Page 61 of Hooked By a Hero
“As are you,” Elias said, digging his fingertips into the muscles of Caspian’s back. “I love you.”
Caspian answered him with another kiss, crushing their mouths together as if he could never get enough of Elias. He certainly could not get enough of the man in that moment. He wanted everything, to bury himself deep inside his lover and to feel the same as Elias lost himself in him. It was impossible with all the sand surrounding them, but there would come a time without sand and with every comfort the land could give them.
For now, Caspian reached between them to hold both of their rigid cocks together. Elias made a sound of pleasure and clasped his hand around Caspian’s as well. The two of them held each other together as they undulated and rubbed against each other while kissing, slowly at first, then with more urgency.
“I want the world for you,” Caspian panted as his orgasm raced closer, filling his body with excitement and tension.
“I just want you,” Elias answered, then moaned sharply as he spilled himself between their joined hands.
Caspian wasn’t far behind. The moment was too beautiful and perfect for him to hold out much longer. He jerked into his orgasm, sending seed spilling across Elias’s belly. It was only a moment, but the warm glow of passion and affection that swirled between the two of them encompassed them for far longer.
“I love you,” Caspian said, sinking to his side, though Elias remained wrapped around him and their hands remained joined with their flagging cocks between them. “You are my soulmate.”
“And you are mine,” Elias said. “I look forward to the two of us being happy together forever.”
Epilogue
The house on the beach near Gold Coast was Elias’s pride and joy. It was his favorite place to sit and watch the sea, his comfort after a long day of treating patients, and the heart of the life he and Caspian had built and would continue to build with each other. Construction had begun on the original house as soon as Elias and Caspian had made their way up the coast from Sydney a year or so after being rescued from their remote island.
The rescue had come nearly a year and a half after the wreck of theFortune. At first, the survivors had looked eagerly to the horizon every day, praying to see a ship or craft of some sort. After a few months, those hopes slowed to a distracting niggle and the focus of the survivors’ efforts turned to making as comfortable a home as they could. The huts that they’d slapped together at first were expanded and made sturdier over time until they became surprisingly comfortable dwellings.
The survivors cleared some of the land around their encampment as well and planted crops from the seeds that they had all been startled and delighted to find in theFortune’shold. The wheat, barley, and vegetable seeds had been destined for the Australian colonies but they were planted in the island’s rich,dark soil and grew up reasonably well there. Miss Winters, or rather Mrs. Archer, as she became after a ceremony performed by Hunt a few months into their settlement, puzzled out a way to weave a rough fabric from the fibers of plants gathered on the island. Lady Adelaide, who was soon after called Mrs. Cartwright, kept the signal fire burning while also becoming an expert in weaving baskets and containers from palm fronds.
Every survivor played their part, and in time, even the worst of the mutineers settled down enough to contribute to the society of the island. All except Tumbrill and a tiny handful of others. They were kept as prisoners on the wreck of theFortuneat first, but within a month, they’d all disappeared. Whether they’d died attempting to escape or succeeded in rowing away in some sort of vessel made from pieces of theFortune, Elias never found out.
When the signal fire finally did draw the attention of a passing ship that changed course to investigate, Elias was almost disappointed to be discovered. He and Caspian could have left the island and swum anywhere in the vast ocean they liked, but they both enjoyed the company of their friends too much to abandon them. And once all four of the women on the island fell pregnant, Elias felt it was his duty to stay with them to help them deliver their babies, which they did perfectly.
They were all sad to leave their island home in one way or another, but as soon as the survivors reached New South Wales, and once their remarkable story of survival was made known far and wide, they all took happily to life in Sydney and beyond. Mr. Ferrars’s treasure had been recovered from the bottom of the ocean fairly early in their time on the island, and once they returned to civilization, Ruby had taken it upon herself to personally provide every one of her fellow castaways, including the former mutineers, with enough money to start a new life.
Elias had his own wealth, of course. As soon as word reached London that the survivors of theFortunehad been found, Elias wrote to his solicitor, as well as his friends, to instruct him to send the money to Australia with all due haste. He was lucky that his estate was still in Chancery and had not yet been disbursed to a distant relative, or Lady Eudora, who claimed she should receive every last penny, since she would have married Elias, had he lived. Once the legal aspects of the whole thing were sorted and Elias was able to prove his identity to the Chancery courts, and to refute Lady Eudora’s claims, the money was transferred to a bank in Sydney.
