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57
Finlay looks at Rory in a way that’s all-consuming, like he’s starving and teased with nourishment. In harsh, angry gestures, he yanks off his blazer, tossing it to the stones. He toes off his shoes and peels away his black socks, standing barefoot and determined in the cold with the slick pebbles underfoot. Swallowing, and with an apprehensive flick of his green gaze to the ink-black sky, he begins to unbutton the collar of his shirt, his fingers capably unpicking each button as they travel down. He spreads his shirt open and lets it fall past his shoulders before pooling onto the ground.
He shines with rainwater. Rivulets slide down his chest, slanting low past the waist of his kilt.
Out of nowhere comes the urgent desire to taste him.
It takes me back to a time and place last summer, the three of us undressing beneath hot, dare-filled gazes. The hush of an innocent summer and the craving for meaningful connection. The heat sparkling along the water like crystal — the same water as this.
Lochkelvin water, Lochkelvin stone.
Tonight, the bank of the loch isn’t hush-filled. The rain impresses a slap upon every leaf, a drumbeat on each stone, a watery chime upon the loch. Elements tattooed upon elements. The cold bites at our fingers and breathes down our necks. It makes Rory and Finlay’s dance all the more remarkable.
“Go on,” Finlay urges Rory, his hands planted on his hips as he somehow refrains from shivering. Maybe it’s the adrenaline, the rush of a show-offy challenge between the two of them. It’s when they’re at their most comfortable, snapping and nipping at each other like puppies from the same litter.
When Rory doesn’t react as quickly as Finlay would like, Finlay goads, “Or is it too cold?” He spreads his arms wide, welcoming the lash of the rain. “May as well gie it up, big man, ‘cause I can stand here a’ night.”
“You’re such a shit liar,” Rory mutters as he pops open the button of his collar. He only undoes one other before, with gritted teeth, pulling his shirt over his head in one fell swoop, as if it’d be easier to face the chill all at once than to gradually become accustomed to it. “All right,” he says, to steel himself, as he sinks into the cold. His nipples are taut, his stomach hard. “We proceed.” I notice his fingers are quicker than before as they unhook his belt, the clink of metal distant behind the rain. He flicks open the button underneath and unzips, peeling away the fabric until he stands in nothing but a pair of blue boxer-briefs. As usual, he holds himself like a god, knowing everyone on the bank of the loch is checking him out.
Finlay doesn’t move, only offers his lust-glazed stare. The rain stretches the fabric across Rory’s cock to the point that imagination is unnecessary, the shadows revealing the girth of his steadily blooming erection. Beside me, Danny’s gulp is audible even in the rain.
“I think it’s you,” Rory prods Finlay.
“I mean, ye still have those,” Finlay answers, gesturing to the boxer-briefs like he’d burn them if he had the chance. In return, Rory shoots him a baleful look.
With a sigh, Finlay unlatches his kilt. “Avert yer eyes,” he orders me sternly, and with a frown I do as he says, wondering why it’snowthat he’s decided to grow concerned about my virtue. Naturally, I peek. The tartan fabric slides past his knees until Finlay stands in nothing but a pair of black silk boxers.
“I thought you said after that time in St. Camford that you weren’t going to wear anything under a kilt?”
“And I thought I teltyoutae avert yer eyes,” Finlay mutters with a roll of his own, and I realize with a small laugh that it’s not my virtue Finlay had been trying to protect but the entire concept of Scotsmen always going commando beneath their kilts.
“Too late,” I say with a nonchalant fold of my arms. “It’s ruined now. Like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Another bitter disappointment.”
“Uh, Santa’s definitely real,” Danny adds, sounding bemused. “Otherwise, who am I leaving out mince pies for?”
Perhaps for the best, Finlay ignores this comment. “Aye, aye, okay,” he says, gesturing down his not unimpressive physique. “Can I no’ get some love instead?”
I shrug, doing my best to appear indifferent, though my eyes linger on the rain trickling down Finlay’s hipbones. Really, all I want to do is lick him up. “It’s all right.”
In front of me, Rory snorts. “Another liar,” he remarks at me in a light tone, seeing straight through my act.
Finlay seems quite gratified by this comment.
“So whit,” he says, gazing across the wide expanse of the loch. “We’ve tae swim. In that.” These aren’t questions but ways to buoy himself up.
I glance over at the wooden rowboat, where Luke is lounging. He hadn’t been involved in their game, instead choosing to recline inside the boat, gazing up into the night sky with the rain spitting down on him.
“You look calm,” I tell him.
“Royal protocol,” Luke explains. “At all times, my face is a lie.” I don’t think this is quite true, him having shared himself at his rawest and most vulnerable several times today. But it’s a fiction he likes to play, a facade he regularly slips into, the way I’d thought of him when I’d first met him: the cool-hearted prince. He climbs out of the boat, eyeing Finlay’s and Rory’s mostly naked bodies skeptically. “You’re actually doing this for me?”
“Of course,” Rory says, as if there were any doubt.
Finlay rubs his arms roughly and gestures to the violin case beside his feet. “Aye, so can ye get on wi’ it? If ye’ve forgotten, it’s fuckin’ November.”
Luke takes the violin case and stashes it onto the little boat. He sits on one of the benches, gazing over his shoulder at the island. Danny climbs aboard, sitting cross-legged in the middle between the two benches, the black violin case between his arms as well as the chiefs’ discarded clothes. With a swallow, I do likewise, edging onto the tiny plank of wood that will be my seat for the next while. Danny hands me a pair of oars from the bottom of the boat, and I accept them nervously, inspecting their weight.
“I’ve never done this before,” I warn Luke.
