The Lure of Port Stephen Read online

  A NineStar Press Publication

  www.ninestarpress.com

  The Lure of Port Stephen

  Copyright © 2017 Sydney Blackburn

  Cover Art by Natasha Snow ©Copyright 2017

  Edited by: BJ Toth

  Published in 2017 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, NineStar Press, LLC.

  Warning

  This book contains sexually explicit content, which is only suitable for mature readers.

  The Lure of Port Stephen

  Sydney Blackburn

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Author

  This story is dedicated to the summer people of a particular

  small port on beautiful Lake Erie.

  Chapter One

  Robbie Wales rented a car Saturday morning to go down to his father’s trailer in Port Stephen. Alone—because he’d just moved to St. Albans and hadn’t had the opportunity to meet someone. Like Dad and Wanda had been nagging him about.

  It would help if he could actually tell them the someone he hoped to meet was a guy. His mother knew, of course. But his parents had split when he was a baby, and he hadn’t spent more than a couple weeks a year with his father until he’d moved to Woodstock for his apprenticeship training. He’d never had a boyfriend serious enough to mention. Coming out seemed too important not to do in person, but the right time never seemed to come up.

  He had to come out to them soon—he was twenty-two, and the more time he spent with them, the more obvious it would be—but he was worried. What if his father rejected him just when they were finally having a real relationship? But—new job, new apartment, new city—it was time.

  St. Albans was only a twenty-minute drive away from the port. He could, in theory, hang out and fish during the day and go back to town at night. It wasn’t that he didn’t like sitting around their firepit, but listening to a bunch of people his parents’ age or older wasn’t his idea of a fun time. They wouldn’t miss him.

  He pulled in beside the end of his parents’ trailer, leaving room for other vehicles in case the people in the small Prowler next door had friends coming up for the weekend too. Robbie grabbed his duffel and used the keys his father had given him last year to let himself in. The water and electric were already on, and the fridge was humming softly.

  He dropped the duffel and went out to retrieve the case of beer he’d brought. Hard liquor would take up less fridge space, he mused. Too bad it made him stupid. He gave the neighbouring trailer a sidelong glance. Small propane grill, decorative urns spilling jewel-tone flowers, sun shelter, and a couple of fishing rods. Retired couple, he decided. Flowers had to be a woman’s touch.

  Movement on one of the boats caught his eye, and he turned just in time to see a man—literally tall, dark, and handsome—strip his T-shirt off. There was nothing erotic in the motion—guy probably didn’t even know he was being watched—but Robbie’s mouth watered all the same at the unexpected vision.

  He was lean, deeply tanned, and wearing shorts that were short enough to make Robbie wish they were even shorter. Nice legs. Nice everything.

  As if sensing Robbie’s stare, the guy turned his head. Robbie blushed, glad he was too far away for it to be seen, and hurried to bring in the beer. That was a sight he’d never seen here before. Was he the son of the couple in the trailer?

  One way to find out. Randomly chatting to strangers was a thing here, giving Robbie an excuse. He stuck six beers in the fridge and took two of his father’s, already cold, and hastily checked his look in the mirror. His sandy-brown hair was tousled from the drive, but there were no stains on his tank or rainbow-coloured board shorts. Good. Normal. He pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes and almost forgot the beer on his way out the door.

  Walking along the waterfront, he tried to appear nonchalant, though he’d never been 100 percent certain of what that meant. As he strode out onto the dock, the guy raised his head. He looked even better up close. His hair was thick, dark, begging to be ruffled… Try not to drool, Rob. He didn’t have the words to describe the guy’s mouth—full lips he’d love to kiss, a pinkish-brown colour a little lighter than his nipples. Dark hair scattered across a gorgeous dark tan. Robbie licked his lips before he realized what he was doing.

