’s long, slim fingers undo my pants, peel back my Y-fronts, and slide up the length of my cock.

  My neck prickling with sweat, I gaped desperately at Fletch. He was still mugging and wheezing, oblivious to anything else in the world but his kinky public blowjob. As I struggled to keep absolutely still and silent, Duane tugged my cockhead out through the slit in my briefs and used his fingers to stroke the exposed dome. I sucked in my breath as my cock bulged with an infusion of hot blood. Pretty soon my whole shaft was standing at attention inside his cupped palm. The big veins pulsed in his fist as he rubbed and squeezed them.

  “Always—did—enjoy—this restaurant,” Fletch panted, his chest and shoulders straining visibly. His face went slack with utter rapture, though his mouth stayed insufferably smug.

  And why not? I mused, as Duane’s supple fingers drifted along my rigid flange. As far as Fletch knew, he was exacting the ultimate revenge on me, making me sit idly by while his eager young lover satisfied him. That should have paid me back in full for every time I’d neglected him, offended him, and then, finally, cheated on him. Yet this small victory, like so many other things about the relationship we’d left behind, was nothing more than another illusion.

  I ought to tell him, I thought, save my dignity and his by simply demanding that he look under the table. I actually opened my mouth to say the words, too. But just then Duane began kneading my nuts with his wrist. Clenching my jaw muscles, I shielded my mouth with my glass.

  “Mmmnn,” drawled Fletch, his tongue curling over his lips. The tip of my cock bucked suddenly, my sweaty balls drawing up into my crotch. Discreetly, I draped my cloth napkin over the tops of my thighs and leaned back.

  At just the right moment, no sooner, Duane whisked the napkin off my lap and wrapped it like a tourniquet around my spurting cockhead. His fingers continued to pinch at my thick dome.

  With an effort, I smothered a groan in my throat as I twitched, and came, then came again. Whatever I shot, Duane mopped up in silence. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Fletch holding his breath. His own napkin sat untouched next to his plate.

  When it was all over, Duane resurfaced and patted his damp mouth with his coat sleeve. Smiling, Fletch leaned over like he was squeezing Duane’s thigh. Duane winked at Fletch, then looked at me. Thankfully, at that point our dinners arrived.

  His voice unusually chirpy, Fletch began to natter on about the proper way to crack open a lobster. While he was instructing Duane on how to break off the legs and suck the pink meat out of them, my stomach began to feel tight. I wolfed my dinner and announced that I was skipping dessert. Neither of them tried to stop me.

  Outside, Commercial Street looked grey and abandoned. I sloshed along a trail of puddles until I found an open tavern. My cock was throbbing in my pants as I stepped inside and surveyed the group of townies clustered around the bar. Most of them were about my age, wearing dark flannel shirts and dreary expressions. A few of them simultaneously nodded a greeting, accepting my solitary state as proof that I was one of them.

  I took a stool next to a slight jowly guy who looked as out of place as I felt. Dressed in a striped Oxford shirt and rumpled khakis, he peered at me from behind smudged, wire-rimmed glasses. I bought him a beer, and he introduced himself as Timothy. He was a student at the local community college, but he was writing a novel in his minimal spare time. It would be a sentimental love story, he explained, featuring two guys who meet on vacation in Provincetown.

  “After all, why shouldn’t there be romance novels for men?” he asked rhetorically. “When I was a teenager, I used to swipe these little white romance paperbacks from my mother’s room. They were practically all the same story, no sex or anything like that, but I could read about those domineering, square-jawed millionaires for hours. I used to pretend that the heroine was really a guy, too. It worked better when the book was in first person.”

  “Your mother knew you were reading them?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, and she approved of it, too. Said it would make me into a sensitive husband. Now I think I’d rather have one than be one.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” I said. Thinking I should confide something in return, I told him about my modest success as a private investigator, prowling New York in search of cheating husbands and runaway teenagers. Timothy was delighted, announcing that he would make me a minor character in his book.

  “The only thing I can’t figure out,” he reflected, “is how you could do a job like that. You seem like such a nice guy.”

  My brow furrowed, and I finished my beer in an angry gulp. “Well, Timothy, the truth is that I’m not a nice guy. Just ask around.”

  To prove my point, I pulled out the rawhide thong that encircled my neck. Attached to it was a tooled leather pouch filled with a variety of condoms. I’d started carrying it years ago, back when Fletch and I had still been together. For months, he’d assumed I kept it filled with subway tokens. My emptying it onto our kitchen table had brought about our last fight. I didn’t tell Timothy that, of course.

  When I got up to use the rest room, Timothy followed me. While I was zipping up my fly, he closed the door behind us. He spread his body flat against the wall, thrusting his khakied hips out towards me. My cock, flaccid after Duane’s expert hand-job, gave an unexpected lurch in my pants. My head swam groggily with the beer I’d drunk. Was I attracted to this kid? Strangely enough, I hadn’t bothered to wonder until now.

  “OK, Gabe, we’re alone,” he said breathily. “Now you can investigate me all you want.”

  I reached, almost in slow motion, for the pouch around my neck. Enough, I thought. I’m attracted to him enough. He didn’t look anything like Fletch—or Duane.

  Grabbing the front of Timothy’s button-down shirt, I pushed him hard against the tiles. My mouth came down roughly on his, while my fingers squeezed his nipples through the cotton. He kissed me back eagerly, driving his thick, slippery tongue into my mouth. His ankle slipped around my calf, pulling me in closer to him.

  For some reason, I was thinking about the first time I’d ever kissed Fletch. I’m risking a good friendship here, I remembered thinking at the time. What had ever made us think it would work out romantically?

  Timothy ground his mouth against mine, his tongue probing deeper than I wanted. Pushing him away, I instead stuck my hand down the front of his pants and pushed down the wa
istband of his briefs. My fingers closed around his cock and found it resilient with fresh desire. My cock had felt like that in Duane’s fist, I thought. The pounding in my head reached fever pitch.

  He arched his body close to mine, then yanked my zipper down again. My shaft snapped to attention, the drooling cockhead swatting his wrist. Would this also become a scene in his novel?

  “Yeah, let’s do it,” Timothy gasped. “I—I want you really bad.”

  I gave his stiff pud a few preliminary yanks, then batted his hand from my cock and maneuvered him into the single stall. Locking us in, I pushed him on his knees beside the toilet, then shoved my pants down to mid-thigh. He caught the wrapped condom I tossed him and stared up at me with liquid grey eyes.

  “Go on, suck it,” I growled, twisting my fingers into his moussed brown hair. Timothy unrolled the rubber down my throbbing shank with trembling fingers, then positioned his open mouth just over my pulsating helmet. He hovered there for a moment, stretching out the tip of his tongue and lightly rolling it around my flange. The sudden contact between flesh and rubber sent a strangely icy tremor through my balls. Spreading my fingers on the back of his scalp, I forced his face down onto my crotch.

  My erect pole smashed against the back of his throat, the impact making his whole body shudder. He hadn’t been ready for so much of me so quickly. Sex had never been like this in one of his romance novels, I was sure.

  I punched my hips forward, forcing my cock down until the big head got stuck. Then, when his arms began to flail in panic, I dragged him back up by the hair. I didn’t let up until his lips left my stalk, connected only by a strand of saliva. It shimmered between us like a string of fake pearls. Timothy’s eyes were bulging open, his mouth pulsing open and closed. He reminded me of a hooked cod I’d once seen a guy hauling in off the pier.