Page 10 of Hooked By a Hero
Elias shrugged, flushing under the compliment as if he were a boy who had just been told by a teacher that he’d written a sterling essay. “I have seen enough of mankind to know that it takes an extraordinary effort to be a bad person.”
“You are a better man than most I have met,” Caspian said, his smile and the warmth in his blue-green eyes underscoring the compliment.
Elias drew in a breath, his heart and body buzzing. Would to God they were not on a ship, where privacy was next to impossible to be had! He wanted to step closer to Caspian, stroke his fingers up Caspian’s arm, across his neck, and into his hair. He wanted to slide an arm around his waist and pull the man close for a kiss. He was certain that if he slanted his lips over Caspian’s full and inviting ones, his friend would not balk or put him off. Indeed, he was certain Caspian wanted him as much as he was wanted.
“There is a pod of dolphins off to the starboard side,” Caspian said, his soft, rich tone and the way he lowered his voice making those words sound like a lover’s endearment. “Would you like to see?”
“Yes,” Elias said immediately and breathlessly. There were a lot of things he would have liked to see. Caspian without his clothes on was highest on that list.
“Come, then,” Caspian said, taking his hand.
The touch of their palms sent a jolt of desire through Elias, but with it, a rush of alarm. As he let Caspian lead him to the stairs that would take them up onto the forecastle, he glanced around, anxious over anyone was watching them.
His heart dropped to his gut when he looked over his shoulder halfway up the stairs and caught Captain Woodward watching them with a dark scowl. There were few ways the man’s disapproving look could be interpreted. Elias did not need to join in the gossip about how hard a man Captain Woodward was or how much conflict he had with his own lieutenants to know he despised men like Elias.
“We need to be discreet,” Elias whispered once he and Caspian were out of the captain’s sight. They took up positions shoulder-to-shoulder at the railing near the front starboard side of the forecastle, looking out over the sunny ocean.
“Discreet?” Caspian asked, a bit too loudly for Elias’s liking.
Elias glanced over his shoulder at the others on the deck. As would be expected at the first hint of good weather after bad, the forecastle was crowded with passengers in need of fresh air and sunshine.
“We cannot raise suspicions of—” Elias turned back to Caspian, uncertain how to continue. They had not discussed their proclivities with each other in any way as of yet. For all he knew, Caspian might have been a different sort entirely. Hecould have merely considered them friends and himself had a particularly open manner of being friends with other men.
But when his smile grew as he gazed teasingly back at Elias and asked, “Suspicions of what?” Elias was certain the two of them were in accord.
“Suspicions that there might be some other attraction besides friendship between us,” he whispered so quietly that it was a wonder Caspian heard him.
With a subtle, low laugh that had Elias’s heart beating harder and his trousers tightening, Caspian shifted his hand on the railing so that his and Elias’s pinky fingers twined. “I never understood the English revulsion toward two men who fancy each other,” he whispered back.
For a moment, Elias could barely breathe. His upper arm pressed against Caspian’s but those were not the parts he wished to rub against each other. His head filled with images of the two of them tangled up with each other in one of the ship’s tiny cabin beds. He wondered which of them would be more aggressive or more compliant as they kissed and caressed and more.
Of course, it didn’t matter. The ship was crowded and privacy was impossible. The most he and Caspian would be able to do in the next four months was precisely what they were doing now. Fleeting touches and concealed pinky holds were the most they would be able to manage, especially with the captain so deeply against what they felt.
“I missed you,” Elias whispered as they pretended to be fascinated by the vista the ocean had to offer. “While I was indisposed, I missed you.”
“I wasn’t far,” Caspian said, turning his head to smile at Elias as if he was taking in a beautiful sight.
“Still, I missed you,” Elias said. He furrowed his brow slightly and asked, “Where were you?”
Caspian tensed subtly. “I was here,” he said, nodding and glancing around at the ship and the sea. “I’ve always been here.”
“I looked for you in all the cabins and couldn’t find you,” Elias said, no idea why he felt the need to push the matter.
“I was not assigned a cabin,” Caspian said.
Elias’s brows lifted in surprise. “You weren’t?”
“No,” Caspian said. “I…I booked my passage at the very last moment.”
Elias opened his mouth to ask another question but thought better of it. Was it possible that Caspian was a stowaway? Surely not. He would have been discovered from the start and put off the ship.
Then again, Caspian had a certain refinement to his manner and his clothing was fine. The crew might have simply assumed he was an aristocrat, and therefore entitled to do whatever he liked whenever he liked.
More questions popped to Elias’s mind that he almost asked, but Caspian turned back to the ocean, pointed out, and said, “Look! There they are!”
All was forgotten as Elias turned and spotted what looked to be dozens of dolphins swimming alongside the ship, not terribly far away. They leapt over the waves and seemed to be showing off.
Caspian laughed. “Cheeky devils,” he said.