  Then Tall, Dark, and Handsome’s kissable lips pulled up into a smile, and long fingers with very pale fingernails shoved the sunglasses up over his hair. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” Robbie handed him a beer. “You looked thirsty. Boat trouble?” he added quickly, squatting down to eye level. Tall, Dark, and Handsome had eyelashes like a woman’s—long, feathery, soft. And his eyes were amber, a little darker than the beer he’d accepted from Robbie.

  “Thanks.” He pushed a hand behind his ear, and Robbie’s tongue slipped out to swipe his lower lip again.

  The handsome stranger twisted the cap off the beer and tipped the bottle to his mouth, his long throat working as he swallowed once, twice.

  Robbie let his gaze slide down the deeply tanned bare chest in front of him. Gay men, in his admittedly limited experience, tended to wax their chests. Trying to match the guys on billboards and magazines, he supposed. Handsome here had a sparse triangle of dark hair from below his collarbone across pecs with more definition than he’d initially thought. Gravity pulled a trickle of sweat down the narrow bit of hair in the center of his torso, one that disappeared… Robbie forced himself to not stare as if the guy was the first steak dinner he’d seen after months of bread and water.

  Tall, Dark, and Handsome was glaring at the cables he’d uncovered that led to his motor. “It pulls to the left.”

  Robbie’s eyes widened, and he darted another glance southward before recovering. The boat, idiot. He means the boat.

  As quick as his glance was, when his attention returned to the guy’s face, TDH had pulled his shades down, hiding his eyes. “You know much about boats? You’d think I’d learn, owning one, but goddammit, I had it in for a thorough check in St. Albans before I put it in the water.”

  “I know a little more about outboards than inboards,” Robbie said truthfully, “but I’d be happy to take a look.”

  TDH waved vaguely toward the open panel. “Sure. Please.”

  Robbie’s heart tripped a little at getting so close to his new fantasy man, and he nearly lost his balance getting into the boat—to his embarrassment. TDH’s steadying hand was hot and dry, and Robbie nearly jumped as his cock twitched.

  “Fuck,” he said, before he could stop himself. His voice was hoarse, but he hoped TDH would think he was cursing his clumsiness and not his riotous imagination.

  The smile on his face seemed sly and suggestive to Robbie, but he figured that was wishful thinking on his part. He smiled back and took a swig of his beer. Down, boy, he told his overeager cock. He set his bottle in a holder and turned around, kneeling to examine the innards exposed.

  “Huh. Interesting,” he said, having no idea what he was looking for.


  “Isn’t it, though.”

  His voice was like a caress. You’re imagining things, Robert Eliot Wales. He leaned back to sit on his ass and reached up for his beer. He froze momentarily as TDH sat on one of the pedestal seats. He could almost—but not quite—see up the leg of his shorts. Stop looking.

  He forced himself to raise his gaze all the way to the other man’s face. “Tell me exactly what it’s doing?”

  “When I put it under full throttle, it pulls to the left. I don’t notice it on the creek, but out on the lake this morning, it pulled so hard it almost yanked the wheel out of my hands.” He ran a hand through his hair again.

  Robbie knew he was staring, but he hoped it wasn’t too obvious behind his shades.

  “First time I’ve been scared on the water.”

  “Sounds like your trim is out of whack. Maybe you bumped something in the creek?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “It seems rather shallow this year. So I have to take it out of the water?”

  “Yeah, I think so. When my dad gets here, he’ll take a look. He knows a lot more…” Geez, he sounded like a teenager. “Robbie Wales,” he said, thrusting out a hand, more dirty now than it had been twenty minutes ago.

  “Raj Williams,” he said, grabbing his hand and pulling him to his feet.

  Raj. That explained the great tan. Even if he still had tan lines, his bare ass was probably a gorgeous honey gold…. He shook his head. “That’s my dad’s trailer.” Robbie jerked his head. “The Golden Falcon there.”

  TDH—Raj—laughed. “Tell me that’s not your dad’s name.”

  “What?”

