Chapter 91
Andy was close, so close, closer than he wanted to admit. But God, Scooter was beautiful like this, gorgeous, and watching Andy’s face with something like awe. And fuck, if it would keep that expression on Scooter’s face, Andy would clench down, hold back, let Scooter drive him wild with wanting until he couldn’t think at all. “Scooter, oh…Oh fuck, I…Oh God, it’s—” Words failed; his whole body sizzled like he was on fire. Every breath came out in a keening whine.
Scooter closed his hand gently around Andy’s dick, stroked him, slow, then faster, in counterpoint to his deep, inevitable rhythm. Faster again, deliberately ruthless, pulling Andy up to the edge. When Andy was whimpering, forgetting completely that he was supposed to be quiet, Scooter slowed his hips, his hand stilling and Andy stifled a sob. Scooter groaned at that, shockingly loud against the raging storm both outside and inside.
“I can’t, I can’t,” Scooter said. He lunged up, driving back into motion as if he’d never stopped, each movement rubbing against Andy’s body in perfect, sweet, slick motions, stroking him over and over, inside and out. “Oh, God.”
The fire was only getting hotter. Every time Andy thought it had reached a peak, it somehow found a new one. He whined and then the fire turned to liquid in his veins, so hot it felt icy for an instant, flaring through Andy like he was made of flash paper. He had no idea what sounds he made or what his body did. All he could hear was the pounding of his heart and the roaring of the fire; all he could feel was heat and Scooter’s sure, steady touch. When he came back to himself, he was sprawled on Scooter’s chest, still shuddering with aftershocks.
“Oh, God,” he said weakly. “Scooter, that was—God.”
Scooter panted for breath, one hand rubbing soothing circles over Andy’s back. “Yeah, that was…that was somethin’ else. How dare you be so perfect?”
Andy tried for a snort and it came out more like a sniff. “I’mthe perfect one, he says. What about you?” He sighed happily.
“Neither of you are perfect,” Kat’s voice came clear through the wall. She was probably in the bathroom, leaning against the connecting door in order to be that understandable. “You are both Very Loud and owe me So Much Ice Cream.”
Scooter rolled his eyes extravagantly. “Says you, Miss Making Hurricane Babies!”
“And hurry up in there,” Andy added. “We could use a shower.”
“Ugh,” Scooter said. “Gonna be a cold one. Well, lukewarm. There’s no power.”
“Serves you right,” Kat said. She flushed the toilet and then she stomped back into her own bedroom. 34
Kat came in, four days after the storm was over, with a picture frame under one arm. “You will not believe what I found, reading the storm news.”
Scooter glanced up. They were still doing repairs; a section of flooring in the kitchen had given way when some of the joists had gotten soaked. They had probably been decaying over the last several years before the hurricane proved to be the last straw. Thank God Andy had some carpentry skills and that both Scooter and Jason were able to follow Andy’s lead. (Well, at least, Andy was capable of finding instructions on YouTube and then making sense of those instructions, which was more than Scooter could manage. Scooter’s mom had been a carpenter of no small skill, but she had always thought she’d have more time to teach those things to Scooter. She hadn’t.)
“Anything good?” Scooter pulled himself out of the hole in the floor, brushing off his jeans.
Kat turned the photograph, a few pages culled from Coastal Virginiamagazine. The top two thirds of the page were taken up with a full color glossy photo of Andy on his board, knees bent, just coming through the tube, storm clouds racing overhead. The bottom was the beginning of a personal interest puff piece, “Storm Prep Over, Locals Hit Up Choice Waves.”
Restaurant owner Winston Stahl turns his employees loose to hit the beach after two days of frantic activity getting the reclusive beach town of Sandbridge ready for the oncoming Hurricane Franklin. Stahl and crew plan to evacuate and ride the storm out away from the coast—after they finish riding the waves! Accompanied on the beach by their dog, Trick, the group included Stahl, cook Jason Anderson, his fiancée Ekaterina Sokolov, former Air Force pilot D’ante Sanders, and Andy Trevor, seen here.
When asked about their plans for the hurricane, Sokolov threw this reporter a peace sign and declared that power outages were great for drinking wine and eating ice cream. This reporter thinks that sounds like a good idea!
Stahl, whose restaurant Dockside is a favorite tourist spot in Sandbridge, claims confidence in the face of nature’s wrath. “We’ve done all we can do,” he said, eager to get back to the waves. “It’s in Providence’s hands, now.”
Other local retailers are not so confident. DeeDee Collins, owner of Collins Confectionary (cont. page 27)
“Hey, babe!” Scooter yelled, half leaning over the hole under the restaurant’s floor. “Come take a peek at this.”
“I thought we could hang it on the brag wall,” Kat suggested.