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While Nick nursed his lemonade, he and Liam chatted about nothing in particular and definitely avoided discussing Cooper Springs Resort’s new owner. Nick stole a few of Liam’s fries, avoiding the habanero sauce.
“I don’t know how you can eat that stuff,” he said, watching Liam smother his fries with the hot sauce.
Liam just laughed at him. “Wimp,” he said, shoving a huge bite into his mouth.
“You are a scaggy monster.” Horrified, Nick watched his friend continue to chow down his meal.
“A scaggy monster?” Liam asked around his bite. “What’s that?”
“You. Someone who ruins perfectly good fries with mayonnaise and hot peppers. What the fuck is wrong with ketchup?”
Lima shrugged. “I like to change it up. Ketchup is just so… ketchup. Boring.” Then he shoved another fry into his mouth.
Finishing off his lemonade and feeling antsy, Nick settled his tab, wincing as Magnus swiped his debit card. He needed to do something to bolster his bank account sooner rather than later. His laptop, and the last images he’d taken, languished in his cabin. Six months since the attack and he hadn’t been able to do more than take them off his camera card. But he’d always have chainsaw art.
“I’ll see you later,” he said to Liam, patting him on the shoulder.
“Sure, take it easy, man. See ya Thursday.”
How Liam could be so fucking laid-back when the world was going to hell, Nick had no clue. He’d asked him a few months ago. Liam had just stared at him for a bit and said, “I just don’t see the point in getting worked up. People are fuckers, or they aren’t. People are good, bad, or somewhere in between. I don’t feel like I can change that. I can only control how I think and feel. Put myself out into the world and hope I make a difference.”
Nick sort of wished he could be like that too, but that ridiculous notion was quickly eradicated when he stepped out the door and saw that Purdy and his friends were still there, talking and laughing. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he strode past them without acknowledging their existence.
Purdy called after him, offering a ride back to the cabins, but Nick pretended not to hear. Almost as if it was trying to match Nick’s mood, the rain began to fall noticeably harder, and the wind picked up as well.
“Fucking great,” Nick muttered, speeding up. The fat drops were falling quickly, soaking through his thin jacket.
He was going to be sopping wet when he got home. But the day he’d accept a ride or any other kind of handout from Martin Purdy would be the day hell froze over and stayed that way.
Shivering and hunching deeper into his jacket—as if the thin material would somehow offer more protection if he made himself smaller—Nick kept walking. Halfway back to the cabins, an SUV slowed as it passed him by. Nick didn’t look, didn’t acknowledge anything, just kept walking. Martin Purdy could kiss his ass.
“Fuck!” he yelled, although no one could hear him.
His right foot and then his left—because momentum kept him moving forward—had splashed down into the middle of a kiddie-pool-sized puddle that had formed across the sidewalk. The muddy water soaked through the canvas of his Converse and socks, all the way up to his ankles.
He had no one to blame but himself. If he hadn’t been a dick and instead accepted Purdy’s offer, he would be dry and home already. But sadly, he HAD been a dick and now he had wet feet because of it. He growled, low in his throat, pissed off at himself.
Unfortunately, clammy feet did not stop him from dreaming about Martin Purdy that night. It hadn’t been the first time Purdy had starred in his dreams, but it was the first time in years. And it was the first time since he’d been shot that he’d woken up with a throbbing hard-on.
“What the actual fuck?” Nick flipped the cover off his body and glared down at his dick. It looked back at him, happy and ready for a good ending.
What would it hurt? Purdy would never know, right? And frankly, knowing the plumbing still worked was vastly reassuring. Nick slid his hand down his stomach toward his cock. It was perfectly normal to jack off to the image of a man you insisted you hated.
Right.
He wrapped his fingers around himself, knowing already that he was close to coming. The now fading dream had been vivid, but he’d startled awake just before crossing the finish line.
Arching into his own grip, Nick let his eyes fall shut and his imagination take over. Martin, naked, muscles straining as he pounded into Nick—nothing gentle. Nick didn’t like gentle. Martin holding him down and making Nick take it. Nick wanted to take it, he wanted it all. His balls tightened and a spark of lightning shot up his spine and back to his dick.
“Fuck,” Nick groaned. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
God, it had been so long since he’d done this. Arching off the mattress as come pulsed onto his stomach and pooled there, Nick let out a roar and flopped back to stare at the ceiling.
This was not a good sign.
MARTIN
Fact: The heat of lightning striking the beach sand can melt the sand to form a glassy rock called “fulgurite.”