  “Wayne and Wanda Wales of Woodstock.” He snickered. “Say it ain’t so.”

  Robbie chuckled at the awful alliteration. “It ain’t so,” he reassured him. “Wales is my mother’s name. Dad’s is Richardson. And Wanda kept her own name, Nichols. I take it you’ve met.”

  “Neighbours. Your dad is very…sociable.”

  “They say in Woodstock, if you don’t know Wayne Richardson, it’s not Wayne Richardson’s fault.”

  “I can believe that.”

  Neighbours. So… “Which trailer’s yours?”

  “This one,” he said with a pleased nod toward the Prowler. “My company started a work-from-home initiative, and I talked them into paying for my Internet to work from here, instead.”

  Ah. Straight and married then. Robbie nodded, trying not to show his disappointment. “Where is home when it’s not Port Stephen?”

  “Toronto.”

  Robbie felt his eyes widen. “My god, you must feel like you’re in redneck country.”

  Raj laughed again, a warm, rich sound that Robbie liked very much. “Kind of,” he said. “Let's go sit in the shade. My deck’s a little iffy; carpentry isn’t my forte. Along with boat mechanics,” he added ruefully. “I can refresh your beer.”

  Eh, he could still fantasize, as long as he didn’t have to watch TDH kissing his no-doubt-pretty wife. “Sure. Thanks.”

  The deck, which looked like freight pallets bound together, had an outdoor rug on it and two director-style chairs. Solar LED lights were strung across the canopy. The flowers in each corner were bright primary colours, so intense they almost seemed fake. Nestled against the trailer was an electric cooler. Robbie watched those shorts get a little shorter and tighter as Raj leaned over to grab two cold bottles. To his horror, a whimper came out of his throat before he could stop it.

  He cleared his throat and spun to examine one of the flowerpots. “Nice flowers.”

  “Thanks. My apartment is tiny without much in the way of a balcony. But I’ve always admired those perfectly landscaped little houses on the magazine covers. Clearly, I’m not a landscaper or a designer either, but it makes me happy—those ridiculously bright flowers.”

  “Oh. So you’re not married?”

  Raj smiled at him, an expression that seemed full of hidden meaning. “Haven’t met the right person yet. And you? Will you be bringing someone special down to share romantic evenings on the beach?”

  Robbie blushed. “No.” He’d never put Port Stephen and romantic together in his head. “So, why here?”

  “The fishing. And I can have this place for five months for the same price a month’s rent would cost me in Toronto.”

  Robbie opened his mouth to ask another question but frowned. “You’re not paying rent in Toronto? Are you moving here, like, permanently?”

  “Hell, no. Can you imagine going all the way to Bayham just for groceries every week in the winter? Do they even have a bar that doesn’t serve a Sunday brunch?” Raj laughed.

  Robbie hadn’t realized before now sound could be a thing one wanted to roll in—or lick up.

  “Don’t think so,” he managed to say.

  “I sublet my apartment for the season, so until October first, it’s not actually mine. I still have a place to live at the end of the season but don’t have to pay the rent. I love it here”—he gestured toward his boat, or perhaps just the water in general—“but it would be nice to meet some people under forty and over twenty.”

  Robbie opened his mouth to invite Raj along with him to St. Albans some night. “You met me.” He hadn’t meant to say that, but for some reason the idea of Raj meeting someone other than him made his stomach twist.

  Raj smiled. “True…”

  Chapter Two

  Raj would have sworn Wayne’s hot young son—twenty-two, he reminded himself, not so much younger—was gay, but the whole idea of just happening to meet a hot gay twink next door to him in Port Stephen, of all places, was a little hard to believe. Port Stephen, nestled on Lake Erie, was a fisherman’s paradise.

  It was also, he thought wryly, the whitest, straightest place he’d ever been.

  You’re only five years older, and he came on to you first. Well, maybe. If that’s what it was and not Raj reading the signals wrong.