Rather than stay in Sydney, where Elias and Caspian’s clear affection for each other had raised several sets of eyebrows, despite Mr. and Mrs. Hunt’s efforts to shield them, the two of them journeyed up the eastern Australian coast, looking for a place where they could settle in peace. When they discovered a tiny settlement called Mermaid Beach, the two of them knew they’d found their new home. The irony of the tiny settlement’s name had amused Caspian so much that Elias knew the place was perfect for them. Elias had used a large chunk of his fortune to purchase a vast tract of land in the mostly unexplored, at the time, area.
Of course, things had changed since the first nail had been driven into the tiny structure that had become their home all those years ago. When they’d arrived, Mermaid Beach had been one of several miniscule settlements scattered along the wild and sometimes unforgiving coast. Living so far from any of Australia’s major settlements and also living close to the ocean had suited Elias and Caspian perfectly at the time. They could swim whenever they liked without raising suspicions, and the settlers in the area were so desperate for a physician to treat their sometimes-dangerous maladies that they were willing tolook the other way when questions about their relationship were raised.
Elias was delighted to have his theory about the transformation Caspian had initiated in him heightening his healing skills proven true. Even when he wasn’t entirely certain what illness afflicted the settlers who came to him for help, he was always able to treat it. Only years later, while attending medical school again and again and again did he learn what some of the illnesses he’d cured were, but it never mattered when someone who had sought his help and would surely have died without it grew whole and healthy once more.
Attending medical school in various prestigious institutes around the world every few decades became one of Elias’s favorite pastimes. Not only that, as the years wore on and neither his nor Caspian’s appearances changed all that much, it became necessary to go away for several years, leaving the house in the care of one of Caspian’s relatives, so that deaths could be faked and inheritances by younger nephews or cousins could be feigned to explain why the same men owned the house and land for generations.
It was a fascinating thing for Elias to see a nation born and raised almost from its beginnings. It was sad at first to watch their friends grow older and die, particularly Ruby and Nathaniel Hunt, but it was a strange kind of joy to have the secret of his and Caspian’s nature passed down in that family from generation to generation and to watch so many of the Hunts come into the world, make their mark, then pass the torch to their offspring.
Virtual immortality gave Elias the ability to see and experience so much of the world, both good and bad. He watched cities grow and thrive, saw a few fall, marveled at human ingenuity and advances in science and technology. He mourned the passing of old ways and served as a field doctorin multiple wars, both in the Pacific and in Europe. He watched humanity make horrendous mistakes and tremendous strides. After a while, nothing truly surprised him anymore.
Through all of that, his favorite place remained the house on Mermaid Beach. The tiny structure grew with every supposedly new identity he and Caspian took on and expanded as new styles and technology advanced. The once miniscule settlement grew and grew, was incorporated into the town of Gold Coast, which continued to grow, and over time, the sale of bits of Elias’s original land purchase, once saved and invested, ensured that Elias and Caspian would never want for money ever again, which for them would be a very long time indeed.
Elias chuckled and shook his head as he thought about how impossible his life was while leaning against the railing of his porch, sipping his morning coffee one hot December day. Already, the surfers were out cutting through the waves on their sleek, colorful boards while families played in the sand, and as boxes that he still considered magical played music that mingled with the rush of the waves and the sea birds overhead. He loved watching the surfers, not just because of their lean bodies and sun-kissed hair. They were so full of life and daring, much like he and Caspian had once been, and really, as they still were.
Speaking of Caspian, Elias turned and glanced back into the house when he heard the chime that indicated someone entering through their front door. He smiled as Caspian strode through the house and emerged onto the porch, a gleaming smile lighting his whole face and a newspaper in his hand.
“You look like you had a successful trip into town,” Elias said, setting down his coffee cup so he could slide his arms around his lover, his life-partner, as he met Elias out in the sunshine.
“I most certainly did,” Caspian said, then kissed Elias soundly.
Elias loved it. While there were many things he had enjoyed about every season of his life going all the way back to the beginning, and while there were a great many things he missed about those bygone eras, he adored the fact that he and Caspian now lived in a world where they could stand out in the sunshine where dozens of people could see them, kissing the way they were without risking their lives or reputations.
But as it happened, the world they lived in now was about to get even better than that.
“That’s some kind of greeting,” Elias laughed when Caspian finally pulled back so they could both breathe.