  Robbie had spent an hour that morning bent over the stern of Raj’s boat, sweet round ass up like an offering Raj hadn’t known he’d even wanted. He’d been reaching under the water to adjust a trim tab on the recommendation of his father.

  “I’d pull it out of the water, myself,” Wayne had said. “Too damn old to bend like that anymore.”

  Raj had never worked so hard at not staring.

  “That should do it,” Robbie said, his voice slightly strained. “Um, help?”

  Wayne made to get into the boat, but Raj grabbed the delectable young man by the waist and helped him upright. His cock stiffened, and he let go of Robbie as soon as he could stand on his own.

  Robbie had given him a shy smile and gone off fishing with Wayne and Wanda. Raj used some of that time to renew his acquaintance with a bottle of lube in his trailer. While his hand stroked and pulled, he had imagined adorable Robbie Wales in all manner of debased and wanton positions.

  Was there etiquette for sexual relations with the offspring of your neighbour in a trailer park? Or was Robbie hands-off for that reason? Surely Robbie, as an adult, could make his own decision?

  “I’m going to make a beer run for the old folks,” Robbie called out that afternoon, after Wayne and Wanda had returned from fishing and they’d invited Raj to join them around their firepit. “Want something, Raj?”

  You. “I’m good, thanks, Robbie.”

  He stood beside Wayne, watching the young man drive away. Robbie looked in the rear-view mirror and met Raj’s eye—or so he thought. He also thought he saw Robbie’s cheeks redden. But he couldn’t be sure.

  “He’s a good kid,” Wayne said.

  “Mmm,” Raj agreed. And his own cheeks took on some heat as he considered his response might be a little too interested. “My dad taught me to fish too.”

  “Last summer, he didn’t come down until Canada Day, and we had a weekend fishing derby to see which of us caught the most fish. Just for that weekend, right? We had so much fun; we did it again in August and added our tallies together. This year, we agreed to just tally up at t
he end of season. But I had to promise to only count the fish I catch on the weekends he comes with us. Mostly,” Wayne added with a laugh.

  “Pickerel or just perch?”

  “As long as it’s edible,” Wayne said, a grin deepening the lines around his eyes and mouth.

  Raj returned the grin. “Sounds fair. Who won last year?”

  “I did, of course.” He winked and held up his thumb and forefinger a few millimetres apart. “Might’ve cheated a little. I thought he would bring some friends along—we have a tent they can use.”

  Raj shrugged. Robbie was plenty interesting on his own. He said he didn’t have anyone special, but maybe he had friends with benefits. Not that he was likely to exercise any benefits in a tent outside his parents’ trailer. Thankfully.

  Wayne clapped him briefly on the shoulder. “At least you’re here. You’re probably the only person in the park even close to his age.”

  “Twenty-seven,” Raj confirmed, almost as much for his own benefit.

  “And you’re here all summer? Are you the next Steve Jobs or what?”

  Raj followed Wayne into the shade of his and Wanda’s awning. “Nah, I’m just a systems analyst working Monday to Friday like everyone else.” He gestured towards his site. “The boat and trailer were lucky classified finds. The Jeep’s a lease. Computers changing as rapidly as they do keeps my job in demand. Before the work-from-home initiative—which was a budget-cutting measure more than anything—I worked in a cube farm.”

  “Really?”

  Raj tossed imaginary hair over his shoulder with his left hand. “Looking rich is what we do in Toronto.”

  Wayne joined him in a chuckle. “Still. You might be a good influence.”

  “I’d rather be a bad one,” he said slyly, hoping the reaction would clue him into Robbie’s orientation.

  But Wayne’s response was a hearty laugh. “Being from Toronto, I can see that.”

  Raj wasn’t sure he knew what that meant. He hoped he hadn’t sold himself short in terms of being seen as good enough to date—whoa, slow down. You don’t even know if his kid is gay. And he probably hasn’t figured out you’re gay.